Harry Potter presses his fingers to the tabletop and closes his eyes. Frustration curdles in his throat; contained, but just so. That old fire within him will never truly die. "Almost fifty Muggles needed Memory Charms. Fifty. And what do you have to show for it, except for every Obliviator in the Ministry beating down our door?"

The sullen-faced, black-haired man reclining on a couch to Harry's right shrugs. "Almost had him."

"Almost."

"Almost."

Yet still Augustus Rookwood is on the loose, and now Harry has no idea where he might be. The Forest of Dean, for all he knows. Or Ireland. Or Australia as unlikely as that may be. He can rule nothing out. One Apparition could become two could become a whole series, until the most wanted man in Wizarding Britain was half the world away. He plants his hands on his hips, grits his teeth, and turns away from the man on the couch. One of his best Aurors, that man: Darius Orme is twenty-eight, not all that much older than Teddy Lupin, and yet was capable of finding, tracking, and nearly subduing a veteran Death Eater, with all the martial and magical skills that required. A veteran of house Gryffindor. Someone who Harry thinks might one day succeed him as chief of the Aurors. Right now, however, all Harry can feel is frustration. "A whole lot of good this does. We're back to square one. Rookwood may as well be in Hong Kong, and we're here with nothing to work with."

Across the stout wooden table, Dean Thomas leans forward and tries his best to look diplomatic. "Not a whole loss, Harry."

Harry shakes his head. Dean is the last of the old guard to have stayed on in the Aurors, long after Neville and Ron and all the others from their time at Hogwarts had gone on to other pursuits. Now Dean is his right hand, even more skilled at magic than Harry ever would have guessed. And, now, just as clueless as to where Rookwood might be, despite his assurances. "Enlighten me, Dean."

The air tenses and thickens here in the Auror headquarters deep within the bowels of the Ministry for Magic. Stark white magical candlelight aflicker from bronze candelabrum, the cherry wood-inlaid walls seemingly swimming in the wavering glow as if the entire room is shuddering. Dean grimaces and looks down. "Darius flushed him out, didn't he? Rookwood knows he isn't safe anymore. That alone might press him into doing something rash, if only because he's now afraid we're onto him. And he's stayed behind in Britain despite having all the chances to leave all these years. We have that to work with. If he wanted to go to, I don't know, Bangladesh, he could've a year ago."

"I'm hearing a lot of mights. A lot of ifs."

Darius rises from his seat and scoffs. He's short, shorter than either Dean or Harry, but still he carries himself with a composure to match either of theirs despite his youth. "We're never going to know unless we hunt him. All this waiting and baiting is wasting time."

"That's what plans are for. A good trap, one snare, and he's ours," Harry retorts. Hermione is starting to wear off on me at last, he thinks.

"How's that worked so far?"

Harry meets his gaze. His protégé does not look away. For a moment the air freezes between them until Darius looks to Dean and says, "Are we done here?"

"Yeah," says Dean, looking between the two Aurors. "Yeah. Let us talk for a bit."

When Darius leaves and the door whooshes shut behind him, Dean sighs. "You going to be hard on him forever?"

"I'm not being hard on him just to be hard. I just know he's better than firing off blasting curses all over the place right in front of a bunch of Muggles," Harry says. He shakes his head. In truth, Darius has a point. Half-measures will not suffice: Rookwood has evaded the Aurors for more than a decade, only hints and rumors and sightings here and there to confirm that he'd even remained in Britain at all rather than escape to some distant point beyond the map's edge. If nothing else, Harry wants to know why that is. Why not run to where the Aurors couldn't find him? Does Rookwood think he can liberate his fellow Death Eaters still rotting in Azkaban? Does he have more sinister plots afoot; an attempt to resurrect Voldemort's ethos, perhaps? Without action, without ever actually capturing the man, Harry will never know.

