Drarryfanficsao3

by Suicide44

Dhhdgd

230. ss

Preface

Where Dark Meets the LightPosted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/20121250.

Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Fandom:

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Character:

Jennifer Potter, Charlie Potter, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Lily Evans Potter, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall, Draco Malfoy, Fred Weasley, Charlie Weasley, George Weasley, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Tom Riddle Voldemort, Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, Rabastan Lestrange, Harry Potter

Additional Tags:

Child Neglect, Family Drama, Emotional Manipulation, Implied/Referenced Torture, Panic Attacks, Blood and Gore, Murder, Child Abuse, Dark Jennifer, but not really, It's going to be a dark book, I Already Feel Bad For Jay, And Neville, Wrong Boy-Who-Lived (Harry Potter), Internalized Homophobia

Series:

Part 3 of

Black Phoenix

Stats:

Published: 2019-08-05 Updated: 2021-04-07 Chapters: 17/? Words: 42320

Where Dark Meets the Light

by Jane271

Summary

When Voldemort is at the brink of returning, Jay must make hard descisions. In order to get acces to all the Horcruxes, she must put up the act of a century. The route she has to go, however, is something she wished she could leave behind in her nightmares.

The Plan

The summer came and went, leaving Jay bored for a long time when Neville went on vacation.

After the whole situation with James and Sirius, she was never really left alone anymore. To battle the boredom, she charmed her books to look like the covers of books normal for a thirteen-year-old to read, instead of the way passed NEWT level literature she was actually reading.

Seeing Hogwarts again was a relief, despite all the misery the past two years had caused her. She could see the teachers' almost smug looks. Jay knew what was to come, as did Neville. After all, one could not be around so many aurors during the summer without knowing.

She had to admit, though, she was impressed with how well it had remained a secret. Of course she told Neville. With all her luck, either she or Charlie would become the school's champion in the deadly competition that was to come.

When she heard the news, Jay stepped up her training by a lot. She had to be extremely prepared for herself and Charlie alike. She studied the old competitions for many hours in the hopes of finding a pattern.

Which there seemed to be, at least some. One task would include a test of fighting, another knowledge and the third usually bravery and perseverance. That was however the only pattern there was, excluding the high mortality rate of the champions.

She shared her knowledge with Neville, and he agreed to help her or Charlie out should the need arise.

When the announcement was made, Jay and Neville played the part of surprised and excited students. And when the age requirement was made, they acted angry. Just like they had agreed. It would arise some suspicion if they knew beforehand what was happening.

Secretly she was happy for the restriction. It meant that it would be a lot harder for someone to enter her or Charlie's name in the goblet. Even if it wouldn't stop it from happening, the list of people capable of such a feat would be very short.

She was surprised to see Mad Eye in the position of DADA professor. Last she heard the man was unstable at best. There was some rumor going around about him attacking trash cans. Whatever it was, it didn't really matter. She had seen him train junior aurors in the ministry, and if anyone was fit to teach them DADA, the man was made for it.

It was midnight when Neville and Jay met up in the RoR.

They sat around a table on the floor. Gently, while wearing two pairs of herblore gloves, she took the green locket out of it's metal case.

"So that's it?" Neville looks a bit sickened, "I was expecting it to be a bit more…"

Jay nods, "It looks kind of underwhelming, doesn't it?"

"Yup." Neville agrees. "When are we going to pick up the basilisk venom?"

Jay hums, "I think we should wait for a bit. Dumbledore is probably still watching the entrance. If we bide our time, we can strike while he's unprepared."

Neville doesn't look convinced though. "But, do you really want to wait for that? I mean, it's a good plan, but do we really want to keep the thing around for any longer then absolutely necessary? Especially now when the foreign students can arrive any day now."

While Neville did have a point there, there was something Jay hadn't told him yet. "Nev, I don't think this is the only Horcrux he made. He had the diary, now the pendant, and I've been dreaming of two more."

Neville balances, "That isn't the only one? Merlin help us."

"You said it." Jay sighs. "I think he made at least five." She runs a hand trough her hair. "There are the diary, the pendant, the two unknown ones, and Nagini might be one as well."

The pendant begins to hiss again at the mention of the name. Jay carefully puts it back in the case and refastens the rune engraved chains around it.

"The problem is getting to Nagini. From what I've seen, he never leaves her alone. There is always someone with her."

Neville lets himself fall backward on the pile of pillows they had collected. "Do you have any idea how to get to her?"

Jay snorts, and a sad half smile appears on her face, "Only one. And I have no idea if it will work. Or if I'll survive it."

Nev is quick to sit up with his hands up, "Okay let's not do that then. We'll figure something out. We've got time. Right?"

"That's the problem, Nev. I don't know if we do. I have no idea how he's planning on coming back. Like I said, his body is destroyed for right now. But for how long it will be the case, is anyone's guess."

"What is the plan then? Just out of curiosity."

"I convince him that I'm on his side."

The Champions

The first few weeks of school fly by with Jay and Neville spending a considerable amount of time in the RoR. By now Jay no longer has to instruct Neville on what to do. He's currently doing push-ups while listening to a audio book.

Jay is focusing more and more on her mind magic. The days have become dreadfully long and her once easy sleeping pattern is all but non-existent at this point. She's frustrated with her lack of success in blocking out the dreams and it shows.

Nevertheless she doesn't give up. She can't give it up. There are zo many things that could go wrong in the worst ways possible if she comes face to face with Voldemort while he can easily look into her mind. It seems that the tables have turned on her, and Neville is now encouraging her instead of the other way around.

It does make her feel warm in a way she hasn't in a long time though. She's sitting quietly in a circle of candles. It's one of the many new techniques she's trying out. Hopefully the small flames flickering and being held in existence by the burning of wax will give her the rest she needs. With every time she breathes in, the small flames burn hotter. For some reason scent of burning is soothing to her, as it has always been. It smelled like home in a way she couldn't describe.

It was only when her alarm went off that she realized she had been flickering in between consciousness and her subconsciousness. Startled by the alarm, she knocked a candle over.

"Shit!" Was all she could exclaim as her robe caught fire. The fabric of her robe should be unable to catch fire by a simple candle! She'd made sure of it.

Neville extinguished the flames with a quick and well-aimed "Augumenti!" and then looked at her in exasperation, "Did you forget to spell your robes again?"

She scoffs, "No, I didn't. You saw me do it." A quick flick of her wand confirmed that the spell had been cast and that it was still in effect. "What the…"

Neville looks just as confused and makes his way over to her, only to step back. "Jay, it's way to hot! Get away from there!"

"Hot?" She asks, "It's a little warm, but what do you expect? I've been sitting in a ring of candles for over an hour."

Neville looks wide eyed, "No Jen, it's way too hot to come from candles alone! It's boiling hot."

"It doesn't feel that hot…" She mutters. With a flick of her hand all flames go out. Immediately she's shivering. It feels like she's freezing, like she just skinny-dipped the black lake in the middle of winter.

"Okay, I get it now!" Her teeth are clattering and she wraps her cloak around herself. After a few steadying breaths the clattering stops and the room begins to feel normal again. "I do feel like I got somewhere this time, though."

"You did? What was it like?" Neville asks as he wraps himself around her and rubs her arms.

"Strange. Like I was flying and not at the same time. Like there was nothing besides a burning heat. But I could feel it in my hands when I tried to channel magic. It was as if I was sleepwalking."

Neville blinks a few times, no longer holding her now that Jay's shivers had died down. "Okay then."

It isn't long until the foreign students arrive. They do so in style and Neville and Jay are impressed.

The Beauxbatons make a show that screams elegance and grace, while the students from Drumstrang show off their strength.

Jennifer dreaded the coming days however, as she highly suspected that things were going to go wrong. Fast.

And she was right. She and Neville even had a bet going on about who's name would come out of the goblet of fire. It wasn't even a question if one of their names were going to come out, but rather which of the twins. Jay bet Charlie's, Neville bet hers.

Jay smugly accepted the galleon when Charlie's name was called out. She could only shake her head as Charlie went up to the headmaster looking like a dear caught in headlights.

Did he really not see it coming? Really?

Jay did wince in sympathy for her brother when she saw the fury of, well, everyone at Charlie being picked. She'd never seen Dumbledore that angry before. The man wordlessly thrust the piece of parchment to Charlie, who took it. He then wordlessly went to where the other champions had gone.

"Told you." She whispers to Neville. "It's going to be a few long months trying to keep him alive."

Neville scoffs, "You don't say."

While they wait for Dumbledore to finish his speech, which doesn't sound nearly as lively as when the event started that evening. The man's clearly livid and waiting to go tear Charlie a new one.

It's when the goblet flashes blue once more that she pays attention again.

It's her name that's called out this time.

She looks at Neville, who looks just as shocked as her, before quietly handing him his galleon back.

"Well, that was not what I expected." She says loudly. She walks up to the man and quickly fishes the piece of parchment out of his hand before making her way to the other champions.

The First Task

Jay and Neville were hatching a plan. It wasn't a solid plan yet, but the concepts and manners of implementing it were already in the run.

With Jay's nightmares, it was obvious that at some point in the future, Voldemort would rise again. Even without her nightmares things were getting serious. People with questionable morality were implementing themselves in the government. The newspapers were getting little by little less muggle and muggleborn friendly. Muggleborns were featured less often, instead they were replaced by less impressive pure-bloods. It was concerning, and very well and subtly done. Neville was the one whom had noticed it and pointed it out.

War was on the horizon and Jay was going to start planning sooner rather than later.

So sometimes she said the wrong thing to the right person, or the right thing to the wrong person. She asked slightly worrisome questions to teachers after class. She was caught with books that were edging on being illegal. Overall, she was just being a bit dodgy.

For some reason Mad-Eye's interest in her spiked, and not in a way of 'Oh this dodgy figure needs to be watched!' but more in a nurturing way, as if he were encouraging her behavior. He watched her every move during class hours, and when he spoke of extra violent spells, she pretended to fidget a bit in her seat. There was definitely something going on with the man, and she had the suspicion that something was going on.

Neville also pretended to pull away from her, bit by bit. It hurt, but if she was going undercover, he needed to man the home front. This meant they couldn't afford him being suspected by anyone. They still spent almost every night in the RoR, now even more driven to learn more and learn faster.

This also meant that her parents were back to putting a lot of pressure on her, and this time they were encouraged to. Her monthly appointment with a mind healer was now a mine field of questions she had to navigate perfectly in order to maintain suspicion, but not to the point they could legally do anything about it.

It was exhausting. But it paid off.

By the time the first task arrived, people were ever so slightly growing more and more suspicious of her. She even caught Charlie throwing her worried glances when he thought she wasn't looking.

Neville was waiting for the inevitable breakdown she'd have. Jay was putting a lot of pressure on herself, and it was only a matter of time she couldn't handle it any longer.

It wasn't until a week before the first task that it happened. Jay found out what type of task she would be presented with.

Dragons.

She stumbled upon them by accident when she was messing around in the forbidden forest. Neville was still in the castle. While the boy was moving forwards with leaps and bounds, he wasn't quite ready yet for the high climb of the trees. The great beasts were locked in cages and she spotted a red-head that she recognized as one of the older Weasley brothers.

And then panic set in.

How was she supposed to keep Charlie safe from this? She would be expected to compete herself and there was no way she could sneak off to give her brother a hand he desperately would need. Well… a hand? More like do the entire thing for him.

She raced back to the castle as fast as her feet could carry her.

She burst into the common room and pulled Neville to his feet. By now the boy was long used to her behavior and just rolled with it, knowing already that something was off.

They were barely in the classroom before she forced out, "Dragons!"

Neville looked confused, "Dragons?"

"Dragons." She confirmed.

"Okay Jay, I know you thing you are explaining yourself, but you're really not." He calmly states.

She stops for a second, trying to find her words, forming her own words is hard sometimes when she panics, so instead she repeats McGonagall's words from yesterday. "The first task will be next Saturday." She tries to explain.

His eyes grow wide, "The first task is dragons?"

She nods, wringing her hands and pacing. "The first task is dragons." Her voice is shaky and Neville doesn't like it one bit. Her breathing is still a little heavy for both their liking and can no longer really be blamed on the mad-man pace at which she returned to the castle.

"Okay, it's okay." He tries to console. "Sit down for a second. Everything's going to be fine." Neville has no idea if it's going to be all fine. Chances are that Charlie will be barbequed next weekend.

As if someone cut the strings off a puppet Jay knees give out. It's only thanks to Neville's new strength that he can catch her and he lowers her as gently as he can to the ground. He can feel her moving slightly and once he sets her back to the wall she starts to rock. Neville knows better than to interrupt, knowing that it is somehow soothing to her, just like chewing her quills makes her think easier. What he does do is direct her knees up and bend her forward a bit more so her head is in between her knees, exactly like Professor Snape had taught him.

After several minutes of waiting, things were slowly getting back to normal. Speaking was getting easier and even though she was shaking slightly, she ignored it.

"Okay."

Neville looked up from where he was spacing out. "Okay?"

"Okay." She nods.

"Let's start planning then." As one they got up. Jay hesitated though. She turned and gave Nev a hug. "Thank you." She whispers.

He shakes his head, "Don't worry about it baby sis."

Before long, Saturday arrived. Both Neville and Jay were getting dressed in the champion's robes.

"Do you really think it will work?" Neville says as he looks at the passed-out figure of Charlie laying in the closet.

"It worked with the snake. Why not now?" She asked. Neville could tell she was nervous however. "So long as you don't get the Hungarian Horntail, we should be good."

She takes a knife and cuts off a small strand of hair from the back of Charlies head, being careful to put his head down again softly on the pillow. She sprinkles the strands of hair into the Polyjuice potion and hands it over to Neville, who makes no attempt to not look disgusted.

"But what if?"

"Nev. It will be okay. You know how the wizarding world is, they'll probably let the ladies go first. I'll fish the Horntail out, the others aren't that bad."

She holds up her right hand, "According to Charlie Weasley they love peanut butter for whatever reason. I refuse to believe I've been sitting with my hand in a jar of peanut butter the entire morning for no reason at all."

When laughter rings, Jay knows she succeeded in lowering the tense atmosphere.

"So, bottoms up!" She adds, smiling.

With a deep breath he take the potion like a shot. "Huh. Not as bad as I thought."

Within seconds he changes and in front of her another Charlie Potter stands. Nev finishes off the look by grabbing Charlie's wand off the table. The fake blood pack he's hidden under his hair is now fully concealed with Charlie's long locks obstructing the view.

"Let's roll."

As predicted, ladies first. And Jay gets the Horntail. Along with a mini bite wound on her hand. But beggars can't be choosers. Neville will be second with the Swedish short-snout. Jay will be fourth.

Perfect.

The first contestant takes a considerable amount of time. While the oh's and ah's are happening in the background, the silence from all champions is deafening. Eventually applause breaks out and the dragon is removed from the sounds of it.

Show time.

She waits just a few minutes before exiting the tent.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Bathroom." She says as she pushes past the man whom had blocked her path. As soon as she was out of view she disillusioned herself and moved back to the arena.

Neville was already hiding as they had discussed, and the dragon appeared to attack everything that moved, indicating that the flashbang spell had worked and the thing was mostly blind. With a flick of her wand she removed one small rock they had set up the night before, just as the dragon jumped down and shook the ground. The removal of the small rock set several person sized-rocks moving. Immediately the dragon jumps away and once it's back is turned Neville leaps onto the nest and retrieves his egg.

The crowd is stunned for a split second before they erupt into applause. Jay quickly makes her way back to the tent.

It takes but a few seconds for Neville to come into the tent, fake blood dripping down from the side of his head. He's acting disoriented and pushes past everyone to get to the dress room. Right into closet where Charlie is. Jay has to admit, it looked very convincing and she dashes after him.

Just as Neville starts making fake gagging sounds, Jay breaks a real blood pack on Charlie's head. She taps Neville on the shoulder to let him know that she's ready and Neville disillusions himself. Jay wakes Charlie up.

As expected Charlie is as disoriented as Neville was acting. He looks pale and feels clammy. Perfect.

Right on time the medics arrive, "Where is mister Potter?!" They yell.

"In here!" Jay yells back, sounding every bit the concerned sister.

The medics open the door and pull her out so they can fit in the closet. After that she's forced back into the tent, reassured that her brother will be alright, and parked on a bench.

There she sits until the third contestant returned to the tent, a little soot was smeared on his face, but Krum seemed fine otherwise. It was her turn. And from the bleak faces they expected her to be the worst off by far, seeing as 'Charlie' whom had been trained from an early age was that bad off.

The medics were slightly astounded that he didn't seem to remember everything, but blamed that on his 'head injury'. Jay couldn't help but snort at how easily that part of the plan had come together.

Krum and Fleur both offered her good luck which she accepted with a grateful nod. "But could you people please not look like I'm about to be barbequed?" She teased.

The arena was exactly the same as the day before. Her dragon was fast, but its bite was one of the lighter ones. Nevertheless, it was the most dangerous one by far, with a long range for fire and it was well known as the most aggressive type of dragon known to wizarding kind.

With its long fire range, it never sat directly on its nest, rather it opted to protect it from a distance. Its gray scales would allow it to blend in with the environment rather well and Jay couldn't spot it immediately.

Instead of seeing it, she felt it. A rush of heat came from behind and she ducked left, right into a small crevasse. That went well. She thought sarcastically to herself.

She immediately rolled to her feet and made a sprint for the exit. It wasn't a moment to soon, because where she had stood moments before the great beasts teeth set themselves into a rock, splitting it in two.

As soon as she exited the crevasse she felt another wave of heat making it's way towards her. She ducked left again and the wall of fire rushed past her. With the dragon temporarily stuck in the crevasse, she made a mad dash away from where the nest was located.

The dragon was soon on her heels again, but this time Jay was ready to put her strategy to use. Jay slid to a thin layer of rock and blasted a person sized hole in it before slipping through. The dragon mashed it's massive head into the hole in an attempt to bit her. as soon as Jay say the head, she threw a sticking spell to the rock, making them temporarily liquid, before hardening them again.

With the awkward angle the dragon was stuck in, it couldn't get a grip strong enough to break free from the rock's hold. Jay wasted no time in racing back up the rocks and binding the massive spikes on it's wings together when it was distracted with breaking free it's head.

It worked beautifully.

With both it's head and wings stuck, it began to bodily ram itself against the rocks holding it. Jay estimated that she had about 10 seconds for it to break free.

She was half way to the nest when she heard the crumbling of rocks and she narrowly ducked a blast of fire that was sent her way. She then heard the chains snapping. Only a quarter of the way to go.

The mentally counted. One, two, three… She turned, in the nest, to a wall of fire. She casted a full body shield specifically made to protect against heat, narrowly avoiding being roasted. The shield held up, but the source of heat was changing. It was coming towards her, she knew.

She changed her heatshield to wandlessly hold it up, and casted the full body shield and raced herself for the bite she was sure to come.

It did.

Seconds after casting the second shield, a massive force slammed into the shields. The heat shield broke, but it was no longer needed anyways. She pushed all energy she had in holding up the shield.

Viewers watched as the young girl held the shield, the beast's massive teeth began to sink into the shield. They saw the girls hand shake from holding the shield up.

They also saw her other hand on the golden egg.

The jury members called the dragon handlers to get the dragon under control. Thankfully the beast was contained quickly.

Jay saw the dragon being held down by two teams of handlers and with hands shaking from exhaustion, she picked up her egg. The crowd was silent until she got to her feet and lifted the egg into the air.

The cheers of the crowd didn't reach her ears. Not even when she was in the medical tent.

They sat her down on a bed with her golden egg still in her hands. Her mother was crying hysterically in the corner, her father and uncles were nearly getting into a fistfight with several security guards, trying to get to her while also screaming. Severus was quietly drinking in her disheveled appearance, looking closely for any injuries. She offered him a tired smile.

Charlie was on the bed next to her, He was holding an ice pack to his non-existent head injury. He turned to his sister and said, "That wasn't too bad, was it?" With a smug grin on his face.

The medics only had two actual injuries to heal that day, for Charlie a broken nose, and for Jay a busted knuckle. Which resulted from being punched in the face, and punching someone in the face, respectively.

Ready

Chapter Notes

Guess who's back from kicking writer's block in the balls?

Several days after the first task, Jay and Nev founds themselves at a loss. They knew they could not keep knocking Charlie out and doing the tasks for him. The only problem was how they could make sure her dumbass brother would survive the tasks.

They had been lucky so far, but it was a matter of time before people saw the pattern. Charlie couldn't remember his fight with Voldemort, or his fight with Voldemort during second year, and now his first task.

They had no choice but to try and drag him through the next task as himself.

In addition to that, Neville noticed that Jay was looking more and more tired. It took her a while to admit she'd been having nightmares to him, even longer what they were about.

The implication that both her and Charlie were going to be killed at an unknown time in a deserted graveyard was not exactly good for one's sleep. Neville himself had had a few nightmares about Jay and Charlie laying on old graves, eyes wide open and unblinking.

They both knew that Charlie would probably not figure out what the task was going to be without help. So they would shove him a bit. How far they would have to shove was a bit hard to estimate. They couldn't push too hard, as it would raise suspicion, but they also couldn't under do it, otherwise the boy would surely drown in the second task.

It was a lot, and Neville could feel the weight of the responsibilities heavily. This was no longer just training. If things went wrong here, it could easily kill either of them. The first task had shown that.

On a happier note, Yule was arriving quickly. This year there would be a ball for third years and up. And Neville already had a date.

Jay didn't.

It wasn't that she hadn't had any offers, Merlin help him, but Jay insisted that if she were going to pull a big façade, that she could not just show up with a muggleborn. It would have to be a half-blood of high standing or a pureblood.

And while she had a point, that greatly limited the pool. It left her with only a few choices, many of which were immediately struck off the list (like Crabbe and Goyle). She eventually settled on one.

Draco Malfoy.

Neville smirked, thinking of the aneurism that James and Lily would have, if they knew their little girl was planning on asking a Malfoy out.

Only problem was, Jay was chickening out. Like she was afraid that the boy, whom had been looking at her all year, was going to say no.

How his baby sis could be so smart, yet such an idiot at the same time was beyond him. He also had to pretended to not know about the bet McGonagall and Snape had on when Draco would ask Jay out. Not if, when. Honestly, weren't they supposed to be the teenagers?

And then there was the issue of Jay having clocked Charlie a solid one in the face. The entire school was now against her with the exception of the students she wanted to. While Jay knew he did deserve the punch, seeing her brother's hurt expression made her stomach twist uncomfortably. It wasn't his fault that he was an idiot, after all.

Still, the plan was coming together wonderfully. If they kept going at the rate they were, by the end of the year no-one would be surprised that she went 'dark'.

While they were pretending to grow apart during school hours, there would always be the room of requirement.

Jay was currently looking at Neville, evaluating his progress. His stance was good, his speed excellent, and he adapted to situations quickly. He was still no match for Jay, but he was getting there. If she had to guess, he was at the level of a last year Hogwarts student in knowledge of spells, and a first year Auror with the casting of said spells.

It was after Neville caught three different dummies, in about 4 seconds flat, that he stopped and noticed Jay staring at him.

"What?" He asked, seeing the thoughtful look on her face. He took a break to drink some water.

Jay smiled, "You're ready for the next step."

Neville looked forward to whatever was to come. In the beginning of training, almost two years ago now, he was endlessly nervous. Now, he knew that he could -eventually- deal with whatever the next step would be.

