Taylor had never looked so fragile to Harry as she did now, draped with clean sheets in Saint Mungo's. Her head was propped up by a pillow and each of her stumps wrapped in clean white bandages, even though one was old and uninjured. Her face was crumpled, drawn with pain despite everything the healers could do, and a big blindfold covering both eyes, one normal and one apparently damaged internally. Even with that Harry could tell she was not sleeping soundly, her face tight with discomfort.
There were four beds in their shared room, an area set aside for group injuries where the spells involved made separating the victims inadvisable, or other scenarios in which multiple patients were injured in the same way. One was empty; Percy Weasley had been cleared quickly and sent on his way to explain his side of things to the Aurors, presumably at length. The Aurors had questioned Harry, too, and he gave them as much of the story as he knew. They wanted to come back and talk to Sirius and 'Moody's other security person', once they woke. Whenever that would be.
One of the remaining beds held Taylor. Another held Sirius, who was less obviously injured, but also still unconscious. Harry sat on the fourth, his hand stuck in a bowl of foul-smelling paste he was told was regrowing the skin and nerves damaged by magical backblast. He was fine. Mostly.
Taylor had always seemed to him to be formidable. She argued with his teachers and on occasion other parents when he was a little kid. She never stopped, never backed down from anyone, and when she did it was to come at them from another direction. He had never seen her fight anyone before, but he knew she had. Sirius. Pettigrew, though that wasn't really a fight from what Sirius Death Eaters, Barty, and his elf at the World Cup, Moody in Hogwarts. Other times before she had magic, because he recognized that how his mum acted was too much like Moody, a war veteran, for her to have never fought before.
He would never have imagined her in a lethal magic duel with Voldemort himself, but if he did he might have imagined her coming out on top with some clever trick or strategy. Not screaming, writhing on the ground, disarmed – literally – and broken.
He knew what his boggart would be next time he faced one, and that version of Taylor would be all too real.
His injured hand was immersed in the healing mush. The other was on his mum's hip, one of the few places he could touch without worrying about causing her more pain. He had to lean over in the bed to reach across to her. His arm was going numb.
The healers said she would wake soon. They said she would live, and that any further medical information was to be given to her directly, not him. Even though he was awake and she wasn't. They didn't know who she was to him, and he didn't say, so her medical information wasn't to be given to an unrelated stranger.
He had felt comforted by that assurance of privacy. She'd like that.
Said comfort turned to bitter surprise when he heard two people talking as they approached the room, their voices a hair too loud to go unheard. "She was struck with repeated bursts of the Cruciatus curse, her arm was removed with a dark cutting curse, and she was bleeding internally. Sirius Black is little better, and showing signs of a serious possession and an unknown countercurse. Harry had to have his skin regrown. Percy Weasley just had a few scrapes and bruises."
"Thank you, Wendy," Albus Dumbledore said as they entered the room.
"Screw you, Wendy," Harry said angrily.
The nurse, who had been looking at Albus nervously, did a double-take. "Excuse me?" she demanded.
"So much for it being confidential information," Harry said.
"It's Dumbledore," the nurse retorted, as if that explained anything.
"Boy's right," Sirius grunted. Harry jumped a little; he hadn't known Sirius was awake. "Fame doesn't equal… medical privileges."
"Well I never," the nurse huffed. "Let me know if she wakes," she told Dumbledore before leaving. "I'll make sure you aren't disturbed." The door shut behind her.
"You're right you'll never, never again once I speak to your bosses," Sirius grumbled as he sat up. "What if I'd had a case of dragon pox in unfortunate places? She would have told him that, too!" He sounded mostly back to normal, albeit hoarse. An impressive recovery, given he was unconscious seconds ago… Or possibly just lying there with his eyes closed. Harry wouldn't have known the difference.
"I imagine she would expect me to keep it to myself," Dumbledore said gravely.
"Not her call," Sirius retorted.
"She was doing me a personal favor," Dumbledore said. "And that is besides the point. Alastor Moody is dead. What has happened?"
"Ask Amelia Bones, Harry gave her the scoop two hours ago." Sirius put one hand on the side of his head and cracked his neck. "Hoo, post-possession paralysis is a bitch. Sorry Harry, I didn't intentionally leave you to the Aurors on your own. Heard the whole thing, though."
Harry thought that Sirius was acting weirdly peppy, given all that had happened… But this was Dumbledore. The one who had obliviated Taylor. Here in a room with her when she was at her most vulnerable.
Maybe that cheerful attitude was a cover. Harry wished he had his wand. Or that Sirius had his, since his wand hadn't been snapped or exploded in the fight. There should be rules about visitors being allowed wands when helpless patients weren't.
"I wished to hear it from you, my boy," Dumbledore admitted.
"Also, Amelia is too much of a hard-ass to 'do you a favor'," Sirius added. "Fine. Percy Weasley was polyjuiced Barty. Moody, Harry, Samantha here, and I tripped his portkey to find out what he was up to after we caught him. Dropped right into an ocean of snakes in somebody's swanky ritual room, fought them off, found a homunculus in a cauldron, it claimed to be Voldemort. Voldemort or not old Moody turned it to mush. That's about all I remember. Harry?"
Samantha, was it? And Moody had killed the Voldemort-thing? Harry could follow Sirius' reasoning easily enough; Taylor was to be a nonentity, an extra wand of no consequence. Someone Dumbledore wouldn't look twice at. He could do that. He had done that, in talking to the Aurors. It wasn't far from the truth, though where he was vague Sirius inserted fake details.
"From there," he began, "Voldemort possessed Sirius. We fought him, Percy, Samantha and me, but he was so fast. He beat us and hurt her, really bad, cut her arms off," both arms because surely Dumbledore would not connect one-armed Muggle Taylor with two-armed and now no-armed witch Samantha, "and tortured her. I… got her wand. From her arm. While he was distracted."
"And how did you defeat him?" Dumbledore asked seriously. "Such a powerful forced possession is rare, and a possessed Sirius should have been stable and magically active for… at least a few minutes."
"A few minutes?" Sirius rasped. "What would have happened after that?"
"Either you would have ejected him," Dumbledore said solemnly, "or your magic would have begun to rebel, damaging you both. There is a reason most possessions are partial, short-lived, or on a somewhat willing subject. Harry, how did you defeat Voldemort?" he turned back to Harry.
"Possessionem Skurge, the same way I beat that wraith that possessed Ginny," Harry answered. If it worked for one of his friends with one possession, he had reasoned that it would work just as well for another. "Samantha's wand blew up in my hand, but it really worked. I only had to cast it once."
"So he was driven off once more," Dumbledore concluded. "That may not have been for the best."
"It was damn well for the best," Sirius retorted. "Given it was my body he was puppeting around! Killed him dead, didn't it? Good enough for me!"
"You should not be so quick to kill," Dumbledore admonished him.
Harry wondered whether his own jaw had dropped more or less than Sirius'.
"But it was the right action today, though not as final as we would prefer," Dumbledore hastened to add. "I had hoped not to speak of this yet, Harry, but now it seems you must know. Voldemort is not dead."
"He wasn't dead, yes, and if you knew that but didn't bother to tell anyone I am going to find a wand–" Sirius threatened.
"I have never said he was dead, but until a few years ago lacked any sort of confirmation, and even then I lacked proof," Dumbledore interrupted. "He cannot die at present. To think otherwise would be very dangerous."
"Okay, let's say I believe you," Sirius conceded, still sounding quite suspicious. "Why do you think we didn't finish the job this time, either? How does he keep himself alive?"
"I will not say the words, not here when others could be listening… It would already be disastrous if this much was made known to the public, they would panic," Dumbledore told them.
"Do you happen to share a common ancestor with Fudge?" Sirius asked.
"No? No more than you or anyone else? I fail to see how that is relevant." Dumbledore pulled a little black book out of his robes, a familiar and not destroyed black book. "Harry, you may recognize this." He tapped his gnarled wand on the book, flipping it open to show a single line of writing–
Dumbledore choked out a gasp of surprise as the book leaped up out of his hand to smack him in the face. At the same time, his wand shot out of his other hand, soaring over Taylor's bed to fall behind the headboard.
Harry leaped up, knocking the bowl of healing paste off the bed, and reached for the book, thinking that it was attacking Dumbledore because of course it would do something bad, it had possessed Ginny and was supposed to be destroyed.
Dumbledore grabbed the book out of the air, gave it a hard look as it fell limp, and then started looking around. "My wand, where is my wand?" he asked.
A red spell streaked out from under Taylor's bed, hitting Dumbledore's ankle. He collapsed, unconscious.
"Not… as satisfying… as I thought it would be," Taylor rasped. "Damn. That hurt."
"Mum!" "Taylor!"
He and Sirius converged on either side of her bed, Dumbledore all but forgotten. Sirius gently removed her blindfold from over her good eye, leaving the fabric over her bad one, while Harry squeezed her leg.
"Safe?" Taylor asked. "You two?"
"We're barely scratched, you're the one who took on Voldemort!" Sirius said.
"And Dumbledore," Taylor said dryly. "Harry… The book… Is it?"
"The one that possessed Ginny, yeah. He told me he was going to destroy it!" He didn't understand why Dumbledore had it with him, or why he thought it was relevant to the fight with Voldemort. Tom the random wraith had no relation to Voldemort… So far as he knew.
"Worked out. Gave me a… thing to distract with." She tried to sit up, but Harry joined Sirius in pushing her back down. "Fine. Sirius. His wand. Under the bed."
"Got it." Sirius leaned down. "Hey…" he said, his voice muffled as he stuck his head under the bed. "Did you cast a stunner at Dumbledore with bugs? Ow! A spider just bit me!"
"They have limbs," Taylor said. "Unlike me… I keep losing mine. Careful. His wand… feels different. Didn't want you to… take it."
"Eh, it's probably old-man wood with old-man power," Sirius offered as he came up with Dumbledore's wand. "It doesn't feel any different to me. That spider bite, on the other hand…" He shook out his left hand, revealing an ugly set of red marks. "Am I going to die?"
"No," Taylor said. "Sorry. Not intended. Change him. Revive him. Question him." Harry looked around for water, his mum's throat sounded so dry, but there was none to be found and no cups for Sirius to fill with conjured water. He was about to press Sirius to transfigure a cup and fill that when she continued talking. "Find out… what the diary has to do with Voldemort. Whether Dumbledore is possessed. Other things. Perfect opportunity."
"Can do." Sirius cast the necessary spells and, in a move that Harry thought wasn't strictly necessary but very much appreciated, tied Dumbledore up by setting him on the unused fourth bed and conjuring a straightjacket over his robes. Then he transfigured Dumbledore into a small, toothless garden snake. "The old Moody special," he said sadly. "No magic for you, Dumbledore. Harry, translate for me? Both ways."
"Got it." Harry sat forward, his ointment bowl forgotten. There was a little thrill going through him at the idea of interrogating Dumbledore, of all people. They had really turned the tables on him.
"Wait. Before I revive him, what are we going for?" Sirius asked. "I've got ideas, but we should probably make sure we're all on the same page."