But the realities of his position—a leader in the Ministry, fully entrenched in the magical bureaucracy—make him painfully aware of how every little action has consequences. And the more their efforts—his efforts—to capture Rookwood escalate, the more chances arise for something to go catastrophically wrong. This time it is fifty Memory Charms required. What happens if next time Rookwood slaughters a whole group of Muggles rather than just lighting a few on fire? What happens when Harry Potter can't protect the world with just his will and might alone?

He shakes his head. Age has tempered him, given him wisdom—but with every benefit it brings a cost. Hermione and Ron rushing off to Hogwarts to visit Rose after her Quidditch injury: What if it had been Lily? What if it is was his children in harm's way, and not just from Quidditch, but from a Death Eater? What happens when the people Harry loves most are beyond his saving?

Because he knows now, so much more than he did back when defeating Voldemort was all that mattered, that there is so much more on the line than one's own harm. Even if he doesn't want to admit it. Even if he will hide it for as long as he can behind the air of Harry Potter, Auror and Fighter.

"For now," he tells Dean, shaking off the ruminations, "I only want to find Rookwood again. I don't want an open confrontation in a public area again, that's for sure. Not until we have a better idea of where he's fled to this time, and how we can corner him for good."

Dean nods. "We will."

"Yeah," says Harry, "I know we will."

And he does know that they will corner their foe, one way or another. He is Harry Potter. Auror. Fighter. And much more. Maybe caution has crept in to where once there was only boldness, but even in his forties he is still the same man who does not know surrender.

Exhaustion tugs at Rose's eyes. She can barely sit up in Study of Ancient Runes just two days out of the Hospital Ward. Perhaps she is recovering—her head does not split along her temples as if crossed by fault lines, the world does not suddenly fracture into a blurry mess when she looks into the sunlight—but still she cannot bring herself back into classwork, into the everyday school life.

If only she could sleep. Two nights out of the Hospital Ward and yet each night she has laid awake for hours on her bed, the droning breaths and snores of her classmates grating in her mind. When her eyes finally do flutter closed warped dreams force them open again, leaving her sweating and panting in whorls of tangled bedsheets. What is wrong with her? Just the aftermath of her concussion, as the matron suggested? No, no—she cannot accept something so simple. Madam Maclear would've done better to cure her of that. Wouldn't she have?

Already her homework left untouched piles up, and she can barely muster enough energy to force down meals. Even looking away from Scarlett's ever more concerned expression takes too much effort. She cannot be this pathetic and weak as to be flattened by just one Quidditch injury. It'll pass. Just keep going. Just don't look at the stares from the others. It'll pass. It'll pass.

As she struggles to stay awake in Ancient Runes—the last thing she needs is another nightmare to grip her in the middle of charting first-century runic scriptures of the Iceni witch coven, or whatever Professor Edda is teaching today—something else catches her eye. Something odd. Something that the other students, with their faces bent downward at their runic charts, don't seam to notice. As Professor Edda waves his wand over the blackboard, drawing runes and tracing patterns, he grits his teeth as if wracked by a phantom pain. As if some invisible force is gripping him, causing him to press his wand-free hand to his gut now and then. Suddenly Rose's exhaustion fades ever so slightly with her interest piqued. Has Professor Edda always been this, well, portly? As if he has dedicated this term to camping out at the kitchens. He has always been a thin man, as far as she can remember. Is her memory going now, too?

"And so—" Professor Edda says as his lecture winds down, but quickly he stops. He looks away from the class towards his desk, and Rose spots just the trace of another grimace in the corner of his lips. "How about," Edda adds quickly, "for the rest of the class, open your textbooks to page four hundred sixty-two and begin the runic translations from Iceni to classical Latin based on the Roman common wizarding model, and then find a transcription to modern English. That will be your homework as well, so get as much done as you can now, hm? Save you some time on the weekend, heh."

