She stood there in front of him, face to the ceiling. Her hair now touched the ground and was totally black, save for the purple streak that went from bangs to tips in the middle of her head. Instead of her jeans and shirt, she wore a long black renaissance dress, a V-neck that laced up and flared sleeves the covered her hands, the dress pooled at her feet. Duo gapped as he watched a tear slid from her eyes, "Alex. Why'd you do that?" She opened her eyes, and turned them to the body of the boy. Duo stood still, not believing what he had just experienced. Her eyes held sorrow that a human being should never have to experience in one life or another. She kneeled down by her brother, dark blue eyes, looking up and down his body, "Sleep well." She kissed his eye lid and Duo watched as the body slowly disappeared into white sparkles. After sitting in quit for a while, Duo finally spoke up, "Eli?" She turned to him, and smiled, "Hello Duo. Glad to see your still alive." Duo gave her a weird laugh, "Yeah, I guess so." More silence, "So... What exactly happened here?" "Ah...." Elinwy just sat there, she rested her head against her hand. "How should I explain this?" Suddenly she sat up right, and looked around the room, she whistled a small tune. Then out of the shadows, five men came. They all stood about 5'8 and wore a robe of white. The first was a pale white and had golden hair, his eyes held a look of death and strength, though one was red and one was blue, "Duo meet Demon, or now Artemis." Duo stared hard at he man, "No...." The second was tan with curly brown hair and his green eyes held a kindness and wisdom, "Spike, or better yet, Apollo." The man gave a small nod. The third was a dark brown and had straight brown hair that flowed to his shoulders, his green eyes held warmth and laughter. "Fluffy..." The man cringed at the name, "Knossos." He also gave a curt bow. The fourth was a 'shiny' white skinned man with short black hair and his blue eyes held solitude and solemn, "Giant, Tantalus." The last man was tanned man with black hair, but his held streaks of gray, one eye was blue and one was black and unseeing, they both seemed to hold life and curiosity in them, "Midnight, Poseidon." "All Greek gods..." "At least he's part way smart." Knossos said, "I don't know, that mouth of his seems to be catching a lot of flies." Apollo returned. "That it does." Tantalus laughed. "Mistress." The three's laughter was silenced by the deep voice of Artemis. They all looked to Elinwy, "Yes Arty?" She stared back at him, "What do you wish of us?" She looked at them, "So I'm the next?" Poseidon nodded, "Your family was under attack here by the one who wished to gain the powers of the Whitebrooks. Only today was the last day they were able to hold off the attack. Your brother, Alex, attempted to undertake the powers, but was stopped by the attacker. He gave his life to hold in the secret." Elinwy frowned, "What of the rest of my family?" "During the attack, your mother and father sent your brother away from the castle, although I believe Jim may still be here." An eerie silence filled the room, "And what of mother and father? Where have they gone?" No one spoke. "Poseidon... I know you know." The man stood there, pity in his one good eye, "And I know you know what happened to them...." Elinwy shook her head, "It can't be, because Uncle Snape said they were invisible, nothing could stop them, nothing." Another period of silence over took the room, as Duo put together the information he knew to figure out what had happened to her parents. "Eli." Artemis spoke up again, "You know your parents were still weak from the fight with the dark wizards, even then, forty years later. Even the silliest gnome could have defeated them." Eli shook her head again, Duo took a step towards her. "Then they're gone?" The five men bowed their heads, a sign of a sad good-bye. "To a better place then." She stood up and turned to Duo, "Maxwell." He looked at her, "Yeah?" "I'm Elinwy Crystal Maria Whitebrook the fourth. And from here on in the Next Whitebrook, and with the power of the entire Whitebrook family, which extends past the records of man, I see that no harm is done to this world. My brother, Alex, attempted to become the next, as it was foreseen when we were children, in the middle of a battle against the evil that wanted our power for it's own end. He was killed in the process, at the duty of the Next was pasted unto me. These five men that you see behind me are the protectors of the Whitebrooks and shall do whatever it takes to make sure that the power of the Whitebrooks stays with the Whitebrooks. "The dream-state in which you found your self, before coming here was the last wish of my brother, to let my guardian know what my life was like. Since you have been chosen as the next guardian, it is your duty to work in the place of the five guardians, who will retake their dog forms shortly. Are willing to spend your life guarding this power and life that resides inside me?" Duo stood there throughout the whole