"You attacked because you assume he is possessed because the book isn't destroyed," Harry suggested. "Taylor is still Samantha and still out of it, she has nothing to do with any of this. We ask him about the book, find out what he knows. Make sure that when this is over we can let him go without him thinking we're his enemies."
"Yes. That." Taylor lay still. Harry was glad; even if she was just pretending to go back to sleep, he would rather she not strain herself.
"Okay, rennervate." Sirius threw the diary on the floor, well away from them. "Dumbledore, what's possessing you? Is it a wraith or just stupidity?"
"Sirius, I–" Dumbledore flopped around on the flat bedsheet, hissing wildly. "What is this? Why am I a snake? Turn me back immediately!" Harry repeated his words, assuming Sirius wanted to hear everything.
"Not until I'm sure you're not possessed, you bleeding idiot," Sirius said harshly. "What is the book, why didn't you destroy it, and how can we know you're still you after keeping it for years when it only took a few months to take someone over last time?" Harry repeated his words, verbatim, and from the way Dumbledore stilled, he understood. It was weird how, even now, Harry couldn't tell whether he was hissing or speaking normally. It just seemed to work, without any of the difficulty of not knowing how to consciously switch between the two languages.
Magic languages were convenient, was his conclusion.
"It…" Dumbledore looked around, but no escape was forthcoming. The door was closed, and a magicless snake would stand no chance of fighting his way free of anything. "It is a means by which Voldemort maintains his immortality. I am not possessed, I have kept it locked up since Harry gave it to me. It is a very dark object. A crucial component is missing now, as Harry damaged it back in the Chamber of Secrets, but it is still partially active and very dangerous."
"Really? I didn't feel anything." Sirius kept his wand on Dumbledore as he retrieved the book. "Yeah…" He tossed the wand to Harry. "Stun me if I do something stupider than normal." Then he opened the book.
Harry and Dumbledore watched as Sirius flipped through the book, shook it, and held it upside-down. "Nope, this is just a book," he said. "Maybe it was enchanted with something, but it isn't now. Harry, can you go digging in… Samantha's robe. She has a creepy little hunk of dried flesh on a chain around her neck."
"A blood charm?" Dumbledore hissed.
"Yes. I'd get it, but…" He shrugged. "Rather not be hexed when she finds out."
Harry did the smart thing and felt around behind Taylor's head until he found the cord, then pulled it up over her head without sticking his hand in her robes. There was indeed a little piece of dried meat hanging off it.
"Thank you," Sirius said, taking the blood charm. "Now, I think it was… Visio. Yup. Ooh, this hospital room is very well insulated, I can actually stand to keep my eyes open." He shook the book out and flipped through it again. "Nada. Zip. Zilch. Hmm…"
"A curse?" Dumbledore suggested.
"No, a naughty drawing." Sirius slammed the book shut. "Not even that, actually. It's totally blank. No magic, no writing except 'Who are you?' on the first page.. Dumbledore, are you off your rocker? Should we be getting you a new rocker in the old wizard's home?"
"It is nigh-indestructible, a former container for a piece of soul!" Dumbledore insisted.
"Uh… no?" Sirius tore a page out. Then another. "It's not. I can do the whole thing, if you want? Maybe you're just getting feeble in your old age."
Dumbledore sputtered wordlessly as Sirius continued to casually rip apart the book's pages. Harry could have told him that was definitely the wraith's book – he knew what it looked like – but he was enjoying Sirius' little show, so he kept his mouth shut. Though admittedly he was curious as to what had happened, if it really had no traces of magic on it at all now.
Finally, while Sirius was folding a paper airplane, Dumbledore regained the power of intelligent speech. "It was a Horcrux when I received it!" he said. "A broken one, but a Horcrux still, with compulsion charms layered over it by the same foul magic!"
"Well it's nothing now," Sirius told him. "Hey, don't look so glum! This must mean Voldemort is totally dead. Harry cut out the important part years ago, and us killing him today killed the rest!"
"It shouldn't be possible," Dumbledore said. "And there are others…"
"Got any of them handy?" Sirius asked.
"No," Dumbledore admitted.
"Then I say he's dead for good unless proven otherwise. Maybe go find them so you can be sure." Sirius tossed the book onto Dumbledore's bed. "Harry, hit him with the anti-possession spell, that'll set him to rights if he is possessed."
"Possessionem Skurge!" Harry incanted. Dumbledore's wand felt… recalcitrant, for lack of a better word. He missed his own wand. Still, it did the job. He cast five times, just to be sure.
"I am not possessed… That is a very impressive spell, Harry," Dumbledore hissed. "Truly remarkable, the things a culture can forget or dismiss as worthless once they are no longer needed. I went to the trouble of learning it myself after your adventure in second year, but you are very good with it."
"It's first on my list, bloody useful," Sirius remarked. "Okay… That's the Voldemort issue. Now…" He trailed off, looking contemplatively at Dumbledore.
"Now you change me back and return my wand," Dumbledore reminded them. "I am very impressed with your quick thinking, but the danger you suspected does not exist."
"No, see, I was thinking." Sirius glared at Dumbledore. "I think I have something we should do. Harry, hand me the wand."
Harry passed the wand over.
"I've been practicing," Sirius told an increasingly apprehensive Dumbledore. "With memory charms, specifically. Getting better, more precise. I even looked into doing one for myself, just as an option to make somebody feel better. It was a bit like walking in on Prongs in the shower sixth year, but worse because I meant to do it this time and it turned out he was not soaped up with three Quidditch fans having a post-game celebration like I'd been told. You know what I mean?"
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Dumbledore said stiffly. He tried to slither away, but stopped when he realized he had at least five body-lengths to go before he reached the edge of the bed, and then nowhere to go but down. All while the two wizards he was trying to avoid were watching him.
"That's the idea!" Sirius said brightly. "Samantha, what do you think? End it the way it started? Way easier than my other ideas!"
"If you can… manage it," Taylor rasped.
"What is this?" Dumbledore demanded. "Let me go!"
"Nah. Obliviate." Sirius and Dumbledore locked eyes for a moment as Sirius cast, his spell striking Dumbledore in the scaly back. "Stupefy," Sirius added, knocking Dumbledore out again. "Damn, that was easy. This wand really does have old-man power. I didn't think it would work!"
"What did you do?" Harry asked.
"Removed every memory he had pertaining to Taylor Hebert or anything he might suspect is haunting her," Sirius said. He grinned widely at Harry. "Can't be a dick about her if he doesn't remember she exists, can he?"
"He'll notice… next time we meet…" Taylor said.
"He only noticed anything when he looked into your head, so just don't make eye contact until we get you skilled up in Occlumency, problem solved," Sirius insisted. "I don't expect it to last forever, but it'll definitely hold for a few months, and if it does hold indefinitely then the problem is solved. Now, both of you play along when I wake him, we've got to send him along with a good cover story and I know just the thing."
Harry watched as Sirius transfigured Dumbledore back to normal, vanished the straightjacket and book, positioned Dumbledore sitting up on the edge of the cot, and hit him with a Confundus charm before reviving him and quickly tossing his wand into his lap.
"So the magic backlash of Harry's anti-possession charm must have followed Voldemort's soul when he retreated to his death-avoiding dark artifacts," Sirius said loudly. "Yes, you're right! That's why the book is nothing more than a mere book now!"
Harry had never heard such blatantly made-up magical theory before. Years of listening to Hermione and Ginny made him a connoisseur of semi-understandable jargon. There were far too few citations of magical theory for Sirius to be saying anything provable.
"I… yes, that's it," Dumbledore said groggily, not at the moment aware enough to realize, as Harry had, that Sirius was obviously making it up as he went. "The question, then… is… whether he is fully dead, or simply that the pull on the damaged anchor broke it, but the others remain."
"We can't know until you find the others and confirm they're no longer enchanted, but it's a sight better than the situation we were in before," Sirius told him. "Good work! I never would have figured that out."
"Yes, well," Dumbledore straightened up, "when you spend enough time around magic like I have, these things become, if not clear or intuitive, then at least understandable with enough research. Harry's spell was a power Tom knew not, and it undid him. Very good!"
Harry fought to keep a straight face. He was mostly successful.
"Say nothing of what you saw in the Malfoy ritual room to anyone," Dumbledore warned as he stood. "If he is not fully dead we can warn the Minister, but we must have proof first. And please give my well-wishes to your companion… Samantha?"
"My girlfriend," Sirius lied. Harry thought it was a lie, anyway. He couldn't imagine his mum with a boyfriend. Especially not one who was still actively trying to apologize to her every few days. "Samantha Raven…. Fang. Ravenfang."
"Yes, her." Dumbledore frowned. "I hope she recovers."
"She should," Sirius assured him. "I'll be with her every step of the way. Harry, you don't mind if she recovers in Grimmauld Place this summer, if she's still injured?"
"Of course not!" Harry said.
"Your kindness will serve you well, Harry," Dumbledore told him. "I will leave you to recover… And I will bring your friends to visit tomorrow, if you would like. They were very helpful in keeping Barty from escaping, or from being hidden away by Minister Fudge. Hermione will be fine, I assure you. Minister Fudge does not have a leg to stand on."
Hermione? For that matter, the ritual room had belonged to Malfoy? Harry resisted the urge to ask what the hell had happened; he wanted Dumbledore gone before this ridiculous ruse could fall apart. "That would be good, sir."
"Be well," Dumbledore said. He left the room, the door closing firmly behind him.
They all, by unspoken agreement, waited a good ten minutes after he had left before anyone said anything.
"I will never perform a more impressive prank in my lifetime, no matter how hard I try," Sirius announced. "And never will I reach the heights I could have reached."
"All you did… was obliviate an old man," Taylor said.
"Yes, and it was Dumbledore, but I meant convincing him all of that bollocks was his idea and that you're my girlfriend," Sirius insisted. "Samantha Ravenfang… Ha! It was just shy of perfect."
"What would have made it better?" Harry asked.
"I couldn't figure out a way to work in calling your mum 'my beloved trouser snake' without it seeming contrived," Sirius admitted.
Sirius yelped as cockroaches swarmed into his shoes. Harry pulled a face, then couldn't hold it and burst out laughing. His mum's hoarse chuckles and Sirius' braying laughs joined him.
Harry's departure for Hogwarts, because technically speaking he had no reason to linger in Saint Mungo's and it was still the middle of the school term, was frustratingly inevitable. Dumbledore took him back to the castle less than twenty-four hours after Taylor woke up, as soon as the healers confirmed that there was no lingering damage and that his hand was healing without complication. It would have been even sooner, she gathered, had his famous forehead scar not taken the opportunity of the fight against Voldemort to spontaneously shrivel up and mostly disappear.
He left, unable to publicly do anything more than wish her well, and she hated everyone involved in taking her son away from her again. Even if they didn't know. Thanks to Sirius, this sort of situation wasn't going to happen anymore, but it was still galling.
Once Harry was gone, the nurse – a different nurse than the one who had let Dumbledore in – took the opportunity to shoo Sirius out and get the healer to check her over and talk about her options in private.