Then, as the class groans and shuffles books and scraps of parchment, Professor Edda hurries to his desk and opens a drawer. Again the rest of the class, bored to inattention by the humdrum lecture, pages through their books in order to push through the work, but by now Rose has set aside her concerns over runic anything. She watches as Edda sits down behind his desk, half-concealed by a pair of statuettes (and did he have those there last year?) and takes a long swig from a flask.

All at once Rose's gut leaps. Stories from her parents flit through her mind—Polyjuice Potion, Barty Crouch—and a whole host of anxieties follow them in. It can't be Polyjuice Potion, can it? Not after a Death Eater did exactly that back during Mum and Dad's schooldays. Can it?

But now she is not the only one who sees. In the corner of her eye she spots Scorpius Malfoy, looking up from the back of the room with suspicion at their professor. Just them two, caught in the moment while the rest of the small class of fourth-years press quills to parchment. He never meets her gaze, but she sees something else, too.

Has Scorpius always looked that tired? Has he always had those purpling circles beneath his eyes?

Not as if she would know. She has rarely talked to Malfoy—he is hardly popular, even among his own house, even among the fourth-year Slytherins—and has hard little more than rumors about him (most of them bad, some coming from the lips of both Dad and James at that). But Madam Maclear had said that he'd passed on Rose's homework while she was in the Hospital Ward. Perhaps he's approachable. Perhaps this one time, when they both see Professor Edda seated behind his desk, draining the last of his flask with one hand still pressed to his gut.

Summon your courage, even if it's not Gryffindor courage. Talk to the boy.

When Professor Edda dismisses the class and she escapes into the hallway, however, her conviction falters. Her head's funny; maybe she was just seeing things. Maybe she actually did fall asleep and had another bad dream, and she's walking into an embarrassment of tremendous proportions. Stupid. Stupid. Just go back to the common room and stick your nose in your mountain of homework before you fall even further behind.

Then he appears. Scorpius too seems bigger than she recalls, but not in Professor Edda's way: He's tall and strong, well on his way to becoming a man even at fourteen. Silvery hair a mess, like Al's. Errant scraps of parchment poking from his bulbous bookbag like refugees from some scholarly anarchy sequestered from prying eyes.

For the briefest and brightest of moments, her courage returns.

"Scorpius?" she says, her voice pitching higher than she would've liked. "Can we talk for a minute?"

He keeps walking—one step, two—before stopping and freezing. He is the only Slytherin in a class that doesn't lend itself to socializing, she supposes—hardly expecting of someone to come up and bother him at a time like this. It's not as if they're partners in Herbology. "What do you want?" he asks. Gruff. A tension in his voice.

Rose opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. What is she supposed to say? Immediately dive into accusations of the paranoid bent—Do you think Professor Edda is an imposter drinking Polyjuice Potion?—like she's one of the lunatics who submit op-eds to the Quibbler? Should she interrogate him—why are you tired, what's wrong with you—in a manner that would make Dad proud? To hell with the Malfoys. That's what they all say.

And so all she can do is fail. "I, uh…thanks for giving Madam Maclear my homework," Rose murmurs.

Scorpius looks befuddled. "What?"

"When you—" she starts, but her words wither. He doesn't even remember. You sound like an idiot. First you can't sleep, and now you can't even talk to people normally? What are you doing? Why are you such an idiot? "Never mind. It's nothing."

He shrugs. "Uh. Okay."

Rose doesn't offer another word. She turns away, spinning off to the safety of the Ravenclaw common room, where at least only one quarter of the school can see her act the fool.

By Sunday morning she feels ready to drop dead, yet still her nightmares continue. An unrelenting demon. Scarlett looks so concerned that she pulls her friend aside before breakfast, corners her in the common room as the other Ravenclaws tromp down to the Great Hall, and says in her softest, least confrontational voice, "Rose, you look like you're about to die. What's going on?"

"I'm just tired," Rose mumbles, but even her voice sounds defeated.

"I heard you tossing and turning all night."

