This part is done by Trinity Day. Chapter Five.


//At that moment a Jet of Green Light headed out of Harry's Hand towards Voldemort he was in pain and the next he knew he was gone and his body was lying there.
The four headed to Hogwarts...//

They Apparated to Hogsmeade where Sirius commandeered a fireplace at the Three Broomsticks. With both Lily and James too upset over their near miss, Sirius was the only one able to call Hogwarts. It was seconds before Albus Dumbledore's head was floating in the fire.

"What happened?" he demanded in uncharacteristically harsh tones.

"He came, he saw, we conquered." Even after all that had happened, Sirius had not lost his sense of humour, although his voice was bitterer than his friends were accustomed to hearing.

"Then Voldemort's . . . "

Sirius finished for him. "At James' and Lil's, in an undistinguished heap on Harry's bedroom floor."

"And Harry?" Dumbledore asked sharply.

"He's doing better than the rest of us put together," Lily said, speaking for the first time in ages. She held up the toddler in her arms so that Dumbledore could get a better look.

Harry was wide awake now and not any worse off for Voldemort's attempts to kill him. Instead, he was giggling in his mother's arms and alternately tugging on her hair and his father's nose. Seeing the headmaster in the fire, Harry waved at him. "Hi!" he said cheerfully.

"Hello, young Harry," Dumbledore said, his mouth twisted oddly. Then turning back to address Sirius, he said, "Come to Hogwarts right away. Even if Voldemort's gone, I don't think it's safe for you four to be out in the open at the moment."

"We're already in Hogsmeade," Sirius informed him. "We'll be there shortly."

Dumbledore's head bobbed up and down in the fire before disappearing altogether.

Rosmerta, who had been hovering by the door, asked them, "Is everything all right? Are you all okay?" Her eyes were wide.

"We're fine," James said. "We're going to be at Hogwarts for awhile, though."

She half turned around and vaguely pointed behind her. "I have some brooms. If you want... They'll get you there faster."

"That's okay," Sirius said. "The way we're going you can't use brooms and it's the quickest route between here and the school. The safest, too."

"One of your passageways, then," Rosmerta concluded. They had visited her tavern so many times while they were at school that she had to know that they had found many alternate ways out of Hogwarts.

Sirius winked at her, but said nothing.

"Good luck, then," Rosmerta said anxiously. "I hope you won't need it."

"We shouldn't, but thanks for the thought," James said.

The passageway they took was one of the last ones they had found and was the quickest way between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, but it still took close to thirty minutes before they arrived at the school.

Harry had finally settled down and fallen asleep in Lily's arms while they walked. No one had suggested she bring the pram because they all instinctively knew that there was no way Lily was going to let Harry out of her arms that night. After what had happened earlier, it was doubtful she would even relinquish her son to James.

When at last they came into the dark hallways of Hogwarts, the castle was deserted. The Hallowe'en feast had long since ended and everyone was probably long asleep by then.

"Just like old times, eh, Prongs?" Sirius asked, his voice barely above a whisper. Something about wandering in the deserted castle made him keep his voice down. It was probably just that old habits died hard.

"I keep on expecting to run into Filch at any second," James confided.

"Don't be silly," Lily said. "We're not students anymore and we're not sneaking around." Her words didn't seem as convincing as they would have if she, too, hadn't been speaking in whispered tones. It could have been simply that she did not want to wake the sleeping babe but that didn't explain the nervousness in her voice.

All three of them jumped guiltily, and Harry stirred restlessly in Lily's arms, when Professor McGonagall's voice rang out. "What are you doing here?"

She came closer and then rolled her eyes at the looks on their faces. "Honestly," she said. "You would think you were students I caught out past curfew. We weren't expecting you for another half an hour at least, and we certainly weren't expecting you to show up in the middle of the castle instead of through one of the entrances. How did you get here?"

"The road takes too long and you never know who you might run into," Sirius said as an explanation.

"I see," Professor McGonagall said coolly. "If it were anyone else, I would be surprised, but since it's you three, I guess I should have expected it." Then, suddenly she dropped all her professorly manners and became concerned. "But you are all right, aren't you? All of you?"

"As well as can be expected after a run-in with Voldemort," James said seriously. McGonagall flinched at the name.

"Better, even," Lily added. "We're alive, aren't we? That's more than you can say about most people who have met the Dark Lord."

A grimace was McGonagall's response. "Professor Dumbledore's waiting for you in his office," she said. "I'll show you the way."

Despite everything that had happened that night, Sirius couldn't suppress a grin. "We know the way."

Lifting an eyebrow, McGonagall said, "Yes, I suppose you would."

Dumbledore was actually waiting in the hallway beneath his office and he was pacing back and forth. He looked up when the five of them came into view. The fine lines around his eyes were crinkled up in concern but they quickly disappear when he saw them.

"What happened with Peter and the Death Eaters?" James wanted to know.

"We've rounded up most of them," Dumbledore informed him. "A few escaped, but they're been tracked down as we speak. What happened with Voldemort?"

They told him. James started the narrative and Sirius finished for him with Lily adding in the details that they forgot. At the end, Dumbledore and McGonagall were staring at Harry so intently that Lily shifted him in her arms, uncomfortable at the attention his baby was receiving.

"But how?" McGonagall wanted to know. "How did Harry do that?"

"Further explanations can wait until morning," Dumbledore declared. "James, Lily, Sirius, you can use one of the guest bedrooms. Further quarters will be set up for you tomorrow, but I should expect you will be staying here for some time, at least until things settle down and we know it's safe for you in public again."

Too tired to protest, they simply followed him. Yet, once they were dropped off in their bedrooms, they found that none of them could sleep despite being utterly exhausted. Dumbledore had shown Sirius his room first, but the latter wanted to know where his friends were going to be sleeping so he went with them to their room and stayed there after Dumbledore and McGonagall left.

"Something's wrong," he announced when the door was firmly closed.

"You noticed, too, did you?" James asked.

"What wasn't he telling us?" Lily wondered.

"I don't know," Sirius said grimly, "but I'm going to find out."

It didn't take him long. McGonagall had also noticed something amiss with Dumbledore's usual behaviour and had started to interrogate him as soon as they had dropped the four off. Opening the door slightly, Sirius, James and Lily were able to overhear their conversation.

"They have been through too much tonight," Dumbledore was telling McGonagall. "I thought it best to wait until morning to tell them that Voldemort has disappeared."

"What?" McGonagall gasped. "What do you mean."

"When we sent people to retrieve his body, it wasn't there. One of his followers must have found him first and taken his body, but for what purposes, I do not know."