Part IV: Revolution

Chapter XIX: In Which Many Reunions Occur

"So, are we going to talk about how Corinna had snuck students out of the school, or are we going to pretend that didn't happen?"

They were only a few feet through the tunnel when Ron broke the tension around them. Corinna turned sharply to face him, the light from her wand tip causing odd ripples against the uneven walls of the tunnel.

"We're all thinking it," defended Ron, glaring at Draco's wand. "Right?"

Corinna sighed as she turned back towards the tunnel and continued walking. It was a long tunnel and she was in no rush to share her own tail. "It all started when I caught Goyle torturing a first year. Her name was Maisie Cattermole and—"

"Wait, Cattermole!" said Hermione, cutting Corinna off. ("Well, if you don't want me to explain," she muttered under her breath.) "Harry, that's the couple we rescued from the Ministry!"

"Yeah, they mentioned having kids," said Harry in a tone of surprise. "They didn't say one of them was at Hogwarts."

"Anyway," said Corinna forcefully. "I promised her to get her out of the school, and I did. Through this tunnel."

"But they aren't on any school map," said Hermione. "Not even the Marauder's Map."

"That's because it connects to the Room of Requirement."

"So that's where you have been disappearing to," said Harry. Corinna glanced back, giving him a confused look. "I…I was checking the Map to see if Ron…" He cleared his throat as Ron quickly looked away, as if the wall was suddenly very interesting. "You know what, never mind. I might have been checking it to make sure you were okay and I noticed you were disappearing a lot at night. I was confused as to why all the other students had shown back up after the holidays, but then Ron told us he heard you were kidnapped and…"

Harry let his words hang in the air, and no one was quick to fill up the empty space. Suffice to say that there were many points in the last year that straight-up sucked.

"Yes, well, this is where I went whenever you couldn't find me on the map." The words came out without any malice. She trusted Harry not to use the map for anything weird. Harry only looked mildly embarrassed. "I brought students whose families needed to flee the country, or they just wanted to get out of the hellhole that became of Hogwarts."

"But what happened to them once you got them through the tunnel?" asked Hermione. "You obviously didn't leave the Hogs Head Inn, especially at night."

"Well, the curfew must have come after because I usually met up with Remus around midnight so he could take the students to wherever their families were hiding."

"How did you even get them to the Room?" Hermione was keen on poking all the holes from Corinna's story. "You must have done it after curfew, and you didn't have the Cloak."

"Did I also forget to mention that I was Head Girl?"

It seemed that they all had something they wanted to say about that, but a fifth light had joined the fray, slowly moving towards them. It wasn't until the figure reached their wand light that they realized who it was. Warmth and relief flooded Corinna's chest, but it was short lived until she really looked over the man with his yellowed bruises and cuts that needed more medical attention. But he still had the same easy grin on his face as he beamed proudly at the four of them. "I knew you'd come!" Neville Longbottom said excitedly. "I knew it, Harry!"

"Neville—what the—how?"

Neville crushed all four of them into an awkward hug. Despite the fact that his arms were not long enough to reach both Ron and Hermione on the outer edge, they were all still smashed into it. "I knew you'd come! Kept telling Seamus it was a matter of time!"

"Neville, what's happened to you?"

"What? This?" Neville shrugged their concerns off. "This is nothing. Seamus is worse. You'll see. Shall we get going then?"

Corinna immediately felt overwhelmed. She hadn't seen Neville since before Christmas. It seemed he kept up with his reckless tendencies, maybe they even got worse since both she and Luna—his voices of reason—were gone. He did not even wait for confirmation before turning right around and heading the way he had come. The rest of them scrambled to follow after him.

"Never mind that stuff…Is it true? Did you break into Gringotts? Did you escape on a dragon? It's everywhere, everyone's talking about it. Michael Corner got beaten up by Carrow for yelling about it in the Great Hall at dinner!"

"Yeah, it's true," Harry confirmed.

Neville laughed gleefully, his wand light bouncing along with him.