"It's fine."

Scarlett folds her hands and looks down at her feet. "Maybe you should go see the matron again? Just for a check-up or something?"

Immediately something alien takes hold of Rose. Like a hand reaching in from invisible above and seizing her tongue, her lips, her spirit. Exhaustion to the point that she can offer no defense to the invader as it fills her with a burst of anger. "I said I'm fine!"

Scarlett startles and leaps backward, her eyes like dinner plates. In another instant the anger floods away from Rose and regret fills its place. Where did that come from? She has rarely seen Scarlett like this—afraid, as if waiting to be struck like a beaten puppy—and Rose steps back, heat flushing her face, shame spilling all over like tendrils filling every vein and vessel. "I—I'm sorry. I'm just really tired."

"Maybe, er, I can go with you. If you want," Scarlett says, stumbling over her words. "If that would help."

"No. No, I'll go," Rose says. She can't look her friend in the eye. Ugh. Ugh. "Just go on to breakfast. I'll go."

No words between the two of them. Rose rushes away, unable to look back. What is happening to her?

Back to the Hospital Ward. Back to warm morning light asparkle on pristine tile. Back to white linen beds in their neat rows along each wall. Back to the pungent spell of medical potions and healing formulas concocting in some brew locked away in the matron's office. When Madam Maclear opens the doors for Rose, she is all smiles. "I thought you might not return," the matron says, ushering Rose inside and closing the Ward's double doors with a soft whush behind her. "I'm glad I have one patient who's willing to play along."

Rose looks out at the vacant ward. "Who're the other patients besides me?"

"Ah, don't worry about that," Madam Maclear says. "Come have a seat on the nearest bed here. There's no one else around. We can talk freely."

No sooner has Rose sat down then the matron's smile fades and she leans in close. "I can tell you're not getting much sleep. Kinda obvious."

"No," Rose mumbles.

"Still funny dreams? Like from before?"

Rose nods. "Just…I don't know. Dumb."

"Want to talk about it?"

Rose shrugs. Madam Maclear puts her hand on the bed and nods. "It must be tough," she says. "I know you just want to feel all right, and things have been bad this past week. It's no fault of your own. And I assure you everything's one hundred percent confidential in here, Rose. Just you and me. Won't leave this ward. That's healer-patient confidentiality. They beat it into you when you're learning to do the job, let me tell you."

"I guess," Rose sighs. "I don't really remember that much about my dreams."

"That's okay. You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to."

"It's, um," Rose begins, searching for the right words. "I just remember water."

"Water?"

"Like, this dripping and rushing sound in every dream. Like a stream or river or lake. The little bits I can remember, I'm something trying to find water, but I'm stuck in this dark place that's all closing in on me and trapping me. And then I, I dunno, I just feel like everything's trying to hurt me. Or, I guess, trying to put me back somewhere where I'm going to get hurt. I don't know why. It just keeps happening. I can't sleep for more than probably a half-hour, and then only a couple times every night. I even tried going toi bed early these last couple nights and it didn't help much."

Madam Maclear frets. "Hm. You must be feeling horrible."

"Yeah."

"Well, no wonder. Dreams are…" she pauses. Purses her lips. "They can be gateways for all sorts of things. Bottled-up emotions. Worries and fears. Hopes getting crushed. Water's a common motif in dreams. I'm not exactly skilled in Divination, and I'm sure diviners would have plenty to say about symbolism and whatnot, but it sounds to me like your mind's trying to process everything that's happened to you lately, and it's having a hard time doing so. Hogwarts is a big place, lots of magic, and all that magical energy can leak over into dreams and sleep. I imagine it would be a lot easier to heal if you were alone somewhere, or with your family at home."

"I don't—" Rose begins.

Madam Maclear holds up her hands. "Don't worry, I'm not sending you home. But I would recommend taking some time when you have it to find some peace and quiet during the day. Every day. Somewhere you can be alone, or with just a friend or two. Maybe a walk by the lake, or somewhere else familiar."