It come as a surprise however when Jay arrived with her trunk and told him to get in.

They ended up at the library level. All Neville could say was that it looked like an organized mess in there. There were bookcases where books stood three rows deep with books still piled on top of them. There were piles of stacked books on the floor from where she had probably run out of space in the bookcase for those specific topics and there was a desk with a chair in the smack middle of it. Or, he thought it was a desk. There were so many scrolls and notebooks and pieces of random paper stacked on top of it, that it was hardly visible.

"How on earth do you find anything in here?" He asked jokingly.

She just walks over to the desk and begins to pile off some of the paper. "Sorry, I was working late yesterday. I didn't get around to clean it up." She begins to pile the stacks of paper on the floor next to her and the desk becomes visible. "As for how I find things," She continues.

It's then that he notices the enchanted book under all the paper. It looks like the kind of book the librarian has in the school library.

"I found this bad boy when I broke into an old death eater housing-"

Neville blinks, "I'm sorry, when you what?"

Jay has the nerve to look surprised, "When I broke into-", she frowns, "Did I never tell you that?"

Neville shakes his head. She begins to explain while continuing to clear the desk. "Well, turns out that Sirius' cousin was a death eater who wanted out, so he wrote down a whole lot of info to sell for his freedom. I looted some of the old death eater meeting and housing locations since some were never discovered," Neville didn't even want to think about how dangerous that was. "And they left behind all sorts of great stuff. Books, scrolls, ritual items, a fuck ton of those hideous robes and ridicules masks, potion ingredients, cauldrons, you name it. I looted three and I already don't know where to put things anymore. I'm running out of room." She looks absolutely delighted. "And that was just three of those places," She moved too look through the enchanted librarian book. "And I got all sorts of goodies for you, now that I know for sure that you're not going to blow yourself up by accident."

Neville startled, "Wait, you're-"

She smiles widely. "Welcome to the next step, brother dear. Welcome to the less legal side of magic."

She looks through the enchanted book and begins to summon all sorts of books. Books on curses, curse breaking, translation books, warding, how to break warding, potions, herbology. Everything one could think of. If Neville had to read it all, it might just take him the better part of the year. "I think that this will be a good start." She says satisfactory.

Neville stares at the pile of books now on the floor. "Uh, not that I don't appreciate it, but where the hell am I supposed to store those? I can't just let them lay around Jay. People will ask questions I'm not sure I want to answer." He says unsurely as he flips through a ritual book that starts with human sacrifices on page one.

"I know. Don't worry." She replies absently as she looks through the list of books that are in the pile. Satisfied, she puts the books in her moleskin handbag. "Next step, the potions lab."

Nev frowns. "The potions lab? I already have all potion stuff I need," He says confused. "And I'm useless at potions."

"No Neville, you really don't have all you need."

When they enter the lab he has to agree. It's been quite some time since he's been here, and a lot had changed.

The walls were now fully lined with shelves in various color, from both metal and wood. They looked steady, but as if they were haphazardly put up with no regards if anything was matching at all. On the shelves there were many, many jars. Some ingredients he recognized, some he had no clue what they were. Eyes were staring at him from the shelves where mostly animal parts were stored. The whole place reeked way worse as the potions lab of the school. There were a lot of cauldrons of various metals and sizes stored under the shelves. One of the bigger cauldrons he noticed was filled to the brim with empty bottles, while another with stirring rods of various shapes and materials. In a separate room there were mostly empty shelves with a few odd boxes filed with vials. Some had warnings on them like, POISON or EXPLOSIVE IN CONTACT WITH WATER. Each was neatly labeled with date and more.

Jay was standing behind him looking kind of smug and proud, "Like it?" She asks when he was done inspecting the room.

"Yeah. I'm still no good at potions though."

She laughs. "You don't have to be, Nev. You just have to know how to make a few very useful potions. The rest hardly matters." She countered as she started taking down several jars from the shelves and putting them in a box. She put the box next to a big cauldron which was filled with smaller cauldrons and various stirring rods. "And if you need help, I'm literally one room away from you."

It's then that they go to the workshop. Neville's breath catches when he sees what's on the table. Two pairs of boots (one in considerably better condition as the other, but still very wearable), the type of gloves he's seen Jay train with when she trained in her full gear an he was endlessly jealous of, a moleskin bag, a lump of cloth that he couldn't identify it's purpose of and a small box, for some reason.

"They're for you," She says, and he realizes he's been staring at the gloves. "Do you want to try them on?"

He can't remember the last time he was so excited about something. "Hell yes."

It takes him a while to put them on, since they have to painstakingly adjust all straps. Eventually though… Merlin, he was happy. It looked a bit strange since he had forgone the slim gloves that Jay had ready for him to cover the unprotected parts of his arms, but he was so in love with them.

"Flex your fingers, like this." Jay instructed when she had her own gloves on. He did. It took him a few tries to get the motion right, but when he did the claws on his fingertips extended.

"Whoa!" He exclaims.

Jay laughs, "Just be careful, Mr. badass, those cut through flesh like a hot knife through butter." She warns him.

He wants to roll his eyes at her. He's the mom-friend, not her. That role is taken, thank you very much. "I know," He mumbles, still looking at the - his!- razor sharp claws. He's seen her cut through metal pipes with hardly any resistance. The only thing that it had trouble cutting through was stone and enchanted/charmed materials.

"Now go like this." She demonstrates the movement at her claws retract. He copies her and mourns his claws immediately. She spots his pout and chuckles. "Soon you'll start training with them, and once you master it , you can use it as much as you want." He knows she's right, but he's impatient. He wants to join her on missions already!

And yet he knew he wasn't ready for it. But the thought of going outside and taking down criminals? It was his dream. It would have made his parents very proud of him, he likes to think. He knew his grandmother would love the idea of him treading in his parent's footprints.

A thought suddenly popped up. "Does this mean can get the tattoo as well?" He'd always found it amazing, the dedication that Jay showed to her mission. He wanted that dedication to show on his skin just like her. the thought of having his accomplishments blooming on his skin was endlessly amazing in his eyes. He had always been hesitant to ask for it, not knowing if he would ever make it far enough to have his efforts show.

He knew different now. With the things Jay was showing him, he knew that there was a high probability that he would play a role in the upcoming war. He would do anything to protect his family, to protect wizarding kind. To do that, giving up was not an option. It was now that he realized it never really was.

It just took him up until now to come to terms with the fact that this would be his life. Just like it would be Jay's.

She turns to him, surprised, "Well, if you're sure…"

"I am." He says with confidence.

"If we do this, there is no getting rid of it. You'll have it forever, and there will be no way back."

He smiles. "I know. But like you said, I'm ready."

And he was.

Ready to sign his life away to a war started by the previous generation.

The Second Task

Chapter Notes

I'm on a roll.

If there are prompts anyone wants, feel absolutely free to leave them in the comment section. I always love hearing what you would like to read.

I hope you enjoy 3.

In the following weeks Neville trained little. His arm was healing from the tattoo, and he could not risk messing it up by training. Jay had insisted that he had more than enough to read, and running was permitted so his regime would not go down the drain.

In the meantime, Jay and Neville did anything they could to make Jay the bad guy everyone wanted her so hard to be. She eventually manned up and asked Malfoy Jr. out to the ball. As suspected, everyone was outraged that she took the son of a know former death eater to the ball. It was unfortunate that Nev and Jay could not share the evening. Instead he had to send glares to Jay every once in a while as she danced with Malfoy.

It was kind of sad that Jay was using the boy for a means to an end, but horrible things would happen if their plans were to fail. He did not want to go with one of their back-up plans if they could manage it, mostly because it involved, you know, breaking into the dark lord's house. So breaking on boy's heart was not really relevant, considering the amount of lives it might potentially save in the future.

Since the ball she had been spending more and more time with Malfoy and the boys, uh friends? He wasn't completely sure they were friends, since Neville was pretty sure you had to like one another in order to be friends.

He himself had taken to trying to befriend Ginny, the youngest of the Weasley family himself. A very light oriented family, and most importantly, she was the younger sister of Ronald Weasley. So when he was helping the girl with her transfiguration homework, usually afterward he was invited to play poker by Ronald.

This way he could start on building a bond with Charlie, since when Jay would be on her mission, he would be in charge of keeping the idiot safe. He truly was a nice lad, if a bit on the arrogant side, but not in a malicious way.

He did miss the time spent in public with Jay though. They made up for it during the night. Jay was using darker and darker magic in preparation for the plan. He had to look away as she killed a chicken for a ritual and painted herself with the blood of the animal to cast several curses on objects. He knew it was necessary, but he was afraid of what would become of both of them if the plan failed. The cursed objects would get stored in her trunk, so that when Neville finally rung the metaphorical bell, there would be months' worth of evidence of her fall to the dark.

He was devouring book by book, and knew why Jay had kept the material out of his reach until now. The techniques, if done wrong, could have catastrophic consequences for himself and others.

When Jay had first given him his gloves (how he wanted to put those babies on again) he had almost written off the small box on the table of her workshop. That was a mistake.

It turned out to be a trunk, actually in better condition as Jennifer's, with 6 compartments. And tonight was the first night his arm was healed enough that he could train again. That was his plan, until Jay showed up and told him to pack enough things to last two days.

They would go break into one of the old death eater houses and use whatever was left behind to furnish his trunk.

He was quite nervous. It would be the first 'mission' he would go on with Jay. It wasn't as if they even expected to run into trouble, but there was still the suspense of leaving the castle and breaking into a place that was known to have housed serial killers and maniacs. If they got caught, the plan would become useless, they would have to answer so many questions that he really didn't know how to answer, he might go to Azkaban.

And yet.

When night fell, he pretended to go to bed early but instead met Jay at the secret entrance to Hogsmeade.

"Ready?" She whispered, even though no one was near.

"Probably not, but sometimes you just gotta take the leap, right?"

"Right answer mate." And in Jay's opinion, it was. If he'd answered differently, she might have gotten second thoughts. The houses were very dangerous, and many object were volatile. The answer he gave her made her feel slightly better, he would be on edge, but that could be a good thing when doing something along the lines of what they were about to do.

They made it to Hogsmeade and walked away from the town. It wouldn't do to have someone hear them apparate, after all.

They apparated to a line of forest, only a short bus ride away from their destination. Jay had been in the town when leaving for France luckily enough, so they only had to travel a short distance. Jay took the time to properly explain the public transport system to Nev so he would know how to use it if the need ever arose.

The bus driver gave them strange looks and asked them where they were headed. Jay smoothly lied, "We're visiting our grandmother. We're spending the weekend with her and mother and father could not drive us, unfortunately."

The man still looked suspicious, "And exactly how far away from home are you two?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business where we live." She replied, frowning and taking a step back.

The bus driver immediately noticed his mistake and reassured them that he meant nothing by it. Jay knew that, but she wanted the man to keep his nose out of their business. After they sat the bus driver didn't bother them again and wished them safe travels when they got off the bus. It was kind of funny considering what they were about to do. They would break into a death eater hide-out, sleep there, and be back by dinnertime tomorrow at school.

The house elves were happy enough to pack them both lunches, well used to them coming into the kitchen and asking for a food pack for when they spent their day in the forbidden forest.

It took Jay only about an our to find the place and take down the wards surrounding it. Neville really didn't want to enter through the hole in the wards. The house in front of him made the hairs on his neck stand up, and his head was telling him to leave and never come back.

He ignored the feeling and moved to follow Jay. Instead of entering through the front door, Jay walked up to a window at the back of the house. "The front doors are usually booby-trapped. Even if the spells are weakened or have dissolved fully, it's much better to avoid them."

"And the windows don't?" He questioned after he climbed through the window. His hands were already sticky and he was grateful for the gloves.

"Hmmm. Sometimes, but they have a lot less than the doors at least." Jay wandlessly cast a Lumos and moved towards the only door in the room. She moved her hands up and down the door and chanted. Neville knew from the books on warding and ward breaking that it was a general detection spell, often used by tomb raiders to check for traps.

"Okay." She says and breaks the door's lock without touching the thing. "The doors and doorways seem safe, but be careful of the doorknobs. They seem to have some anti-thieving charms still intact on them and they aren't pleasant ones."

"Got it."

They enter what looks like a living room and Neville casts his own wandless Lumos. It's not as bright as Jay's, but for the amount of practice he put in it, it was still impressive.

They set to explore the house as they had agreed upon. Neville was half a step behind Jay the entire time. It was for a good reason, Nev agreed. Jay wanted to take him with her, but not leave him behind. That was fair.

They stumbled across a sleeping area, a small library they would return too, a potions lab (god, did every pureblood house have one of those?), and a ritual room with what appeared to be a cell complex next to it.

Whatever rituals had taken place here, he didn't want to know. It was when they started opening cupboards in the cell complex and ritual room, searching for anything useful, that Neville truly began to understand the blood that had been spilled during the war. He opened several drawers and found bones that had to have belonged to a child, considering how small they were. Upon finding the skeleton and a few more that had to have come from more people, they burned a candle to pay respect to the people that had obviously died in the house.

Neville still took the bone sacrificial (knife? dagger?) thing with him, knowing that it would be useful for rituals in the future and not knowing when he might come across another. To make one for himself was not an option. He was sorely tempted to leave it behind until Jay reasoned with him that leaving the bone knife would not help the person that was killed to make it, and Neville agreed. It still felt all wrong though.

He took candles, ritual chalk, the balance scale that he knew was necessary for specific rituals, a few human skulls (again, leaving them would not help the dead, but taking them may help the living in the future). He also shrunk down the work tables in the room. They were sturdy things with a lot of cabinet spaces under them and they would be perfect for crafting.

He found a spiders' nest in one of them. He used to be afraid of spiders, but after having held and taken human skulls and finding that kid, it felt kind of dull. It felt dull and silly to be afraid of something so mundane in a place like this, where people suffered horrible things.

At some point in the back yard they found an entire container full of shoes. They were the type muggles wore during the time of the first war. He closed the lid after looking at Jay and continued on without having to say a word.

The feeling of wrong didn't pass, and it became full on horror when he found out what type of rituals had been attempted in that basement, based on the books he found in the library. He held the book open in his hand and Jay placed a hand on his arm. He looked up to her and noticed that tears were dripping down, which made her look kind of blurry.

"I know." Was all she said. She didn't have to say any more though. They both knew.

He put the book in his moleskin bag and started to clear out the rest of the small library with her. he took the bookshelves and took down the shelves that were up on the walls around the house for his potions room.

"You know," He started after almost an hour of silently removing shelves from the walls. "It might be a good idea to have a place of operations. To prepare." He mumbled.

Jay frowned, "You mean, like, a hideout?"

"Hmm." That was not quite it, "More like a.. bunker of sorts. A place to hide people, to train them. To keep safe families who are being hunted. Like that underground railroad thing that history book talked about, in America."

Jay blinked, "That's, that's actually a great idea. In the previous war, most muggleborn families were sitting ducks, waiting and hoping the war would end. If we had a place to keep them safe…"

Neville shrugged, "It's definitely worth looking into."

Jay smiled, "That it sure is." Jay was very proud of Neville. He was already starting to think like the leader Jay was hoping he would become. She knew she wasn't leadership material, she wasn't good with people. She was more the one woman army type, but Nev, he was different. If it came down to a full out war, there was not a person she would rather have as a commander. She had the magical power, but Neville had the backbone and insight needed to lead. And it was showing more and more lately.

They quietly finished up stripping the house of anything useful. By the time they were leaving, they were both tired and wanted to take a long shower from all the disgusting things they had to touch in that house. Jay was sure that if they hadn't worn gloves, her hands would be BLACK.

They made it back to school without anyone noticing.

It was days after their raid that Jay was bitching and cursing at the entire world.

In her defense, the world was making her jump into a freezing lake, in Scotland, in the middle of February. She had all right to be angry.

This time around they were actually letting Charlie do something. To be fair, Neville had basically spoon-fed him the answer to the clue and show him the way of beating the challenge.

Yes. A week before the second task Charlie had still not discovered the meaning of the clue. Jay could appreciate the sportsmanship at having no-one help him, but it was making her and Nev's lives difficult.

Nev had planted a tracker in Charlie's shoe so Jay would be a step behind him the entire challenge. Nev had also given him gillyweed so that it was almost impossible for Charlie to drown. Knowing Charlie's incompetence and ability to fuck-up in the worst possible ways, it seemed like making it impossible to drown during the task was a good idea.

It was when Jay was in the champions tent when Draco showed up. With flowers.

"Uh, thanks." She said. What do people usually do when they get flowers?

Draco was blushing up to his ears when Jay noticed that Skeeter woman with a photographer coming into the tent. The photographer was getting ready to take a picture of the two of them, and Jay made a split second decision.

She lay her hand on Draco's cheek and kissed him.

Half a second later the sound of a picture being taken breaks them up and Jay pretends to be shocked that they took a picture of them. While Draco just stands there unmoving with big eyes. Jay goes to say something, but thankfully the minister calls the champions out of the tent right that second, so instead she says, "I have to go. We'll talk later, okay?" before she hurries off after the other champions.

She forgets she has the flowers in hand and not really knowing what to do with them, lays them down on the platform.

The cannon interrupts the minister's speech, which Jay thinks is great because if she has to stand for one more fucking minute on this platform barefooted and freezing, she's going to commit treason and kill the bloke for keeping her there.

Both her and Charlie eat the gillyweed. Jay swallowed it down in one go. Nev had recommended she do that and not chew, since the gillyweed was naturally slimy on the outside and would go down easily. If one chewed it, the slime-layer would be broken and it would get very hard to swallow.

She downs it with minimal problems -kind of tastes like sushi she notices- and turns to Charlie to see the idiot chomping down heavily on the gillyweed, try to swallow it, choke violently, eventually manage to down it, start clawing at his neck and as the finale inelegantly flop into the lake.

She's so beyond caring at this point that she just sighs and jumps into the lake.

Luckily the effect of the gillyweed has already taken and the cold suddenly doesn't really bother her anymore. She's left wondering how the French girl is even moving with only the bubble-head charm. Within minutes (if that) she will be suffering from hypothermia, there is no way she's going to finish the task, unless she's got some form of long lasting heating charms.

She will admit that she was mildly impressed by Krum, who partially transfigured himself into a shark. Transfiguration was one of the hardest types of magic in her opinion.

She kept following Charlie at a safe enough distance to insure that he wouldn't miraculously fuck-up and still manage to drown somehow, even though they could both breathe under water. He'd find a way, she knows for sure.

She spends a good forty-five minutes following Charlie. He's swam by so many merpeople trying to direct him to the place they're supposed to head that she almost wants him to drown at this point. She looks at her watch again and sees they're got about 10-15 minutes left before drowning will become an issue.

Eventually he figures it out when a merperson almost forces him towards the clearing they've swam by at least twice.

There are four hostages. Scratch that three. As Krum shows up and sweeps Granger up to the surface. Five minutes left- what was he waiting on?

Then it hits her. He's been raised to be a hero, he wants to make sure everyone makes it to the surface.

She barely contains her groan. As if they would let students drown during the tasks. Especially students who didn't sign up for this.

She noticed that they had picked Blaise Zabini as her hostage. Not entirely strange since they often sat together in the eating hall. And the fact that she was basically the most hated person in the entire school right now, her only competition perhaps being some of the higher year Slytherins.

Two minutes left.

It seemed that Jay was right about the French girl not getting there in time.

It was then that Charlie finally got into action. He removed the chains from both Ronald's and the French girl's ankles… and leaves Blaise.

…you Dickhead.

Immediately the merpeople attack him, telling him that there may only be one which he takes with him. And like a proper dumbass he does it anyways.

The merpeople flock him.

30 seconds left.

Jay does her best to catch up to him, dodging his random spells and luckily getting ignored by the merpeople.

20 seconds.

He's not going to make it. The surface is too far away and he's slowed down too much.

10 seconds.

Jay finally gets close enough and casts her most powerful field effective stunner. The merpeople freeze and let go of Charlie.

5 seconds. She ignores the burning feeling of the gills disappearing and her vision blurring from the water. She aims and manages to hit Charlie with a spell which propels him to the surface.

0 seconds.

The cold seeps into her, deeply into her bones. She has to fight to not take a breath in. Merlin how she wants to.

She casts a bubblehead charm and the moments she has to wait to take a deep breath are pure torture. The cold is making it so hard to concentrate that all she can do is hold on to her wand and try not to drop it.

Her muscles clench and she can't move.

She'd gone swimming at low temperatures before, but never had she experienced cold like this. Her vision blackened and she could not tell if it was the night vision wearing off, or the hypothermia she was probably experiencing.

She longed for the fire which burned in the common room. She could almost imagine it heating her up, how nicely it burned, the sweet scent of ash, the slight sting on her skin when she held herself close to it.

She opened her eyes, unaware that she had closed them at some point.

The first thing she noticed was the merperson who was clutching her hand to her chest, seemingly in pain. Jay noticed that the others were staring at her. Only then did she notice the bubbles that were forming around her and the fact that her muscles were obeying her once more.

She was no longer cold. She was also closer to the surface.

Did she… did she just burn that merperson?

Jay was dead tired, but forced herself to flip around and dove back to the depth of the lake. She took Blaise by the hem of his shirt, hoping that she wouldn't burn him on accident, and just propelled herself to the surface.

They landed in a messy and wet heap on the docks, knocking over the French girl and getting her wet all over again.

The girl began spewing insults at Jay in French and it took two professors to hold her back.

Blaise was at her side and was violently coughing and shaking. The school nurse was immediately fussing over him and when she turned to take care of Jay, Draco had already appeared with a big, fluffy blanket and hot chocolate. Jay wasn't cold anymore, but found the gesture sweet. He even spelled her hair dry for her.

The French girl was still spewing insults her way, but was shocked when Jay yelled at her in French to keep her whore mouth shut.

She turned to Draco, who was still hovering near her, "Honestly, you'd think getting a little wet again was a war crime from the way she was acting."

"That's not why she's angry." Draco hesitantly.

"Then what is she going on about?"

"Charlie said you attacked him, underwater that is."

Jay blinked, "He what now?" she asks furiously.

He puts his hands up. "I don't know. He came to the surface saying that you were shooting spells at him. And that you were hindering him from getting to the surface on time, almost made him drown."

She shakes her head at the audacity her brother had. "Accompany me to the tent?"

"Sure." He looks like he won the lottery when she let him wrap his arm around her waist and got to lead her to the tent. Jay saw nothing wrong with letting him do it. He'd been a perfect gentlemen to her so far, much to her surprise.

In the tent multiple medics were attending Krum for what looked like jellyfish stings. She winced in sympathy. The type of jellyfish that lived in the lake could leave nasty scars if they weren't treated properly.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash of light and grabbed Draco and flung them both to the floor, narrowly dodging an orange colored spell flying their way.

She turns and puts up a shield to block them from a second spell.

What breaks her heart is the fact that the men firing the spells at her are James and Sirius.

He's got a mad look in his eyes and opens his mouth to cast his next spell when a shadow casts over her and Draco.

"I do believe that's quite enough, Potter." Comes a cold voice with the fancy accent she associates with Draco.

She allows herself a quick look behind her and sees that it's Draco's father and Severus standing over them, wands out and pointing them threateningly at James.

Just then the minister of sports runs into the tent with Dumbledore and Mad-eye.

"What's going on here?!" The minister demands.

