(Author's Note: Please be warned, this part is fairly bloody and violent. Again, I don't own any of these characters, except Persephone and Demetrius.)

Harry let out a satisfied chuckle. Mulciber was unarmed; Green was in her element now.

"You think I have the advantage." Professor Green's voice came from somewhere to his right, but Harry continued to watch the combatants in the clearing.

"He's unarmed," Neville observed.

"You don't need a wand to read somebody's mind. Look at his face. All I'm reading is his hostility. He's reading my every intention."

Harry surveyed Mulciber's face, or what he could see of it in the moonlight. Mulciber frowned with concentration, and his eyes were unmoving, fixed on the younger Green's face. They glittered with a sort of intelligent malice.

"Fletcher belongs to us. Give him back, you Mudblood-loving--" He called Green a very impolite name.

"Er, sorry." Professor Green whispered, grimacing. "Forgot about that."

The younger Green smiled and raised an eyebrow. "You might want to watch that language," she said to Mulciber. "Your life's in my hands now."

"The hell it is." Mulciber turned and bolted toward the edge of the woods, but before he got there, Green had grabbed him from behind by the collar of his robes.

She tripped him so that he fell facedown in the grass, and pushed his face into the ground with her left hand. As he struggled, she knelt down on his back, pushing her left knee hard into the back of his neck. "Now," she said to herself without the slightest hint of agitation, as though she were trying to remember where she had set her quill, "where is that Achilles tendon?"

Still holding Mulciber's struggling head to the ground with her left hand, she reached over his leg with her right hand--the hand holding the dagger. Just as she was about to slash at the back of his calf, Mulciber reached back with all his might and elbowed her in the ribs.

Green was stunned just long enough for Mulciber to roll over and push her off him. And at once he was on her, his hands around her neck. She jabbed at him several times with the dagger, but he anticipated the jabs, and dodged her every move. He began to laugh.

"Classic rookie mistake," Professor Green commented. "Thinking too hard, when I should have been acting on instinct. That's what throws them off."

But the younger Green clearly lacked the benefit of this understanding. She continued to jab and kick at Mulciber, and he continued to dodge every blow. Finally, he reached back and punched her across her face, as hard as he could.

Harry winced; beside him, he saw Neville do the same. He even thought he heard Snape make an odd gasping noise.

The hand holding the golden dagger went limp. Quickly, ruthlessly, Mulciber grabbed the dagger out of Green's hand and cut savagely at her throat.

This time Harry, Neville, and Snape all winced in unison. Blood was pouring freely from a deep gash running from just below Green's left ear to the middle of her throat. But she was still conscious--she reached weakly out toward Mulciber, and made a sickening gurgling sound that Harry supposed must have been an attempt at speech.

But now Mulciber ignored her. He stood up and dashed over to Fletcher, who was still on his hands and knees in the Summoning Circle, dazed and oblivious to the fight. Mulciber knelt down next to him.

"They'll be coming soon," he muttered. "And when they do, they can't find you alive. If I had time to do a Memory Charm, you would have lived." He shrugged. "Ah, well."

Just then the forest, the clearing, and the figures within it--the entire memory--began to fade from view. "Yes, this is where it gets a bit hazy," Professor Green explained. "On account of all the blood leaving my brain. But we should still be able to make out what happens next."

Harry could dimly see Mulciber reach back, preparing to plunge the dagger into Fletcher's side. But before he could finish the motion, a man's voice called out from the forest, to Harry's right.

"Stupefy!"

An incredibly well-aimed Stunning spell shot out from behind a tree and dropped Mulciber where he knelt. A man ran into the circle, wearing a black cloak and boots identical to the ones Fisher and Green wore. He glanced down at the dazed Fletcher and the unconscious Mulciber, and saw the golden dagger in Mulciber's hand. He reached down, grabbed it, and held it up in the moonlight. The luminous blade was obscured by what could only be blood.

"My God."

Because Green had gone quiet, he had to look around for a second before spotting her on the edge of the clearing opposite the one he'd just come from. He ran over to her.

