I clawed myself to consciousness, having no idea how long I'd been out. Once the deep muscle-ache set in, I wished I'd stayed out for longer. I was back in Pomfrey's Victorian medical wing. It looked like it was getting dark outside, so I'd been out at least a few hours. The technicolor Gandalf sitting on the seat next to my bed smiled as I looked around, "Ah, Mr. Dresden, we thought you'd be waking soon."

"Stupid, awful wildfae," I grumbled, my voice raspy, "Someone needs to give the Veil a tuneup."

"You may still be a bit delirious, my boy," Dumbledore said, seemingly confused.

I shook my head, and tersely explained, "Wizards built up the Veil to keep the Nevernever separate. Too much magic in one spot stretches it out, little things can still slip through. Getting too easy for them to find holes."

"I see. Children's stories. I wasn't aware that Justin Du Morne would have gone in for that kind of thing."

I coughed out a sardonic laugh and looked around, finding a water glass on the bedside table. "Yeah. Children's stories. Just like the Deathly Hallows," I said, taking a drink.

He nodded, glancing away. "I suppose that foolish quest would be the kind of thing Justin was interested in. As a young man, he was certainly keen to raid Grindelwald's safehouses looking for secrets and lore. And Gellart was very obsessed with those old stories."

"How many wizards die every year when those things get into their old houses and bite someone?"

"Fortunately, doxy venom is only exceptionally dangerous to the infirm, leaving plenty of time to find and treat most others. Not that you should have had to experience such a thing. Minerva has thoroughly chastised Hagrid and Argus for that lapse in housekeeping."

I shrugged, since that was probably fair. Some of the things my godmother had hinted were on the edges of being able to squeeze their way out of the Nevernever would be far more dangerous. Not that I wanted to explain to the Headmaster what my source was, and had been avoiding quite meeting his eyes just in case he went digging. Wizards had erected the Veil around the time of the Hogwarts founders, so it probably still had plenty of time left before things got especially dangerous. Instead, I asked, "Did they at least bring back the stuff we pulled out of the pile?"

"Indeed. I appreciate you thinking of Argus and Hagrid in your extracurricular crafting, though I do wish the three of you would take fewer risks. Both have different reasons for being without magical tools, and haven't responded well to my offers in the past. For whatever reasons of their own pride, they seem more inclined to accept help from a student than handouts from a headmaster."

"Filch is a squib," I guessed, "and doesn't want that rubbed in his face? Meanwhile, Hagrid doesn't want to risk you putting your neck out for him skirting around having his wand snapped?"

"Very astute," twinkled the old man. "I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that we should have offered a study in wandless magic before now. Between those two and the students you're teaching, you're already getting results I could not have envisioned even two months ago. And that's before your personal curiosity. I hear that Mr. Weasley is showing some interest in an extracurricular research project."

I nodded. "The guy's wasted on being some bureaucrat. Penelope Clearwater's interested as well."

His cheek twitched, as if he was intimately aware of the crushes of his students. "Excellent. She also is a bright young witch, whom prejudice might prevent from attaining her goals in life without sufficient experience. Might I suggest a topic?"

"I don't know if either of them will agree to anything, but if I tell them you suggested it, they might be more willing to not over-analyze everything. Percy wants something that will look good to the Unspeakables. Penelope wants something practical, like a spell."

Dumbledore nodded, stroking his beard, but I got the impression that he wasn't actually having to think about it. "Are you aware that there currently exists no offense against dementors? The patronus charm provides protection, and can drive them away, but there's no reliable method of offering them serious harm, much less dispatching them."

It took me a moment, since I'd been unconscious most of the day, but I remembered Dumbledore had seen my memories. I said, "And if that line of research also happens to turn up any clues on how to injure other shadowy, wraithlike entities…"

"Just so."

"What did I fight that night, headmaster?" I asked, hoping to shake loose an answer with directness.

"If we're lucky," he hedged, "Du Morne had invented some new dark ritual that you thwarted, and his research burned with him."

"And if we're unlucky?"

He frowned, clearly unhappy to share this with me, but explained, "I cannot account for much of Justin Du Morne's life, nor his alliances, but his tenure at Hogwarts overlapped another power-hungry dark magic user, and they may have become associates. If that dark wizard managed to cling to some form of life past his destruction a decade ago, his allies might have finally begun to move to bring him back. And, despite Du Morne's death, he was not the only one of such allies unaccounted for…"

It made sense, but I asked to be sure. "You think he was trying to offer me up as some kind of a spirit horse for Voldemort? Do you think they'll try again?"

"If we're unlucky." The old man sighed, clearly sad to have shattered whatever illusions of safety I might have had in my life. He glanced up at Pomfrey, who was bustling into the room, "But Poppy has returned, and I think I must take my leave."

He very specifically didn't promise to let me ask more questions later, but I wasn't expecting to give him much of a choice. I just had to decide what else I needed to know.