Before James can start spewing his usual bullshit Mr. Malfoy calmly but deadly says, "I do believe Mr. Potter was attacking my son and Miss Potter."

The minister turns to James and demands, "Is that true?" The man sounds furious. There's no doubt that he knows of the deal the Potters had with the ministry.

Dumbledore tries to calm the situation down and after a speech about being responsible adults, they all warily lower their wands. They still remain ready to bring them up again at the slightest of twitches from the opposing party.

The tension hangs thickly in the tent.

Severus is the first to move his eyes away from James and Sirius and crouches in front of Jay to ask her if she's alright.

She wants to say yes, but the words die in her throat. Her vision is growing blurry and she can feel another attack creeping up at her. She had really not expected James to attack her. If it were just a random student, or anyone else besides the people that were supposed to be her family, it wouldn't have hurt like this.

She had written James off as her father. Now he had seemingly written her off as his daughter.

She wonders if this is what it feels like to get disowned.

It hurts a lot more as she thought it would have, and she's distantly aware that mad-eye is guarding Severus' back, which strikes her as a little odd.

She thought the man would have taken James' side, but apparently not.

She hears Draco ask what's happening and Severus asking Mr. Malfoy to contact the auror department. Why would he need to..?

"Just look at me." Severus deep voice breaks though her thoughts and grounds her in the present. He takes her face in his hands and she notices them getting wet. Is she crying? She must be. "Try to slow your breathing," He continues. Oh, oh that's why she feels her chest hurt so much. She's breathing fast and she can hear herself wheezing, "That's it. You're doing great." That's nice. It's nice to hear that from someone other than Nev. Though that thought might be a mixture of tiredness and lack of oxygen.

James is now shouting and a female voice has joined in. She can't tell who it is and doesn't try to figure it out. She know that Severus will keep her safe even if his life depended on it.

Severus was always nice like that. He didn't give her shit for things like hiding knives in her boots, or not wearing make-up and wearing sweatpants.

Okay yeah, the exhaustion must be getting real because her thoughts are more that a little all over the place, like scrambled eggs.

Severus looks away for a second and he hands her a vial. What it was didn't really interest her, but the man was adamant about her drinking it.

After she downed the contents of the vial she feels a rush of calmness fall over her. if her thoughts were scrambled eggs before, now they were… more… runny?

She snorts out a loopy laugh and wonders if this is what it feels like to be stoned. Not the type people in the bible experience though, she didn't think getting pelted with rocks would be this nice.

She can't really focus on Severus anymore and looks around the room. People were shouting angrily, aurors (judging by the robes) were removing James, Lily (oh, was she the woman shouting earlier?) and Sirius from the tent. It was chaos, but Jay really couldn't find any fucks to give. She started moving upwards, somehow.

Oh Severus had picked her up. Guess that explains the levitation.

He was talking rapidly with an auror and one of the medics. She tried to follow the conversation but soon gave up on it. Instead she looked at the clouds. They were pretty.

For some reason they reminded her of the flowers Draco had given her. She wondered if they were still on the docks.

After Severus had given Jen the calming draught, the girl luckily calmed down almost immediately. Her eyes gazed over slightly and she began slowly and loopily looking around the tent. He cast a glance at the chaos around them and was pleased to see more of his fellow professors arrive to hopefully control the situation until the aurors arrived.

When the aurors arrived, for once in his life he was happy to see them.

They took James, Lily and Black into custody.

Severus thought it was fitting. They attacked his kid. If they'd been alone, he would have used some curses that he'd learned during his time as a spy in the death eater ranks. He was mournful that they were probably going to get another slap on the wrist.

He followed the auror to the castle to take the floo once the medic had concluded that there was nothing wrong with her. noting besides the panic attack and exhaustion.

As he was walking to the castle he was already rapidly explaining the situation to the auror. Jen was happily laying still in his arms, babbling a bit about runny eggs and how pretty the clouds were.

If the situation were not so dire, he might have laughed at how his kid, who was usually sharp and collected, was now high as a kite, happily babbling about flowers and other half-formed thoughts.

When they arrived at the ministry, the auror lead them to an interrogation room. Severus started to protest, seeing as Jen was in no state to give a statement, but was reassured that he would be the only one answering questions.

The only thing they would need from Jen was her wand, seeing as her idiot brother had claimed she'd tried to kill him.

He huffed at the thought. If Jen was going to kill Charlie, she'd be smarter about it, he was sure. She would not do it in an open area where they were known to be the only people.

If Jen were to kill Charlie, she'd probably not even use magic for it. And they would probably never find the body.

If she did try to kill her brother, Severus would cover for her in a heartbeat. He really did hate the brat and how he'd made life difficult for Jen.

A minute later showed that she'd done none of the sort, only a shield spell, two propelling spells, a bubblehead charm and a stunning spell, had been cast the past few hours. The only others that day were clothe folding charms and a hair drying spell.

Not exactly incriminating evidence of a murder attempt.

"I'm really sorry, but we had to be sure." The auror apologizes.

"It's fine." He says through clenched teeth.

Jay was sitting on a chair next to him, holding his hand even though she was deep asleep.

It was no wonder she was tired. The shield spell alone was a powerful one, not to count spending an hour in a freezing lake or the stunning spell she'd used while in the lake. Even without the calming draught she'd probably be asleep by now.

Severus then recounted the entire incident in the tent. By the time he was done Jen had slumped in her seat. It was then that he could take her back home. All legal paperwork had been taken care of by Lucius during his interview. Sometimes it was very nice indeed to have friends high up in the ministry.

He took Jen home.

Lucius was both furious and delighted.

Delighted that the Potters had driven their daughter towards the darker parts of magic and away from the light.

Furious that they had attacked his potential future daughter in law.

In a way, the girl reminded him of his wife. When Draco had come home, telling him excitedly about the girl who had punched him a black eye, he recognized the look in the boy's eye. It was the same look he had after his wife had hexed him seven ways to Sunday all those years ago. It came to no surprise that he wanted her to be his date for the Yule ball, but it did come as a surprise that the girl said yes.

At first, both him and Narcissa were suspicious that she was only doing it to make her parents angry. After they talked to Severus however, they changed that thought.

Severus assured them that Jennifer was interested in his son, but was a little more interested in knives and disturbing literature for now.

They had a good laugh about it and Lucius had to admit, he was impressed with the girl's insistence to hide knives everywhere. It drove Severus insane, the amount of knives he'd found so far and he complained about having to warn the house elves on laundry duty of the possibility of knives being hidden in the sheets.

Narcissa, on the other hand, was impressed with the girl's academic accomplishments, and they had spoken of the possibility of the girl ending up being the one for their son.

From further intel that he'd gotten about her, the girl had been toeing the line of the dark for quite some time.

If he could deliver the Dark Lord the loyalty of the twin of the boy who lived, his past failings would wash away as if they were nothing. The girl was the ticket to keeping his family safe during the next war. Having the girl interested in his son and vise-versa would make keeping his family safe so much easier.

Narcissa and him had definitely agreed that them ending up married would put them in a good position, and tried to encourage their son to engage Jennifer again.

Narcissa had insisted that Draco bring the girl flowers on the day of the second task, telling him to be the gentleman she had raised him to be. Both him and Narcissa were delighted to learn the girl had kissed their son and was thus entering the early stages of a relationship with Draco.

He was even more delighted to see the girl's fast reflexes when she and Draco were attacked. It he could deliver the girl to the Dark Lord and she ended up being more as just propaganda, but proved herself a capable fighter, he would be put in a position most could only dream about.

He was currently pulling every string he could to have the girl removed from the Potters, but it hardly seemed necessary. Apparently the Potters had already been given a second chance, and it wasn't looking good for them for now. Child abuse was quite the scandal in the wizarding world after all.

He hardly had to place the suggestion in the minister's head to let the Potters give custody to Severus, and that they would let the charges slip.

Jennifer would live with Severus, making them both happy.

Draco, Nacissa and himself would be happy because it gave them better access to Jennifer.

Dumbledore and the minister would both be happy, because it allowed them to keep the situation quiet.

And he couldn't give a rat's arse about what the Potters wanted, to be honest. They wouldn't go to jail or lose their son. It was more as they could ask for.

Everything was falling in place perfectly and when he saw Severus taking the girl home, they exchanged a nod.

Later that night he presented the Potters with the legal documentation to sign custody over to Severus, which simultaneously promised to drop any charges against them or their son for assault and making a false statement to the aurors. Because it doesn't matter if the boy is underaged, you do not make false claims of murder attempts.

They knew that they had no other options left, and signed their daughter away for good.

That night, Jennifer Potter became Jennifer Snape.

Lucius and Narcissa opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

The Potters cried for the loss of their daughter.

Dumbledore broke an expensive gadget in anger at having his plans foiled so badly so quickly.

Severus smiled as he tucked his daughter into bed.

…

Neville wondered where the hell everyone was and why he got a very misspelt letter from Jay telling him absolutely nothing, because it was half a ramble about flowers and half a ramble about clouds.

Just a Normal Day

Chapter Notes

Another one.

Jennifer awoke to the familiar sight of her bedroom at Severus' quarters.

She was quite confused at how she had ended up there. There were flashes of the interrogation room at the ministry, the tent at the second task, and more, but there were massive gaps in the memory.

She vaguely recalled writing a letter to… Neville? Well she wrote to someone, that's for sure. The mess that was her desk indicated that at least that part of her memory was right. She couldn't remember what she'd written.

Like, at all.

Why was she here?

It was still during a school week, so there was really no good reason for her to be there.

She stumbled her way towards the kitchen here she heard soft music coming from. She stopped dead though when she entered the living room.

There were bright pink flags hanging up, proudly proclaiming ' It's a girl!'.

…

Did Severus get a lady pregnant or something?

Merlin, she hoped not. She wasn't sure she could survive having another sibling. The one she currently had was plenty, thank you. She had no need for any more accidental murder attempts by siblings, Charlie managed that just fine on his own.

She recognized the spellwork as professor Flitwick's. Whatever the hell was going on, she was going to find out.

There was a cake on the table, also proclaiming 'it's a girl'.

Oh hell no.

Please, Merlin, no more siblings.

So, in the true peak of her social interactions, the first thing she asks when she encounters Severus is, "Please tell me I'm not getting any siblings. PLEASE."

Severus blinks, looks at the flags, and actually laughs.

"I have become a father, Jennifer." Oh Merlin NO.

He taps on a document in front of her, and she freezes.

They're adoption papers.

HER adoption papers.

She gently fingers the name at the bottom of the page.

Jennifer Snape

That's… that's her name now. She stares at it dumbly for a second. Then she looks at Severus, who actually looks nervous for the first time since she's met the man.

"These- these are real." She states.

He nods. "Approved by the minister himself. Effective immediately."

She starts nodding, "For real?" She asks quietly.

"Yes."

She points weakly at the flags hanging behind her. "I'm the girl. I'm your daughter now?"

She sounds so small that Severus wishes he'd hexed Potter with the nastiest hexes he knew anyways. But then again, then they would probably not be here now.

"If you'll have me." He offers.

He almost drops the frying pan he's holding when she effortlessly jumps over the kitchen counter and hugs him so tightly he thinks he might not be able to breathe.

He finds he doesn't mind one bit.

After a few moments they separate and all she can ask is "How?"

He looks her in the eye, "They gave you up. They gave you up to save their own arses." Severus sounds very bitter about it, but it came as no surprise to either of them that they had done that. They'd done it before the most recent fiasco, after all.

It was almost midday the next day that Charlie reappeared at school. Jay wasn't with him though. He couldn't really ask questions about her without tipping people off that they were still friends.

So instead he sat down with the rest of Gryffindor and listened to the bullshit story Charlie was telling. He was sobbing about being arrested for 'falsely' claiming that Jennifer tried to kill him. About how she'd stolen his idea for how to handle the task.

It was when he told them that even though they could not press charges against her for trying to violently murder him -Nev rolled his eyes at that- that the Potters had decided to strike her from the family instead.

They had disowned her.

They had disowned her.

Neville felt his blood freeze. Shit would hit the fan really quick if she became a ward of the state. Merlin knows what would happen then.

It's only after the crowd has mostly dissipated, some girls had stayed behind to console the now sobbing boy, that he got a second letter from Jay.

'Fancy a drink at the RoR? I'll be there at 13:00'

And so at 13:00 he was fully prepared to deal with tears, screaming, and violently broken punching bags.

What he didn't expect was Jay, sitting on bench with a bottle of alcohol -was that one of the death-eater-house bottles?- grinning from ear to ear.

"Mate, what the fuck happened. I was gone for like an hour!"

And Jay laughs. "You won't believe it mate. And I've brought this as a means to get completely shit-faced to celebrate." She holds up the bottle.

"Why are you happy? From what I've heard, you tried to kill Charlie, got arrested, got high, and was then was disowned."

He swears, this doesn't happen to other people. Only Jay.

"Well besides the murder attempt, pretty accurate."

Neville just sits and begins to struggle the bottle of fire whisky open. "Give me a minute here."

He finally manages to open it and takes a sip straight from the bottle, and manages to down it with minimal problems and choughs like a champ.

"Okay. Tell me."

"Well, first thing's first. I did get disowned. He wasn't lying about that part at least."

"Okay." He takes another sip and choughs less now. "What now?"

"I'm no longer Jennifer Potter. My name is now Jennifer Snape."

???

"What?!" He was literally gone for an HOUR. She opens her mouth to explain but he holds up his hand to stop her. "Okay stop. From the beginning. What happened in the lake?"

She hesitates, "Well I should probably start before the lake."

"Why?" He sighs out, if she'd managed to get disowned before she even entered the lake, he'd eat his wand.

"I kissed Draco."

"…You did what now?"

Turns out she did kiss Draco.

He's now certain that she was not messing with him, because it was in the newspaper and it arrived during the lunch he didn't attend.

Because of course it would be.

James was at his wit's end.

His wife would not stop crying, his son was quiet and withdrawn, his best friend was nothing except furious. He himself was furious as well, to be fair.

Everything was going wrong.

Ever since the second task things had been going horribly wrong.

He was sitting solemnly at the kitchen table in Grimmauld place waiting for the others to arrive. The last time they were holding a meeting like this was during the war.

James wasn't stupid, he could see the signs.

The way superiors treated the muggleborns in the office, the subtle way the newspapers spoke less about them and many other things. During the first war he'd been but a teen when this started happening.

When the meeting was called by Dumbledore he knew he wasn't the only one who noticed.

Dumbledore arrived together with Snape, it took everything he had to not fly off the handle immediately.

James knew that the man had purposefully corrupted his daughter while she was removed from them. Sure, she had been rebelling an awful lot against them very suddenly, but there was a thick line between getting a haircut and attempting to murder her brother.

Why the ministry allowed this man, a known former death eater, to have custody of his child, was beyond him.

He would never tell his wife, but the fact that the girl was gone from their family made it a little easier to breathe. At first he'd had little concerns about her. She was a good kid, listened to them well and was overall very sweet. The perfect daughter.

When she arrived at Hogwarts, she made friend with Frank and Alice's son. The boy was quiet and a little strange, but not in a way that made him worry in any way.

It was only when she started hanging out less and less with the boy and more with the Slytherin students that he truly began to worry.

He knew that Jennifer was always jealous of her brother. Up until that point there was little problems with it. When she became champion though, things changed for the worst. By the time yule arrived, he knew that his daughter had been corrupted by the dark. Why else would she hang around those death eater kids? Why would she date one?

He blamed it on Severus almost entirely. He probably filled her head with death eater propaganda and promised her power and such, or whatever death eaters thought to gain by joining Voldemort.

The second task was the final straw, however. Before, he'd still had hope that she might see her errors in her ways, but that little bit of hope was snuffed out when she tried to kill Charlie.

In the medical tent Charlie told him about the spells that she'd flung at him, almost keeping him from saving his best friend and a young girl.

How far had his daughter sank in the few months that he wasn't allowed to speak with her?

When se entered the tent accompanied by the Malfoy kid, all he could see was a future death eater and it seemed that Sirius agreed with him.

Dumbledore started the meeting. He looked serious.

"As you have possibly already have already guessed, I have asked you to come here today to give some terrible news."

Everyone is holding their breath, hoping that they're all wrong yet knowing that it is wishful thinking.

"The dark mark has returned. And we believe that Lord Voldemort will soon follow."

James closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

"In the dire times to come, it is of essence that we prepare as well as we can." Dumbledore continues, "If there is anyone in the room no longer willing to be a part of this, please speak up now."

No one speaks up, but it isn't as if James had expected anyone to do so. They were all on the front lines during the war, they knew that if there was a chance to win this war, they needed to use every second they had. They were all dead anyways if they lost, so they might as well give it their best shot.

"These past few months the dark mark had steadily been growing darker, and it appears that Voldemort is making his return."

"When do you think he'll be back?" An older woman at the table asks. How long do we have left is left unsaid.

"It is, of course, not possible to give an exact date. At the rate the mark grows darker, we think it will be during the upcoming summer."

That's… that's four months from now. Merlin, four months. If they were lucky.

"What about the minister? Has he been notified?"

James almost scoffs at the guy. The minister was so far in Malfoy's pocket it was kind of sad.

"The minister showed a certain… lack of concern for the subject." Dumbledore answers carefully. "Nevertheless, the magical world will have the order ready to assist them when the time comes."

So, in other words, no backup. Great. Just when he though things could get any worse, Dumbledore began speaking again.

"There have been several concerns. The ministry is compromised." Shock rolls through James' stomach. "And there is one factor we had not counted on. Jennifer Snape."

"Jennifer Snape?" Comes the confused voice of a man James had never seen before. "Didn't know you had a daughter."

"Up until this week, I did, in fact, not." James is boiling with rage once more. Here is the man who completely corrupted his poor child, talking as if she was his. "After the second task at Hogwarts, certain events… occurred." Way to be skeptical, Snape. "This lead to the ministry completely removing the girl from the Potter family."

Shocked glances are sent their way. It wasn't a small feat to have children removed from a family. In fact, it was almost taboo to remove an heir from their family. Lily began quietly sobbing again, and James felt like crying for his lost child as well.

"It was at that point that I was asked to take the girl in, to adopt her. Malfoy pulled a lot of strings to make it happen, and happen it did. And, I believe, with his own interest in mind. Undoubtably you've seen the photo of Mr. Malfoy jr. and …Miss Snape. I believe he is trying to sway the girl to the dark."

The small crowd is even more shocked at this revelation. James hangs his head in shame.

"And I believe that he may be successful. The girl has already… attacked her brother, Charlie, during the second task. Through having Malfoy pull some strings, I managed to get the charges against the Potters to drop if they were to immediately sign custody away to myself. It was the easiest manner to keep the situation quiet and still keep the girl somewhat out of the hands of the Malfoys."

"But why does Malfoy want the girl so badly? Surely, she can't be of that much importance?"

Severus grit his teeth at the stupidity of these people. "It would be a considerable blow to the light if Miss Snape," That was really weird to consider, in Severus' opinion. Miss Snape. "Also known as the twin sister of the boy who lived, would join the dark lord."

"Oh, right."

Severus had thought long and hard on this. Jen was considerably getting into darker magic and hanging out with a crowd he did not really approve of.

He had promised himself once long ago that he would remain loyal to the light, but now he was looking back on that with hesitation. He was not so sure that if Jen would truly join the dark lord that he would leave her be. He knew that if it came down to it, his loyalty didn't lay with either side but with the people at that side.

During the last war, that was Lily.

Now though, that loyalty was with her daughter. His daughter. Lily had made an embarrassment of herself and had proven to his that she was not the woman he thought she was. If anyone deserved his loyalty, it was Jen.

So he made a new promise, a promise to follow Jen. It might look like the girl was going to choose for the dark, but there was something fishy about it. There was just something that was not right with the way things were going and he could for the life of him not figure out what it was. All he knew was that there was more going on than he knew.

Jay knew she should not have drank, especially considering it was a school day. But with three years of (almost) perfect attendance, she could afford to play hooky for once.

"So… I've been having the dreams again." She said a bit slurred. "They're getting stronger and more detailed every time."

Neville, despite being more than a bit tipsy, payed immediate attention.

Jay looks solemnly at the bottle in her hand, absently picking at the label. "I don't think that it'll be long from now, before… before you know what."

Neville gulps. "Got a clue on how long?"

Jay unfortunately shakes her head, "Not precisely, no. But I can feel him getting stronger. He's planning something, I know it. It might be only a few months from now."

It was sooner as either of them liked.

The good mood that had hung around after learning of Jay's adoption died down fast and a thick silence fell on them.

"I think it's time to set up that bunker you talked about." She continued and Neville nodded in agreement. "And it's time to step up your training. Fast."

All Nev could do was nod.

"Hey, are you okay?"

He shakes his head. "I just thought- I just wanted some more time." He cracks out. Merlin knew he wasn't one to cry, but he had a feeling the whisky was skewing that part of him a bit.

"Hey." Jay sits up from the floor and lays a hand on his cheek. "Just because he's coming back, doesn't mean that there will be large battles taking place from the get-go. He'll need to get new followers and supplies first. It took him years last time to build up his army. It might not take that long this time, but there is still time. Possibly even up to a year before the battles even start. Hopefully, that is."

"You're right." He realizes. Merlin, they still have time. Okay, he can work with that. They can do this.

"But the second that he does come back, I'll have to…"

"I know." It will be hard to see his sister go, and while Charlie's friends are nice enough, they're not Jay. He's got a feeling that next year, it will be a lonely year.

Charlie was convinced that he was having the worst week of his life.

He almost couldn't believe it. His baby sister, whom he loved and defended, had tried to kill him. Then his dad and uncle went ballistic and threw curses at Jennifer, before they were arrested.

His uncle and dad had to spent the night in jail, and he himself spent most of it in an interrogation room. They claimed he falsely accused his sister of attempted murder, even though he saw it with his own eyes. He had to stay in that blasted room for hours on end and was eventually let go because of a deal that was made.

How had his sister sank so deep so fast? She hurt him after the first task, because he made a joke. She almost drowned him during the second task when he was trying to save lives.

Was she angry because he left the Zabini guy? The boy was her friend, right? She must care enough for the boy because he was her hostage. At least, that's what he thought she was angry about until the paper came out.

Draco Malfoy.

The son of a suspected death eater.

Even though he thought that his sister had just taken him to the yule ball to make their parents angry, he wasn't as sure as he was before. The evidence started to pile up and he could no longer ignore the signs.

Jennifer, his little sister, was becoming dark.

It was hard to accept, but even he had to eventually face the music.

It took an attempt on his life to see that everyone had been right from the get-go about her.

How had he been so blind?

The Phoenix Brothers

It was once again the best time of the week.

Weekend.

This weekend however, Jay had something more planned as her, and now Neville's, training. She'd let him choose a wand from the limited selection of wands she'd found while scavenging and it worked like a charm for him. Never before had casting spells been so easy now that he had his own wand and no longer the one his father used. He progressed leaps and bounds and Jay had decided that they needed to get him field trained.

There had been an abundance of new bounties put out by the ministry, and Jay was intending to make good use of it. There were many things that she still wanted to teach him before she took Nev out with her on a hunt, but time was running out and she had to make sure he was field ready.

Besides, she'd be there the entire time. She'd given Nev a portkey in case things went south in the worst possible way. She'd made sure his armor was the best she could do. She'd made sure he knew all spells he should.

And she was still worrying like crazy.

She knew he was as prepared as he could be for the time being, but there was still something nagging her. She didn't want to do it, but time was of essence and he had to be field ready by the time she had to leave.