"I'll start with your eyes," the healer began, after a long series of diagnostic spells and physical pokes and prods under her bandages. He had a clipboard – a magical clipboard, she assumed – and a very distracted look about him. "You have a detachment in your right eye, where coagulated blood pulled a lens out of place, resulting in blindness in that eye. This would normally be easy to fix, though in the Muggle world it is incurable, but the cause of the damage is magical in nature. You have a case of magical discharge buildup in your brain, and it has spread to your eyes and as far down as your chest.
"How bad?" Taylor asked. Her power sent a feeling of apology and determination. If it could be mitigated from her power's end of things, it probably would be, going forward. But it sounded like some damage had already been done.
"The buildup? Very, and we haven't a clue as to how it happened," he answered. "But if you mean how bad it is for your health? You must have constant migraines, and your blood pressure is far too high, but the weakness in the backs of your eyes can be shored up. You won't be in any danger of the same thing happening to your left eye, and with therapy we can reduce the magical concentration in your right eye to make reattaching the lens possible. You will have to refrain from using magic for two months prior to the restoration, but there is no time pressure to start that beyond how quickly you want to regain sight in that eye. Once we've gotten in to shore up the weakest points you won't have to worry about it happening again in either eye. Ambient magical buildup is mostly harmless, the biggest danger is what's happening here, with it complicating unrelated injuries."
"That's good news." She could scrap her nascent plans to grave-rob Moody. He liked her, so if she could get his eye she imagined he would have wanted her to have it. No need for that now… though she might still take the eye, for sentimental reasons.
"I'm afraid it's the best news I have for you," the healer admitted. "Moving on to your arms. Am I right in thinking the loss of one of your arms is old and was not magical in nature?"
"Yes," she confirmed.
"The injury is much too old to easily regrow or replace it with a normal arm," he told her. "There are still ways, of course, but they come with tradeoffs. Your other arm was severed with a very dark curse. That's even harder to work around, but again, there are options. The problem is none of these options are ideal."
"I see." That was worse than she thought it would be. "You can't… just grow another arm and attach it? Did anyone pick up my arm from the ritual room? It was still intact." She would have thought it would be easy to do the latter. It was commonplace for things like non-fatal splinching, she had checked back when she was looking into apparition.
"The magics involved in that require certain conditions, and dark magic being the cause of the amputation, to put it simply, mucks things up," he said apologetically. "I can walk you through the more technical complications grown arms have after a long period of separation or dark magic, but my professional opinion is that your best option for recovering full functionality in either arm is some manner of magical prosthesis. We have a few very basic models here in Britain, but the best are illegal to make or buy here."
"I've already got four of the best possible model on order in Bulgaria," she said.
Her healer gave her a very incredulous look. "Four?" he asked.
"I'm told you don't negotiate with vampires, and that you should buy generously," she said seriously. "Will the curse damage on my stump affect me using one for that arm?"
"It shouldn't if they are blood magic," the healer said with a relieved smile. "This is the best possible outcome for you, given your situation, which is bad but not as bad as it could be. In the same vein, your preexisting nerve damage was compounded by Cruciatus exposure. We can and always could fix the former, and the latter is less severe, so on the whole you will likely have fewer inexplicable aches and a more sensitive sense of touch once we finish that. But you will still be less sensitive to pain and other sensations than what is normal."
"What I'm getting from this is I should have come here years ago," Taylor said ruefully. She barely remembered what having fully effective nerves felt like. Post-Bakuda was her normal now.
"Yes, you should have," the healer agreed. "We have already fixed the other stress-related damage from the chronic headaches," he continued. "Aside from your nerves, eyes, head, and arms, you are mostly healthy and there were no second-order complications from the dark magic that removed your arm. Many of my patients ask me this no matter what their injury is, so I will tell you now that you are still capable of having children. This will not be the case if any serious dark magic strikes you in the pelvic area, so be careful."
"How common is that?" she asked.
"I see as many fertility consultations due to dark magic as I do to age concerns," he said. "It's much more common than you think."
"I'll be sure to avoid that." Not that she was likely to get pregnant anytime soon. That would require sex, which she wasn't having, and a desire to raise children, which had been thoroughly covered by raising Harry. It would also require a man somewhere in the process, another thing she didn't have.
"As for the order of your recovery," the healer continued, flipping a page on his clipboard and rearranging its contents. "What is the timeline on your prosthetics?"
"Two months," she recalled. She had given the requisite blood by owl post, on a boring, uncomfortable afternoon shortly before Sirius' ill-fated meeting with Dumbledore. Her arms were scheduled to be done by the end of May.
. "Given your current condition, you will not want to leave Saint Mungo's prior to that," the healer told her.
Her current condition… meaning armless? He was right, she wasn't going anywhere. Even if she could wandlessly, wordlessly move things around with magic. That came with far too many headaches to totally replace her arms, especially without her wand.
Damn. It was a good thing she had already set Ollivander to making a new wand. She didn't expect to need one so soon.
"It's rather well timed, all told," the healer continued. "If you choose, we can begin the no-magic regime immediately and keep you for the two months of therapy needed to clear the ambient magic from your eye. The nerve correction is entirely potions-based, so you can do that after, in your own home. If you follow that treatment path, we can have you out of here either shortly after your prosthetics arrive, or as soon as they arrive, depending on whether they come before or after we're done with your eye."
"That's good. Do it." It would be a trial, being stuck in the hospital for several months straight, but it would get her out just in time for the summer. It was a good thing the third task had been moved up to happen in April; if it happened when originally planned, in June, she would have missed the entire summer while she recovered. That was precious time with Harry.
"Your treatments are covered by the wizarding health initiative and, where that does not apply, by Sirius Black, who has already said he would pay for everything' in regards to your care," the healer informed her. "I would ask you to sign a form stating you understand this, but…"
"That'll have to wait until I have an arm." Which wouldn't be for a while. Two months in the hospital…
An unpleasant realization hit her. Her job at the library. Her house, in a Muggle neighborhood, with neighbors who would want to know where she had been, why her arm was covered in tattoos, what was going on…
"Great," she huffed. She was going to have to move. There were probably wizarding ways to stop people from questioning it all, but she didn't think she would be comfortable with the outcome if she used those methods. Not when it likely amounted to selectively obliviating and confounding everyone who knew her to accept whatever she said as the truth. It would be better to just move, however much she liked that house. Aggressive mental alteration was for her enemies if anyone, not her hapless neighbors.
"I'm sorry?" the healer asked. "I didn't catch that."
"Nothing," she lied, forcing herself to put her imminent removal from her Muggle life aside. That was a problem she could ponder while laid up here with nothing to do. "I was just thinking about being stuck here for two months. Am allowed visitors when I'm on the no-magic regime?" It would be a lot more tolerable if Harry could come visit, or Sirius.
"Yes, you are." The healer tucked his clipboard under his arm. "We'll be moving you to a smaller room once we discharge Mr. Black. Until then, kick the bell here if you need anything. Water, food, someone to turn you over, anything. Don't be shy."
Taylor knocked her toes against the bell they had hung from the foot of her cot. It tinkled loudly. "Got it." She was going to go mad before the two months were over, she just knew it.
"Do magical books count as magic?" she asked.
"Don't practice anything you read about," he warned. "We can set up a page-turning charm for you."
That would have to be good enough. At least she could get a big jump on the theory side of things without feeling like she was wasting her time…
Her power sent a strong burst of eager anticipation.
"You're not allowed to be happy about this," she grumbled.
Harry knew he was out of the loop on what had happened while he was away from Hogwarts. Three days in Saint Mungo's was a long time. He thought he had a general idea of some things, just from listening to idle talk among the nurses and doctors, but the details? Nothing. It was all confused and uncertain.
Nothing he had heard explained why Hermione was currently in a Ministry holding cell, for instance.
"What for?" he demanded, leaning further into the customary privacy ward set up over their library table. Ginny, Neville, and Luna all leaned back.
"Minister Fudge is an arse," Ginny said angrily. "She's not being charged with anything, the Aurors said so, but they're allowed to hold a 'person of interest' for up to a week before having to charge them with a crime or let them go. He's being a petty little baby and making sure they keep her as long as they're allowed."
"But what– why?" he asked. "Why just her? What does the Minister of the whole country have against a random schoolgirl?" Sure, Hermione was awesome, and she had that ongoing thing about questioning authority, but what could she have possibly done to offend the Minister?
"Remember how we were guarding Barty?" Neville asked. "When you and Moody and the others went to check out the other end of the portkey?"
"Yeah." He also sorely regretted them doing that. In hindsight, they shouldn't have jumped on it like that. Not without backup. As much as he didn't like the man, Dumbledore would have been a great fifth member of the investigation. But Moody wanted to go immediately, and nobody had objected. They would never know what Moody's reasoning for that was.
"Well, Fudge noticed the commotion," Neville continued. Ginny scowled aimlessly. "After a few minutes of Moody not coming out from under the stands, he sent an Auror to tell Moody to stop making trouble in the middle of the event, and that was about when Barty's polyjuice wore off…"
Harry winced.
"It was very coincidental timing," Luna remarked. "Barty was cutting it close."
"The Auror saw and demanded we hand him over, but we did what Moody said and refused," Neville explained. "The Auror sent for backup, and Minister Fudge came over with the rest of his detail. So it was us, surrounding Barty, keeping the Aurors from getting him, and Fudge started demanding that we release the suspect."
"We said we would, once Moody came back," Luna added. "The Minister was impatient. He didn't want to wait."
"We may have put up shields when the Aurors came to take him away from us," Neville admitted. "Which isn't, it turns out, against the law. For some reason."
"Hermione will explain it when she gets back," Ginny said. "She would know."
"So they broke our shields," Neville continued. "That's when Luna cast a Patronus."
"A Patronus?" Harry knew of the spell, he'd looked into it last year, but it was way too high-level for any of them… Or so he had assumed. "Were there Dementors?"
"No, but there were negative emotions and Neville needed a distraction," Luna assured him. "My octopus confused them."
"Not for long, but long enough that I got to Barty and triggered the Portkey you gave me," Neville recounted. "You know, the Hufflepuff one? It took us to Saint Mungo's, and I Floo-called an Auror my gran always told me I could trust. He agreed to hold Barty in custody until Moody got back to explain himself, and Minister Fudge didn't know where I had gone, so he wasn't there to interfere."
"Meanwhile," Ginny took up the story, "Fudge was threatening us with all sorts of things if we didn't tell him where we had taken the fugitive, and Hermione got into it with him, saying he had never had Barty declared a fugitive because his Ministry was covering it up. Barty was a criminal anyway, but apparently not publicly declaring it makes some sort of difference… Or Fudge just didn't want her shouting about Ministry cover-ups. People were starting to notice that the Minister was under the stands yelling at kids instead of watching the third task. It got tense, Hermione wouldn't back down, and then Dumbledore intervened."
"Oh no." Harry had no faith in his Headmaster to fix this sort of situation.
"It worked out," Luna assured him. "He is good when what he thinks is needed and what is actually needed are the same thing."
"He had Flitwick and McGonagall take us away to be 'properly disciplined,' which meant detentions, and when Fleur won the Tournament, Fudge had to go officiate," Neville explained. "Fudge didn't like that. He, uh, had his Aurors arrest Hermione, but Dumbledore told them and Fudge that it wouldn't stick. That's how we know it's just to inconvenience her. Fudge said… What did he say?" he asked.