"What did you do with the dragon, then?"

"Released it into the wild," said Ron, and then he sniggered. "Hermione was all for keeping it as a pet—"

"Don't exaggerate, Ron!"

"But what have you been doing?" asked Neville, glancing over his shoulder to look at Harry, completely ignoring Ron and Hermione's antics. "People have been saying you've just been on the run, Harry, but I don't think so. I think you've been up to something."

"You're right," said Harry, but had no intentions of explaining further.

"Neville, what's happened to Hogwarts since I…left?" Corinna made a face at referring to it as such.

"Just worse of the same," said Neville. "It got more difficult as time went on. We lost you and Luna at Christmas, and Ginny never came back after Easter. The Carrows seemed to know I was behind a lot of it, so they started coming down on me hard."

"No kidding," muttered Ron.

"We dropped a lot of the obvious stunts like the wall messages and crashing detentions. But we were still fighting, doing underground stuff, right up until a couple of weeks ago. That's when they decided there was only one way to stop me, I suppose, and they went for Gran."

"They what?" the four of the four of them said in almost perfect stereo.

"Yeah, well, you can see their thinking. It had worked really well, kidnapping kids to force their relatives to behave, I s'pose it was only a matter of time before they did it the other way around. Thing was," Neville looked back at them, grinning almost madly, "they bit off a bit more than they could chew with Gran. Little old witch living alone, they probably thought they didn't need to send anyone particularly powerful. Anyway," he faced forward and gave a humorless laugh, "Dawlish is still in St. Mungo's and Gran's on the run. She sent me a letter telling me she was proud of me, that I'm my parent's son, and to keep it up."

"Cool," said Ron.

"Yeah, only thing was, once they realized they had no hold over me, they decided Hogwarts could do without me after all. I don't know whether they were planning to kill me or send me to Azkaban; either way, I knew it was time to disappear."

"But aren't we heading straight back into Hogwarts?"

"'Course. You'll see. We made a few modifications to the place that Corinna found."

The tunnel narrowed into the portrait hole just as it did whenever Corinna came back from the Hogs Head Inn. However, once they stepped through, it was a completely different sight from the circular room that gave entrance to the portrait and was used as space to train the students. Instead, they were greeted by a much larger room with an overhanging balcony. Hammocks of multiple colors were hung along the walls, along with the flags for each of the three houses that were being represented on the upper rung. She was surprised by the overflowing bookshelves and broomsticks propped up against the wall. It seemed to have everything one needed to survive. Roughly, still, but completely possible.

Corinna did not get much of a chance to get her bearings in the new surroundings, as the four of them were immediately surrounded by familiar faces. They were all calling out to them at various levels of enthusiasm, but it was all overwhelmingly positive. Even Romilda Vane, who had caused Corinna to get detention the previous year, was hugging on her with pride and admiration.

"Okay, okay, calm down!" Neville called out to the mob of twenty or so students. They slowly backed off the group, and the four of them still seemed to be completely overwhelmed by the group and from where they were currently located.

"This is the Room of Requirement?" asked Harry, as he looked around unabashed.

"Of course!" said Neville. "Surpassed itself, hasn't it? Corinna found a way of tricking the room in a way to get what we wanted but in a way that couldn't easily be guessed. I decided to take it a step further when I was desperate to get away from the Carrows. I knew I just had one chance at a hideout. I managed to get through the door and this is what I found! Well, it wasn't exactly like this when I arrived, it was a load smaller, there was only one hammock and just Gryffindor hangings. But it's expanded as more and more of the DA have arrived."

"And the Carrows can't get in?" asked Harry.

"No," said Seamus, and Neville wasn't kidding when he was worse off. His face was bruised and puffy to the point where it took Corinna a moment to recognize the man who was dating her best friend. "It's a proper hideout, as long as one of us stays in here, they can't get at us, the door won't open. It's all down to Neville. He really gets this room. You've got to ask it for exactly what you need—like 'I don't want any Carrow supporters to be able to get in'—and it'll do it for you! You've just got to make sure you close the loopholes! Neville's the man!"