Nev was nervous as well, but for different reasons.

What if he screwed up? What if he weren't good enough and Jay had wasted all that time teaching someone that couldn't be taught?

What if he got Jay hurt?

This was a thousand times worse as when they broke into the old death eater house, in his opinion. Back then, all he had to do was pay attention and let Jay take charge. Now he was going to take charge.

He knew in theory how it would go, they'd planned it to the very second. They had back-up plans for their back-up plans and he was sure Jay had even more that she hadn't told him about. It was however, always the fact that theory and practically things were never on the same page. Or even in the same library.

They were once again at Hogsmeade ready to apparate away. This time Neville would apparate himself. They'd been practicing in the forest and he was honestly quite good at it.

This time it wasn't just jumping half a forest though, but half a country. "Ready?" Jay asked, checking one last time if her bag was tightly attached to her.

"Ready."

They apparated.

Neville landed a bit of a ways away from London, exactly where he had planned to land. Once he checked himself over, he concluded that while he was tired from such a far jump, he wasn't splinched in the slightest.

Win.

Jay would meet him at the building he was at, so instead of moving he stripped himself of his normal clothing and started to put the pieces of armor on.

It was but a minute later that Jay came in through a window. "You good?" Is the first thing she asks.

"Yeah. Not a scratch." He's quite proud of it as well.

"Good." Jay hops down from the window still and begins to strip as well. By now, they are so used to changing in front of one another that it isn't the slightest bit awkward. It actually feels kind of normal. He'd been training in full armor the second he had it and putting it on felt like a habit nowadays.

He still took longer as Jay to get ready, but then again she'd been doing this for years while he'd been doing it for a few weeks at most.

While spring had arrived it was still cold during the nights. Jay had told him about one of her first stake-outs and how she'd been mentally cursing herself for not making her gloves warmer. He guesses he's lucky that he didn't have to make those mistakes and then sit in the cold for hours.

Nope, he would make entirely different mistakes all of his own.

And that was fine. It's better for him to make them now as later when he no longer had a safety net that Jay provided.

It was still a bit weird, wearing what he was wearing. He'd fallen in love with the gloves on an instant, but hated the chestpiece. It felt weird and constricting in ways he wasn't used to. Jay had laughed about that, and had offered to bring out one of her corsets from the depths of her trunk.

He politely declined that and never complained about the constricting feeling again.

"Alright, I'm ready." He said, proud that it had taken him very little time at all to get into his gear.

"You're missing a piece."

What? What was he missing? He honestly thought he had everything…

"It's in the side pocket of your bag." Jay offered. Which is strange. He couldn't remember that he put anything in there.

He fished around in the pocket, careful not to get anything stuck to his glove -yes that had happened before and Jay laughed about an hour before helping him- and he fished out a watch.

It was the type of watch that a wizard would get once they came of age.

"Jay, what?"

She smiled, "We'll be posing as adults, and almost every adult wears one." True enough. "And besides that, tonight you will, in a way, become more as a kid. What we're about to do, most adults shy away from, to terrified to even consider it. If that doesn't at least make us equal to them, then I don't even know anymore." She looks at him with pride. "You deserve it, Nev."

You deserve it. It's probably the biggest complement anyone had ever given him.

He turns the watch over and sees the engraving.

Bravery does not mean to never be afraid,

It means to be afraid and thrive despite it

To my brother, the bravest lion of them all

It's… perfect.

The first two lines are in a beautiful script, while he last line is in Jay's handwriting. The watch itself is beautifully crafted. High standard, especially made to withstand combat. The strap is plated with runes that he can now mostly decipher as anti-summoning and anti-tracking rune combinations.

He'd wondered what the extra loops on his left glove were for, but now that he straps the watch through them he understands.

"Ready?" Jay asks.

"Ready."

It was a bit anticlimactic how easy it turned out to be. He had the guards down in a split second. The man they were actually after was even easier to take down. He had to block a grand total of three spells. Three.

Apparently he was a lot better trained as the average magical citizen, even the corrupt ones. He struck with amazing accuracy and speed, leaving most not even the slightest chance to shoot a spell back.

One managed to bring up a shield, not that it did him any good though. He was used to trying to wreak Jay's shields. If anything, his problem was that he went a little too hard.

Considering the man they were hunting was sought for trafficking young muggle girls, he didn't really feel too bad for blasting his shield to shreds and launching him into the wall with only a single spell.

So yeah, they won.

Jay didn't even have to move from her place in she shadows where she was watching him. She was impressed with his skill and how he paid attention to the entire place without fail. It took little more than a minute to defeat them all and catch their guy.

The only remark she had was, "Perhaps don't hit them that hard when busting through a shield. Pay attention to how strongly they've cast it and it can work greatly to your advantage. The guy's got no real damage to him though. You got lucky with that. Getting thrown into a wall like that could have injured him badly, or even killed him if the angle was less fortunate."

Neville nodded in agreement. He was panting slightly, she noticed. Probably not because of the spells thrown since they had dueled against one another for much longer but more because of the adrenaline. "You did good though. Excellent, in fact."

He smiles, even though the mask blocks his face and he knows she can't see it. "What can I say? I do have a good teacher."

Jay smiled herself, "And lucky for me, I have a great student."

The tied up men look in fear.

Later in the ministry they were delivering the men to the auror department. They were stared at, but then again Neville could hardly blame them. They were wearing an awful lot of leather. Jay had warned him that it would happen and to be honest, he was surprised by how little he cared.

Only a year ago he would have been frozen from the many looks he was getting. Now he was enjoying it. He wondered if Jay felt this way the first time she went fighting, when she was seen for what she was the first time. It was rather amazing, and for the first time in ever people were looking at him with admiration, suspicion and more. It was the first time he wasn't a wallflower in his life and he had earned it himself.

"Caught another one?" A tall, dark-skinned auror asked Jay.

"Oh, it wasn't me this time. It was all him." Jay points to him. "Took him out the first time tonight."

The man blinks. "Since when are there two of you? Where did you find a partner?" Kingsley tried to sound nonchalant, but he was thrilled. Alone, Phoenix had brought in a fair amount of dangerous criminals. Criminals they had been trying to catch for weeks if not months and he brought them in like it was nothing, sometimes not even a day after the bounty was put in place.

If there were now two, and the new guy proved himself as even half as skilled as Phoenix, than that was very good for the department as a whole.

Jay shrugged, "Been teaching him for a while now. Fast learner, this one." She clasps a hand on his shoulder.

Out of pure instinct he wraps his arm around her and doesn't really think about it.

"Oh are you together?" Kingsley asks, slightly surprised. He should have expected it with all the leather they both wear. He didn't care either way though, they did good work.

"Together?" Jay asks.

Nev scrunched up his nose behind his mask, "Ew no. He's my brother."

Kingsley blinks. "Ah." It was unexpected. He'd never heard anything about him having a brother. Then again, Phoenix wasn't exactly the chattiest of people. "You can collect the bounty at the usual place. I trust you'll show him?"

"Yeah."

Nev and Jay change into their normal clothes and go for ice cream afterwards. It's four in the morning and freezing cold outside, but the ice cream tastes like it's the best ice cream he's ever had.

At almost five they arrive back in the castle, safe and sound.

Neville only sleeps a few hours, but he feels satisfaction seep deep in his chest. It's the best night's sleep he's ever had.

Unbeknownst to both Jay and Nev, Kingsley woke up Dumbledore with the good news.

At 6 in the morning a meeting was called to discuss potential recruits to the order.

The Order of the Phoenix

Chapter Notes

I hope you enjoy!
If there are any mistakes in the text, please let me know.
If there is a particular prompt you would love to see, leave it in the comments and I'll see what I can do!

Sirius wanted to know why in the hell they were called to a meeting at 6 in the morning. It was core members only, so the table was considerably more empty as during the last few meetings.

He sipped his coffee, determined to drown himself in coffee before Dumbledore came though. He saw that Prongs was trying to do the exact same thing. Moony, who was used to get up at unreasonable hours, was quietly drinking his tea and smirking at the misery his two friends were experiencing.

When James arrived alone he asked about Lily. She was still not ready to really function in the order again and he couldn't blame her. To loose one's child to the dark was horrible. If anyone knew what it was like, it would be him considering he had to leave his brother behind and watch him grow corrupt. He wouldn't wish it on anyone, especially his best friends.

This meeting good news was promised.

Dumbledore spoke of two potentially great allies.

So despite the early hour and general crankiness, the mood was high. It was the first piece of good news they'd had in a while.

The floo flared and Dumbledore stepped out with Kingsley.

"Good morning all. This morning Kingsley contacted me information on some potentially promising new recruits." Dumbledore nodded to Kingsley.

The man stood and began explaining. "For a few years now, a certain bounty hunter has been tracking down dangerous criminals for the ministry. You may know him, or you may not. He goes by the name Phoenix."

Sirius did know that name. the man had quite the reputation at the department for being a reliable source of information and had a very clean record. Only got seen by a muggle once and immediately contacted the obliviate squat, never any deaths despite how dangerous the criminals he brought in were. Strange bloke, but few cared considering how many cases he closed.

"For those of you who don't know, this bounty hunter is considered an elite by most of the auror department. He might be a little strange, but he know his stuff." That was true, Sirius knew, there were never any contaminated evidence or unnecessary injuries. "He is a well-trained, powerful wizard who has saved lives by doing what he does."

Sirius found himself agreeing, and could see James did as well. Most bounty hunters didn't care about anything other than the pay-check. With Phoenix it was common that he gave the money away to the families of the afflicted to pay for hospital stays and recovery or appointed a charity to donate to directly from the collection office. The man did not seem to keep any more money as he needed.

"Yesterday, he came in with Malcom Friers."

Both James and Sirius sat up immediately. "He found Friers? We put out that bounty not even a few days ago!" Sirius cried out in surprise. Normally the man would go for the ones that the others couldn't find, the ones the department was almost giving up on due to lack of leads. To have such a fresh bounty was rather uncommon for the man.

"It wasn't him that took down Friers. It was his brother who did."

James was surprised, "Wait, there's two of them?"

Kingsley nods, "There are indeed. Phoenix, the original one, told me it was his brothers first hunt."

Sirius was kind of skeptical about that though. "His first hunt was Friers? You've got to be kidding!"

And yet, Kinsley nods. "We went to the scene where they caught Friers and cast the reverse spell. The original Phoenix was hiding in the shadows, presumably to see if his brother's skills would hold up. And they did. Twelve men were taken out in only a minute. No deaths, only minor injuries."

He threw a file on the table. James grabbed it.

Kingsley continues, "And they weren't the soft type of men either. They were all wanted for their own reasons. Breaking and entering, battery, murder, the likes. Like I said, though guys. And Phoenix's brother took them down like it was nothing. They barely got the chance to cast anything in retaliation."

The rest of the core members were looking at the profiles of the men that the Phoenix brothers had brought in, now that James was spreading them out on the table.

"And Phoenix himself is even better. He referred to his brother as his student." Kingsley pulled some more files out of his bag and handed them to the now very intrigued order members. "What I've just given you is the file we have on Phoenix. There isn't much in there besides the collected bounties and speculation. Even though he's been active for years, we've got very little on him."

"What makes you think they'll want to join?" Tonks asks. It's an honest question, and Sirius is curious himself. It was known that Phoenix had shot down an offer made by the minister himself.

"I don't, not for sure at least. But looking into what Phoenix has brought us in, it isn't that hard to see he has a type. Wizards and witches who commit to hurting kids, elderly, muggles. In other words-"

"People who can't protect themselves." Sirius finishes as he realizes what Kingsley is saying.

He nods, "Exactly. And he doesn't discriminate either. He isn't afraid of going after purebloods, or half-bloods of high standing. He's the one who caught Sibinc for us."

"That almost sounds too good." Jeremy, the son of a former order member, mumbles.

"I agree, and yet it's the truth. There have been cases where the spells used were toeing the line of dark, however." There it is. Sirius knew it was too good to be true. "But they were not illegal nor did they cause irrevocable damage. They were used only when there was an incident where he got into a tight spot together with a hostage. A girl of the age of four, trafficked. He casted a certain paralytic spell that was over the line, but the girl would not have survived her injuries if the fight had gone on for much longer."

Damn, he couldn't really blame the bloke for that one, could he? Sirius had to admit, he'd done some shady shit during fights himself and if a kid's life depended on it, he would have blasted the fucker to kingdoms cross himself. No lasting damage be damned.

Though that might be his upbringing rearing its ugly head. Who knew?

"This is very impressive. To take someone like this down, we'd usually bond together." McGian commented. The man was a retired bounty hunter himself, no longer able to fight but still an amazing strategist. "Either this guy is really as good as you say, or the luckiest fella on the planet. Either way, ballsy to play it like this."

Kinsley spoke again, "As far as we know, until yesterday, he never once worked with anyone else. Refused offers of partnership with other hunters. When I asked him about it, he just said they didn't have the same moral compass he did."

Damn, Sirius knew the guy was always seen alone, but never?

"Also an interesting pattern the guy shows it that he is only active on weekends or during holidays. Very rarely during weekdays."

"So this isn't his job, is what you're saying."

Kingsley shrugs, "It's possible, but there is no way to know for sure. No one knows who they are. They just show up with guys who have bounties on them, let us investigate, file the report, and disappear again. Rinse and repeat."

"I do believe we should cast a vote." Dumbledore proposed after another hour of discussion.

The guys had Sirius' vote, that was for sure. And from the looks of it, James had the exact same thought.

Jay and Neville were sneaking out more and more often nowadays. Normally, Jay wouldn't risk it. It just didn't seem logical to risk getting caught and having the fiasco that discovery would mean.

But they were short on time and could no longer wait until vacations for their hunts. Neville needed to learn, and fast. So now, almost every two weeks, they would hunt. Jay guided Neville in the profession and Nev took to it like a fish in the water. And one night that was a little literally, when Nev got knocked into a river. Nev proclaimed it on their 'list of things that never happened'. Which Jay complied with, after she got her fill of teasing, of course.

Jay kept upping the difficulty of the hunts and taught Nev the ropes well. It was nearing summer when Jay was confident enough that Nev could complete a hunt by himself. And he did. He chose his target, tracked him down, prepared the attack, and then took them down.

Jay would never tell him, but the entire time she was sitting in the shadows with a disillusion over herself. The last she wanted was to let Nev think she thought he was incompetent. She couldn't help but worry, however.

After three successful solo hunts, Jay was confident that Neville was ready.

They had a nice dynamic going on, between school, hunts and training.

That dynamic was thrown way of course when Tonks and Kingsley intercepted them at the ministry. When they were led to a small room at the back of the office, Jay got suspicious.

Nev tilted his head in the manner that Jay knew meant he was wondering what was going on. Jay gave him a small shrug. She didn't know either.

Only for her heart to drop into her shoes when James, Sirius and Dumbledore came through the door.

She could feel the panic Neville felt from where she was standing, even though neither made a move. She projected as loudly as she could to Neville, when their eyes met, " Play Dumb." And hoped he heard it. Nev had a natural adversity to Occlumency and Ligilimancy and struggled greatly with it. She wanted to let out a small sigh of relief when he nodded.

For an awkward moment no one spoke.

Jay broke the silence, "So, where do we go from here?" She asked Dumbledore, fully expecting him to know who she was. Why else would he bring Sirius and James?

"Good evening gentlemen. May I introduce you to-" Dumbledore started with a kind voice and a twinkle in his eyes that raised Jay's hackles.

"Cut the shit Dumbledore. We know who you all are. Why are we here? What do you want from us?" Jay interrupts him. She's got absolutely no patience for his petty mind games.

As suspected Dumbledore's eyes harden for a second before the grandfatherly expression returns. "Now, there is no need for any of that, is there?"

And while Jay is wearing a mask, she can make her exasperation clear with a sassy head-tilt and the crossing of her arms.

Dumbledore seems to understand now that his usual approach won't work for them and changes his tone altogether with a sigh. "As you may know, recently there have been whispers. Rumors, about the dark lord Voldemort."

"About his return, you mean?" Jay offers. The man is going a bit slow and beating around the bush and she's doing her best to stay calm. She's not exactly succeeding, however.

They all look shocked. "What? It's writing on the walls. The dark mark has been getting darker again, darker as it has been in well over a decade."

She nods to Neville, "Why do you think I've been training my brother so hard these past few months? We both know it's a matter of time. We're half-bloods, not stupid."

Despite the elder of the two being very rude, Dumbledore was getting more and more eager. Two powerful half-bloods, whom have apparently been training for years to be ready for the next war? Whom have proven that they can both operate in duo's or separate? They would make a great addition.

James and Sirius exchanged glances. Very few people dared speak to Dumbledore in such a manner. The fact that they didn't react in any way to the dark lord's name was uncommon, to say the least. "Did you serve in the last war?" Sirius can't help but ask. It was a stretch, but most who didn't react to his name had served.

Jay shakes her head. "No, we were too young at the time. Our parents served however."

Neville decided to add onto it. They had planned their back-ground story in detail, down to the primary school and orphanage they were supposedly in. "Unfortunately, they met their untimely demise thanks to the dark lord's reign." He looks down a bit. "We intend to return the favor when the time comes." He looks at Jay and sees the small nod and knows his performance of sad orphan was very convincing. He didn't need to act though, only play it up a bit, since he was orphaned by the war. The detail about both of them being half-bloods was just something to ease suspicion. Purebloods were harder to trust in times of war.

"I am sorry to hear that." Liar. The only reason Dumbledore was sad was because there were no other family members he could recruit, Jay thought to herself.

Jay and Nev both shrugged.

"Now I would like to know," Jay starts, "What you want with us. If it's someone you need to… disappear, you're out of luck. We don't work like that."

James shakes his head immediately, "No, no nothing like that!"

"Then what is it like?" Neville demands.

Dumbledore sighs. "During the last war, there was a certain… organization, I ran. With the purpose of-"

"Doing absolute jackshit." Jay interrupts again. "You're speaking of the order of the Phoenix, are you not?"

James jaw drops and even Dumbledore looks shocked they know. "How-"

"Our parents knew about the existence of it. They told us about it. They also told us about the shitshow it was at the best of times." Jay is really laying it on thickly. "And how you accomplished nothing except that you put together a resistance only for people to drop like flies in your ranks."

Jay shakes her head. "And you, with your holier-than-though attitude. You captured death eaters only to let them go and have them go right back at destroying lives." She spits venomously.

"Oh yeah?" Sirius spits in return, "You didn't know what that time was like!"

"Sirius!" James hisses.

"No!" He's shaking with anger and James knows that a rant is about to occur. "We risked our lives for you lot! For the next generation! And how dare you-"

"Oh yes, you risked your lives in a war you started. A war, which robbed us of our parents and had us living in fear for most of our childhoods. A war which was ended by our generation. Only for the older generation to fuck everything up again. With the minister you elected and the corruption that resides in the ministry which robbed us of the best chances of protection we could have had." Jay shakes her head at the audacity of them. "You completely destroy our generation's possibilities for a future and then.. you whine about it when we point it out."

Jay takes a threatening step forward and gets in Sirius' face. "And then you have the audacity to say you're the good guys while you basically could have done nothing and you would have accomplished the exact same as you did running with the Order. Absolutely nothing."

The atmosphere in the small room is hostile and Jay knows Sirius is itching for his wand, but knows that if he did anything of violent nature, he might actually lose his job with his recent track record.

Jay can't help but toss one last jab at the man. "And for the record, I don't care for the opinion of a child cursing piece of shit you are." She sneers, even though the man can't see it, "We don't associate ourselves those types of men."

She turns to Neville. "Let's go." She says and completely ignores the multiple questions that are being thrown her way.

They make their way over to the apparition platforms and return to Hogsmeade.

"Well, that could have gone better." Kingsley can't help but say after the brothers left.

Sirius turns to him, still pissed off, "You think?!"

Dumbledore tries to regain control of the situation and calms them down. It was going to be harder as he thought to recruit the brothers, it seemed. The eldest may be a lost cause, that much anger didn't come from anywhere. He could only hope that the eldest's hatred hadn't tainted the younger one.

Dumbledore clasped his hands together, "That was less than ideal. However, the younger of the brothers was hesitant, perhaps he will be willing to join after all."

Tonks spoke up, "I'm not sure about that. You heard them. From the sounds of it they only have each other, and haven't had anyone else for a while."

James was confused. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Tonks looked a little nervous with all eyes on her now, "Well, I'm just saying. Most duo's have one leader. One makes the decisions, the other listens. And I don't think the younger one is the dominant one. He's younger and less skilled than the elder. He makes the decisions." And Kingsley nods. He remembered that particular criminology lesson well. You take out the dominant one first and the submissive one wouldn't function nearly as well.

Dumbledore could only shake his head. How sad would it be for the young man to be so suppressed by his older brother. The young man hadn't said more as a few words to them, come to think of it. He would make an excellent addition to the order nonetheless. A skilled man who would follow orders to the letter. That would be very useful.

Albus had little doubt that the younger man would eventually come to them. And if it took him tearing the brothers apart, then so be it.

Preperations

Chapter Summary

Sooo this is kind of an in between chapter. Not much happens here, but next chapter a lot of things will be happening.

It was a normal Monday evening when Lucius felt it.

The dark mark on his arm burned and he knew that the times of peace were coming to an end. He looked at his wife and she knew the look on his face. She nodded once and he left the dining table.

When he apparated to the pull he felt he ended up at an old, run-down mansions that might have been beautiful a long time ago. He carefully stepped through the wards and made his way up the stairs toward what had to be the master bedroom.

He dropped to his knees when he reached the single chair in the room. "My Lord." He quietly murmured.

"Lucius." Came a quiet hiss from the chair. "Rise."

He stood up and ignored the impulse to speak in return. It had been a long while since he had to do that, since he was usually the most influential person in the room. However, in the presence of the dark lord, he felt small and driven into a corner.

"It has come to my attention, that you have something of value to give me." The raspy hiss washed over Lucius like a tide and he fought down a shiver.

He remained quiet.

"You can deliver the Potter girl to me."

"Yes, my lord."

"Your son is courting the girl, is he not?"

"Yes, my lord."

He stayed quiet for a while and Lucius fought the urge to break the silence. Merlin know that's a simple way to get cursed.

"Should you… deliver… this girl's trust to me… I might overlook some of your previous mistakes…"

"Thank you my lord."

"But if you do not… your son will no longer be of use to me."

"I will not disappoint, my lord."

Lucius could only hope that he wouldn't. If this failed, he wouldn't have a son anymore.

Neville entered the RoR to see Jay hadn't arrived yet. He snorted. Jay was spending more and more time with Draco, and it seemed she was still rather oblivious to the fact that she was head over heels for the boy.

He had already set up most of the many pieces of parchment on which the steps and possible outcomes to several side plans and goals were written. It wasn't until half an hour later that Jay entered the room. She looked slightly disheveled and had a bruise on her neck.

He couldn't help it and immediately started laughing. Leave it to Jay to discover boys at the start of a nation-wide crisis.

"I know. I know." She mumbled as her ears turned red and Neville kept laughing. "Oh shut up. Don't think that I haven't seen you giving that Lovegood girl the dreamy eyes, brother dear." She said teasingly.

That got him to stop laughing and now he turned red himself. He could deny it, but if Jay had picked up on it, chances were the entire school had noticed by now.

He cleared his voice and got started on the topics they said they left off at last time. It wasn't until the Order came up that they hit a ditch in their plans.