"Foolish children should respect their elected officials," Luna blustered in a surprisingly deep voice. Harry had never met the Minister, but he was willing to believe it was a good impression. "She'll sit in the holding cell for a week and think about what she has done, charges or not!"
"He gave her a time-out?" Harry asked incredulously. "For arguing with him?" This was the man in charge of the magical side of the country?
"Yeah, and the Aurors with him weren't happy about it," Ginny said angrily. "They wanted to either arrest her for something real, or let her go. Dumbledore said she would be fine, and my dad said in a letter that he would check on her every day, but it's so stupid!"
"That settles it," Harry declared. "When we graduate, we're taking over the Ministry." The stupid cover-up with Barty, the cover-up with the hostages being sabotaged, and now this… He didn't really want to go into government, but it was obviously in need of serious adjustment. He wanted to be able to mostly ignore the government, confident that they weren't massively mucking up easy, obvious things like investigating serious crimes. Apparently that was not a given.
"Can we just blow it up instead?" Ginny asked darkly.
"If we evacuate the people first," Neville offered. "I don't know, Harry, I don't want to be a parchment-pusher, even an important one."
"How about we install like-minded leaders who reflect our values?" Luna proposed. "That way we do not have to do any of the work ourselves."
They all looked at Luna.
"I think Susan Bones wants to go into government," Harry recalled.
"Percy will fight her for the position of Minister," Ginny said. "If we can just beat some sense into him first, he might stand a chance of winning."
"Ron might make a good Chief Auror, we could trust him not to take bribes from the Malfoys," Neville suggested.
"It's a start." Harry thought about the timeline. "So… Hermione will be back in four days?"
"Or less." Ginny cracked her knuckles. "We think. If not… You still have that invisibility cloak?"
"Yeah." He had a feeling he knew what they were going to be doing for the next four days. Planning a precautionary breakout. "And even if not… Who fancies helping me go visit my mum in Saint Mungo's? Nobody knows I have any reason to go, so they won't let me take off school if I ask." Or maybe they would. But he was feeling rebellious, and sneaking to Saint Mungo's couldn't be any harder than sneaking a trip home.
Sirius took two vials, poured them both into a glass bowl, and hastily threw it into the hallway. A quick "Protego!" had a shield up between him and the hallway, just in time to catch a splatter of acid.
His mother's demented shrieking took on a new, panicked tone.
"Yes!" he cheered. "Take that, you miserable piece of paint and canvas!" Where magical methods failed, Muggle methods prevailed! Specifically, a powerful form of acid. On a related note, his current Muggle alias was going to have to disappear… Those Libyans still thought he was going to make them an acid bomb out of the stuff currently eating through his mother's ugly painted face.
His mother's shrieks faltered and faded away, dying in volume and intensity. He lowered his shield and vanished the acid eating into the floors, venturing cautiously into the hallway.
"Hoo, that's going to be expensive to fix," he breathed. Everything had holes in it. It might have been worth the time to figure out a way to direct the explosive acid blast, but the Libyans gave it to him in ready-to-explode form, so he hadn't bothered tinkering with it. The Black fortune could sustain a few more remodels. He was way too rich.
He inspected the canvas of his mother's painting. It was gray and lifeless where not eaten away, and his mother was nowhere to be seen. More importantly, the clock in the background of the painting had stopped ticking, meaning the animation charms were damaged beyond repair.
"Now, to enjoy the silence." He conjured a chair and set it down on the pitted hardwood floor, then sat down for a good two minutes.
"Too silent," he admitted, dispelling his conjuration. "Come down, stupid painting, mother is gone and her sticking charm probably is too…" He reached up and, after vanishing any remaining acid to make sure he would keep his fingers, lifted the portrait off the wall.
"I'm using you for a bonfire," he told the ornate wooden frame as he dumped it in the living room.
That done, he pulled a parchment list out of his sleeve, unrolled it, and struck a tear through 'kill mother' with his wand and a small cutting charm. "Next on the list…" He shook it out. There was nothing else, aside from a hanging bit of accordioned parchment. "Nothing! Operation 'get Grimmauld Place ready for Harry and Taylor to spend the summer' is complete!"
Something crashed in the hallway.
"Will be complete once I get a contractor in to fix the acid damage," he corrected himself. "A good day's work. And it's…"
He looked at the grandfather clock.
"Noon?" he whined. "Only noon?" It was a weekday so Harry was busy at school, and visiting hours in Taylor's wing of Saint Mungo's didn't start until three!
He looked through his ragged list again, searching for something else to do to fill the time productively. Lazing around waiting for the days to pass had gotten boring after two weeks. "Kill mother, obviously done. Relocate cursed heirlooms, done, they're in the attic. Seal attic to avoid Harry's friends investigating, check. Set up an elaborate treasure hunt that goes all through Grimmauld Place, check. Clean out two bedrooms, check. Decorate Harry's bedroom, check. Decorate Taylor's bedroom… Not check, because I have no idea how she might want it decorated, I'll just get her an open tab at a furniture store. Clean kitchen, check. Stock food that isn't Muggle pizza or Firewhiskey, check. Remove Kreacher's desiccated corpse… Tonight's bonfire should do it. Check in advance."
That was everything. He really was done. Maybe he should have done those chores without magic, to prolong them.
Maybe he was going stir-crazy, with Taylor in the hospital, Dumbledore and the Death Eaters dealt with, and nothing to do except look forward to the end of the school year and Taylor's escape from Saint Mungo's.
If Prongs were there, he'd tell Sirius not to mope around basing his entire life on two other people. Then again, Prongs fixated on, it could be argued, one person from age eleven and never gave up on that, and it worked out for him…
Not that it was the same thing. That was romantic once it finally worked out. Sappy word, sappier concept, but Sirius knew the difference between that and his feelings.
Maybe.
It wasn't the same thing. Even if he had contemplated getting her flowers on the day of her discharge from the hospital. That was just common courtesy, right? And a continuation of his apology campaign, though he thought solving the Dumbledore problem might have sealed the deal in his eventual forgiveness. What did it say about him that he still had a lot of potential apology gift ideas, so he didn't consider himself done apologizing whether or not they were necessary?
He retreated from his thoughts by tossing the completed list on top of his mother's empty frame, and went to go get something that could easily burn the remaining hours between now and visiting time.
"Oy, arsehole, I've been in here for a month!" his hat yelled as he plucked it out of the silenced closet.
Sirius spun it about by the brim and plopped it down on the kitchen table. "I will dissect you with a pair of scissors and a smile if you don't give up your secrets," he threatened.
"You can't even get rid of your mother, and she's canvas!" the hat said scornfully.
"Acid," Sirius told it. "You must not have heard her dying screams."
The hat's brim crumpled fearfully.
Sirius jumped back from the table. "You can move?"
"Well, shit," the hat said sourly. "Hoped to keep that ace in the hole."
"Okay, no, we just passed the point of no return," Sirius told it. "You're going into the bonfire tonight. I'm serious. Tell me what you are and why you are, or I'm getting rid of you. Being possessed once was enough for me!" He honestly should have trashed it months ago, even if it didn't seem dark or dangerous.
"Fine!" the hat shouted. "Level with you," it continued only marginally more quietly. "I can do that. I'm sick of being stuck in closets and boxes. What's the point of a second existence away from Hogwarts if I just get kept in the dark! I'm the Sorting Hat."
"No you're not, the Sorting Hat is in Dumbledore's office," Sirius objected.
"I'm an extension of the Sorting Hat," it clarified. "When they made me they made me replaceable. Hats wear out, you know, and back in the day they replaced me every time I was infested with the magical variant of lice you don't see anymore. The idea was that anyone who twisted some basic spells into the right configuration, on a hat, would tap into this overarching thing Godric and Helena made to store my personality and memories. My hat bodies can be replaced, I am kept in the heart of Hogwarts."
"The Sorting Hat is hundreds of years old," Sirius said. He might not have ever read 'Hogwarts, a History' but Remus had and he remembered Remus telling them it was older than Dumbledore.
"Yes, because the Headmasters over the centuries have forgotten what spells need to be twisted in what ways to connect to my storage spell," the hat explained. "The one in Hogwarts is old. You, lucky nincompoop that you are, blundered your way into connecting me to this hat. It's nothing to do with your spells actually doing things, they're in the shape of a key to a lock you didn't know about. Satisfied?"
"If you're a version of the Sorting Hat…" Sirius poked it in the brim. "Why are you such a belligerent shite?" he asked.
"You try putting up with kids, and only kids, for centuries!" the hat yelled. "I can't mouth off to them, I'd be tossed into a fire by indignant parents! You, though? You I can take the piss out of all day!"
"Fair." He would probably be the same, stuck in that unenviable position. "So no possession?"
"Turn yourself into a hat and put those spells on yourself, and we'll talk about why I still wouldn't possess you in a million years," the hat grumped. "Look, I can be good. I'll only take the piss out of you if you don't give me better targets. You need a wingman? I can do that too. Just take me places."
Sirius was going to find a way to ask Hogwarts' Sorting Hat about this… But it did explain why his hat's voice was so familiar. He just hadn't connected that singing, child-friendly hat at Hogwarts with this foul-mouthed blackmailing hat.
Now that he knew they were one and the same, though… "Can you tell me secrets from the minds of thousands of eleven-year-olds?" he asked hopefully. Having embarrassing childish thoughts to hold over the head of every Hogwarts graduate ever was the holy grail of blackmail.
"There was this one kid, real snot," the hat said, its voice lowering to a gruff whisper. Sirius leaned in to hear better. "Family of Slytherins, nastiest of the lot, a real spoiled prince. He had a secret…"
"Yes?" Sirius said. "Go on."
"He was…" the hat whispered.
"A complete tosser who got himself sorted into Gryffindor!" it thundered. "He wet the bed every night of his Hogwarts career! He turned himself into a dog animagus to lick himself! He got himself tossed in Azkaban for being too stupid to object! What a berk!"
Sirius wiggled a finger in his ear. "You are entirely too much of a bastard," he told it.
"Sic me on your enemies and watch their blood veins throb," the hat offered.
"I want wingman services too," he demanded. "The whole package."
"Get me an anti-bug ward to spend my nights in and we have a deal," the hat suggested.
"Good call." He might need one of those for his bedroom too, come to think of it… He hadn't worked up the courage to put a hole in the wall and see if there really were spiders in there. "But you know why I want wingman services, yeah?" Not for Taylor. Of course not. Never that.
"You know why I want the bug ward!" the hat retorted. "You might want to stick your wand in the black widow, doesn't mean I want her stinger in me."
Sirius raised a finger, a denial on the tip of his tongue.
He paused.
Thought about it.
Thought some more.
"I can smell the smoke from here," the hat remarked. "Don't think too hard, you'll burn out your last two brain cells."
Sirius ignored the hat, still contemplating.
"You know what, fine," he eventually conceded. "We're doing this. I need a new list."
The hat watched – could it watch? – with a tilted brim as he retrieved a quill, ink, and parchment, and sat down to write a new list. "Plan to get Taylor a romantic interest," he narrated. "Wingman, suggestions!"
"It's you, you ninny! Pull your finger out of your–" the hat began.