"I couldn't have done it without Corinna."

"Don't be modest," said Corinna, still looking agape. "I would not have come up with something like this! That's all you, Neville!"

"Well, luckily, I also thought about the portrait that you used to get to the Hogs Head or else we would not have food. That seemed to be the one thing that the Room can't produce."

"Yeah, well, food's one of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration," said Ron nonchalantly.

Now everyone was openly staring at Ron for giving such a Hermione-ish answer as if it were nothing.

"So, we've been hiding out here for nearly two weeks," said Seamus, "and it just makes more hammocks every time we need them, and it even sprouted a pretty good bathroom once girls started turning up—"

"—and thought they'd quite like to wash, yes," said Lavender.

"Tell us what you've been up to, though," said Ernie. "There've been so many rumors, we've been trying to keep up with you on Potterwatch." He pointed to the large wireless that Corinna hadn't immediately noticed when trying to look over the room. The wood paneling seemed to blend in with the walls. "You didn't break into Gringotts?"

"They did!" said Neville. "And the dragon's true too!"

There was a haggard round of applause. Ron bowed and Hermione elbowed him in the arm. He just gave her a shit-eating grin in return.

"What were you after?" Michael demanded.

Ron, Hermione, and Corinna turned to look at Harry, since they weren't quite sure what should and shouldn't be disclosed to them. Instead of giving a coherent answer, he let out a cry of pain, clutching his scar. She clutched his shoulders as he seemed to sway dangerously. "Harry!" she shouted.

It only seemed to last a few seconds as he was blinking and looking around wildly. "You all right, Harry?" Neville asked from behind Corinna. "Want to sit down? I expect you're tired, aren't—"

"No," said Harry, rather forcefully. He pushed Corinna's arms away from him and she stepped back, giving him some space. He looked at the three of them, a look of concern on his face. "We need to get going," he explained, and Corinna seemed to understand what he was trying to convey nonverbally. Voldemort had discovered another one of his Horcruxes was missing. It was only a matter of time he decided to descend upon Hogwarts.

"What are we going to do, then, Harry?" asked Seamus. "What's the plan?"

"Plan?" repeated Harry, sweat breaking out on his brow from the effort to stay in Hogwarts and not succumb to wherever Voldemort currently resided. "Well, there's something we—Ron, Hermione, Corinna, and I—need to do, and then we'll get out of here."

The silence following Harry's words were almost suffocating. The jovial nature of their return turned to conspicuous confusion.

"What do you mean, 'get out of here?'" Neville demanded, looking almost hurt by Harry's words.

"We haven't come back to stay," said Harry. "There's something important we need to do—"

"What is it?"

"I can't tell you."

Mutterings broke out among the group. Seamus leaned over to Corinna. "Can you seriously not tell us?" She shook her head.

"It's something to do with fighting You-Know-Who, right?" asked Neville.

"Well, yeah—"

"Then we'll help you."

That seemed to elicit an eager response from many, including Seamus, but he continued to glare at Corinna. "It's not up to me," she said under her breath.

"You don't understand," said Harry, cutting off whatever Seamus was going to tell Corinna. "We can't tell you. We've got to do it—alone."

"Why?"

"Dumbledore left the four of us a job," he said slowly, as if taking extra care as to what he said. "And we weren't supposed to tell—I mean, he wanted us to do it, just the four of us."

"Then why were you here in the beginning of the year?" demanded Seamus.

She was really tired of rehashing how her stupid hair got her in the middle of this mess, so she was almost thankful that Neville broke into a speech.

"We're his army! Dumbledore's Army. We were all in it together, we've been keeping it going while you four have been off on your own—"

"It hasn't exactly been a picnic, mate," Ron piped up.

"Neville, come on," said Corinna, figuring she might be the one who could make them see reason. She was there in the beginning, as Seamus so graciously reminded her. "I couldn't tell you then, and we can't tell you now."