Being invited to the Order had been an unexpected and unaccounted for opportunity. "I think one of us should join." Neville hesitantly proposed.

"Why? It's not that valuable of a resistance."

Neville nodded, "Yes. It isn't. But there is one factor that we overlooked."

"Which is?" Jay had no idea where he was going with this and was genuinely curious.

Neville sat down. "Well, even if they don't do much, they get information from everywhere. See, they had vital information about the death eaters last time, what's to say they won't this time?"

Jay's eyes lit up with recognition as she caught on. "So basically you want to use their intel?"

Nev nodded. "Yup."

"While Albus thinks he's using you… you're gonna use them?"

"See, now you're getting it." Nev's grin is feral and Jay matches it. "This is going to be fun." Jay can't help but agree.

Jay laid twitching in her bed. She dreamt of a hissing voice, a graveyard. Lucius Malfoy was there, along with several unknown hooded figures and Severus. There was a statue of what appeared to be death, if the scythe was anything to go by.

She was yanked from her dreams with a hard twitch. She was breathing hard and looking around to see the closed curtains of her bed.

With a soft sigh, she fell back onto her pillow and dug her hands into her eyes.

The nightmares were getting worse and worse. There was only so much she could do about it though.

For the so many time that month she slipped out of bed and tried not to wake the other girls while sneaking out. She quietly padded outside and made her way towards the forest. Now that winter had passes, the nights had been getting warmer.

"Everything alright?"

Jay startled and flushed at being caught red-handed at sneaking out. She was normally a lot more careful.

She turns to see Severus standing not too far away from her.

"Uhm…" She looks away in shame. Severus was never supposed to see how much she struggled. No one could. And now he'd seen her upset. "Yeah, I'm good. Just…" She doesn't really know what to say.

"I think you and I both know that that's a lie."

Jay rubs her eyes again and tries to come up with a legitimate reason to be out at three in the morning when she has classes tomorrow.

Severus takes the few steps needed to pull her into his arms.

"You know you can tell me anything, right? Does this have something to do with Neville?"

Jay shakes her head. "No. That's not it."

"Does it have something to do with…" Severus looks pointedly at his arm, where Jay knows his dark mark lays.

"Yes." She whispers. "I know he's returning. I've been having dreams about it, Severus."

"Nightmares?"

Jay scoffs. "I wish. It's as if I can see what he's planning. Like we're… connected somehow. I don't know. It might just be my imagination though."

"How long have you been experiencing this?" Severus asks. He's trying hard to keep his voice even, but it was hard considering it may be very possible for his girl to have a connection to the Dark Lord.

"A few months."

Severus sucked in a breath and tried to keep his cool. "Have you ever practiced with occlumency?"

Jay nods. "I have. It doesn't help. It did in the beginning, but it stopped working again recently."

"We'll find something to keep him out." Severus said with a determination he didn't feel. "We'll figure it out. Come on. Let's head back to the castle, you're sleeping in my quarters tonight."

It's two days later that Nev and Jay meet up again in the RoR. They had both been working on their preparations and had been working out at odd hours.

"Severus caught me sneaking out of the castle two nights ago." Jay confesses.

Neville looks surprised. "What happened?" He demands.

"I had a nightmare and got upset, so I left to go to the forest to calm down for a bit. I don't know he must have seen me or something."

"What did he say?" Neville asked, dreading the answer.

Jay sighs. "He knew something was up. I told him about the dreams."

"Anything else?"

Jay rubs her face and sits down. "Nev I think we should tell him."

"What?! No way! After we kept it from everyone for so long, now you want to tell them?"

"Not them. Just Severus."

Nev shakes his head and gets up to pace. "Why? What could he possibly offer that would make everything better? You'd only be putting the plan in danger."

"I know. But since he's my guardian, when I betray the dark lord he'd be in severe danger." Jay reasons, "Besides, he's Dumbledore's right hand man. He knows information from both sides that would make our lives a lot easier."

"Well… Okay, but the dangers still don't outweigh the profits."

"He could be the missing patch we need! When I go missing, he's going to be the one to answer the questions to the ministry, to Dumbledore! And if he says he saw the signs, if he rings the bell and tells people that there is something dodgy going on with me, then it's a closed deal. He's the final piece of the puzzle we need."

"Okay, let's say we tell him, who's saying that he'll go along with it?"

"Are you kidding? He hates both Dumbledore and the Dark Lord."

"Okay, point."

"So?"

"I don't like it, but if you're sure…"

"I am."

Telling Severus

Jay and Draco were spending the afternoon as they had spent many together now. They were laying close to the lake, Jay with her head on Draco's chest and with Draco absently playing with her hair.

It was moments like these that the two were fully at ease. They were hardly the only couple laying in the grass, doing nothing except relaxing and relishing in each other's company.

It was an odd sensation, Jay figured.

The way there were just no thoughts racing through her mind, the way she could only focus on Draco's hand running through her hair, the soft thumping of his chest and the delightfully slow breeze which was blowing over the field.

It wouldn't be long until the last task anymore. And tonight she was planning on bringing Severus to the RoR to reveal the plan. She was not looking forward to either of those things.

"Hey." Draco mumbled softly.

"Hmm?"

"What's wrong? Something on your mind?" He asked.

"Mmm." There went the moment, she thought rather grumpy. "Just thinking about the last task."

Draco scoffs. "Yeah, I guess that is a reason to frown. Have you got a clue on what it would be?"

"No, and that's why I'm worried. What if I don't have enough time to figure something out?" Jay mumbled.

In response Draco shifted so that they were face to face. He gently brushed some locks which had fallen in front of her eyes out of the way.

"Don't worry so much, you'll do fine. You've done amazing in every single task so far." He smiles. "You went up against the most aggressive dragon," He gives her a kiss on her nose, which makes her ears turn slightly red, "You figured the egg clue out well before the next task," He gives her a kiss on the forehead, "You almost killed your brother during the second task," He says teasingly.

"That-" She laughs, "I don't think that's the purpose of the games, to kill your competitors."

"Depends on who you ask." He deadpans.

They both laugh, but it doesn't last.

"Seriously though, you'll do fine darling."

"Darling?" She asks delighted.

Now it's Draco's turn to go red. "I mean-" He stutters.

"It's fine." She assures him. "It's cute." She says and gives him a kiss.

"Hmm."

Eventually it's time to go back inside and eat. Jay wishes she could sit at the Slytherin table, but that was just not done. Instead she sat on her own at the table and started eating without looking at anyone, much less talk to someone.

She is so deep in her own head that when a paper plane lands next to her plate, she almost startles because of it.

Once she picks it up, it turns into a rose. A smile breaks out over her face and when she looks up, she looks into Draco's eyes and suddenly doesn't feel as alone anymore.

With a smile and a faint blush she puts the rose in a glass of water, but before she can an older year boy takes it from her.

"Oh got yourself a boyfriend?" Some older year boy asks. Some of the other boys sitting next to him begin to laugh. "Who would ever want to date the likes of you?" He asks.

"That isn't yours. Give it back." She says, barely containing her anger.

"Make me." The boy smirks, giving Jay a full view of his nasty teeth. It takes a lot of willpower to not hex the boy.

She looks at the perfects but find that they are all turning a blind eye to what's happening. When she looks at the head table Severus is still missing from it. The other teachers are deliberately not looking in her direction.

She sighs.

It's all part of the plan, but sometimes it can be genuinely awful. Instead of fighting she decides it's not worth it. The teachers have been looking for reasons to give her detentions, with the exception of professor Flitwick and Severus. She can almost scoff at how the tables have turned on her since her first year.

"Aww c'mon Snape," He spits the name as if it were an insult, "Are you just going to give up?"

Instead of giving a response, she sends an apologetic look to Draco and grabs her coat. She can still hear them laughing when she's down the hall. She contemplates going to the common room but eventually decides against it.

Instead she heads for one of the abandoned classrooms that she has been using to do certain rituals. It was probably not the best place to hide, but right now she could not care any less. While the books she had used for guidance were no longer there, the candles she had used for the ritual were still there, along with the blackened a wood ash and symbols drawn in red ritual chalk.

It looked rather ominous even though there was little harm done with the ritual. It was mostly for show. Like most of what she did nowadays was.

She sat there until it was time to go and speak with Severus. Dragging her feet, she was tempted to take the long route, but forced herself to take the shortcuts.

When she arrived at the painting for the RoR it looked ominous in a way she had never thought possible. Severus wasn't there yet and the minutes it took for him to arrive felt like hours.

Nev was already in the room, having gone there an hour before. It was the small things that mattered, Jay thought. They could not even be seen standing together in a hallway, lest people get suspicious.

Finally Severus arrived and stopped right next to her. he raised an eyebrow and instead of talking Jay paced three times in front of the painting. The doorway opened and Severus was staring at where the door had just appeared.

"Come on." She hold the door open for him and it shook Sev out of the disbelief he seemed stuck in.

Neville was already seated on one of the couches in the room.

Here goes nothing.

Severus' mind was reeling.

Horcruxes.

The bastard had made Horcruxes.

"And the only way to get to Nagini is if I win his trust."

Something suddenly clicks. "Is that why you've been acting so strange?" Severus asks.

"It is. Like I said, we don't know how many Horcruxes there are and getting to Nagini after we've destroyed some, will be nearly impossible. The snake has to go first."

Severus sighs deeply.

"It's not that I want to do it, but our options are very slim. This is our best bet, I believe."

"Jennifer."

"Yes?"

"Have you ever considered…" Severus licked his lips, "What the dark lord may ask you to do? He may hurt you, he may threaten you or you family. He may even kill you on the spot."

"I have. But it hardly matters. If I don't succeed in killing the snake then there is very little hope. And should we lose the war, then I'm a dead girl walking anyways."

Severus fell silent for a moment and closed his eyes. She was right after all. If the snake was a Horcrux it was already nearly impossible to get to it. The dark lord had already during the last war kept Nagini under heavy security, only letting the monster out when he himself was present. If he had turned her into a Horcrux…

As much as he hated to admit it, they might be right. This might be their only shot at getting to the snake.

He didn't like it one bit though.

He wished that the children in front of him could just be that, children. Even though he knew what it felt like to be in their shoes. It felt like a lifetime ago when he himself had to fight in a war, but he'd been legally an adult. They were thirteen.

And yet.

Severus wanted to scream and rage at the injustice of it all.

They deserved better.

They didn't deserve the war that they had inherited. They deserved to play games, hex annoying children in the hallways and worry about girlfriends and boyfriends.

Instead they were planning a suicide mission which involved committing treason.

And Jay… the things that Severus had done under the rule of the dark lord when he was spying had long since stopped making him sick. And that was one of the worst parts of it. That one day he looked in the mirror and no longer recognized himself. That the things that had become everyday things to him would have horrified him not even months before. He didn't want that for her.

"If you are to be doing this… be very aware that he may ask you to kill for him. That he may torture you, or that he will be targeting the ones you love."

"Sev… I may not be prepared to kill, but I know torture. And I know the fear of losing the people I care about."

Severus snorted. "Do you truly though?"

Jay clenched her teeth and sighed. She suddenly got a mid-gaze stare. "I know torture, Sev. I can see him, in my dreams. Sometimes I am the one getting tortured. Other times I am the one who tortures others." She snorts and looks at him with a darkness present that he recognized all to easily. "I can't decide which is worse though."

Neville had been silent for the most part. "It's alright." He puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes.

"And what do you think will happen when he asks you to kill for him?" Severus can't help but ask again.

"I don't know. I'll have to, won't I? I know I can hurt people, break bones and such. But killing? I don't…"

He looked at his girl again and wondered why this had to happen. Why them? It could have been anyone else in the world, but it had to be them.

In the days afterwards Severus had been rather silent.

His kid was going to infiltrate the death eaters.

His kid had been intentionally sowing doubts about her loyalties for the past year.

His kid had been sneaking around the worst parts of the wizarding world, looking for the most wanted members of the society.

It was a lot to wrap his head around.

The Third Task

It took Severus a few days to come to term with the new information. When he eventually did manage to wrap his head around it, he demanded a demonstration.

That's how Jay found herself sending spell after spell at training dummies, dueling Nev, and getting questioned on all subjects she had studied.

At the end of it her head was pounding. And they still had occlumency to go.

Severus had to admit that she could hold her own, but still needed some practice with someone who knew how to fight dirty. Up until now most of her fights had been when she went looking for one, which gave her the upper hand.

But when she would eventually betray the Dark Lord, that would be different.

Instead of being only the hunter, she too would be hunted. And he could tell she wasn't nearly as prepared for that.

"Enough." He said. Jay stopped sending incendio's at dummies. "You told me about your mind shields?"

"Yes. Are we testing them next?" She asked, slightly out of breath.

"Indeed. Prepare yourself." It was all the warning Severus gave before he casted a legilimens. What he found shocked him. The shields were barely there. He slipped past them with ease and couldn't help but wonder how this happened.

He sorted through memories without anything stopping him, right up until he hit a wall. They were strong shields, but they were not protecting her from anything on the outside, it was more like they were protecting her from something in her own mind.

He gently eased out of her mind.

Jay was breathing heavily, and there was no doubt that she would have a pounding headache. He had used a lot of force to get in initially before realizing there was no need. It was then that a small trickle of blood dribbled from her nose. Severus swore and conjured a handkerchief. He asked the room for a couch and it appeared out of the floor.

He gave her the handkerchief and instructed her to squeeze her nose shut and lean forward. He awkwardly lay his hand on her back and sighed.

It was a few minutes before Jay broke the silence. "What happened?"

"Your mind shields were far less strong as I had thought they would be. Therefore, I used excessive force, which lead to the nosebleed and undoubted a fierce headache."

Jay shrugged, "It's not so bad. I get worse ones from the dreams." She checks once more if her nose has stopped bleeding and when satisfied that it had indeed stopped, waved her wand over her face and disappeared all the dried blood. She looks forward for a few beats. "Were they truly that weak? I worked quite hard on them." She mutters in disappointment.

"The first shield was."

"The first?"

Severus sighs. "You mostly learned occlumency to stop the nightmares, correct?"

Jay nods.

"Well, it appears that you did indeed have strong shields, but not in any traditional way."

"What does that mean?" She asks confused.

"It means that while you outward shields are weak, the ones within you mind are very strong."

Jay is stumped. "I didn't know there was such a thing."

Severus looks pensive and considers it for a moment. "I have heard of it before. Of people who shield off specific parts of their mind, to protect the rest of the minds from it. But the working theory was that the Dark Lord was sending these dreams to you, correct?"

"Yes."

"And the further you build up you shields…"

The penny drops. "The less dreams I got. But how is this possible? Connecting from someone, from within their mind?" She hakes her head. "Never, not in any of the books I read on occlumency, have I come across such a thing."

Severus snorts. "And I've never heard of an animagus form being a magical creature. That should not be possible either." He smirks. "And yet, here we are."

"Right."

Severus walks off to a table and grabs the candle laying on it. "But all jokes aside…" He tosses the candle to her. "We need to work on those shields. The outward ones. And we need to do it fast."

"Okay… What's the candle for?" She twiddles the candle at him.

"As you probably know, the easiest way to build up walls around you mind is when you're relaxed." He points at the candle. "Fire, smoke, ash… you are always drawn to it. You always sit entirely too close to the fireplace. And it's those moments, while I'm worrying about you sitting so close that your clothes will catch fire, that you look the most relaxed."

She nods. "You're right. But what's going to stop me from building my inward shields up even more instead of the outward, since I apparently can't tell the difference?"

"Because I'll guide you."

The next few days Jay is constantly skipping classes.

She knows it's not smart to do, but Sev and her have been spending every waking hour building up her shields as fast as they can.

It felt weird to have someone to teach her things instead of having to figure it all out herself. The only other time she could say that anyone had thought her something, was the person who trained her in physical combat. He was an elderly man who had trained a lot of people before he got sick and was forced to retire. Jay mopped floors for him for months in the gym he ran to get that training.

Needless to say, it was going a lot faster without having to spend hours trying and failing things over and over again until she finally found the right way to do it.

With Sev teaching her, she was making leaps and bounds in her occlumency training.

It was now only days before the third task.

Neville was worried.

After sharing a dorm room with Charlie for three years now, he could tell something was wrong. Charlie had always been the loud one, the one drawing all attention to himself, but now there wasn't even a glimpse of that boy to be found.

Charlie had been bent over the same book for almost four hours now and he still hadn't turned the page. The frown he wore was enough to steer most people into leaving him be. The few who tried to talk to him were ignored and eventually gave up.

Neville had been contemplating for the past hour or so if he should interfere or not. He was leaning towards yes right now. Most of the Gryffindors had already gone to bed, sans Jay of course. She was working with Sev like most days now.

Even Ron and Hermione had gone to bed already. It was just him, Charlie and two older students who were still studying for their N.E.W.T.s.

With a sigh Neville closes the book on shielding spells he was taking notes out of, being careful to put his bookmark where he had left off.

"Charlie?" Neville tries. Just as expected he gets no reaction to indicate that Charlie heard him. With a sigh he gets up and makes his way over to Charlie. He puts a hand on Charlie's shoulder and shakes him gently. "Charlie?"

He startles at the touch and looks wildly around him, as if he had completely forgotten where he was, and that other people existed.

"I think that after four hours of trying to kill that book with a glare, it's not gonna happen mate."

"What?" He asks baffled.

Nev snorts. "I think we should go to bed."

But Charlie shakes his head. "I can't. I've got to get this before Saturday." Charlie shifts and sighs. "Believe me, I'd love to go to sleep, but I can't." Charlie rubs his eyes.

Nev frowns and takes a seat on the free chair next to Charlie. "Why not? Book's not going anywhere."

Charlie snorts. "Considering the possibility that I might die this weekend, and everything else that's been going on, well. Let's just say that sleep is not exactly as easy as it used to be."

It is then that Nev really takes a good look at him. Charlie is a lot paler as he used to be and the bruises underneath his eyes make him think of Jay. It's striking how both siblings seem to wear the deep exhaustion so similarly. Nev just hadn't noticed since he hadn't really paid that close attention to Charlie.

"What are you reading then?" Nev tilted his head to read the title of the book.

"It's uhm-" Charlie grabs the book. "It's about advanced shielding charms. But I can't get them right." He smiles sadly. "Dad's been trying very hard to teach me them, but it's not working, and he just looks so disappointed every time I can't get it right."

"Let me see, maybe I can help." Nev offers. His shielding charms and spells aren't too shabby, if he may say so himself. Sev had even complemented him on it.

Nev peeks at the cover. It's an auror training book. First year if he saw correctly. It's pretty advanced stuff, Nev had to admit.

"So, what's the problem? Wand movement, incantation?"

Charlie shakes his head. "I have no idea. It just won't work for me."

Charlie looks so defeated that Nev honestly feels bad for him. "Can you do it for me once?"

Without another word Charlie picks up his wand off the table and does the incantation and wand movement. From a glance at the book, Nev can tell he's doing it right. But nothing happens. No shield appears, and Charlie looks so sad about it that Nev can almost feel it.

It reminds him of himself, right back when Jay started training him. The shagged shoulders and just waiting to be embarrassed.

"All right, that seems to be in order, nice form by the way." Nev mushes for a second. He walks over to the community bookshelf, where some students had left their old books they no longer wanted. Nev picked up a book that was almost beyond use. The blue cover had almost fully faded to gray and the binding was holding on for dear life.

Nev knew the book cover to back though. It's one of the first ones Jay had him read when he got started. "Give me one sec." He browsed through the book, looking for the right page. When he found it, he turned the book to Charlie.

"Try this one." It was a simple spell. The shield was more of a way to strengthen casting abilities more as actually be a functioning shield. Nev knew it well after having casted the spell a few hundred times.

Charlie looks uncertain, however. "Neville, sorry but-"

"No, come on." Nev cuts him off. "You can do this mate."

Charlie sighs and takes one more good look at the book. He casts the spell.

A see-through yellow shield appeared, about big enough to cover his torso appears. Neville studied the shield. Nowhere near as solid as his or Jay's shields are, but nothing to sneeze at. He could work with this.

"Okay? What is the point of this?"

"Hmm." Neville takes a deep breath. "Well, there is nothing wrong with your magic either. Maybe the difficulty of the spell you were trying is just too high."

"Dad wants me to learn this one though. He says it's important."

That doesn't make lot of sense to Neville though. "Why this one? What's so special about it?"

"According to dad, it will protect me from both magic and inanimate objects. Nothing will come through it."

"Well… you know that there's a lot more spells that can do the exact same thing right?" Nev asks surprised.

"Well I haven't found any." Charlie says sarcastically. "And there's nothing else in the book."

And in that split second Nev made a decision. "Come on."

"What?"

"Come on, get up. We're going." He takes Charlie by the arm and starts to lead him towards the portrait.

"Going where? It's too late, we'll get in trouble." Charlie hisses.

Neville smiles. "Only if we get caught. And for where we're going? I'm going to teach you how to cast a proper shield."

They didn't make a lot of progress that night. Neville racked his brain to find every shielding spell he knew and tried to find one that Charlie could cast. Charlie would try and fail to produce said shield.

Rinse and repeat.

It wasn't until the second night that they did make some progress. By this time Neville had taken out a dozen or so books from his trunk and that were simply working their way through each and every shielding spell or charm they came across.

By book nine, there was success.

Orange sparks left Charlies wand with excitement and they formed a jigsaw puzzle like shield. Nev poked his finger in it and the thing gave away immediately. But still, it had been a shield.

"Sweet! What book did you get it out of?" Nev wanted to know.

"Uhm," Charlie closed the book to look at the cover, "Security for healers, basic skills for in-battle healing."

"Wait really?" Neville asks stumped.

"Yeah, that's what it says." He holds up the book for Neville to see.

"Mate," Nev gets a big grin, "Do you have any idea how difficult those spells are to cast? I hadn't even meant to take that one with me, to be honest."

"Really? It felt easy." Charlie scratches his head. "Honestly, it wasn't that hard. Normally I have to force my magic out when casting spells, this was like letting go of a deep breath."

"Well, congrats mate, seems that we have a winner." Nev clasps a hand on his shoulder.

And for the first time in two days Charlie smiles. "Right. Next step, actually casting the thing strong enough to stop a jelly-legs jinx."

The day of the third task honestly had come both entirely too fast and had taken way too long in the same heartbeat. Since it was a Saturday and the task would be held at 5 pm, the entire day Jay was in a bit of a panic.

Neville was spending the day with Charlie, who had apparently been skipping out on training with James and opted to hang out with Neville instead.

Considering that the entire school just about hated her right now, except for most Slytherins, Jay opted to stay in with Sec and Draco until the task would begin.

After lunch though, Sev sent Draco away. They had some last-minute preparations to do.

"I'll see you at the pitch later." Draco said, followed by a kiss before he made his exit.

"Is everything prepared?" Severus drawled.

"Yes."

"Have you packed everything? Your books, clothes,"

"Everything I wanted to pack, has been packed." She confirmed.

"And the decoy trunk?"

"All in its place. They'll never know that it was planned."

"Good."

They fell into an uncomfortable silence.

"You know, it's not too late to back out, right? You don't have to do this." Severus said, almost pleading not to go through with it. "No one will blame you if you back out."

Jay smiles. "You and I both know that that's not true." She shakes her head. "I'm in too deep, there is no other option left for us. How else could we win this?"

There are a few beats of silence.