"You'll be alright, Persephone," he murmured as he placed the edge of the blade to the gash in her neck. Quickly but carefully, very carefully, he ran the blade through the cut, from her throat to her ear. His motion was the same as the one Mulciber had used to cut her, but in reverse. As he drew the dagger through the gash, Harry could see that it healed Green's flesh, just as it had bound the parchment that night in her office. The man stuck the dagger into the ground. At once, Green sat up and drew a long, rattling breath. She turned over on her side and coughed loudly, spewing blood onto the grass.

"Come on, you're alright."

To Harry's right, Neville whispered in amazement. "Wow--Dad."

Suddenly the memory swung back into vivid focus. Frank Longbottom stood up, and the moon illuminated his features as he faced the watchers, unaware of their existence. Harry was very surprised to note that he was tall and thin, not stocky like Neville, though he did have Neville's brown eyes. At the moment (and curiously, to Harry), he was smiling.

"What's happened here?" A scarred face framed by black hair poked out from the trees on the right. There was no mistaking that face, or that voice. They belonged to Mad-Eye Moody.

"Looks like Green was right about Fletcher," Longbottom said, gesturing toward the two figures on the ground inside the circle of now cold phoenix ash. He didn't try to hide the smile in his voice.

"What the hell happened to her?" Moody asked, walking over to the spot where Longbottom stood. At his feet, Green was on her hands and knees, still sputtering.

"Mulciber got the dagger away from her. Cut her pretty badly, but she's alright. Did you find Fisher?"

Moody regarded Green, then looked up at Longbottom and nodded. "He's alright, just Stunned. Lucky. Could have killed him just as easily." He looked back down at Green, then knelt beside her.

"What were you thinking?" he barked suddenly. His tone was mercilessly harsh. Now I know where she learned it, Harry thought, remembering the way Professor Green had yelled at him during their five mile runs.

Green couldn't speak. She just breathed heavily, still woozy from loss of blood, and stared at the grass.

"I hope you have a good explanation for this, Green. Otherwise Johnson will have your hide."

"Alastor," Longbottom said softly. "Come on. Not now."

Moody stood up. "Alright, let's get them out of here. You take her, I'll get these two. We'll have to use the Portkey."

Longbottom put his arm around Green and helped her up. She stood unsteadily. He guided her toward the circle, where Moody was conjuring a stretcher for Mulciber. Suddenly, Longbottom lost his hold and Green collapsed to the ground again.

There she found herself face-to-face with Mundungus Fletcher, who was still on his hands and knees. He looked up and saw her face, dazed and covered with drying blood. A flash of recognition passed between them. They both smiled. Longbottom knelt to pick Green up again, but hesitated.

Very, very quietly, Fletcher whispered something to her. If it hadn't been Professor Green's memory, and Harry had really been standing in the clearing, he was sure he wouldn't have been able to hear it. But in fact the words were eerily audible to the watchers, though just barely. Harry heard them as though Fletcher were whispering right in his ear.

"Thank you."

The clearing receded from view completely and darkness once again enveloped the four watchers. But only for a second. Then a room appeared around them.

The room was lit. Not brightly, but its brightness was a stark enough contrast from the preceding darkness that it was a moment before Harry could see properly. Once his eyes had adjusted, he saw that they were standing in a room not unlike the courtoom he remembered from the Pensieve. There were no windows, the walls and floor were made of gray stone, and torches in brackets lined the walls--Harry turned around--all four of them. But this room was smaller than the courtroom, and there were no benches where an audience could sit.

The watchers stood with their backs to one of the walls, facing a very large fireplace on the opposite side of the room. Just before them stood a single long, wooden table surrounded by chairs. Above the table a few candles hovered in midair.

Two of the chairs on the watchers' side and at the right end of the table were occupied. Harry could see that the figure sitting farthest from him was Fisher, the young man from the clearing, and the nearer figure was the younger Professor Green. Her hair was matted with dirt, leaves, and blades of grass, and her black cloak was covered in something dark--it was difficult to tell what, but Harry figured it must be dried blood. Her face and hands were clean, as if she had just washed them, but the livid scar on her neck, having just scabbed over, was brutally conspicuous. Harry remembered the seamless mending of the parchment.

"They do that--scar, I mean--when anyone other than the person who created the wound closes it," Professor Green explained.

But that wasn't the only question on Harry's mind. "The Summoning," he began, "what h--"

"Shhh," she forestalled him. "Just wait a bit. After I've shown you these memories I'll answer all your questions about the Summoning. Right now I've got to concentrate on exactly what happened."