Rose shrugs. Sure.

"But," Madam Maclear goes on, brightening up, "we can't let you keep having bad nights, can we? I'm going to put together a potion that'll give you twenty-four hours of nonstop sleep."

"What? But today's Sunday, I won't wake up until—"

"I'm exempting you from class tomorrow. No buts," the matron says, firmness creeping into her voice, "and your professors can deal with it. I have favors I can pull with some of them. Maybe I can get you out of homework, too." She adds the final remark with a wink. "Sit tight. Won't take too long."

She returns ten minutes later with a bowl of steaming goop, mint green and smelling like flowers despite looking like off-color mud. "Smells better than it tastes. Sorry. I'm no chef," Madam Maclear says. "On top of this, when you wake, I'm going to give you another one that'll suppress dreams for a week. Enough that you'll get real shut-eye every night. And I'm going to be giving you that every week through this term—no exceptions. It's a requirement. Okay?"

"Okay."

"I figure we can let you heal up over the winter break back at home. I told you I met your mother and father when you were out. They'll take you back, I think," she says with a slight, spry laugh. When Rose doesn't perk up at her attempted humor, she adds, "Tell you what. I'm on pretty good terms with Professor Kos. He says you're pretty darn good in his class."

"In Potions?" says Rose. Awful nice of him to say that. Although, she thinks, he's probably only doing his job as the head of Ravenclaw house. She can't be that good of a potioneer.

"Mm-hm. Why don't you come help make your meds with me every week? Won't take too long. And if you have anything you want to talk about—heck, even if you just want homework advice—I'll be there to chime in. Maybe I didn't go to Hogwarts, but I can still help with homework. Just don't tell your professors."

Rose takes the potion with a gingerly grip. "You didn't go to Hogwarts?"

"Ah, no. Long story. Another time," Madam Maclear says. "Drink up! It's not poisonous. Hopefully."

Rose swigs the medicine down in one long gulp. Awful taste. But it slides down her throat with ease, and within moments her eyes droop, not with the heaviness of strain and worry, but with a natural heaviness that urges on sleep. "What're—" she starts to say, her words blending into a slurry.

"Shh. It can wait," the matron says, easing Rose down onto the bed. "Sleep tight, hm?"

"Yeh ever git that paintin' business down? Figure out wha' was goin' on?"

Neville sighs. It's too nice of an October Sunday to tell Hagrid that he has no idea what was wrong with Monsieur Hildebrant, the wayward painting that for one night seemed possessed by a demon. "Maybe the paint went bad."

"Can tha' happen? Not like I'm any sort o' painter, I dunno," Hagrid gruffs. Then he laughs, a big, hearty chuckle that Neville thinks could fill all of Hogwarts. Classic Hagrid, the most immovable object at Hogwarts, as much a part of this school as its very name. Something Neville hopes will never change. Harry and Ron and Hermione and all those times passed on, and new students and staff filed in. No more Dumbledore. Faces and memories passing on with each passing year. Yet Hagrid remains.

And so, Neville supposes, does he. At this rate he'll be as much of a Hogwarts mainstay as Professor McGonagall. Headmistress, he chides himself. Even now he still trips up. "My artistic talent goes about as far as wrangling Puffapods," he chuckles. "Beats me."

"Prob'ly nothin', then," Hagrid says. They walk alongside the shore of the Black Lake, water ripping in gentle tides at the shore. Unusually mild breeze staving off the chill of Highlands autumn. Everywhere bursting in color: Orange and red leaves, brown and off-red nuts and acorns, the whole world seemingly ablaze in a last salute to the year before the first tendrils of winter take hold. Still time enough for lazy Sundays, for slow hours passing even slower with old friends, the bond between never aging despite the years tacking up. Timelessness even as time ticks by. "Got enough on my hands with the pumpkins ripenin'. Halloween's gon' be the best ever. Things're huge."