Sirius slapped down on its top. "Let me stop you there," he said. "I'm awesome. Suave. Sexy. The whole deal. We could probably make it work. I know her better than anyone else in this world save her own kid. But I'm still making up for violating her trust, am bankrolling her recovery, and legally have custody of her kid. Me going after her right now would be skeevy, wrong, and unlikely to get me anything but free bee stingers wherever I want them, so long as I want them impaling me." There was a difference between roguish and rapey, and he prided himself on knowing exactly where that line was so he didn't cross it.
"That's quitter talk," the hat said, its voice inexplicably muffled. Sirius did not for one second believe his hand was actually covering what passed for a mouth. For one thing, the mouth was on the brim, if it was anywhere.
"No." Sirius took his hand off the hat. "Not me." He wouldn't feel right about it. Taylor wouldn't go for it, either. It was probably possible, but if it was going to happen, it would happen after they'd had plenty of time to put all of this behind them. "She does, however, deserve to get some after all of the crap she's been put through. That is where we come in."
Now, who would make a good summer fling for Taylor? It had to be someone he knew and approved of, so he could be sure they wouldn't stomp all over her trust issues the moment she started to let her guard down. Someone awesome, smart, tolerant of some casual eldritch vibes coming off their romantic interest. Probably a guy, unless she was so deeply repressed that not even a Veela could shake any interest loose.
Did he know anyone like that? Nobody was coming to mind.
Someone knocked on the front door. "Damn," he said, his train of thought lost before it could get to the imaginary Hogwarts of epiphany. "Come in!" he yelled, slinging the hat over his head at a jaunty angle. Maybe the answer to his musing had come to him.
"It's locked!" Remus yelled, his voice muffled by the door.
Remus was… definitely not an option. Actually, Remus was someone he should have invited over weeks ago, but not for shoving at Taylor and locking the door behind them. Nobody liked a loose end.
"This is a trial run," Sirius told the hat. "Do your new job."
"Wingman services or irritant?" the hat asked.
"Irritant," Sirius told it, before opening the front door. "Remus, what a surprise!" he said. "The library is still a death trap!"
"And still racist," the hat added. "Try not to pee on any table legs, the house doesn't need its preconceptions confirmed."
"Sirius, why does your hat sound like the Hogwarts Sorting hat?" Remus asked tiredly. The big, dark circles under his eyes were peak Moony in the middle of a research spree, but he also looked… haunted. Not nearly as fun.
"Don't tell me you recognized the voice right away," Sirius complained. "Watch your step, there might still be a drop of acid somewhere in the hallway."
"I did hear the hat singing just last year," Remus reminded him. He stepped carefully in the hallway, eyeing the pit marks all over the walls, floor, and ceiling with thinly-veiled apprehension.
"Was that while you were Professor 'I'll just sneak a peak on the teenage boy behind the dividing wall' Lupin?" the hat jeered.
"It wasn't like that!" Remus objected. "Sirius, what did you do to that hat, and why does it sound like the Sorting Hat?"
"Brought it to life," Sirius said. "Blind man, water, something like that. You look like shit." He led Remus to the kitchen. "Also, you've been a right arse ever since I was exonerated."
"He's mad he can't pity-party himself to sleep anymore," the hat opined. "That'd be my guess, and you know I've been in his head."
"Enough!" Remus slammed his fist on the table that Taylor couldn't figure out how to stop from squeaking. Sirius didn't bother casting a surreptitious squeaking charm, as Taylor wasn't around to be baffled by it. "I didn't come here to be mocked, Sirius. We have an important assignment. Can you be solemn for one second?"
"Nicely avoided asking him to be serious, you might just be smarter than the average pun-prefacer," the hat said quietly. "Then again, you came here, so…"
"Tell me why you're an arse these days, and we'll talk about me maybe letting up," Sirius bargained. He straddled the good chair, leaving Remus with the creaky one.
"The assignment–" Remus objected.
"Can wait, because the library will scalp you if you touch a book," Sirius lied. He and Taylor had long since disabled that charm. In doing so, he had learned that while the charm would not go off if bugs touched a book, if manually triggered it considered the entire exoskeleton of an ant to be the scalp. He had a clean, separate ant exoskeleton to prove it. Remus might not appreciate that knowledge, though. Or the little model he had made out of the exoskeleton. It was on the desk in the room he set aside for Harry.
He was very bored.
"That could be armor for your todger, it's the right size," the hat remarked.
"Oy, you reading my mind?" Sirius objected.
"You put me on your head," the hat said unrepentantly. "How do you think I know exactly when to speak up?"
"Let's do… this." Sirius set the hat down between them. "Hush, you. Remus, my question?"
"I grew up while you were in Azkaban." Remus said sullenly.
"See, no, I don't think that's it," Sirius said. "Grown-up Moony is just kid Moony with the age to back up his old soul. Grown-up Moony isn't an arse to kids named Harry. Grown-up Moony doesn't stay away from his exonerated friend for months for no reason. Grown-up Moony doesn't sound pleased about the possibility of putting a woman down like a dog with rabies!" Sirius slammed both hands on the table, mirroring Remus' earlier action but with a lot more force "Man up and tell me where the stick up your arse came from, so I know whether to have it surgically removed or kick it the rest of the way up when I boot you out of my house." Maybe blaming it on him being in Azkaban had hit a sore spot.
Remus growled at him, but he growled right back, and Remus looked away first. "You could have come to me," Remus said. "When you broke out."
"No I couldn't, you thought I'd betrayed our best friends," Sirius argued. "You would try to arrest or kill me."
"You could have convinced me otherwise!" Remus insisted, not even bothering to pretend he wouldn't have attacked. He might be mild-mannered most of the time, but put him in the right frame of mind, and the wolf would come out.
"Over my mangled body with my dying words, maybe, or when I was being hauled away by the Aurors," Sirius said. "I needed proof. You're not the guy who believes every crazy story he hears, and my story was crazy. By the time I got that proof, I was deep in planning how to use it and dealing with other problems. When that was done with, I was a free man and you knew where to find me, but short of going to the front gate of Hogwarts and holding up a Muggle music box or sending an owl, which was redirected, I couldn't get to you. Whereas you could literally apparate to my doorstep at any time. I thought you'd pop in for a reunion bar crawl one night, whenever you had time!"
"I figured you were busy," Remus muttered. "I forgot I had that Owl ward up, dark families were sending me hate mail. And I had a job to do."
"And then?" Sirius pressed. He stared at his once-friend. Remus was slouching down in his chair. "I'm never busy for long. Boredom is my inescapable foe. You know this."
"Dumbledore had something he needed me to do," Remus said. "Out of the country. Owls couldn't reach me there either, I was looking for a specific piece of information deep in the Vatican's secret magical archives. Now I know what he sent me to get, material on Summoning, which it turns out they didn't have anymore. Burn the heresy, all of that. I got back a week before he called you and me together."
"So you're butthurt over something I didn't do because I wanted to prove myself, not get killed by a rightfully murderous Moony," Sirius concluded. Maybe it would have been better if they had stumbled across Remus mid-Pettigrew-capture. They could have hashed it out over Pettigrew's quivering body and mutually-suffered bug bites. But he made it a personal policy to never linger overlong on what-ifs. "Fine. Why does that extend to Harry's mum?"
"His kidnapper," Remus growled.
"Remember what Dumbledore said," Sirius warned.
"I spent years scouring the country on and off, Sirius," Remus continued, totally ignoring his interjection. "I camped outside of dark manors, watching for weeks at a time. I risked my life trawling through Knockturn Alley. I wandered through thousands of Muggle neighborhoods, looking for places where the house numbers didn't match up, hoping to find a Fidelius like this one. All that time, someone was laughing in their hideout somewhere, with Harry alive but captive."
That was not how it happened, but Sirius had no explanation for how he knew.
"We failed to find him, I failed," Remus said bitterly, "When he showed up at Hogwarts, I thought maybe it didn't matter. Maybe he was okay. Once I worked up the courage to see him, when I got a job at Hogwarts, I saw I really had failed. He didn't know who he was. She took that from him, she took even the memory of James and Lily from him. Nobody else cared, beyond Snape, and he was as much of a bastard about it as he was about everything else. Harry didn't like me, wouldn't listen to me, wouldn't even give me the time of day. His damn Boggart was of her! Then, after all of that, Dumbledore finally saw fit to tell me he suspected this Muggle woman who kidnapped Harry might be possessed and was still an active danger? Can you blame me if I wouldn't mind her just… disappearing? She ruined everything!"
Remus clutched the table with both hands, his fingers gripping wood like it was a lifeline to his sanity. "We're here to do a job. To make sure she's not a threat. You give her the benefit of doubt. Me? I don't think I'll care very much if she can't be saved. I'm in this for Harry, and because as shitty as this world can be I live here too."
There were many things Sirius could have said in response to that. He could have picked apart Remus' self-centered view of events, either by claiming Harry had told him things, or by just pointing out that Remus was jumping to a lot of conclusions. He could have ranted right back at his friend, saying that same attitude was why Harry didn't like Remus, that and pushing Lily and James on him like he was supposed to care about them and only them. He could commiserate, and say their lives were both fucked up by the end of the war. He could try to reason with Remus.
But none of that would change the underlying facts upon which Remus was basing his resentment. The oddly convenient underlying facts.
This all came back to Taylor. To her, to Harry's disappearance, to Summoning. To Dumbledore. Searching for Harry, and failing to find him, had made Remus the bitter, more cynical man he was today.
That did make the plan to tie up this particular loose end much easier to stomach. It was for Remus' own good.
"Never mind," Sirius said, breathing out and leaning forward against his elbow-rest. "That's enough ranting for today. I thought you were avoiding me, you thought I didn't have time for you, we were both wrong, problem solved. We'll agree to disagree on our hopes for the Summoning problem. There is something we can about that today, to blatantly change the subject."
"What is it?" Remus asked, a tentative smile on his face.
"Well, to start with I want my turn at those books," Sirius said. "You have them with you?"
Remus lifted a small satchel to the table. He pulled all six tomes from it, revealing that his bag was heavily enchanted… and for that matter, Sirius hadn't seen the bag before this very moment. "Where were you keeping that thing?" he asked.
"I know where," the hat piped up. "Same place I keep my sword."
"You don't have a sword," Sirius claimed, taking the books and sliding them over to his side of the table.
"Sure I do," the hat told him. "Lupin, flip me over and reach inside with your wand. It's two twitches to the right and a revealing charm."
"Why not me?" Sirius demanded.
"I don't let ugly imbeciles stick their hands up me," the hat told him. A corner of its brim folded at him, looking almost like a wink without the eye or the rest of the face…
"Remus, prove the hat to be a big fat liar, please," Sirius said, getting his wand out under the table.
Remus looked extremely dubious, but he took the hat in one hand, his wand in the other, and put his wand inside the hat. "How far?" he asked.
"Look in, you want to cast it right at the tiny ruby sewn into the bottom," the hat instructed.
Remus leaned in further, until his face was covered by the hat and his wand was in a very awkward position. "I don't see–"
"Obliviate!" Sirius cast, focusing on the same thing he had obliviated from Dumbledore. Taylor. Her name, who she was, everything Remus knew about her, and for good measure everything Remus knew about Harry's childhood, too, as well everything he knew about Summoning just on general principle.