"We could join him." Severus says softly.

"Severus!" She stares at him with her mouth open. "You can't mean that!"

"Jennifer."

"Sev, you know I could never." She hisses. "I know that the light leaves a lot to be desired, but dear Merlin! You can't mean that. You've told me of the things that happened during the last war. And, to be frank, I'd rather die fighting that, than just doing nothing."

"You wouldn't be doing nothing! You'd be making a decision, one that might just protect you better as staying with the light will." Severus tries in desperation.

"Sev, be real. The second the war is over, the Dark Lord would kill me. No matter what happens, I'll always be a threat to him, as long as I'm alive." She runs her hands through her hair in desperation. "We're sticking to the plan. And I don't want to hear any more of that 'joining the man who wants to brutally murder me' nonsense, please!"

"That is exactly what you plan on doing! You're actually doing that, tonight!" Severus cries out.

She frowns. "Yes, but by the time I'm no longer useful, I plan on being at least half the country away from him."

"This is madness." Severus says. "This is stupid. Risky. Utterly insane."

She nods in agreement. "It is, but what else can we do? Run? Leave everyone I've ever known and cared about to die? I'm many things, but a coward isn't one of them."

Severus holds back a flinch at the biting tone. He silently wishes Jay had been a coward. That they could run and leave it all behind. He was afraid of going back to the Dark Lord. He was terrified of something happening to Jay and having only himself to blame for it.

"We're sticking to the plan." She says with determination.

When the evening arrives Jay and Sev make their way to the pitch. The silence between them is heavy, but they have nothing more to say.

When they arrive, Jay gets one last hug before they separate. She's the last champion there. She allows herself to sweep over the crowd, trying to find Neville hidden in them. She eventually finds him, but he's sitting next to Luna and the blonde girl seems to take up all his attention.

She almost laughs out loud at it. Leave it to Neville to discover girls when she's quite possibly walking to her death. Honestly.

The other Champions are having a goodbye to their parents who have come to visit for the finale. She tries not to feel a burning jealousy when both James and Lily hug Charlie from within an inch of his life. She mostly succeeds.

It doesn't take long before the crowd is silenced. They're called in one by one.

Krum is called forth first. The crowd claps and cheers for him. Charlie is second. He gets cheered on to, but even louder as Krum. Which is quite impressive considering the applause Krum got was already deafening. Jay is called forth third.

There is a mixed reaction to her though. All Gryffindors are booing and it almost overwhelms the applause she's getting. Her eyes start to sting, and she looks over to where the Slytherins are seated. Draco is there. He's clapping for her though, as is Severus. She decides it's enough.

Fleur comes last. She gets only an applause as well.

Finally, the hedge opens, and Krum disappears inside. A few minutes pass and Charlie enters the maze as well. The next few minutes she has to wait for her hedge to part are nerve wrecking. She can only hope that Charlie somehow doesn't reach the cup first. He's dead if he does.

Finally, her hedge parts.

She immediately sets off in a jog. She knows that she can keep it up for well over an hour. She decides to keep the tactic of taking only right turns. At some point she hears the crowd again, and she realizes that Fleur must now also be in the maze.

After thirty minutes she ran into some minor trouble with a kelpie and a redcap. She got rid of both without too much trouble. When she spots a huge spider however, that's when she gives up on taking only right turns and decides to just continue walking straight. If she doesn't have to mess with it, she absolutely will not.

Not too long after narrowly missing the spider she checks her watch again. 42 minutes in.

She lets out a sigh and is about to turn again when she hears a gut-wrenching howl. Fleur.

Fleur's screaming like she's dying and considering what Jay's come across so far, that's entirely possible.

Jay cautiously pokes her head around the corner, only to see that Krum was the one casting a spell on a person who has to be Fleur.

Jay silently gets into the middle of the passageway and sends a full body binding curse at Krum. With his back turned to Jay, he never saw it coming. The spell he was casting dies down, but Fleur isn't getting up.

She can't stay, however. So instead she casts the same protective spells around them that she did for Charlie in the tunnels during second year and then sends up red sparks. She checks her watch again. 45 minutes in.

She curses and immediately takes off. She has to find the middle of the maze. Any second she wastes could mean the death of her brother.

It's then that the maze changes. One way closes, another one opens.

Shit.

What way had she just come from?

With a sigh she laid her wand flat on her hand and whispered "Chéngwéi Si Nan." Her wand rotated until the tip pointed to her right, indicating where north was. Double shit. The path leading north had been the one to close, and she knew that when she got in the maze that the center was slightly east.

Now, the passageways only lead west or south. Great.

She went west.

She ran for another 15 minutes without running into any creatures and checked every once in a while to see if she was still going the right way.

At the hour mark, she heard something. It was the tskkk noise again that the spider had made when it walked. She sighed. She really didn't want to deal with a spider.

She stuck her head around the hedge and froze. At the end of the path, there was a shimmering blue cup placed on a pedestal.

And opposed to her, at the end of his own path, was Charlie.

Charlie, who had also spotted the cup, and was sprinting to it.

Jay's heart sank to her stomach.

With no plan, she started sprinting to the cup as well. She ran as fast as she could in between de spider's legs, and when it finally noticed her, Jay was ready.

She sent out a diffindo at the spider's head. The spell hit it in two of its many eyes and it sent the monstrous creature into a frenzy. Jay narrowly avoided getting impaled by one of the legs by casting a shield spell right on time. She ran out from underneath the creature and sent another diffindo over her shoulder, aimed at one of its legs. Another screech told her it had hit, and Jay didn't spare a single second to see if it was fully down.

She was running as fast as she could towards the cup, but Charlie was closer.

Both siblings ran as fast as they could, and Jay knew he would reach it first.

So instead of playing it fair, Jay sent a spell at him.

Charlie managed to bring up an orange shield right on time however, but even though he blocked the spell, he was slowed down just a bit at having the powerful spell get thrown at him. Jay sent another his way in the hope of slowing him down further, but this time Charlie was ready. He blocked the spell and sent one right back at her.

She dodged the spell.

They reached the pedestal at the same time.

"Charlie don't!" She yells out in a panic. He doesn't listen.

Charlie grabs the cup.

Jay does too.

Both are whisked away.

Going Dark

Both Jay and Charlie landed heavily on the cold ground in a heap. Jay huffed as she got the wind knocked out of her. The cup had slipped from their grasp during the landing and fell a few meters away from them both.

For a few heavy seconds they were both frozen.

Jay was frozen at the shock that Charlie was here, with her, and Charlie at the sudden change of scenery. A few seconds passed with nothing but their heavy breathing breaking the silence, before Charlie tackled Jay.

"Why?! Why on earth did you do that?! Huh?!" Charlie punched her in the face and Jay was a bit too taken aback to dodge it. "Why couldn't you just have let me take it?! What kind of coward are you to attack me like that?!"

He threw another punch but this time Jay was prepared. She dodged it and flipped them over. Then she sat on him. "Listen. You aren't supposed to be here. We have to get you back." She hisses furiously.

"What?" Charlie asks in confusion. First she wanted to kill him, and now she's worried?

"I said, we have to get you back. Where did the cup land?" She gets off of him and pulls him to his feet. She's looking around wildly and spots the gleaming blue glass of the cup. She grabs Charlie by the collar of his shirt and starts to incessantly pull him towards the cup.

"Let go of me!" Charlie yells at the top of his lungs.

Jay is about to hiss at him to be quiet when she hears a raspy voice hiss, "Bind them."

She can just spin around to see that a man holding what looked to be a bundle of cloth had snuck up on them. With a wave of the man's wand both teens got dragged over to a statue and were bound to it. She hadn't even gotten the chance of defending herself, since she realized too late that her wand was missing.

She twisted around and saw that Charlie was bound equally well. He had dropped his wand at some point apparently, because he was now as wandless as herself.

This was bad, really, really bad.

The hooded man came forward and Jay knew that the bundle the man was carrying was no one other as the Dark Lord.

Charlie was struggling wildly in his bonds, no doubt bruising his ankles and wrists. Jay wanted to struggle as well, but she recognized the spell the hooded man had used. She used it herself often enough when bounty hunting, and knew that there was no way she was getting out of them without the use of a wand.

The hooded man left them for a moment. She was thinking rapidly on how to play this. All she could come up with were half-baked plans. The only thing she could really do right now is go along with it. Charlie was still fighting his bonds with a desperation Jay had to admire. There were tears streaking down his face and he was yelling, begging for an explanation.

She couldn't give him one, not now anyway.

The hooded man returned with a stone cauldron, one big enough to fit a fully grown male. It was full of water. The hooded man raised it over a low burning fire and waited for a few moments for the cauldron to stabilize. He then pointed his wand at the flames and the fire went from smoldering to hip-height in a heartbeat.

The liquid in the cauldron started to boil fast, Jay noted. Charlie was still demanding to know what was happening, what is he doing-

"Silence!" Hissed the bundle from the hooded man's arms.

In his shock, Charlie actually fell silent. "What-" He stammered out fearfully.

"It is ready, my lord." Jay knew that voice. She had heard it many times over in her dreams. It was Wormtail. The traitor.

"Then do it." Hissed the Dark Lord.

Wormtail removed the robes from the Dark Lord and Charlie screamed as he saw just what Wormtail was holding. Jay had to agree with him. The first time she had seen him she had screamed herself awake and it took her a while to calm down from that dream.

She didn't show any emotion when he opened the robes however. No, instead she forced herself to look at the hideous, malformed creature and whisper in awe, "My Lord…"

Wormtail snapped his head up to her, but she only had eyes for the Dark Lord. She stared into the red, slit eyes with any admiration and awe she could manage.

"Jen?" A crying Charlie asked weakly with desperation. She ignored him.

"Begin, Wormtail." The Dark Lord rasped.

Wormtail moved immediately towards the stone cauldron and, after a moment of hesitation, gently lowered the Dark Lord into the cauldron.

He then began speaking quickly, his voice trembling. "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!". At the command, the grave Charlie was bound to split open and a thin trail of white dust rose from it. The trail of dust fed into the cauldron, which changed the coloring from as black as the night sky to a bright, poisonous blue.

Jay swallowed deeply now that she understood. They were getting him a new body. And all she could do was stand there helplessly as they did it. Charlie had finally stopped his wild thrashing and was now looking fearfully at the cauldron. He must get it now too.

When the liquid stopped it's sizzling noise, Wormtail moved on. He retrieved a long, slim dagger from his robes and said with sobbing interrupted words. " Flesh of the servant, willingly sacrificed, you will revive your master!". He put his arm over the cauldron as he said it, and when he ended raised the dagger in a quick fashion.

A second later a splash sounded and then the most horrifying wailing Jay had ever heard sounded from the now one-handed man. He'd cut his hand clean off.

Charlie looked sick and began crying once more. Jay swallowed heavily, trying to swallow the bile she felt rising in her throat at the soul-wrenching howls of pain coming from the man.

For a split second, she actually felt bad for him.

Eventually Wormtail fought his way to standing, all the while cradling the stump where his hand had been. With an effort she had to admire he made his way over to Charlie.

All she could think in that moment was please don't require the heart of an enemy in near hysterics. She could never forgive herself if Charlie died here, because of her stupid mistake, because of her inability to make it first to that damned cup.

Jay stopped breathing when Wormtail menacingly raised the dagger to her brother. Charlie is back to thrashing but they both know it's hopeless. There is nothing either of them can do when Wormtail uses the dagger to make a deep cut on Charlie's raised arm. Blood immediately starts to seep out and Charlie screams.

But that's all Wormtail does. He lets the dagger drop to the floor in a careless manner and retrieves something white from his robes.

It's a piece of cloth, which he uses to soak up the blood that was trickling it's way down Charlie's arm.

Wormtail starts his way back to the cauldron and speaks again. " Blood of the enemy, you will resurrect your foe." And he drops the blood-soaked cloth into the cauldron. Wormtail sinks to his knees in front of it.

Suddenly the fire raises up and in the shades of the fire, the creature raised up. It started to grow and grow, until eventually the flames died down. The figure of a man is visible to them both. He's naked, with scaly skin and bald.

Both Charlie and Jay stare frozen at the man.

"My wand." Commanded the man. The voice was no longer raspy or weak. It held a power to it and it gave Jay goosebumps.

Wormtail gave the man his wand as commanded, and the man swung it in a circular motion over his head. A robe appeared on his naked body, and he finally turned to face the teens.

Lord Voldemort had risen again.

Neither of them dared to speak.

The Dark Lord inspected her, but only her. For some reason he seemed to have no interest in Charlie whatsoever, he didn't share him so much as a glance.

They stared into each other's eyes for what felt like forever until Wormtail broke the moment.

"My- my Lord?" A soft whining came from the pitiful display of a wizard.

Their eye contact broke and the Dark Lord looked down upon Wormtail. "Your arm, Wormtail."

"Oh," The man gasped in relief, "Oh thank you my Lord, thank you…" He raised his stump to the Dark Lord.

"Your other arm, Wormtail."

Wormtail chocked, but did as he was commanded with a whimper. The Dark Lord touched the tip of his wand to the faded gray of the Dark Mark. Upon contact it bloomed into full blackness once more.

"Now they'll know, they'll all know…" Wormtail whimpered.

"I do wonder… who will have the courage to return… and who will be foolish enough to have turned their backs on me…" Suddenly he twisted around, his red slit eyes focusing on Jennifer.

"You are standing on my father's remains, child. Do you see the house on top of the hill?"

She nods.

He continues, "My father lived there. My mother, she was a witch from village, she fell in love with him. He left her, though, when he discovered what she was… he left her and turned his back on her, before I was ever born. But I swore I would wreck vengeance upon the fool whose name I was given."

Jay remained quiet and wondered where he was going with this.

"But now, my true family returns."

It was then that black smoke appeared and they left behind people in, what Jay recognized as death eater robes.

Okay, all things aside, that was kind of cool, she had to give him that.

The hooded figures slowly walked towards the Dark Lord, as if they couldn't believe what was happening. Like the dark mark suddenly turning black once more had been a lie. Now they couldn't do anything besides believe.

One of the death eaters fell on his knees before the Dark Lord. "My lord… my lord…"

One by one the death eaters did the same. The death eaters got up and formed a circle. They left several places in the circle open, though.

"Welcome my friends. Twelve long years have passed, and yet, here you stand before me. As if it were only yesterday. But I am, however, disappointed. Not one of you tried to find me."

The air was tense. Every single one of the death eaters knew that they were in trouble. Even Lucius and Severus, who Jay could identify alone. For some reason, Jay felt better knowing Severus was with her, even though she knew that there would be noting the man could do to protect her from the madman.

"Twelve long years…" He started once more. "And the only one who tried, was Wormtail."

One of the death eaters dropped to the ground once more. "My Lord, please, forgive us! My Lord…"

" Crusio!"

Within a split second the death eater was on the ground, twitching uncontrollably and screaming in what had to be agony.

Jay had never seen it cast before, but it was sickening. The way the man was screaming was even worse as she could have imagined. It was only a few seconds but it felt like an eternity until the spell was lifted.

Charlie was frozen in fear. He had just seen Voldemort rise again.

He had just seen Voldemort torture one of his own followers.

His arm throbbed in pain and he idly wondered if he was light headed because of the wound or the fear. He guessed it was a combination of them both.

He wondered if he would die here, tonight.

There were twelve of them, and one of him. Jay wouldn't help him, he knew.

He was injured, bound and he had lost his wand.

Charlie had always known that there was the possibility that he would die at the hands of the dark lord, but it had been something abstract. Like a story he had been told that he would be the knight in armor, savior of the Wizarding world.

Right now though, the reality of it came crashing down on him.

He had to do something, or he was going to die.

He took a few deep breaths, like his teachers had taught him and blinked rapidly. The previous tears which still stained his face, had started to dry despite the cold dampness of the graveyard.

He concentrated. He knew where his wand was, and where the cup had landed.

It was a good 30 meters away, down the hill. His wand was behind the white marble statue at about halfway there.

He swallowed.

The chance that he would make it there before being mowed down was slim to none. Except if he had a head start. He looked at the Death Eaters and noticed that they were all focused on their master. And Voldemort was focused on Jay.

Gently, just like he had been taught, he started to wiggle his tied together hands. The blood that was smeared all over his arms was actually working in his favor and he could tell that the ropes were slightly looser if he held his arms higher.

He might actually be able to slip out of them if he had enough time.

"…and now, I do believe it is time for you to choose, my dear child." He heard Voldemort say.

Immediately he stopped his wiggling.

Voldemort had released Jay from her bonds. She was standing there, staring at the stretched out hand that Voldemort extended to her.

And when she took his hand, Charlie knew it was over.

Voldemort let her by the hand towards the circle of Death Eaters, and one with blond hair gently received her from his Lord.

This was it.

This was his moment.

He put his hands as high as they could go and wiggled until his hand was passing through. He was sure that he cut off the blood flow to his hands for a few seconds, that was how hard it was to get them out. But he managed it.

A quick glance at the Death Eaters showed that they were still distracted.

Without making a sound, Charlie slipped behind the gravestone, thankful that despite the dampness of the field, the ground was solid.

He slowly snuck past, going from gravestone to gravestone.

He could see his wand at the next grave.

"He's gone!" Charlie heard the cry and knew he'd been made.

Before they could organize themselves he dove for his wand and took it in a tight grip. He didn't stop.

He felt more than saw the spell coming his way and dodged it right on time. His robes caught on fire and the gravestone that was hit instead of him was obliterated.

He dashed forward and threw himself down the hill.

When he rolled face upwards he saw a barricade of spells pass over him.

He rolled farther down the hill and dove for the cup. That beautiful crystal cup that would take him back to safety.

As he reached it he heard an enraged scream. It was Jay. She threw a spell at him, but he was already gone.

Back to safety.

Separated

When James saw Charlie return with the cup, he was overjoyed. The crowd erupted into applause and cheers, all for his boy. Charlie had won the tournament, despite being one of the youngest.

His face fell however when Charlie looked around wildly. Then James noticed the blood on his sleeve and the fire. Charlie's robes were on fire!

Sirius had apparently noticed at the same time and both sent a jet of water at the boy, soaking him and putting out the fire. When Lily, James and Sirius reached him, they noticed he was shaking badly and silent. The wild look in his eyes scared James. It reminded him of looks people would wear when something bad had happened, but they could process it yet.

"Charlie? Are you okay?" James asked and took Charlie's arm. The cut was deep and it was no doubt the reason his son was looking so pale. The wound was still slowly seeping blood, his sleeve was dripping water mixed with the blood.

"POPPY!" James heard Sirius howl.

"It's okay son, everything will be fine." He sat behind his son and held the boy's hand up. Lily was quick to transfigure a cloth and pressed it to the wound, slowing the bleeding. A quick glance told him that Poppy was hurrying across the field towards them. The silence from Charlie was starting to worry him though. What on earth had happened?

Poppy reached them and demanded to see the wound. When Poppy waved her wand to clean up the area around the wound, there were two things James noticed immediately. One; the wound was deep enough that James could see bone. Two; the wound was very straight. There was no way he had gotten that injury by accident. There would be an unevenness to it that James knew from experience. Which led him to the conclusion that someone had done this to Charlie, on purpose.

When Poppy tried to heal it, the wound didn't close all the way. A second try and it got smaller still, but not a bunch. James knew what that meant, too. Illegal magic. There was a reason that certain spells were legal and certain spells weren't, even if they did the exact same thing. Some just weren't possible to heal easily, if at all. It was a third clue to let James know there was something seriously wrong.

Dumbledore had remained silent while Poppy worked. He didn't fight with Poppy when she demanded that Charlie be transported immediately to the hospital wing for further treatment.

"James, Lily, take Charlie to the hospital wing. Sirius, get Kingsley and Cowan to help escort him there. Do not leave his side. I'll address the crowd." Dumbledore instructed. James wasn't about to fight him and Poppy for it.

Sirius sped off to get Kingsley and Cowan, while James and Lily helped Charlie to his feet under the watchful eyes of Poppy. Charlie was swaying on his feet and both Lily and James wrapped an arm around his back to steady him.

They started making their way to the main building and were joined shortly by Sirius who was followed by Kingsley and Cowan.

Once inside they laid Charlie up in the closest bed. Poppy, who had hurried off into the office, returned with a whole bunch of potions. Some James recognized, like blood replenishing potion, others he didn't.

Charlie had slowly started crying and hadn't stopped shaking. He also still hadn't said a single word. It worried James more as the wound did at this point. What on earth had happened in that maze?

It wasn't until Dumbledore stormed into the hospital wing when Charlie changed. He seemed to shrink into himself. "Young Mr. Potter, what happened in the maze?" Dumbledore demanded. It pissed James off quite a bit, couldn't he see that Charlie was horribly upset and hurt?

"He's back." Charlie croaked out in such a small voice that James almost thought he imagined it.

"Who's back?" James asked baffled.

"Voldemort."

James didn't know what to say and neither did Lily it seemed. Was he really back? It couldn't be, could it?

"Did he do that to you?" Dumbledore pointed at his arm.

James expected a yes. Instead Charlie shook his head. "It was Pettigrew. He- he did this. He needed my blood for the ritual… for Voldemort to return." James swallowed a lump in his throat.

"The cup was a port-key. It took us to a graveyard." Charlie continued.

"Us?" Lily asked quietly.

"Jennifer and I." Tears rolled down Charlie's cheeks and he used his sleeves to dry his face some. "She-" Charlie sobs. "She joined him. She didn't even hesitate. Just took Voldemort's hand and- and s- she didn't even look at m- me anymore."

He broke into sobs again and all James could do was hold him close. James locked eyes with Kingsley. The pity in his eyes made James burn with shame for Jennifer. Had he known what kind of monster he would raise, he would have drowned her at birth.

"O- once Jennifer had taken his hand, n- no one paid me any attention anymore. I slipped through the bonds and made a break for it. I reached the cup just in time. She threw a spell at me… they all did. One of hers hit a tombstone next to me. It- it blew up. She was trying to kill me. They all tried to kill me." The last sentence was mumbled into his shoulder.

"Do you know where it was?" Kinsley inquired.

Charlie was silent for a few moments before he nodded. "He started telling Jennifer about his father, how he lived in the house uphill. I think he might have said that we were standing on where his father was buried."

Dumbledore looked at Kingsley. "Gather the Order. The graveyard he speaks of is Little Hangleton graveyard."

"On it."

By the time the Order arrived, they were long gone.

Jennifer stood on the astronomy balcony of Malfoy manor. She wondered how Charlie was dealing with it all. Merlin knew she was struggling.

The last few hours had made her head spin. The terror that she had experienced was something she had never felt before. Not even the first time she went criminal hunting, or went out after dark. Nothing compared to the sheer terror she felt at being in the mere presence of the Dark Lord.

Despite the few hiccups in the start of the plan -thank you Charlie, for giving me a bloody heart attack- everything had gone rather smoothly after he escaped.

After sending away all of his Death Eaters except for Malfoy senior and Severus, he had asked her if she regretted anything.

"The only thing I regret is that I failed to kill the pest that I unfortunately share blood with, my lord."

Shame washed over her in a way she couldn't really put into words. She loved Charlie, and seeing the acceptance on his face when she basically stabbed him in the back hurt.

She braced herself on the railing and closed her eyes. Keeping her shit together was essential. One misstep could mean the end for her and Severus. She wondered if the Order had noticed by now that Severus hadn't answered their summons.