"Why can't you trust us?" demanded Neville. "Everyone in this room's been fighting and they've been driven in here because the Carrows were hunting them down. Everyone in here's proven they're loyal to Dumbledore—loyal to you, Harry."

"Look," said Harry at the same time Corinna said, "It's not about—" but they were both cut off to what they were going to say with the door opening behind them.

"We got your message, Neville! Hello you four, I thought you must be here!"

Luna, Dean, and Ginny walked through the portrait hole. Seamus gave a whoop at seeing his best friend again, and the two immediately embraced. Neville seemed to restrain himself from going after Luna, as if he wanted to keep up his tough-guy façade in front of Harry and the others. Even Ginny and Romilda hugged upon seeing each other. There were a lot of things Corinna wanted answers for, but they were going to have to wait.

"Hi, everyone!" said Luna with a wide smile on her face and she gladly gave Neville a hug and a chaste kiss on his cheek. "Oh, it's great to be back!"

"Luna…" said Harry, blinking, "Ginny, Dean, what are you doing here? How did you—"

"I promised her and Ginny that if you turned up I'd let them know," said Neville, holding up the fake galleon that Hermione charmed. "We figured out how to get these to work. We all thought that if you came back, it would mean revolution. That we were going to overthrow Snape and the Carrows."

"Of course that's what it means," said Luna, turning to face the others, but Neville kept an arm on her waist, as if afraid she would disappear if he didn't touch some part of her. She could understand the sentiment. "Isn't it, Harry? We're going to fight them out of Hogwarts?"

"Listen," said Harry desperately, "I'm sorry, but that's not what we came back for. There's something we've got to do, and then—"

"You're going to leave us in this mess?" demanded Michael.

"No!" said Ron. "What we're doing will benefit everyone in the end, it's all about trying to get rid of You-Know-Who—"

"Then let us help!" said Neville, his voice rising in pitch as anger started taking over him. "We want to be a part of it!"

There was another noise behind them as Fred, George, and Lee clambered out of the portrait hole, all of them bearing the goofiest grins they could manage given the circumstances.

"Aberforth's getting a bit annoyed," said Fred. "He wants a kip, and his bar's turned into a railway station."

Fred wasn't kidding. Right behind Lee came Parvati and Padma Patil and Cho Chang. As much as she was annoyed at seeing Harry's ex-fling, she was still mostly surprised.

"I got the message," she said with her usual beautiful smile. She went over to stand next to Michael, who seemed relieved to see his girlfriend. Padma rushed over to Anthony Goldstein and Parvati squealed along with Lavender as they embraced.

"So, what's the plan, Harry?" asked George, clapping him on the shoulder.

"There isn't one," said Harry, looking lost among the sea of reunions occurring around them.

"Just going to make it up as we go along, are we?" asked Fred, his grin never faltering. "My favorite kind."

"You've got to stop this," Harry whispered to Neville harshly. "What did you call them all back for? This is insane—"

"We're fighting, aren't we?" said Dean, taking out his fake galleon. "The message said Harry was back, and we were going to fight! I'll have to get a wand, though—"

"You haven't got a wand—?" began Seamus, but he was cut off when the portrait opened again.

Corinna gave a very un-Corinna-like squeal when her best mate came strolling through. "Holy shite!" she shouted, and immediately ran over to him and gave him a hug.

"Hey!" Seamus said, giving an indignant noise as Terry gathered Corinna up in his arms with his own laughter of delight. "I'm his boyfriend!"

"And I'm his best mate. I trump you!"

Corinna settled back on the ground, not even realizing her feet had left it in the first place. She stepped to the side to let Seamus have a go. That was when she noticed a woman right behind Terry that she had never seen before. It was evident that she was related to Terry as they had the same olive skin and upturned nose, but her hair was jet black where Terry's was a dark brown.

"You must be Grace," said Corinna, giving a bit more of a dignified introduction than she had with Terry. "I'm Corinna."