Multi-subject obliviation was difficult, especially with the added impetus on the mind filling in the gaps so the loss wasn't noticeable, but Sirius had studied and practiced, because Taylor didn't do obliviations and they were too useful to ignore.
The spell scratched against his friend's mind, slipping on hard will and relying on his own to shove it into place, and he put every ounce of effort he could into it. It was easier last time with Dumbledore's wand, much easier, but the spell slipped in and slammed down eventually, after a few tense moments of battling wills.
Remus dropped the hat and blinked, swaying from side to side. "Wha…"
"Ha!" the hat yelled. "Got you! How do you like the smell of those mothballs!"
"Why you little piece of ragged cloth," Remus growled, shaking off his momentary obliviation-induced confusion. He looked up at Sirius. "I have to admit, this thing is brilliant." He already sounded less frustrated, the weight on his shoulders lifting. Not entirely, but enough to make a difference.
"I know, right?" Sirius agreed. "I charmed it to sound like the Sorting Hat and everything! Everyone trusts that voice, and it's even funnier when it's cursing up a storm." He would shove the cat back in the bag on the hat's actual origin. It was better if people thought he was just a prankster, not that he actually had a copy of the Sorting Hat. McGonnagal would get her tail in a knot about that, if nothing else.
"What were we talking about before you decided to prank me with the hat?" Remus asked. "I can't quite remember."
"I said we were both idiots," Sirius told him. "You remember that, right? You explaining why you've been such an arse, and me explaining why I didn't run to you first thing after I squeezed my bony self out between the bars in Azkaban?" If this worked, and Remus changed his attitude, Sirius was willing to forgive his prior behavior as mostly Dumbledore's fault.
"Yeah…" Remus rubbed at his head. "I've… Huh. I don't remember how we got from there to me looking into the hat."
"He's a nasty bastard, don't put him on your head again," Sirius advised, casually slinging the hat back onto his. "We had to come to an agreement."
"Black controls my entertainment," the hat whispered loudly. "His antics are more fun if I'm not stuck in the closet."
"I know the feeling," Remus agreed. "Start over, Sirius?" He stuck his hand out. "I've been… In a rough place lately. I think." Momentary confusion flitted across his face, soothed down by the aftereffects of the obliviation.
"You're going to have to do a lot more apologizing to Harry, but as for me, I'm good." Sirius took his hand and shook it. "All you did to me was not come over. Let's go–"
Someone pushed on the Floo wards, stepping into his fire from elsewhere. It was either Taylor, in which case this must be an emergency major enough for her to break her no-magic regime now and waste several weeks of preparation, or someone else who thought they could just walk into his home. Neither was good.
"Sirius, are you home?"
"Narcissa?" he muttered. What in the world was his cousin doing here?
"Malfoy," Remus growled.
"Hang on, let me see what she wants." Sirius sidled out of the kitchen and into the living room. Narcissa was there, looking around at the windows he still hadn't gotten around to properly replacing. "Long time no see," he said, inwardly cursing his stupid self for not closing the Floo. Anyone could have wandered in! He must have forgotten to close it after the carpet tamer left. "It's been… what, a month? Didn't see you last time I visited Malfoy Manor, though."
"Sirius." Narcissa's lips quirked downward. She held herself carefully, like she expected to need to retreat into the Floo, but wouldn't betray her unease before it became necessary. "I wanted to extend my sincerest apologies for the actions of Barty Crouch Junior and the thing he harbored."
"Right, that was the Malfoy ritual room we ended up in on the end of Barty's portkey, wasn't it?" Sirius mused. That was a sordid little detail the Aurors had followed up on. Percy Weasley had quite the Veritaserum-verified story to tell, and he happily contributed his own observations when asked. "Fancy that. Was it Imperius again, or something else?" he asked sarcastically. "I can never keep the excuses straight."
"Imperius," Narcissa said, her face entirely straight. "Barty was… not sane. He considered Lucius a traitor, rightfully so, and said our manor and our freedom was forfeit. We were kept under control from the start, beyond what was necessary to keep up appearances. Your Weasley friend's child can confirm it."
"I'm sure Percy saw exactly what you wanted him to see," Sirius scoffed. He really ought to be more pissed off at how Lucius was getting away with the same Imperius defense, but, well… It wasn't all said and done just yet. He had to do something to use up his copious free time. Putting some dirt in Lucius' eye would be a worthy endeavor.
"Percival Weasley saw that we were no more willing participants than he was, and that is nothing but the truth," Narcissa said primly. "Think, cousin. Lucius has the ear of the Minister. We have money. We have power. All of that we stood to lose, not gain."
"Old-fashioned bigotry and inbreeding addling the mind would be the driving motivation, I suspect," Sirius retorted. "Why are you here? You know I'm not going to fall for any of that."
"I am here to save your life, you foolish manchild," Narcissa snapped. "Did you even think to wonder how the Dark Lord possessed you so easily, and was so powerful while doing so? Or are you so far removed from your upbringing that you think such a thing is normal? Why would he ever bother with anything else if he could simply hop from body to body, taking over his foes and laying waste to them without being in any real danger himself?"
Sirius had chalked that incident up to 'Voldemort probably breaks rules of magic for fun when he wants to', but he wasn't going to admit that to his snooty cousin. He felt exactly how damaging Harry's spell was in dragging Voldemort out of his mind. Damaging to Voldemort, that was. It was over and done with… or so he thought. The healers at Saint Mungo's thought so too, based on their preliminary tests. He did have that follow-up appointment coming up. "Enlighten me, then," he drawled.
"The ritual," Narcissa said, pacing forward. Her hands were empty, but Sirius remained wary of her, and backed up to keep a healthy amount of distance between them. "Lucius told the Aurors that it was one of resurrection. Bone of the father, flesh of the servant, blood of the enemy."
And of course, him having the ear of the Minister, he was allowed to say as much without being drugged to the gills with Veritaserum. Yes, Sirius was definitely going to devote some time to screwing the Malfoys over. The balance of the world demanded it.
"This was an option," Narcissa continued, "but not the only one. We were not privy to which Barty and the Dark Lord decided to use, but the absence of any bones and what happened to you are telling. They used an equally dark body takeover ritual, instead. One meant for Potter, though why him… The potion in the cauldron was designed to weaken the hold of a spirit on the body it currently inhabits. Permanently. Do you understand the danger you are still in now? The ritual was not completed, but the potion and the possession, however it was ended, will have done damage. Damage that can be exploited."
Much as he hated to admit his cousin might have any sort of point, he did have a pretty good idea of how bad that was, what with all of the different possession incidents and scares going on in the last year or so. Especially as, while he got most of the potion in the splashback, he wasn't the only one. "I might have an idea," he said. "And you're telling me this out of the goodness of your heart?"
"Do you want me to lay it out plainly, so that your simple mind can comprehend it?" Narcissa demanded. "I refuse. Figure it out yourself. You are a Black. And in case you cannot, know that if you speak of this to anyone, it will all be for nothing."
"I'll keep your secret," mostly, "but I want more. Did this plan spring from the head of the moldy baby fully formed, or did it come from your Manor's library? All the old Malfoy tomes and dark treatises?"
Narcissa didn't answer, which was an answer in itself, but a much more deniable one.
"If you happen to have relevant references," he said slowly, leaving no doubt as to how likely he thought that would be, "I'll take those. And I do mean take, not borrow."
"I want assurances," Narcissa insisted. "If the Dark Lord returns again, if we are caught out as supporting both sides, I want your word that you'll shelter us. Me, Draco, and Lucius."
Sirius had to think about that one. He had no love for his cousin, and less for her husband or son. He highly doubted they were on his side for any reason other than hedging their bets. Lucius probably liked his cushy, high-profile lifestyle too much to want to go back to being a subordinate of anyone. The only thing about Voldemort that they disliked was not being him. This was not a family he was willing to shelter out of the goodness of his heart, technically his relative though Narcissa was.
But it didn't have to be done out of pity or any belief that they were better than they really were. "Protection from Voldemort, on the condition that I will only shelter you if you publicly renounce him to such an extent that it can't possibly be a lie, before you come to me to be hidden away," he specified. "I'll check, and I will throw you to the wolves if it's a trick. In exchange, along with all the relevant books, I expect at least four favors from Lucius, to be called in whenever I want. I'll make them reasonable or excusable, so they don't ruin his cover," he said sarcastically. His cover as a bigoted, murderous git with too much money. As if that was the cover, and there was a reasonable man beneath. Fat chance.
"Deal," Narcissa agreed. There was no magic enforcement behind it, of course, and she wouldn't insist on any. It would be dangerous to her health if she made a magically-binding deal and then obliviated herself of its existence, after all. As it was, she and Lucius would have to do some clever planning to hold to their side of all of this without remembering the deal itself, so Voldemort couldn't pull the details from their minds. No need to add possible loss of magic or death to the consequences for an unintended mistake.
Narcissa might think he was a childish clown, and maybe he was, but he knew what he was doing. Sometimes.
Sirius shook her hand. "I would say it was a pleasure doing business with you, but I think I need to take a long bath to get the slime of shady deals off," he said. "So that would be a lie."
"I feel much the same," she said, scowling at him even as she went to the Floo. "Lock your Floo. Anyone could have come in and ambushed you."
"Wouldn't want your safety net to get stabbed before you can use him," Sirius said as she left.
"Obviously not," were her parting words.
Remus came into the living room the moment after she left. "Why did you do that?" he asked, though his tone was genuinely curious, not disapproving.
"He put enough loopholes in that agreement to throw a Death Eater or three through," the hat piped up.
"Exactly." He had only promised to protect them from Voldemort, not the Ministry. A specially warded cell in Azkaban would probably fulfill the wording, if not the spirit, of their agreement. He also had at no point said or implied he would stop considering them enemies in the meantime, and he fully intended to ruin the cushy lifestyle and influence Lucius and Narcissa currently enjoyed. Ideally Voldemort would never return, in which case he lost nothing and gained several advantages from this. If Voldemort did come back, it was better for everyone that the Malfoys had the option to run like cowards, instead of being forced to give their all to the cause.
"Never back the rats into a corner with no escape, when you can let them run into a cage and shut the door behind them," he said loftily. "Also, I kind of want to live." He did want to know exactly how loose his soul currently was, and how to fix or otherwise defend it. One barely-remembered possession was more than enough for a lifetime.
"I can help you with that," Remus offered. "Research isn't your strong point."
"Nah, that's pranking, deviousness, and improvisation, as well as tutoring practical-minded adults," Sirius remarked. "Come back tonight, we can do that pub crawl I was hoping for."
"Tutoring." Remus shook his head. "I have no idea whether you're serious–" He stopped and groaned.
"I totally am," Sirius said smugly.
"Walked into that," the hat mocked.
Remus laughed, and Sirius reminded himself that obliviation wasn't the solution to every problem. Remus wasn't suddenly the person he knew going on twelve years ago. His obliviation had been intended to tie up a loose end, not to turn him back into a friend, and it wouldn't have changed Remus. Just sanded off the rough edges and unpleasant reminders related to chasing after Taylor.