There was a lot on her mind, needless to say.

"Hey." A soft voice came from behind her.

She jumped up, wand in hand and stopped dead in her tracks. It was Draco. "How?"

"The teachers let some of the students go home earlier. The ones whose parents could come pick them up were free to go." He explained. "Father told me what you did today." He smiles.

"It is an honor to serve." She says. She tries to sound convincing. "How could I refuse to purge the Magical world of the… plague that faces us?"

Draco smiles and puts a hand on her cheek. "Are you okay?"

"Just fine." She lies. He doesn't fall for it.

He leans into her and whispers. "Be careful. The walls have eyes here. If you want to talk, follow me." She knew that already. Severus had warned her in the few moments that they had before she was sent away.

He grabbed her hand softly and leads her through corridors. He dodged everyone and Jay just let herself be led to she doesn't know where.

They eventually end up in a tunnel that leads under the manor. They are silent for a few moments. "Do you," Draco starts, "Do you really agree with – him?"

"Draco…"

"You know mother and father have been arguing a lot lately… I think mother wanted to leave." Draco licked his lips and looked around paranoid. "I think… I think I'd join her." He whispers. He sounds terrified, and he's right to be afraid.

"I would love to leave, to pretend that what's happening isn't happening. But it is." She looks him in the eyes, the low light their lumus are giving off making his eyes gleam even more than usual. "There is no running from what's happening. And my options were to join him, or die in that graveyard."

Draco sucks in a breath. Right, he probably hadn't known that. It didn't matter though. "There are quite a few moments in my life that I wish were different." She sighs. "We can try to live a beautiful lie, and eventually die, or face the ugly truth. And maybe someday things will be okay again. And I've never been one to put my head in the sand and pretend that everything is all right."

She squeezes his hand and looks away. "It was the only thing I could think of, you know? I've grown up with the knowledge that he would one day rise again, and that I would have to choose a side in the coming war. I never imagined it being so difficult to make the right call though."

She smiles at him. "After all, the dark is very seductive."

Draco's brow furrows. "Wait… so you're-?"

"It will make sense someday, Draco. I'm afraid it's all messed up now. And one misstep could mean the end for me." She huffs. "Do you hate me? For misleading you?"

He remains quiet. The disbelief is practically rolling off of him in waves. "It would be okay if you did, you know. I wasn't fair to you."

"Was it real?" Draco asks. "Did you ever even care?"

"Of course it's real." She smiles sadly. "I'll admit, it started out as a… rouse, of sorts."

She places a hand on his cheek, forcing him to look her in the eye. "But then the Yule ball happened. And you danced with me the entire night. You were so handsome, so… genuine in your interest in me." She rubs over the back of his hand. "You were the perfect gentleman to me. You paid me attention, and I never had to wonder if it was because you felt obligated to."

She looks at him again. There are tear tracks running down his cheeks. "It's real. I promise, however much I butcher the truth to fit the narrative I need, this is one hundred percent real, what I feel for you."

He pulls her into a hug, the likes of which he'd never given her. It was desperation, hope, sadness and love rolled into one tight squeeze of their bodies. Jay hugged back just as strongly. Jay starts sobbing quietly, holding on to him for dear life.

She didn't know what she had done to deserve Draco, but it didn't matter to her. She had him, and he had her.

Charlie sat on the roof of Potter mansion. The stars shone brightly and the air was dry.

Since his revelation of the return of Voldemort, his parents had been in non-stop meetings with the Order. As usual, his parents had left him out of the loop on what was going on. It wasn't fair. He should be in there, if not helping then at least listening.

It was his fate to save the world. how could he do that when he was never permitted to attend those meetings? 'To keep him out of the gory talk' like his parent's war wasn't about to become his war as well. The dark wouldn't care that he was a child, they would kill him regardless. They wouldn't wait until the day he turned 17 and then start looking for him.

They had sent him to bed, like a child. He just wished they would make a choice. Was he an adult, one who should make his own decisions? Or was he a child?

He was getting sick of people swapping back and forth between them to whichever fitted them best at that moment.

Besides, sending him to bed? Every time he so much as closed his eyes he was back at the graveyard. There wasn't a whole lot to do about it either. Dreamless sleep was only a temporary fix for his problems, not a long term one.

He wondered where Jennifer was.

He knew in the back of his mind that Jennifer had tried to kill him, and probably hated him. And yet he couldn't get the picture out of his head of years ago. They might have been 6 or 7 at the time. Charlie had fallen and scraped his knees. Jennifer had ran as fast as she could back to the house to get their parents and had later made him a big bowl of ice cream. Where those times had gone, he didn't know.

He just hoped that wherever she was, that she was safe.

Charlie knew that if the war were to break out before his 17 birthday, his chances to be any help were slim. No matter what his parents said, Charlie knew that if that happened, he was screwed. And it was about to become reality.

So maybe it was for the best that Jennifer was with him.

At least she would be safe when he inevitably died.

Weeks Going By

Jay woke up at 7 in the morning. Her eyes were gritty. She'd been crying in her sleep again, like she often did nowadays. The dreams she had of the graveyard had started to mix with the nightmares from killing Quirrell.

With a sigh she got up out of bed. How she had ever functioned on this few hours of sleep was a riddle to her. She got a good 5 hours this night, having woken up not just once from nightmares. It was getting to the point where she was even more tired when waking up as when she went to bed.

Still she sucked it up and moved to the shower.

Severus had been gone for a while, but he'd returned yesterday. It was a relief. While the Malfoys had been taking care of her and helping her to stay out of trouble, they weren't Severus. And while she logically knew that there would be little that he could do to keep her safe, it still felt better when he was there.

She sighed.

Despite the fact that there had been few issues, it was frustrating to be here. She knew she had to bide her time, wait for just the right moment, but she'd been here for 19 days now, and there was still no sign of Nagini anywhere.

Besides that, there had been more and more Death Eaters gathering at the manor. Jay was afraid of what was to come. Voldemort was planning something big.

She got out from under the shower to find that an owl had left the Daily Prophet on her desk. She wondered what the headline this time was. Dumbledore had been trying to get people to believe that Voldemort had returned. His pleas were falling on deaf ears however.

Just like she had thought, the Ministry was infiltrated. The Minister was either dirty or stupid, or perhaps both.

The man was doing everything he could to discredit Dumbledore, and while in any other case Jay would have found it hilarious, it was greatly impacting their chances to win the war. And besides that, Fudge was trying to discredit Dumbledore and Charlie. The man had even gone as far to implicate that they were both insane.

She had to admit, she hadn't thought that Fudge would go that far to get what he wanted.

Though, she supposed, jealousy and greed could do awful things to a person.

The only good thing that had come from it was that Jay knew that Charlie was alive. There had been pictures taken by the press that had shown off the thick white bandage on her brother's wrist.

The press was convinced that Charlie had done this to himself. There had been speculation, but then a reporter had caught an interview with a mind healer who claimed to be treating Charlie. They claimed that Charlie had tried to kill himself, and that he was a danger to himself and others. When she read that, her blood boiled. It was probably a blatant lie. But she knew that people would believe it.

They would rather believe that their precious boy-who-lived had tried to kill himself and had mental problems, than the truth.

It pissed her right off.

She sighed again and shook her head. She got dressed and went down to the dungeons, where Severus would undoubtably be. She kept her head down and avoided any Death Eaters as she went.

"Hey. I heard you were back." She says softly, so as not to startle him.

Severus doesn't immediately look up from the potion. That's okay though, the work was probably delicate. When he turns around, he smiles tightly at her and draws her in for a hug.

From how tightly he holds her, she can tell that he needs it just as much as she does. Neither of them really want to be in the manor, or anywhere near the Dark Lord.

For now though, they are safe. Together.

23 days had gone by since the graveyard, and it still wasn't any easier. Most nights Charlie woke up screaming, causing his parents to barge into his room at least once per night.

Charlie waited and laid in his bed for the sun to come up. Not even a month ago, there was nothing better as getting to sleep in. Now though, the only thing that nighttime brought was terror and despair.

His eyes were heavy but sleeping again wasn't an option. Instead he got up and went downstairs to the gym. Mom was still asleep, and dad hadn't been home for the last four days. He wouldn't be disturbed for at least a while.

While still in his pajamas he got one of the training dummies out. His training had all but stopped as the people that usually trained with him had other, more important things to do. Then his arm gave a throb of pain.

He sighed, already knowing that today was going to be trash. He glared at his arm and the thick, ugly scar that was there.

It had fully closed up by now, but somehow he still felt pain in it. They had gone to the hospital with it, and he'd been told there was no physical reason for him to feel pain in it. The healer had basically told him it was between his ears, which, great.

On top of that, somehow the papers had found out about it and spun the story that he had cut his own arm open, that he'd tried to take his own life. Despite the anger that Charlie felt at being pitied by everyone who didn't believe that Voldemort had returned, even he had to admit that things didn't exactly look in his favor. It didn't make it any easier however.

His parents had tried to hide it from him, what people had said. Ron and Neville had told him what was happening.

With his bags under his eyes and the deep scar on his arm, coupled with the burden that was his training and his sister having mysteriously disappeared, people thought that he'd had some type of breakdown. After the picture at the hospital had ended up in the newspaper, he'd been forbidden from leaving the house.

Normally he would have been upset at something like that, but the last time he went into public he'd been swarmed by reporters and only got pitying looks from everyone else.

"He was too young." They would whisper when they thought he couldn't hear them. "How could his parents have let him try that?" Like it was his parents fault that he was in this shit.

There was a soft thumping noise coming from the ceiling.

Mom was up. Great. She'd been overprotective to the max the last few weeks. It was suffocating and if she caught him up again this early, he'd get another lecture on the importance of sleep. If got that lecture again, there was a chance he would actually properly loose his shit.

It wasn't like it was his fault that he had nightmares and got bored from lying awake in his bed doing nothing.

Then he remembered that Sirius was coming by today and his mood went from bad to worse. Just the thought of Sirius coming by and making jokes, trying to cheer him up was almost enough to just lock the door and not open it until the man fucked right off.

Sirius didn't seem to understand that Charlie was in no mood to be happy or get cheered up. He had every right to be angry and sad right now, and Sirius just didn't seem to get that. He didn't want to get cheered up, he didn't want to play quidditch or anything of the like.

He was tired of everyone and wished that people would just leave him be for a while. He heard his mother go down the stairs and he just wished that he were anywhere but here. He and mom had been having fights nearly daily at this point and he was just exhausted thinking about it.

And then he decided that dealing with everyone's shit was the last thing he wanted right now. So he locked the door. And then he pushed one of the closets in front of the door. Fuck it, he'd deal with the consequences later.

When Lily woke up the first thing she did was check on Charlie. She'd been growing more and more concerned about him as weeks went by.

As she checked Charlie's room, it confirmed what she thought. Charlie was already up. He'd been rather rebellious as of late and Lily was at her wits end with him. How she wished that James were home right now. After feeling the bed and feeling that it wasn't even warm anymore, Lily was angry. Yet again, Charlie hadn't listened to her. Charlie had started to look worse and worse over the days, and no amount of encouragement or punishment could get him to see that he needed to sleep.

He was probably just sitting around, looking angry. The only thing that kept Lily from despair was the fact that Sirius was coming down today, as were multiple Order members for a meeting. Plus James would return from his work today.

She sighed and made her way down the stairs. "Charlie? Where are you?" She called out. She didn't expect an answer, he never answered and rather stared at a wall as pay any attention to her.

"Charlie?" She stopped in front of the training room. When she tried the door knob, it confirmed her suspicion. She gently put her head against the door and did her best to keep herself from screaming. "Charlie, please open the door." She asked.

Like so often nowadays she didn't get an answer. "I know you're in there Charlie. In an hour Sirius will be here. I need you to come out before then, all right?"

No answer again.

She gives up and goes to make breakfast.

She wished James were here.

Convincing his grandmother that going to the Potter's was a good idea was surprisingly easy. When he said that Charlie and him had grown close after what happened with Jennifer, there was a glint of something that he'd seen very rarely in her eyes.

It was pride.

Within the hour he was sitting by the floo waiting for Sirius to pick him and his grandmother up.

Only when they arrived Charlie was nowhere to be found. They eventually find Lily in the kitchen.

"Lils, where is Charlie? Is he okay?" Sirius asked with worry.

"He's blocked himself in the training room. He refuses to come out, or talk to me at all."

Sirius swallows. "Could you give us a moment?" He asks Neville and his grandmother.

Nev nods and walks out of the kitchen. The door is shut behind him. Behind the closed door he can hear Sirius whispering and Lily speaking disturbingly monotone. They both stand there awkwardly for a few moments before his grandmother ushers him to go find Charlie. "I'll come find you once the meeting is over dear."

He walks around for a bit and comes to a stop before the door that leads to the training room. He knocks on the door and isn't surprised that Charlie doesn't open up.

"Charlie mate, it's Neville. I came here with Sirius and Gran, to keep you company while the Order meets."

He still doesn't get an answer and he gets the feeling this might take a while.

"Look mate, I get that things are hard right now. And that I have no idea what you're going through. But mate, everyone's been really worried, you know? Even Gran worries about you." Neville slides to the ground next to the door. "I can't say that I know what it's like to have your own sister do all those things to you, to be betrayed by your own blood like that. But she was my friend. And she betrayed me as well."

"Please leave me alone. I don't want to talk right now." Comes the muffled voice of Charlie from behind the door.

Neville swallows as he hears how defeated the other boy sounds. Guilt buns in him, but to tell Charlie the truth could mean Jay and Severus' end. It doesn't do much to help lift the scummy feeling, though.

"All right mate. I'll leave you to it then."

When Jay woke up in the morning, she could feel something was different. There was a certain nervous energy hanging around, and she was anxious to find out what was going on.

She skipped her morning shower and threw yesterday's clothes on. The sun had risen not to long ago, but it didn't really matter if it had or not to her. she spent most of her day sticking close to Severus whenever he was there, and if he wasn't, she stuck by Lucius or Narcissa.

When she reached her destination she could hear Severus and Narcissa having a quiet and rushed conversation.

"Uncle Sev?"

The whispered conversation came to a halt. Both adults twisted around to face her. in between them a big cauldron, used for mass-making certain potions, was bubbling away with a viscous orange liquid in it.

"What's going on?"

Sev and Narcissa look at each other. "We have to tell her."

"Narcissa-"

"It's going to happen, and chances are that the Dark Lord will want to house them here. We have to prepare them."

Sev sighs in defeat and furrows his brow. He looks like he hadn't slept all night, and it worries Jay immensely.

"What's going to happen?"

"Jennifer, dear, the Dark Lord is planning an assault on Azkaban."

Immediately her eyes shoot to Sev for confirmation, and received it.

"But- but I thought that the Dark Lord wanted to remain unnoticed for a while longer." She asks confused.

"Which will happen. Lucius ensured that the Ministry won't do anything." Severus says.

"Do we know who will be broken out?"

"No, but there is the suspicion of course. The inner circle members who are currently locked away are likely to be broken out." Narcissa says. "But that isn't important, the who. The point is, that within the next day or so, there will be many, very dangerous people joining us. You need to ensure that you will never be alone with them. Do you understand, Jennifer? They will likely try to kill you, or hurt you otherwise. These people have been locked up in Azkaban for most of your life, they were insane when they went in, and now... There is no telling what they will do."

Jay can feel herself nodding, but her thoughts are far away.

This was about to become even more dangerous.

Azkaban

Charlie woke in the middle of the night to his mother storming into his room. "Mum?" He mumbled. For once he'd been asleep, but after his mum threw his covers off and frantically told him to get dressed, he was wide awake.

"Mum, what's going on?" Were they under attack? Were they in danger?

"There's been an incident. There is an emergency Order meeting in 5 minutes. Meet me downstairs as fast as possible." His mother rattled as she sped out of the room.

Charlie pulled his pants up and grabbed the first shirt he saw before taking off after his mum. "An incident? Did someone get hurt? Is dad alright?"

"I don't know." Lily's voice rang from the kitchen. "I only just got the patronus. I don't know, we just have to hurry."

Charlie did just that. He pulled on his shoes, not even bothering to zip them up before his mother ushered him to the fireplace.

In a flash of green fire, they were in the Order's headquarters. The Longbottom's were already there. Right behind them the first of the Weasley's started to arrive. Sirius was standing in his bathrobe and disheveled hair. Normally Charlie would try to joke about the state of his hair, but even Sirius looked worried. What happened?

Just then, his mum dragged him from his thoughts and ordered him upstairs. He sighed and did as he was told. There was no point fighting about it. There was no way that the Order was going to let him attend even if it could potentially save his life.

"C'mon mate." Neville said, after shooting a look over his shoulder at the kitchen where his grandmother had disappeared off to.

Together they all went upstairs. There was a heavy silence as they made their way towards where they knew the guest rooms were. Once they settled down the silence was broken by Ginny.

"What do you think happened? Did your mum tell you anything?" She asked Charlie.

"No," He shook his head. "She tells me jack. But this time even she didn't know what was going on."

"Got a patronus message and then turned everyone's bed upside down if you didn't get out fast enough?" Ron grumbled.

"Might as well." Charlie let out a small smile at the grumpiness. Then he sobered again. "You don't suppose something happened to dad, right?"

He was met with silence. It appeared none of them had considered it that his dad was supposed to be back from his mission two days ago and hadn't come back yet. "You don't think-"

"No." Neville interrupted. "Not to be rude, Charlie, but the disappearance of one Order member wouldn't warrant everyone being roused at," He glanced at a clock, "2:50 in the night." He shook his head. "It has to be something big. Something that can't wait. I know Gran hasn't been in the Order for long, but has anything like this happened before?"

Charlie thought for a moment. Order members had gone missing before and it would be discussed at least when the sun had risen. Still, he couldn't quite let the tension go. It was still possible that whatever happened, had injured or killed his dad.

The room fell quiet again.

The adrenaline from earlier slowly ebbed away while they listened to the muffled voices coming from downstairs.

Charlie started to shiver. Only now did he notice that he was only wearing a t-shirt. Before he could get up though, Neville tossed him a blanket. He shot a look of gratitude at the other boy. Before long Fred, George, Ron and Ginny left to the other bedrooms for some sleep. It was clear that the Order meeting wasn't going to be over any time soon.

Still, despite the hour, Charlie couldn't even imagine trying to sleep now. He was sure that his dreams would take the nightmarish route before long. He glanced over to Neville. He didn't appear to want to sleep either.

Charlie wondered what kept him up. Neville had bags under his eyes as well, though not nearly as bad as Charlie had. It appeared that since Charlie saw him last, he'd hit a growth spurt. The other boy now stood a good ten centimeters over him and had lost nearly all the baby fat he still had last year. When he pushed his dark locks back and out of his face it made his forming muscles tense in a way that made Charlie's heart skip a beat.

Neville caught him staring and Charlie quickly adverted his gaze. "You alright?" Neville asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, just worried, you know." He stammered out.

"Yeah, I can get that." Neville sighed. "Anything I can do?"

Charlie snorted. "I don't think you can get neither my dad, nor Jennifer home."

Upon hearing Jennifer's name Neville startled a bit. But then he just hung his head. "No, I suppose I can't."

Shit. He was acting like an arsehole for no reason. This was Neville, one of his best friends. Why was he being so prissy to him?

"Sorry, I don't know- I didn't mean to be-" He started to apologize.

Neville waved him off though. "Don't worry about it. I know you're stressed the hell out. Anyone would be."

"But still-"

"Charlie," Neville interrupted, "I get it. You don't have to apologize."

Charlie raked a hand through his hair.

"Do you want to try sleeping?" Neville asked.

Charlie huffed. "Do I look like I want to try sleeping?"

Neville nodded. He looks in thought for a second. "I recall there being a chess set next door. Want to play a game or two?"

"Oh. Yeah." Charlie blinked. He was so used to everyone giving him shit for staying up, that just the acceptance took him slightly by surprise.

Silently they moved to the other room. They shot each other amused looks when they heard Ron's snores all the way down the hall. They knew fully well just how loud he could get.

Before long they were deep in thought at the game. They talked about stupid things like Quidditch and the new Rock Rebels album. And before long the conversation went a little deeper than that.

"What I want to be later?" Charlie asked amused.

Neville smiled. "Well, have you given it any thought?"

"Well, everyone expects me to become an auror." He mumbles.

"That's not what I asked."

"I- what?" Charlie asks, confused.

"I asked what you want to become, not what everyone else wants you to be."

"I-" Charlie falls still for a moment. He'd never really thought about it like that.

"If there was no war, no people telling you what to be and you could go anywhere, what would you want to be?"

He didn't know. "I don't know." He had never even considered it.

"No clue? I mean, it doesn't have to be permanent. For example, last year I wanted to be an engineer. Now though, herbology seems like a cool option." Neville moves one of the pieces on the board.

"What's an engineer?" He asks confused.

"Isn't your mother a muggleborn?" Neville retorts amused.

"Well yeah, but what does that have to do with anything?"

Neville is dumbstruck for a moment. "Have you never been to the muggle world?"

"Have you?" Charlie moves one of his pieces. He's losing the game, but it doesn't really matter.

"Yeah, plenty of times. With Jay. Sometimes on my own."

"You went on your own?" Charlie could hardly believe it. Neville was a sweet guy, but a goody-two shoes. Everyone knew that. Did his gran let him go on his own?

"Uhm." He laughs a bit. "Don't tell anyone that though. I might have snuck out without gran knowing." He blushes a bit.

Charlie sucks in a breath at that. "Are you telling me that you of all people broke the rules?"

Neville sniggers. "Don't be so surprised mate. Honestly, once you're marked as a good kid, you could get away with murder. It's not that I never break the rules, I just make sure that I don't get caught. And even if I were caught at this point, most teachers would just let me get away with it." He smirks.

Charlie gapes for a moment.

"Checkmate."

"What?" Charlie looks down at the board and indeed, he lost. Ah well, it was just a game.

"So, when you go to the muggle world, what do you do?"

"What don't I? Mostly I look for fights more than anything."

"Fights?"

"Muggle dueling."

"Ah. Why though?"

Why on earth would he do that?

"Well for one, I get payed pretty well for it. Plus, one aging potion later and you can get alcohol in the muggle world."

"You-"

He's interrupted by Sirius entering the room. "Ah, there you two are. Meeting's over."

"Is dad all right?" Charlie asks immediately.

"Yes pup, it had nothing to do with your dad. No need to worry. Dumbledore asked him to come back. He'll be home by dinner if not sooner."

Charlie let out a sigh in relief. Dad was all right. He'd be home today. Thank Merlin.

"Come on, we're having breakfast."

"Breakfast, Mister Severus, Miss Jennifer." Dobby announced. Neither of them looked up from their worktable.

Severus was in the progress of making five huge cauldrons of bone-strengthening potion, while Jay was preparing the ingredients for the eye correction potion Severus would be brewing next. They'd been at it for almost two full days now, only resting when the ingredients were prepared, and the potions had to simmer.

"Jennifer." Severus said almost ten minutes after breakfast had arrived. "How far are you with the flubberworms?"

"Two- no three more." She sighed. She was looking rather rough around the edges. Severus wasn't fairing any better. Their eyes were bloodshot from all the fumes and their hair were greasy messes. On top of that, Jay's hands were covered in small papercuts from preparing the Knotgrass that were red and painful.

Note to self: if she ever had to prepare Knotgrass and African Red Pepper, do them the other way around. Unbrewed African Red Pepper was a nightmare in open wounds, however small they were. How could an ingredient mostly used in toothpaste of all things be so annoying to deal with?