"Yes, I am," she said, and Corinna noticed one of the Weasley twins looking in their direction. "I've heard so much about you! Zelda's doing well, by the way, but, well…"

"Well what?" asked Corinna, instantly looking concerned.

"She wasn't neutered, and neither was Lord Tumbletin." Grace gave a smile that seemed foreign on her face only because it was a grin she associated so heavily with Terry. "So, we're cat mums!"

Corinna's heart sank. "I'm so sorry."

Grace just shrugged. "It's fine. Only four survived, so it's not that many. We'll each take two once they are old enough to not need Zelda."

That was going to have to be a problem for future Corinna as Harry addressed the room at large. Harry, Ron, and Hermione all straightened up, so they must have talked amongst each other while Corinna was busy greeting her friend.

"There's something we need to find," Harry explained, and the room immediately settled down now that he seemed to be worn down to the idea of accepting help. "Something that'll help us overthrow You-Know-Who. It's here at Hogwarts, but we don't know where. It might have belonged to Ravenclaw. Has anyone heard of an object like that? Has anyone ever come across something with her eagle on it, for instance?"

He scanned the crowd, especially looking at the Ravenclaws, who were racking their brains for any possible answer, but for once, they came up short.

"Well, there's her lost diadem," said Luna, stepping away from Neville's arm. "I told you about it, remember, Harry? The lost diadem of Ravenclaw? Daddy's trying to duplicate it."

"Yeah, but the lost diadem," said Michael, "is lost, Luna. That's sort of the point."

"When was it lost?" asked Harry.

"Centuries ago, they say," said Cho. "Professor Flitwick says the diadem vanished with Ravenclaw herself. People have looked, but," she motioned to the Ravenclaws scattered about, "nobody's ever found a trace of it, have they?"

All the Ravenclaws shook their heads, including Grace.

"Sorry, but what is a diadem?" asked Ron.

"It's a kind of crown," said Terry. "Ravenclaw's was supposed to have magical properties, enhance the wisdom of the wearer."

"Yes, Daddy's Wrackspurt siphons—" But Harry cut Luna off before she could spout off more nonsense.

"And none of you have ever seen anything that looks like it?"

They all shook their heads again. Harry turned back to Ron, Hermione, and Corinna, all looking disappointed. There was no way that something so lost to time could be a Horcrux. But before any of them could ask what else it could be, Cho spoke up.

"If you'd like to see what the diadem's supposed to look like, I could take you up to our common room and show you, Harry? Ravenclaw's wearing it in her statue."

Corinna was about to interject that any of the Ravenclaws could do it, annoyed that she was letting her jealousy get the best of her at a time like this, but Harry leaned over to whisper to Ron, Hermione and Corinna. "He's on the move." He turned his attention back to Cho. "Listen, I know it's not much of a lead, but I'm going to go and look at this statue, at least find out what the diadem looks like. Wait for me here and keep, you know—the other one—safe."

Cho moved towards Harry, but Corinna instantly interjected. "Luna will take Harry, won't you, Luna?"

"Oooh, yes, I'd like to," said Luna as Cho fell back next to Michael, looking disappointed.

"How do we get out?" Harry asked Neville.

"Over here." Neville led Harry and Luna to a corner, where a small cupboard opened onto a steep staircase. "It comes out somewhere different every day, so they've never been able to find it. Only trouble is, we never know exactly where we're going to end up when we go out. Be careful, Harry, they're always patrolling the corridors at night."

"No problem," said Harry. "See you in a bit."

Harry and Luna disappeared through the cupboard and the group instantly became restless. They were expecting something a bit more when Harry finally broke down and accepted their help.

"You know, green is not a good color on you," Terry teased when it seemed that Seamus and Dean were busy catching up.

"Shut up," said Corinna, elbowing Terry. Even his jab wasn't enough to kill Corinna's elation that her best mate was here. "I am so glad to see you."

"Same goes," said Terry, elbowing Corinna right back. "We had to go into hiding. We stayed with my grandparents. The Fidelus Charm was involved, which confused them to no end, but accepted it if it meant that we were there. I'm pretty sure I gained a couple of stone from my grandpa's cooking."