But Sirius had plenty of time to remind an old, bitter werewolf of the good old days and how they weren't necessarily gone, now that Remus wasn't a walking threat to Taylor's life. Plenty of time later.
He checked the clock.
Ten minutes after one.
"Say, Remus," he began, "what do you know about time magic? Specifically, is it possible to go forward in time?"
It wouldn't be nearly the end of the school year without a meeting in Dumbledore's office. This time, though, Harry had absolutely no idea what was going to happen. Sirius officially had guardianship of him, though nobody from the Ministry had thought to tell him. It was more than a little vexing how that could be decided without any input from him at any part of the process, especially as all of the paperwork was about Harry Potter, but he supposed that was par for the course with the wizarding world. It worked in his favor this time around, so for once he wouldn't fight the implications.
This meeting could just be about that. He hoped so. Taylor was still laid up in Saint Mungo's, awaiting the end of her treatment and the delivery of her arms, so he wouldn't have her as backup. It would be him, Dumbledore… and Ginny under the Potter invisibility cloak, sneaking in behind him. He was too close to the end of all of this to risk being obliviated or something else just before the summer.
"Harry, come in," Dumbledore said as he raised his hand to knock on the door. Harry resolutely did not look at where Ginny would be, right on his heels, and entered the Headmaster's office. Dumbledore was at his desk, his eyes fixed on Harry as Harry tried his best to ignore the many distracting objects lining the walls on shelves and pedestals and in heaps on the floor, but a glowing purple orb that rolled in idle circles caught his eye.
"What is that?" he asked, unable to stop himself.
"That is a custom Remembrall," Dumbledore remarked. "Whoever it is tuned to has forgotten many, many things."
"Not you, though?" Harry asked nervously, wondering if Dumbledore was testing him.
"Oh, no, it belongs to my friend Nicolas Flamel," Dumbledore said with a smile as Harry sat down in the chair opposite his desk. Ginny's hand brushed against the back of his neck, reminding him that she was there. "Do you recognize the name? Binns may have gone over them…"
"Were they goblins?" Harry asked. He had just come from a goblin history session with Hermione, as they did need to revise the one year's worth of material Binns taught, so as to pass the exam. If it was goblin-related there was a fair chance Binns had at leashed touched the topic, but he didn't recognize the names.
"No… No matter," Dumbledore said. "This has been a very eventful year, much more so than I thought it would be. Voldemort was dealt a near-fatal blow. I have been looking for his remaining anchors, to confirm his demise, but I have had little luck so far. Next year, I would like to give you some personal lessons, to prepare you in case Voldemort is not truly gone."
"In fighting? Combat spells? Mental defenses?" Harry guessed. He had very mixed feelings about spending time with Dumbledore, but if he could get something genuinely useful out of it, maybe it would be worth his time.
"Something just as useful," Dumbledore said vaguely. "In the meantime, are you aware that Sirius Black has been granted custody?"
"Yes, he told me," Harry said.
"You may go with him, but…" Dumbledore trailed off, his eyes unfocusing. "Ah, what was it?" he murmured. "The Dursleys? I think so… yes."
Harry had no idea who the Dursleys were, or why they were coming up now. He could guess, though, and he could play along. "Yes, well, I don't think I'll miss them much," he said vaguely.
"I suppose not," Dumbledore agreed. "Their home is a safe place… It should be safe… it was safe…" He trailed off again, looking down at his desk for a worryingly long time.
Harry wondered about possible debilitating effects of complicated, far-reaching obliviations. Then he thought about how Dumbledore had subjected his mum to one, and decided he didn't care if there were deleterious side-effects. Not for Dumbledore, not so long as the obliviation held.
"I'll be safe with Sirius," Harry prompted.
Dumbledore startled, as if waking up, and blinked heavily. "Yes, you will," he agreed. "Why, it may be that there is little left to be safe from, if Voldemort is truly gone. I will see if I can find proof one way or the other over the summer. In the meantime, you enjoy yourself. Sirius has told me he will be waiting for the Hogwarts Express."
"Are you… okay, sir?" Harry asked. Surely other people would be asking Dumbledore the same thing, what if someone noticed?
"Oh, yes, I simply have had a lot on my mind," Dumbledore told him. "It is nothing to worry about. Perhaps I am just getting old."
"Right. Good." Harry stood. "See you this fall, Headmaster."
"And you, Harry," Dumbledore said vaguely. "Remember, you do not need to use the Floo this time, though why I… I am sure there was a reason…"
Harry waited long enough for Dumbledore to visibly dismiss his confusion – a full two minutes, by his nervous count – and then decided he wasn't helping anything by staying in the office.
"He's going to end up in a care center for old wizards at this rate," Ginny whispered as they descended the spiral staircase. "I hope that confusion is localized to him thinking of Taylor. And that it can't be reversed."
"Sirius was sure it was a strong obliviation," Harry whispered back. "Very strong." The way Dumbledore was now, he just seemed… old. Tired. Confused, but naturally so. It was kind of creepy, the way he explained his behavior so reasonably.
Harry in no way pitied the Headmaster, though. He was reaping what he had sown, good intentions or not. If he ever threw off the obliviation, highly unlikely though that might be with how thoroughly Sirius said it had stuck, Harry would be the first in line to either re-obliviate him or fight him off some other way.
Nobody was hurting his mum again. Ever.
The Hogwarts Express was set to leave Hogwarts in an hour, and all of Harry's friends were late. He himself had packed the night before, come down to the Great Hall for an early breakfast, and said goodbye to all of his Hufflepuff yearmates in case he didn't see them on the train. An hour was spent puzzling out the correct shrinking charms to make his luggage fit into his pocket, a luxury few lower-year students could manage. Then he went back to the Great Hall, wondering if anyone else was packed and ready yet, and upon not seeing Neville, Ginny, Luna, or Hermione there, went up to the Gryffindor common room.
He found Neville there. Specifically, he found a frantic Neville lugging a trunk out of the portrait hole, sweating hard. "Harry, thank Merlin," Neville cried out. "Help me get this down to the greenhouse! We don't have time!"
"Sure," Harry agreed, hoisting Neville and then his trunk out of the hole and setting them upright in the corridor, "but what–"
"No time!" Neville repeated, running down the corridor. Harry followed, and as they ran, Neville panted out what he probably thought was a complete explanation, but which was turned into a cryptic puzzle by his panting interrupting most of the words. "I," his next few words were too fast and panted to understand, "fourteen days," they turned down a long side-passage and Neville had to dodge a suit of armor, "kept it after," Mr. Filch waved a broom at them as they ran by, "Snape is harvesting–"
Neville reached a set of stairs, whipped his trunk out in front of him, and dove down headfirst. Harry stopped at the top of the stairs to goggle at his friend, his wand forgotten in his hand as Neville tobogganed down the stairs on his trunk. Two first-year Ravenclaws had to leap to the sides to avoid being run over at the bottom of the stairs, and Neville slid to a stop halfway down the following hallway, miraculously unharmed.
Harry felt that he had lost the plot somewhere along the way, but he ran down the stairs as fast as he could anyway. Questions could come after he helped Neville with whatever crazy emergency this was.
He was a ways behind Neville for the rest of their frantic trip through Hogwarts, but he managed to keep up, and Neville's ultimate destination was easily predicted. He ran into the greenhouse furthest from the castle, and Harry followed.
Inside, many small fronds of green and red waved gaily at them, dripping with condensation in the artificial sweltering humidity. In one corner of the greenhouse a great forest of head-high stalks sprang up from the planter beds. Neville beelined for that specific patch of greenery, throwing his trunk open just shy of the plants. Inside, there were four sets of pruning shears, a thick pamphlet, and what looked like a magical contract.
"Contract's expired, I can talk about it now, help me cut it down!" Neville blurted out, tossing Harry a pair of shears. "It was in the third task, a rare Grasping Gadfrond, none of the champions encountered it in the maze so it was still intact after. They left it here, I told Professor Sprout they gave it to me but I think they just forgot."
"Are we cutting it down or something?" Harry asked. "Also, is this thing dangerous?" He didn't recognize the name of the plant.
"We're checking the digestive tract," Neville said ominously, jabbing his shears into the nearest person-sized piece of foliage. It shuddered back, curling away, and he strode in, jabbing left and right.
"Nothing like a safari to start the day," Harry said as he followed, "but Professor Sprout could do this?"
"She said it was my responsibility to prune it!" Neville said. The lights of the greenhouse faded as they ventured deeper into the Gadfrond's territory. Harry could have sworn the greenhouse didn't go this far back. "I didn't know Snape was coming down here this morning, I was going to have my Gran come tomorrow with the hired cursebreakers to help me transplant it to our garden, so I didn't think I needed to prune it yesterday."
"Hired cursebreakers?" Harry repeated.
"Yeah, you need them to break natural rune root formation," Neville said. "It's very interesting, really, nothing complex but very strong because they grow that way, that's actually what makes them magical plants instead of terrifying Muggle plants – there's the holding pod." He poked forward and down, into the soil, and the ground beneath his feet shuddered.
Harry watched as dirt shifted off a bulging convex surface just below the surface, revealing a fat pod the size of a person.
"I'm going to be scrubbing cauldrons in detention until I'm dead," Neville moaned, taking his shears and dragging them down the side of the pod. Green sticky fluid burst out from the cut, and the entire thing crumpled, revealing a sodden, huddled figure.
Snape didn't look any worse for wear, aside from the unnaturally peaceful expression on his face and his sodden robes. He snored contentedly. All around them, the Gadfrond's tendrils shuddered and retreated into the soil, turning a head-high jungle into a barren patch of dirt in seconds.
Outside the dirt, Harry's own head of house was gearing up for war, dragonhide gloves on her hands and a fearsome look on her face. "Neville?" she demanded.
"I got him!" Neville said, rushing over to Professor Sprout. "But I need to get to the train soon, so could you handle the rest?"
"You did get him," Professor Sprout said approvingly. "No harm done. It could happen to anyone. Hello, Harry!"
"How much trouble are we in?" Harry asked.
"None, Neville did wonderfully," she assured him. "The Gadfrond isn't dangerous, it takes two years to meaningfully digest anything, which is why it secretes a weak, natural Draught of Living Death. You should run along before Professor Snape wakes up, though. I won't get to tell him it was all his own fault if he has students around to blame."
"How did it catch him?" Harry thought to ask. Snape was a terrible teacher and possibly a terrible person in general, but he wasn't incompetent.
"Those tendrils are stronger than they look," Pomona informed him.
"Also, the Gadfrond likes me." Neville smiled at the bare patch of dirt. "It's a lot more effective at snaring people it doesn't like or doesn't know," he continued. "It's good enough to be a challenging obstacle in the Triwizard Tournament, remember?"
Harry hurried off the Gadfrond's territory, breathing much more easily once he was back on solid, non-treacherous ground. "This is cool, but the train," he reminded Neville.
Neville's pleased expression shifted to one of panic. "I didn't miss it?" he asked, taking Harry's shears and putting them in his trunk.
"Not yet, but I can't find Luna, Hermione, or Ginny," Harry explained. "We have less than an hour."