Harry nodded silently. A door to the left opened, and in walked Mad-Eye Moody--followed by Mrs. Figg.

"Who's she?" Neville asked.

"Mrs. Figg was my mentor. She was the retiring Summoner who appointed me as her replacement."

"But I don't understand, I thought my father was your mentor."

"He was." She spoke gently but quickly, as though in a hurry to end the explanations. "From the time I finished my training until Mrs. Figg decided to retire."

"Mrs. Figg was a Summoner, then," Harry said, more to himself than to anyone else.

Professor Green nodded. "For years and years. But about nine months after I finished Auror training she decided she wanted to retire in a few years--it takes years to train a replacement, you know--and she appointed me as her protégé. There was a lot of talk about that, I can tell you: I was only a rookie, and a Slytherin to boot! But quiet now! It's about to start."

Moody and Mrs. Figg had taken seats at the table opposite Green and Fisher. The four of them smiled politely at each other in greeting, though Harry noticed that Green's and Fisher's smiles seemed a bit forced, and they kept looking down at their hands. Suddenly, with a loud crackling noise, the flames in the fireplace surged and turned bright green. A woman stepped out of the flames and into the room. The four Aurors at the table stood.

"Glenda Johnson," Professor Green whispered. "She was Head Auror then."

Glenda Johnson was a very short black woman with gray shoulder length hair. She stood motionless as her quick brown eyes surveyed the four others with a kind of military efficiency. After a moment, she barked one word. An order.

"Sit."

The four took their seats again. Green and Fisher did not dare to look away from her steely gaze, but Fisher's hands were shaking in his lap.

Johnson spoke slowly, and enunciated every syllable with an almost painful precision. "Would anyone care to tell me what has just occurred?" It sounded more like a statement than a question.

Green cleared her throat. Her voice was hoarse and shaky, as though it were being used for the first time, but she spoke with conviction. "Fisher and I were watching Fletcher, just as we were ordered, and he attacked us, then fled. We pursued him--"

"Kindly skip to the part," Johnson cut in, "where a Summoner not quite two years out of Auror training, in an exposed environment and without the guidance or CONSENT--" her voice was slowly gaining volume now "- of her mentor proceeds to put her own life and that of her partner in JEOPARDY by performing one of the most COMPLICATED CHARMS KNOWN--"

"Please, ma'am," Fisher's voice trembled. "But I'm partly to blame. I let her do it."

"I WAS NOT ADDRESSING YOU, MISTER FISHER," the little witch bellowed, causing everyone in the room to flinch, including the watchers, "BUT I ASSURE YOU THAT YOU WILL HAVE YOUR CHANCE TO EXPLAIN!"

Fisher fell silent, cowed.

"Green," Johnson said in her former, quieter tone, "what were you thinking?"

Green returned her gaze. "Ma'am, I thought it would be the safest way. I wanted to get Fletcher out from under Mulciber's Imperius Curse as soon as possible."

"But why? You had him Stunned."

Green nodded. "Yes. But I didn't want to take any chances."

Johnson was shaking her head. "Green, you weren't thinking."

Surprisingly, Green seemed to be growing irritated at the line of questioning. "You don't understand. You don't know how long Mulciber had Fletcher under. I wanted to get him out. What if it were you? Wouldn't you want to be liberated sooner rather than later? Look, Fisher and I took all the precautions--"

"YOU DID NOT!" Johnson interrupted. "If you had, the Summoning
Charm would have been performed here--"

"--and we would not have Mulciber in custody!" Green's eyes flashed with anger. "With all due respect, Mrs. Johnson, I don't see the problem. Fletcher's alright, Fisher's alright, I'm alright--"

Johnson's eyes widened in disbelief and then, quite unexpectedly, she began to laugh. It was a cold laugh of surprise, not at all happy or pleased. "Green, you can't be serious. You don't see the problem, you say?" She stopped laughing just as suddenly as she had started. "Have you looked in a mirror lately? Green, you nearly lost your head."

Green clenched her fists at her sides, and the two women stared at each other angrily. Just then they heard a knock. Johnson, perturbed at the interruption, walked to the door and opened it.