He was one of the few in the group that looked healthier after the weird year they've had. "I'm just glad you're alive."

"Same here," he said. "You were the one who ran off doing Merlin knows what with the most wanted wizard in Britain."

It made Corinna realize he had no idea she was left behind to go to Hogwarts and then get kidnapped and deal with a completely different kind of hell. There was so much she needed to catch him up on, but she could not find the words to tell him.

Terry frowned at Corinna. "What's wrong? I left you the perfect opening to make a joke."

Corinna grabbed Terry's bicep and dragged him from the main part of the group. With the open-floor concept, there wasn't much space to have a private conversation. She supposed she could go and find the bathroom, but that would probably be a little too weird.

"Corinna?"

"I didn't go with them," said Corinna quickly, "at least, not right away."

Terry frowned. "What do you mean?"

She then explained everything. How they were at Bill and Fleur's wedding when the Ministry fell and, when they were about to flee, a Death Eater grabbed Corinna's plait and dragged her away from the others. She talked about the weeks leading up to September First and how her uncle had to run off. She did not have to explain a lot of what went down at Hogwarts, as he heard some things from the grapevine since his family did their best to stay informed at the goings-on in the Wizarding World, even if they were in hiding.

The second hardest part was telling Terry that she was kidnapped by Bellatrix.

"What?" he demanded, but she explained to him all the dark things that happened, what she was forced to say and believe. She was relieved that, when she admitted to using the Muggle-born slur, he at least wasn't angry at Corinna. She talked about the disaster of Christmas Eve dinner and how she finally broke through the Imperius Curse thanks to the letter she wrote herself.

"But I still had no way of getting out," said Corinna. "I didn't have my wand. I still don't. This is Draco's."

"Since when did you start calling him that?"

"Oi, shut up!"

The first hardest part was talking about how she found out about Uncle Ted.

"I'm so sorry," said Terry as the loss still seemed so raw to Corinna despite all the time that had passed.

It helped that she was then able to talk about Teddy, her new hope to wanting to end this war so he could grow up only knowing peace. She never even met him yet, but she was able to talk about how she was his godmother and she was going to do everything she could to protect him.

And that brought them to now once she gave a brief overview of what happened at Gringotts and flying across the country on the back of a dragon.

"At least I'm here now," said Terry, probably knowing Corinna could use a bit of a lightness after going through everything with him. "And all I get to talk about was playing video games for the first time. You probably don't even know what those are."

Corinna was about to correct that statement, but the portrait hole opened yet again. Remus stepped through first followed by Kingsley. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley led a brood of graduated students she hadn't expected to see ever again: Oliver Wood, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson, and Alicia Spinnet. Following the rear was Bill and Fleur.

"What are you lot doing here?" asked Corinna as all the new additions seemed to spread out among the students. Remus made a beeline for Corinna and Terry.

"Fred contacted us, saying that Harry was here and there might be a fight," Remus explained, ignoring Terry staring at him. "What is even going on here?"

"Harry went to find Ravenclaw's lost diadem," Corinna explained, figuring if the DA got to know, why not the Order. "It's important, just trust me."

"I do," said Remus without hesitation. "It's good to see you again, Terry."

"You too, Professor," said Terry shaking his head slightly.

"So why were we all called?" asked Kingsley to the group at large. "Fred said something big was going down."

"Well it is, innit?" he asked Corinna, who looked at a loss as to what to say to that. "You can't expect Harry to just show up to the school and shite not to go down."

"We don't know," said Corinna quickly, talking over Mrs. Weasley's shrieks for her son to watch his language. "Probably once Voldemort realizes this is the only place left."

"Saying his name again, are we?" asked George when some people who were listening in on their conversation gave cries of fear. "What about the Taboo?"

Corinna looked around, trying to find Ron and Hermione to help back her up, but she couldn't see them anywhere. She was almost relieved when Harry and Luna reappeared at the stairs, but that still did not explain where Ron and Hermione had run off to.