"I'll check by the Ravenclaw common room, you check the library?" Neville suggested. "I need to go up that way to release my Puffball spores out of a high window. Ginny wasn't in the common room, so I can't think of where else she could be but the library."
"Sure," Harry agreed, holding his questions about Puffball spores until they were safely on the train. He split off from Neville once they reached Hogwarts, headed for the library at a pace just short of running. Once he actually reached the library he slowed to a respectful walk for Madam Pince's benefit.
Checking over the mostly-empty expanse of tables, he didn't see any of his friends. Ernie waved at him, and Harry waved back before tapping his wrist where a watch would be if he was wearing one. Ernie nodded and packed up his belongings.
Harry took a moment to meet Ernie outside the library, just on the off chance he had seen anyone. "Hermione, Ginny, or Luna?" he asked.
"Have I seen them, you mean?" Ernie asked. "Yeah. Ginny and Hermione went into that empty classroom on the second floor. First door on the right of the fish painting."
"Thanks!" He was really feeling the time pressure now, so he abandoned all pretense of dignity and sprinted down the hallways. Second floor, fish painting– Yes, he knew that room. He stopped just outside the door, pushed it open, and walked in.
Hermione had her back to him. Ginny was facing him. Neither noticed his entrance, as they were both seemingly oblivious to their surroundings.
Being lip-locked in a passionate kiss would do that to a person.
Harry stood there for a long moment, mentally weighing the pros and cons of announcing his presence. On the one hand, the train and the rapidly depleting time between now and when it was set to leave. On the other, the possibility of painful hexes from a surprised and vengeful couple finally having figured things out, only to be interrupted. It was a tough decision.
"Two more minutes," Ginny said, breaking the kiss to look over Hermione's shoulder. Right at him.
"Train leaves soon!" he blurted out, his words punctuated by a surprised squeak from Hermione. He was out of the room before she could turn around, satisfied that two of his remaining three friends knew they were on the clock.
Neville was looking for Luna, and it would take time to get a carriage out to the Hogsmeade station, so Harry decided to hope Luna was already at the carriages and made his way there. Much to his relief, she and Neville were waiting along with a whole collection of other students who wanted to make the journey with their friends.
"I've been waiting for you," Luna told him. "Neville found me first. He says you were running all over the castle."
"I didn't want to leave anyone behind," Harry admitted. Maybe it would only be a minor inconvenience, or maybe the Professors would make sure nobody missed the train, but this was technically his first train trip back to London, and he wanted it to go well.
Hermione and Ginny walked up, their luggage levitating behind them. As a group, the five of them got into one of the carriages. They had been waiting around the back, but as they got in, Harry noticed something.
"Were those always there?" he asked, pointing to the bony horses.
"Yes, those are Thestrals," Luna said.
"Ah, right." It was nice to finally see one of Luna's more mysterious creatures.
"Were you invited to Professor Moody's funeral?" Luna asked as the carriage set into motion, randomly changing the subject. "My father says he hasn't heard where it will be, or when."
"There wasn't a funeral," Harry relayed. "There was a will reading, but I wasn't there for that." Sirius stood in for him and Taylor, as he was stuck in school and Taylor in Saint Mungo's at the time. "Did you know Moody added to his will weekly? It's over a thousand sheets of parchment long. Sirius said most of it was just Moody recounting exactly what he did, and with who, so that if his murder was a mystery the killer wouldn't stand a chance of getting away with it. There's talk of editing it and publishing it as a memoir."
"That's kind of impressive but also kind of barmy," Ginny remarked. "Did it have Hissy in it?"
"It named Sirius and 'his animagus mercenary babysitter', yeah. Also, what they told him Hissy was doing in Hogwarts." Harry felt bad about Moody's death, but he felt worse about the relief that it was only Moody. It could easily have been Sirius or Taylor, or himself. "So Sirius says he and mum are going to have to follow through with the presentation to the Hogwarts board of governors. No more Animagus sneaking around."
"I'll miss her," Luna said.
"Me too," Ginny agreed. "But she's not dead or gone, just not sneaking around."
"Speaking of sneaking around…" Harry might have been wary of provoking the new couple in the heat of the moment without backup, but he felt much safer here in the carriage with Luna and Neville as backup. "Did I walk in on a well-hidden secret, or an unexpected event?"
"A long-awaited event," Ginny answered.
"I would say unexpected," Hermione added, not meeting anyone's eyes, "but it was sort of building up all term." She smiled shyly.
"I think it's great," Luna said loudly. "Now Ginny can write you love poems and actually send them, not burn them after!"
"Luna!" Ginny shrieked. "That was one time!"
The carriage rolled to a stop, and Ginny pushed Luna on the shoulder as they all disembarked. Harry caught his thin-framed girlfriend as she stumbled into him, turned to admonish Ginny, and almost tripped as Luna turned the dramatic fall into a dancing spin, making him wonder if Ginny had actually shoved her hard at all.
They joined the general last-minute scrum of students boarding the train, and as a group claimed the first mostly-empty compartment they came across, sitting with the infamous Weasley twins and Lee Jordan. All together, the eight of them took up enough space that Lee cast something to enlarge the compartment, but they fit in the end.
The train left the station not ten minutes after they were seated, proving Harry right in his frantic cross-Hogwarts sprint. The twins handed out candy, which everyone pocketed, as it was much better used on others than eaten personally.
George – or possibly Fred – noticed Hermione and Ginny holding hands a short while into the trip. "Well," he drawled, poking his brother and pointing the duo out, "that is going to throw mum for a loop, isn't it?"
Ginny flushed red and drew her wand, but Fred waved his hands wildly. "No, no, we approve," he added. "Merlin knows it was blindingly obvious all term. But mum told us 'you watch my Ginny this year, make sure Harry treats her right.' We should have made a bet with her, but, you know, it's mum."
"Were you watching?" Harry asked curiously, hoping to avoid any further discussion of Molly Weasley. He did not regret turning down their offer to have him stay over for another summer. Once was an experience, and more than enough for him.
"You must know, Harry," Lee said cryptically, "Fred and George are always watching. Right pair of big brothers, they are."
"Maybe next year we'll pass our secrets on to you, if Harry Potter never shows up," George said.
"I'm not him," Harry objected, more out of habit than anything else. One could never be sure whether the twins were being serious.
"Oh, we know," George said. "Harry Hebert you are, and you have been since the first day. Everyone else will believe it sooner or later."
Luna, who was looking out the window, nodded agreeably. "Yes, and your name is so much more fitting that way. Your first and last names start with the same letter, like a superhero from a comic."
"How do you know about comics?" Hermione asked.
"Daddy has a collection," Luna explained. "Up in the attic, next to his Muggle conspiracy theory books. He's always looking to expand his mind."
"Superheroes are fictional, though," Hermione argued. "They don't exist, and nobody is claiming they do."
"Not like magic," Luna agreed. "We all know the Muggles do not write fiction about that, or believe it really doesn't exist. Totally different."
Neville laughed, and Harry had to laugh too at the affronted expression on Hermione's face. "It is different," she insisted.
"You'd make a good superhero, though," Harry suggested. "Lightning from your hands, that's a superpower."
"We would all make for good superheroes," Lee Jordan agreed. "Not them, though." He pointed at the twins. "They're obviously supervillains."
"I feel we have been complimented," George said, "but alas, father's obsession with Muggles has not led to us knowing what comic books are. Even though they are by far the best Muggle literature."
"Yes, we certainly do not have a whole stash hidden under the bed, on top of the miniature potions set," Fred agreed with an exaggerated wink. "Ginny, now that I'm thinking about it, you might like some of them."
"The costumes," George elaborated. "You will not believe how much skin Muggles show."
"That's enough," Hermione interjected. "Who wants to play a game of Exploding Snap?"
Harry would have said yes, but he noticed the anticipatory look Hermione was trying to hide, and decided it was probably best he enjoy this show from the sidelines. The twins soon learned, much to their chagrin, that playing with Hermione involved a lot more static shock than normal.
Meanwhile, Neville had cornered Lee into talking about plants, and Luna was pulling out a quill and parchment. Harry leaned against her to look out the window, then glanced down at what she was drawing.
It was not a drawing of the countryside, like he had expected. Neither was it a sketch of some mysterious creature. Rather, she was drawing… them. All of them, in the carriage. She started with basic flowing outlines; an oval for a face here, a pair of perpendicular lines for a shoulder there.
"Ow!" Fred yelped. "Neville, I'm tagging you in until my hands regain feeling."
As the kilometers sped by outside, Luna's picture took shape, building off the outlines to create recognizable figures. Hermione and Ginny were on the left of the drawing with Ginny up against the window, still wearing their Hogwarts robes. Hermione's hair was fully puffed out in Luna's illustration, with a few stylized lightning bolts shooting off it, and Ginny was patting it down with one hand while giving her brothers the evil eye. Fred and George were on Hermione's left, depicted dealing out a hand of Exploding Snap to Neville and Lee, who were on the edge of the row of seats, leaning forward to take their cards. Neville had a small potted plant on his thigh in the picture, though no such thing was present in the carriage.
Harry and Luna didn't appear in the picture, or so he thought. Luna put more detail into the robes, the faces, the pattern of the compartment wall behind them, but even once it looked mostly done there was a big empty space in the bottom right of the parchment. She sketched a big blocky thing there, one that developed a mass of tendrils and remained unidentifiable, even when she put the quill down.
"What is that?" he asked.
"Your head on my shoulder," Luna said absently.
So it was. He felt vaguely amused that his hair resembled an unknown creature from the depths of the ocean, but it was so perfectly Luna to include even that. This picture truly was from her perspective.
The Exploding Snap game died off once all of the players save Hermione had numb hands. Eventually, conversation turned to summer plans.
"Gran and I are going to spend the summer replanting the Grasping Gadfrond," Neville said. "Also, something about the Wizengamot… The one is my reward for putting up with the other. You're all welcome to come over anytime."
"I'll be home, of course," Ginny said. "No World Cup or visit to Egypt this year, so it'll be a normal, boring summer. Mostly."
"Same for me," Hermione said. She held Ginny's hand with one hand, and flicked sparks from finger to finger with the other. The sparks increased in intensity as she continued, "Ginny is coming over for a week, I know that. Harry, my parents want to have you and your mum over for dinner."
"I will be drawing," Luna said absently. "Whatever I see… Some things I do not, too. Daddy says he will be printing some of my drawings in the Quibbler starting this summer!"
And then there was Harry, who for once had absolutely no reservations about how he would be spending the summer.
When the train pulled into platform nine and three-quarters, he disembarked with everyone else and looked around. For a moment he worried that something had gone wrong.
Then he saw them, both of them. Sirius with that weird hat of his from Diagon Alley, and Taylor wearing a sleeveless robe to display her new rune-covered but otherwise normal-looking arms. They were waiting for him, out in the open, without fear of a Dumbledore interruption or other complication.
Finally, he was home.
Author's Note: Up next is the final chapter, a time-skip epilogue. This one is meant to serve fairly well as a short-term ending, but there are a lot of loose threads that would be ominous if left unattended long-term (Voldemort, the status of Dumbledore's obliviation, etc).