She began conversing angrily with the person standing outside, who Harry couldn't see, but her voice soon quieted. Back at the table, Moody and Mrs. Figg exchanged surprised glances. Moody turned to Green.

"So that was your first Summoning, eh, Green?" He had difficulty surpressing a smile. Mrs. Figg was more successful at hiding hers, though it showed through her feigned solemnity for a split second.

Green nodded, smiling in return. Across the room, the door shut.

"Moody," Johnson said. Moody immediately stood up and walked over to her. Mrs. Figg and Green were paying very close attention to Johnson now, while Fisher continued to stare down at his trembling hands. Johnsoin whispered something to Moody that Harry could not hear, though he thought he discerned the words, "Get Longbottom." Moody left the room hurriedly.

Johnson made her way back to the others. "Fisher, you are dismissed," she told the young man tersely. He looked around as though convinced that his ears were playing tricks on him.

"GO!"

Fisher stood up so suddenly his chair fell over backwards, and walked out of the room as quickly as his legs would carry him. Green stood up as well.

"Mrs. Johnson, what's wrong?"

"Sit down, Green."

She remained standing. "Something's wrong. Tell me what's happened."

"Persephone," Johnson said very softly, with a warmth that Harry would not have thought her capable of. "Sit down."

Apparently Green was surprised at Johnson's tone too, because she sat very, very slowly, never taking her eyes off Johnson's face. Mrs. Figg watched intently, but patiently.

For the first time since she had entered the little room, Johnson sat down at the table, opposite Green. She took a deep breath and folded her hands in front of her. It was a moment before she spoke.

"Persephone." There was that tone again. It's more frightening than her shouting, Harry thought. Something's horribly wrong.

"It's Demetrius."

Mrs. Figg gasped and put her hand to her mouth. She reached out and grabbed Green's hand across the table.

"What?" Green asked, puzzled.

Johnson paused, thinking, then said, "I don't know any way to tell you this, other than to just say it. Persephone, he's gone. He's been killed."

Mrs. Figg looked down and tightened her grip on Green's hand. Green didn't move, but simply peered at Johnson curiously, as though she were speaking in a foreign language that Green didn't understand. Finally, she shook her head.

"No. That's not possible."

"I'm sorry, Persephone, I'm afraid it's true. A couple of Death Eaters found him at work. Half the department is there now."

"No." Green continued to shake her head, and a faraway smile settled on her lips. Her eyes were glazed, unseeing. She spoke calmly, as though she were correcting a child with a mistaken idea. "That can't be. There have been threats, but... Envoys are well-protected, their identities are kept secret. No Envoy has ever been attacked by a Death Eater. "

"Until now."

Green's expression did not change. "I just saw him this morning. Tomorrow's his birthday. We're having dinner with the Longbottoms tonight," she said, as though these facts made Demetrius' death impossible.

The door opened, and Frank Longbottom rushed into the room. He ran over and embraced Green, who then surveyed him with calm curiosity.

"Oh God, Persephone, they've just told me. Are you alright? Is she alright?" he asked, sitting back on his heels and looking from Green to Johnson. Johnson just shook her head.

"Frank, tell them," Green said, still wearing the faraway smile and glazed look. "It can't be. We're having dinner with you and Audrey tonight. Tell them." Longbottom just looked at her sadly. No one answered.

Finally, Johnson cleared her throat. "Have you notified her father?"

"I've sent him an owl, but he's out of the country on business for the next few days," Longbottom replied. "I've also sent an owl to my wife, we can look after her until he gets back."

Mrs. Figg wore a pained look. "I'm sorry that I can't be with you, Persephone, but I have to go to Wales today." Green didn't answer. Mrs. Figg walked around the table, bent over, and kissed Green's forehead. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

Johnson also stood. "I've got to get over there--you understand." She gave Longbottom a knowing look, and everyone knew that she meant the scene of the crime. "They'll be wondering why I'm not there already." She looked at Green with sad compassion. "I'm sorry, Persephone."

But Green didn't answer. She didn't even look up as Johnson and Mrs. Figg swept out of the room. She was staring distractedly into a far corner.

"I didn't think you'd be able to Apparate or anything, so I've told Audrey to come and get us. She's on her way." Longbottom looked at her with concern, but Green didn't make any movement to show that she had heard him.

She continued to stare into space. "Not possible," she whispered.