"Harry, what's happening?" said Remus.

"Voldemort's on his way, they're barricading the school—Snape's run for it."

"What first, Harry?" called George. "What's going on?"

"They're evacuating the younger kids and everyone's meeting in the Great Hall to get organized," said Harry. "We're fighting."

Everyone was immediately excited as they filtered through the steep staircase back to the main part of the castle. Corinna encouraged Terry to go with the others, along with Luna. Ginny was about to leave with Dean, when Mrs. Weasley grabbed her arm. At this point, there were only a handful of people left.

"You're underage," Mrs. Weasley shouted at Ginny, and Dean smartly moved away from the arguing mother and daughter. "I won't permit it! The boys, yes, but you, you've got to go home!"

"I won't!" Ginny cried, yanking her arm away from Mrs. Weasley. "I'm in Dumbledore's Army—"

"A teenagers' gang!"

"A teenagers' gang that's about to take him on, which no one else has dared to do!" said Fred.

"She's sixteen! She's not old enough! What you two were thinking, bringing her with you—"

For the first time, Corinna saw Fred and George look ashamed.

"Mum's right, Ginny," said Bill. "You can't do this. Everyone underage will have to leave, it's only right."

"I can't go home! My whole family's here, I can't stand waiting there alone and not knowing and—"

They all looked back as the portrait hole opened yet again. Corinna lost track of how many times it was opened at this point, but she was possibly even more surprised to see the man with ginger hair and horn-rimmed glasses perched on his nose.

"Am I too late?" asked Percy Weasley, someone Corinna hadn't seen since that faithful night in Dumbledore's office. "Has it started? I only just found out, so I—I—"

Everyone who wasn't a red head in the room slowly backed away from the awkward scene. Even Fleur was not about to involve herself in something like this. "So—'ow eez leetle Teddy?"

Remus blinked at Fleur, as if slow to register that something else was going on besides the staring contest among the Weasley family. "I—oh yes—he's fine! Yes, Tonks is with him—at her mother's—" He cleared his throat. "Here, I've got a picture!" He pulled a photograph from inside his jacket and showed it to Harry, Fleur, and Corinna. Corinna stared at the photograph as it started to blur from her tears as she watched the tiny, turquoise-haired baby wave fists at the camera. She was even able to tune out the Weasleys as they started talking again, only focusing on Teddy.

"He's beautiful," said Corinna, a small smile on her face.

It seemed they were able to resolve whatever their issues were as Fred was dragging Percy towards the stairs, making fun of his old prefect status along with it. They were all heading for the stairs, the picture of Teddy tucked safely away in Remus's pocket.

"Ginny!"

Ginny, apparently, was trying to sneak away with the others, but she was silly to think she could hide behind Corinna when she had a few inches on her.

"Molly, how about this," said Remus. "Why doesn't Ginny stay here, then at least she'll be on the scene and know what's going on, but she won't be in the middle of the fighting?"

"That's a good idea," said Mr. Weasley firmly, cutting off both Mrs. Weasley and Ginny from saying anything else. "Ginny, you stay in this room, you hear me?"

Ginny muttered a few choice words in French, making Fleur's eyes widen in shock, but she grudgingly agreed under Mr. Weasley's surprisingly stern glare.

"Where's Ron?" asked Harry, dragging Corinna back to reality. "Where's Hermione?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I was talking with Terry. They were gone before Remus and them showed up."

"They said something about a bathroom," Ginny piped up.

"A bathroom?"

Harry walked over to the little alcove that held the locker-room style bathroom. It must have been empty because he popped back out, alone.

"You're sure they said bath—"

Harry cut himself off with a cry of pain, clutching at his scar. Corinna was immediately at his side, holding onto him so he didn't fall over.

"Harry," she called out. "Harry?"

"He's here!" he stammered out, glancing up to meet Corinna's eye. "Voldemort—he's on the grounds!"