"Is that what you're getting all the kids to do in your class? Grow pumpkins?" Neville says. "I should've gotten in on that."

"Does fit your class more. But nah. Pumpkins're all mine. Although Ron and Hermione's son's always eyin' 'em. Should let that boy have a go at 'em."

"Hugo Weasley thinks with his stomach. That's probably why," says Neville. He's had enough nights over at Ron and Hermione's home to know their children. Humble but quick Rose. Hugo, living in the moment and content with it. He'd thought of children at one point in life. Talked about it with Hannah. But even though they'd grown close to committing and building a larger family of their own, it had never been in the cards. Their work had always taken priority, and they had never needed anyone but each other. He couldn't say he'd change anything about that, either.

Hagrid grins. "Aah. We sound like old farts."

"We are old farts. You're older than me, though."

"Alrigh' Neville, tha's enough of that. Now—" Hagrid stops abruptly. He squints and looks towards the shore by a grove of maple trees, the ground around them covered in a brilliant red carpet of fallen leaves. "Yeh see that?"

"See what?"

"Tha', there under the tree."

Neville squints. Nothing. "No."

"C'mon. I wan' to take a look."

They tromp along the lakeshore, but not even a trace of worry haunts Neville. The painting certainly was strange. Headmistress McGonagall had certainly taken it seriously. But since then there has been nothing: No intruders, no possessions of any sort, nothing despite the staff wandering the corridors at night with ears pricked for the slightest sign of danger. Hogwarts teems with magic more than a thousand years old. Eventually, Neville supposes, all that energy has to spill over into some strange ends and irregularities. Perhaps it even happens often, and he's simply never even noticed it.

Yet when they draw nearer to the trees Neville can see that there certainly is something ensconced within the mess of fallen leaves. A large lump, like an animal. Something asleep, perhaps. No, too still to be asleep. A dead deer from the Forbidden Forest? When they draw nearer that supposition too fails: He sees a glisten upon grey-green skin poking out from between the leaves. Something from the lake. Something that crawled out of the water.

When they are close enough, Hagrid kicks away the leaves. Beneath the pile lies a dead merman.

"Merlin's beard," Hagrid exclaims. "Look a' him."

It is not some mere casualty. The merman's face is twisted in an expression of horror, of agony, its arms wrapped around its body like contorted branches, its legs splayed in opposite directions. One hand holds tight in a death grip to a merman's trident, the points of which dig in to the supple skin of the underjaw. Its eyes are so wide they seem ready to burst. Whatever, whoever, this was, they did not die well.

"Wha' happened to 'im?" Hagrid says.

"He died."

"Yeah, I see tha'."

Neville points at his chest. "Perforations near the heart," he says, dropping down to one knee for a closer look. "Three in a line. Like he was stabbed."

"Another merman killed 'im?"

"Could be," Neville said. "But why's he still got his own trident, then?"

"Blood on the tips of the weapon," Hagrid says, pointing it out. "Got his attacker before he went down, looks like."

Neville stands, his face solemn. "Or a suicide."

"Yeh serious?"

"I don't know. I don't know much about the merpeople, outside of how they play into marine herbology," says Neville. "I know this, though. If this was something the merpeople in the lake knew about, they would've told McGonagall."

"Think he's a rogue?"

"I don't know. No idea," Neville says. "Look, I don't think he's going anywhere, but I'm going to round up the others. McGonagall at least. She needs to know. Stick around and make sure…well, you know."

"Don' want him goin' anywhere, I got it," Hagrid says with a nod. "Ah, what a mess."

Neville grits his teeth. What a mess is right. He doesn't want to draw conclusions—doesn't want to trace a line between events that have little to nothing in common—but that same conflicted feeling he felt standing before Monsieur Hildebrant now bubbles up in his gut once again. Something is amiss here at Hogwarts. Something is wrong.