Finally, she finished with the flubberworms and moved to wash her hands. Besides the papercuts there was the fact that her skin was dry and peeling off slightly at some places from how often she had washed them. A quick glance at Severus' hands confirmed that he was in the same boat as her.

She grabbed her sandwich just as Draco came in asking for the pain-relief potions that were cooling off in several bottles on a wooden tray. "Tell the healers that they need to let them cool for at least another-" Jay glanced at one of the stopwatches on the table in front of her. "12 minutes before they can use them." Jay swallowed the mouthful of sandwich and immediately continued to scarf the rest of it down. She only had four, maybe five minutes before she had to get started on the newt spleens.

Thankfully, because she'd prepared them many times before when brewing aging potions, so it shouldn't be that difficult. The difficulty was that she'd simultaneously be brewing Cough potion.

"Draco."

The boy stops in his tracks. "Yes, sir?"

"Once you bring the potions to the healers, return immediately with haste. I need you to brew another two batches of healing potion and the tooth-repair potion."

Draco nods. When Severus doesn't say anything anymore, Draco turns on his heel and hastily starts walking to the ballroom on the second floor where all the witches and wizards broken out of Azkaban are. He needs to be careful though, all the potions on the tray he carries don't have a cap on it. The last thing they need is for him to spill them.

When he enters the ballroom, it's pure chaos. Several witches and wizards are taking care of patients left and right, the sound of coughing reaches his ears and the scent of illness reaches his nose. He pays them no mind, however. He immediately rushes towards the table where a witch is seated. She's the one determining who gets which potions, and who needs them the most. "There you are! Did you get them? How long until the bone strengthening potion? And the cough potion?" She demands to know.

"I got them, they need to cool for another 8 or so minutes. Severus was in the last stages of the bone-strengthen potion. Jennifer had the ingredients for cough potion and eye-correction finished, as far as I could tell. I'm going to brew two batches of healing potion and one of tooth-repair."

She appears annoyed that the bone-strengthening potion wasn't finished yet. But there was nothing they could do about it. She knew Severus was brewing as fast as he could.

"Go. And tell Severus we're out of pepper-up again."

"I will."

On the way back one of the fever-delirious death eaters coughs blood on him. It's just on his sleeve, but it startles him nonetheless. And it's pretty gross.

He almost runs towards the dungeons, eager to be away from the gross reality that was caused by Azkaban.

He had to admit, when father spoke about the time of the Dark Lord, and serving him, this was not what he had in mind.

He imagined it glamorous, with people to command, battles to win. This was… disgusting. Exhausting. Unrewarding. And much more. It wasn't at all what he'd expected it to be.

Thankfully, all he had to do was relay messages between Severus and the healers, take potions upstairs, restock ingredients, that kind of stuff. Most of the time he was out of sight and he was grateful for it. The death eaters that were rescued from Azkaban gave him the creeps at the best of times.

When he returned to the dungeons, Severus had apparently found the time to scarf down his own meal. Without any prompt he took three of the several cauldrons stacked in the supply room and put them on the fire at his bench. The ingredients had been prepared by Jay and were laid out in the required quantities.

"Severus?" He started as he brought the water in all three cauldrons to boil.

"Hm?"

"They ran out of pepper-up potion again."

"Hm."

A few beats of silence passed. "Draco, have you started the tooth-repair yet?"

"No, I was about to though."

"Leave it, pepper-up first."

It went on like that until well after the sun set, not that Severus and Jay noticed. Dinner came and went, mostly uneaten by all three. Only when the sun rose again, were they done.

Even the table looked comfortable enough to sleep on to Jay. She had to take a shower first though, she didn't even know anymore what had all collected in her hair during the brewing. That was so much effort though. She could just shave it off, and rock a buzzcut.

Meh, she had a big head. She wouldn't be able to pull it off. Sad life.

Sad life? Merlin, she needed sleep.

After the shower she came to the conclusion yet again that she needed an adult to dry her hair for her. On one wand there was the trace and the other would out her as one of the phoenix brothers.

"Severus, could you?" She points to her dripping wet hair.

"No."

She's confused at the point-blank refusal. "Sev?"

He points to a box laying on the table. It hadn't been there when she went for her shower, at least she thought. "Do it yourself."

What? She picked up the rectangular box and took the wand that laid in it. Red sparks shot out of it's top. "Does it have the trace?"

"No. it's unregistered. You can cast anything with it, without the ministry knowing."

She wasted no time in trying it out. It was simultaneously better and worse as her school wand. Both didn't hold a candle to her metal one. Either way, her hair was dry now. There wasn't much to complain about. She twirls it around once. The weight feels nice in her hand.

"Thanks."

She gets a nod in return. She retires to her guest room and falls asleep instantly, despite the sun obnoxiously poking in through the curtains. For the first time in a long time, she falls asleep without wondering if she was doing the right thing.

She knew she wasn't.

Dinner and Moving

Jay was nervous, and rightfully so. On her left stood Severus, stiff as a board, no expression visible. If Jay didn't know the man like she did, she would assume that he wasn't worried at all. She did know better though.

The way he was standing, how forcibly relaxed his usual glare was… the man was just as nervous as her.

For the last few weeks, the dark lord had barely been at the manor, but now he had returned. And they were about to have dinner with him.

The death eater who had come to invite them had said that she was invited because of her help with the Azkaban escapees. But at the same time, Draco had helped as well. And he received no invitation.

It was now that she was thankful for those long hours spent on etiquette, forced by Lily. Today, they could save her life.

Who would have thought that? Certainly, not Jay. It was the first time in years that she'd thought back on those lessons.

The doors opened and revealed the long table with the best dining set money could buy. Jay thought all the gemstone covered goblets, gold inlayed cutlery and plates were a bit taky, to be honest. But she knew it was all a show of status and power. Look at what I have. It always left a bitter taste in her mouth; she didn't care for the bragging one bit.

She silently moved to her seat, next to Severus and Nott. She looked every bit out of place at the table, in between all the grown men. Of course, the only exception was Bellatrix Lestrange, the notorious only female death eater.

The Lestranges were seated in front of her and Severus. And for one horrible second, she and Bellatrix caught each other's eyes. Bellatrix grinned like a Cheshire cat, exposing her still rotting teeth. Jay adverted her eyes. It had shocked her that a Lestrange of all people would be allergic to Skele-gro. It left her with the horrible teeth gained by being in Azkaban for so long, unlike the other escapees, who all either had their teeth mended or regrown.

The woman had really drawn the short straw there.

"Please, sit my dear friends," Rasped Voldemort. His voice had grown stronger since the graveyard, but it still didn't sound right. It left her with goosebumps that were thankfully hidden by her long-sleeved robes.

At once, everyone took their seat.

She noticed mister Malfoy on her right and felt slightly bad for him. Not only had the dark lord taken over his house, was inviting people to dine at his table, but he'd put a child higher on the table. It was a fuck you, if she'd ever seen it.

Voldemort waved his hand at the terrified house-elf standing trembling. The small creature bowed deep and snapped his fingers. At once, the dishes appeared at the table. Rich smells washed over the table and with that dinner began.

No one dared to break the silence. Jay kept her head mostly to herself, only sometimes glancing up at the men on the opposite side of the table.

It wasn't until the main course had been eaten that Voldemort broke the silence and started to tell his loyal followers about his new allies he'd gained while gone.

Several werewolf packs were now allied with the death eaters, as was a vampire clan and they were still tracking down the giants.

She idly wondered if the light was taking any action. Most likely, even if they were, they wouldn't really have much success anyways. How would one convince a populous that had been treated like trash by the current government? If Jay were a werewolf, or any other 'humanoid creature' she wouldn't want to fight for them either.

All was going well until Voldemort mentioned a captured blood traitor. As he did, a lower ranking death eater came in with a woman floating in the air. He carefully levitated the woman so that she was dangling over the table with her back bent in a near unnatural angle. The woman looked to be in pain and she was red in the face, most likely from being suspended the way she was. Dirt and tears streaked her face.

It took her a while, but she recognized the woman. It was one of Charlies tutors, Emmeline something. She taught Charlie charms when they were in England, if she remembered correctly.

But then her attention was drawn by a leathery sound she had heard a thousand times. She forced herself not to freeze, but instead looked at the huge snake.

Nagini.

Finally.

Of course, she couldn't kill it here, but she was at least one step closer to getting rid of the monstrous creature.

"Not to worry, dear child." Voldemort spoke.

It snapped her right out of her thoughts.

"Nagini, she will not harm anyone, unless of course-" He smiled cruelly, "I command her to."

Jay looked at Nagini again. She hissed out in parseltongue, "She's beautiful."

The effect was immediate. Silence befell the table yet again and both Nagini and Voldemort jerked their heads to her.

"You speak the snake language?" Nagini hissed at her.

Jay pretended to be confused. "You can understand me?" She asked.

"This is certainly an interesting development." Voldemort spoke in English. "Did you know?" He asked Severus.

"No, my lord. I had no idea. But, seeing as the Potter brat can speak it… they do share blood, after all."

"Interesting."

With that his attention snapped back to the woman still dangling helplessly over the table. "To those of you who do not know, we are joined here tonight by miss Emmeline Vance. Who, until recently, though she could spy on our recruitment efforts. Besides that, she was also one of Charlie Potter's teachers."

Vance began to gasp, her eyes moving about wildly, and a few tears escaped her eyes as she was floated closer and closer to Voldemort.

"But tonight, she is our guest of honor."

Finally, her eyes settled on Jay. "Jennifer, please, you're a good kid. Please, help me." She said with her hoarse voice breaking, as she begged for help.

"You don't deserve it. You're just a filthy blood traitor." She said with as much cold indifference as she could manage.

The woman let out a sob at her words, while some death eaters at the table started laughing. One even cheered.

Jay looked at Voldemort, and the man wore a cruel grin. " Avada Kedavra!"

One moment there was a flash of green, and the next the body of the now dead woman fell onto the table.

Jay looked at the dead woman, and she felt… nothing. There were just a few moments where she thought nothing, heard nothing and felt nothing.

Nagini slid onto the table and began eating the corpse. She watched as the snake fully consumed the corpse and then slid off the table with just as much grace as when it slid onto the table, as if there wasn't a fully grown person in her body right now.

She was almost impressed by it.

"And now, dessert."

Neville nervously tugged at his hood.

He'd been keeping his head down recently, and he hadn't been able to sneak out of the house at all lately. His grandmother was on high alert, and he couldn't really blame her.

One of the Order members had been missing for days, and when that happened on an Order mission, it was safe to presume that they would likely never be found again. With his grandmother in the Order, the wards on their house were strengthened. It was futile, however. The wards, while nothing to sneeze at, would not keep them safe if Voldemort really wanted to track them down.

Seeing as Neville was a friend of Charlie, that meant that they were at an extra risk. So here they were, tugging one suitcase of whatever they could take with them on their bodies, hood up, and making their way to Potter manor. The Potters had gracefully offered their manor up for any Order member who needed the extra protection, seeing as it was one of the most secure places in magical Britain.

"Now remember. If we are attacked-" His grandmother started again. They'd had this conversation at least a dozen times.

"We split up. I move to muggle London and move to Grimmauld Place. I know, gran." He tried to keep the nervousness out of his voice, but it wasn't really working all that well for him.

Why did Potter manor have to go on lockdown? If they could just open the floo for just a few minutes, they didn't have to take this risk.

At the same time, Neville knew that it would put everyone in the manor at risk, but right now, he just wanted to be a tad selfish. He couldn't lose his gran.

Plus, he didn't want to die either.

Things went smooth for the first ten minutes. They were halfway. He wanted to let that relax him, but Jay had always rammed it into his head to stay vigilant even if the mission was going exactly as planned.

It was another five minutes before something felt… off.

If bounty hunting had taught him anything, it was to trust his gut. He grabbed his gran, signaling her that something was wrong. Then, a shiver went up his spine and he turned around.

His eyes widened and he threw up a shield in the nick of time. A deep red colored curse hit his shield not a second later. The curse was powerful and nearly shattered the hastily pulled up shield. His gran didn't hesitate and threw back a curse of her own before two more curses were sent their way.

Both he and his gran dodged and took off with a speed that he hadn't known his gran was capable of. Only two of the initial three cloaked men followed them, and if the pained howl of the third man had anything to say, he would not be following them.

They were chased down the street and forced into an alleyway when they had to dodge more spells. It was bad. The alley was narrow, straight and would dead-end at a point. He caught sight of a blocked door and made a split decision.

"This way!" He yelled at gran, before he blasted the door in along with the doorframe and some of the wall.

They raced into the building and looked for a way out. He could hear the footsteps of the men getting closer and Neville knew that they needed more time. His gran was out of breath and they were way off course.

So, in a true Jay fashion, Neville set everything behind them on fire. He put in as much raw power as he dared, and the fire quickly caught on in the building despite the dampness of it.

Over the deafening sound of the flames he yelled at his gran, "Go that way," He pointed at the front of the house, where a door was barely visible with the smoke quickly filling the room. "I'll go there!" He pointed at a shattered window.

Gran nodded and took off in a hurry. Just as he was about to reach the window the flames split. Before they could spot him however, Neville raised his wand and casted a diffindo. Instead of connecting to the chest, like he'd tried to aim for, he hit the man in the head with it.

Without letting it sink in what that could mean, he jumped through the window with practiced skill.

He raced through another ally and climbed up on a fire escape. He broke a window and jumped in just as another spell rushed by him. When he reached the ground floor, he transfigured his hair to red and his robe to resemble one of those 'hoodies' that Jay liked to wear in the muggle world. He slowed to an ordinary pace.

When he exited the ally, he slipped into the muggle dinner rush and disappeared in the mass.

He made his way to the meeting point and only felt like he could breath again when his gran was already there, waiting for him.

He hugged her tightly and the relief of knowing she was okay let a few tears escape his eyes.

"Are you all right?!" Gran demanded.

"I think so. I think that I might have- I…" He shook his head.

"What?"

Neville swallowed.

"I think I might have killed someone."

His gran was about to respond, but the portkey they were holding halted her speech and blurred their vision.

Neville landed harshly on the marble floor of Potter manor, not really knowing what to think of himself.

Love is in the air

Chapter Notes

Warning: This chapter contains internalized homophobia.

Severus was getting worried. He had known from the start that taking her to the dark lord would cause problems. When Vance was killed right in front of Jennifer, he expected nightmares, crying and panic attacks. What he wasn't expecting was the unsettling silence that seemed to follow her everywhere.

He'd tried talking to her about it and all he got in return was, "I know. I know it wasn't my fault. Sometimes sacrifices must be made, right? And it wasn't like I killed her. Even if I had helped, I would probably be dead too. What would have been the point?"

And it worried him. The dead tone, the bruises under her eyes becoming more and more profound while she got quieter and quieter.

Severus felt like a failure. It was his job to protect her. it was his job to ensure she was safe, and happy… and he had failed her just like everyone else had.

What was worse was that Bellatrix, in her insane glory, was now insisting on teaching Jen how to be a death eater. The room opposed to his laboratory was changed into a 'classroom' of sorts. Bellatrix took great pleasure in teaching Jen all sorts of spells and curses that made him feel like he needed a shower just thinking about casting them.

Right now, she was teaching her a rather nasty bone breaking curse, that would fracture a femur with ease and, when casted correctly, could break the bone into several pieces with just one curse.

The crunching of old bones could be heard as Jen casted the curse for the fifth time. He wondered if he should interrupt as he had done before when Bella had tried to teach her the cruciatus curse.

He expelled the thought though. There were only so many times he could interrupt without it becoming suspicious.

Neville was staring off into space again, Charlie noticed.

Ever since he'd come to the manor with his gran, he was a lot different as he'd been before. It reminded him of first-year Neville, in a way. Only now instead of shyness, it was guilt that hung around the other boy, and Charlie found himself willing to do just about anything to change that.

His mum had told him what had happened, how proud everyone was for protecting not only himself, but also his gran.

It seemed like Charlie was the only person to notice how much it was eating him, though. It might have something to do with the fact that he knew Neville was having just as many sleepless nights as he himself had.

The long, warm nights when they shared some of his dad's whiskey that he'd snuck from a party some weeks ago, over a game of muggle poker as pop poker might have someone checking up on them. The way that Charlie seemed to be the only one recently to magic even the slightest grin on Neville's face, or when he woke up from a nightmare and went to the training room, only to find Neville already there.

Charlie woke from yet another nightmare with tears on his cheeks and a scream of agony lodged in his throat. It took him a bit to convince himself that he was safe, that Voldemort couldn't reach him where he was. He sat on the floor with his back pressed against the wall and roughly dried his eyes. He let out a deep and defeated sigh. He was wide awake, despite it being only four thirty in the morning.

Once he felt a little like himself again, he got up from the floor and grabbed his set of cards. He wondered if tonight he'd be the first one down, or if Neville would already be waiting for him. It was seldom that either of them managed to sleep through the entire night, and although it should make him happy whenever his friend slept the whole night, it left him lonely.

When he crept into the training room, he wasn't disappointed.

Sitting there with an impressive bedhead and in his pajama-clad glory was Neville. He was laying with a laziness on the floor that they had both felt often enough at this point. The type of laziness where you could taste the need for sleep and yet couldn't manage it.

"Damn, I almost thought you'd sleep through the night." Neville remarks without even throwing a glance at him. He didn't have too, no one else had ever bothered them since his mother had given up on it.

"Well, sorry to disappoint the both of us." Charlie mumbled not unkindly. "How long have you been up for?"

"Since around two."

Charlie winces for him.

"You brought the cards?"

Charlie nods and moves to their usual spot on a training mat. "Yeah, I got them."

Neville sits up and moves to where they hid the whiskey and two glasses. Charlie frowns when he sees how little is left in it. "Did we drink that much of it last time?"

Neville frowns and looks at the bottle. "Yeah, but it should be enough for two more glasses. Then we need to figure something else out." He pours two glasses and offers one of them to Charlie. "I highly doubt though that you can sneak away another bottle without getting caught. My gran was already suspicious last time."

Yeah, how could he have forgotten that. Neville's gran had frowned at him the entire time during breakfast. She knew for sure something was going on, but she hadn't said anything. Both were happy enough to pretend that nothing happened.

They clanked their glasses together and took their first sip. The first one was always the worst of it, but by now he'd learned to appreciate the burn.

They were about halfway through their drinks and Charlie couldn't help but look at Neville's lips again. Charlie had made another lame joke and it made Neville smile. And Charlies heart skipped a beat.

"You all right mate?" Neville asked when he noticed Charlie looking at him more intensely as he'd had all night. The whiskey had given him a bit of a rose tint on his cheeks, and before he could ask again, Charlie had leaned forward and kissed him.

He thanked Merlin when it was time for lunch and all but dragged Jennifer away for lunch. Today Narcissa and Draco had joined them, with Lucius still away on a mission for the dark lord.

It was awkward, to say the least.

Narcissa kept looking at him when she thought he wasn't paying attention, and it wasn't the innocent type of look either. While he wasn't celibate, and Lucius and Narcissa's marriage had been on the rocks for a while, he didn't find it exactly appropriate for her to do that while the children were present.

Especially not since their children were dating each other.

Though, from what Severus could tell, the two were hanging out less and less. They hadn't really spoken much at all since the dinner with the Dark Lord and Severus began to wonder how much longer it would last before one (or both) had their heart broken for the first time.

Whether or not the two were aware of what was happening, Severus couldn't really tell. Both were equally dense when it came to things like this.

But back to Narcissa, who was eying him like he would be a perfect dessert, and he didn't mind that one bit. It was just that he had enough trouble already without adding a feud with Malfoy senior to it. And he highly doubted that Draco would appreciate it either.

And so, lunch passed by awkward with a few futile attempts at making small talk. Seeing as they were currently living together no one really had anything new to report, sans Jennifer who had her lessons with Bellatrix. When she was asked however, she looked slightly sick and no one mentioned it again.

When lunch was over the kids left and Severus was left alone with Narcissa. It didn't take long before what he suspected would happen, did happen. "Ciss-" He protested when she stepped into his personal space.

"Yes?" She raised one of her perfect eyebrows and gave him a look of innocence that did not belong at all-

"Might I remind you, you're married." He forced out.

Narcissa dismissed that concern, however. "I won't be for much longer. Turns out that Lucius cheated. Again." She rubbed her hands up his sides and Severus wrapped his arms around her. "And maybe, I'm tired of it." She whispered as she leaned in closer to him. She was close enough that he could feel her breath on his lips.

With a bit of insanity and a lot of stupidity, he closed the gap.

Neville's eyes went wide when he felt Charlie's lips on his own. He was so caught off guard by it that he froze. After only a second Charlie pulled back. It couldn't really be called a kiss; it was only a peck and yet Neville didn't know what to do.

When Charlie pulled back his eyes widened at his own boldness. Hell, Charlie was supposed to grow into a man, and men liked girls, or so his dad had told him. Girls like Ginny, whom he'd kissed behind the quidditch pitch last year. And yet, even that small peck on his best friends' lips felt way better as anything he'd done with Ginny. It felt right.

But now, with his moment of Gryffindor braveness exiting the building, he was panicking. What had he just done? He'd kissed his best friend! What was wrong with him?

And Merlin help him, Neville had frozen.

"Charlie-" Neville said in shock.

"I'm sorry- oh Merlin why did I- I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-"

Neville blinked out of his stupor. "Whoa hey, it's fine. I just, didn't know you were into guys, is all." He says, still a little flabbergasted, but trying to calm his friend who was freaking out.

"What, no I'm- I'm not-" Charlie tried to deny.

"Charlie, you just kissed me. And uh-" Neville blushes a little and point down.

Charlie turns even more red and falls into silence. He's right. But real guys like girls, right? Mum and dad would kill him if they knew he was a…

"Look mate, I'm not mad or anything. But uhm, I'm into girls."

Right, because of course he was. Because of course the tallest, most built guy in their year liked girls. Because he was a proper boy and Charlie wasn't.

"I'm sorry." He says with pure misery.

"It's okay mate. I mean, I would have preferred if you'd asked-" Charlie blushed again and couldn't seem to look him in the eyes, "But it's fine. That you like guys, I mean. I thought you had something going on with Ginny though?"

"Yeah, that didn't really work out very well." It really hadn't. While Ginny wasn't mean about it, she'd obviously expected to date for longer as just two weeks. Like everyone else expected him to pick a girl at some point. Suddenly he panicked. "Please don't tell anyone! Mum and dad, they would-" He cuts himself off, thinking of the disappointment he would be to them. They expected grandkids and how would he give those if he didn't want to so much a date a girl?

"Whoa, hey. I'm not telling anyone, promise." Neville says sincere. The look of pure terror on his friend's face is something that makes him want to punch both Lily and James. "If you don't want anyone to know, then I won't tell."

"Wait, really?" He couldn't believe it would be that easy. Why wasn't Neville telling him how wrong he was?

"Yeah, of course. I might not like you that way, but we're still friends, right? And friends keep each other's secrets."

And the look of relief sends another pang going through his heart. He hated James and Lily before for screwing up with Jay so bad, but as it turned out, they'd fucked up with Charlie just as bad. "Come here." He nudges him and gives Charlie the hug he looks like he desperately needed.

The half empty glasses of whiskey were left untouched as Neville hugged Charlie while he silently cried.

Afterword

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