thing, staring. Supreme power? Before records? Evil? He didn't quite get this. But now, he was being given the choice to protect the one girl he had fallen in love with. He was being given a choice to protect her throughout her entire life.... Duo shrugged, "Might as well, I have nothing else better to do." Elinwy smiled, walked over and hugged him, "I knew I could count on you." Then she pulled back and kissed him, right on the lips. Duo was shocked for a minute, as she pulled back and winked at him. "What a strange guy to choose." Knossos laughed, "If you ask me could have made a better choice." Tantalus said, "You guys are so mean." Elinwy laughed with her gaurdians. "Only because your so cute." Was Apollo's reply, "Mistress, you must find your brothers and reclaim the land that has been tainted by the hands of evil. We shall come again when we are needed." Artemis said as a light consumed them, and the man selves were once more replaced with their dog selves. "This is getting weirder and weirder." Duo said, shaking his head. "Just wait. It gets better." Elinwy said moving towards the stairs, "At least now you'll get some respect from my dogs. Come on, we have a house to search." Duo ran to catch up with Elinwy, "Eli, I like the look and all, but I think it's getting to you. What are we searching the house for?" They continued up the stairs, Duo walking beside Elinwy to keep from stepping on her dress. "Actually, I really like the new look." Duo said getting a close up look at the new V-line. "Ecchi." Elinwy said, moving his head from her chest to the stairs. "We're searching the house for a cloak and my brother." Duo nodded, smirking. "I didn't know you had a brother." Elinwy smirked back at him, "I have 25." A dog barked behind her, "Fine, 24. But that's something I now chose to forget." "Then why have I never heard you talk about them?" Elinwy shrugged, "Their not something that comes up a lot." Duo nodded, they had reached the top of the stairs. "So where do we start?" Elinwy stopped at the top of the stairs, and let the dogs go by before pressing a switch, and the door closed. "Here." Elinwy looked around the room once more, looking at each picture of an instruments. Finally after a minute or two, she put her hand to a picture of a violin. The picture glowed green and then an actual violin popped out. It was a dark brown with two red roses by it's f-holes and green vines coming from them, twining here and there, all over the wood. She grabbed it's neck and the bow that appeared beside it and brought them to a black case on the other side of the room. "We start here, on the first floor and work our way up." Duo nodded, and opened the door for her as she picked up the case and walked through the doorway. "Thanks." He closed the door and followed Elinwy down the hall and back to the front door. "Man this place must have been beautiful and grand, when it isn't burnt up and destroyed." Elinwy's eyes went from a light blue to a dark blue. "It was. It was the best place in the world, and it will be again. You will see guardian, you will see." She turned from the broken down doors to the large cut up stair- case. "He is up there." Her eyes moved from door to door. "Jeremy, Peter, Matthew, Leon, Michael, Brian, Chris, Max...Ah..." She picked up the end of her dress and walked up the stairs, black and purple hair, flowing around her. "You coming?" It took a minute for Duo to realize that she was talking to him, so he had to once more run to catch up with her. She walked past the first few doors, and stopped at the end of the hall. Opening the door, Duo saw it was just an empty stone room. "What are we doing here?" Elinwy looked back at him, "You can't see it?" Duo shook his head, "Am I spouse to be seeing something?" Elinwy sighed, "My bad, I jumped ahead of myself. Come here." Duo walked over to her, "Close your eyes." He did what he was told, he felt a light pressure on his eyelids and heard a few mumbled words. "Ok open them." When he did, he wasn't prepared for what he saw. There, instead of just a bare room, there was a bed and desk and dresser, the walls were painted blue and in the bed, slept a little boy. The boy had red hair and looked to be sleeping very soundly. "Is that your brother?" Elinwy nodded. "How old is he?" Elinwy walked over to the bed and picked up the sleeping boy, "2 I believe." "Then how do you know about him? You've been at school the two years." Elinwy smiled down at the sleeping boy in her arms, "I have the knowledge of all the past Whitebrooks, including my mother and father, and brother." Elinwy smiled at Duo, "Enough talk of the past, it is too depressing. Only one more stop." Elinwy handed her violin case to Duo and walked back out the door. "What exactly did you do to me?" Duo asked, walking out behind Elinwy, stopping to see many different paintings and artifacts that he had never seen when he first came in. "One job of being a guardian is being able to see all the things that I am. This whole place is magic, so that upon first sight, it is nothing." Duo nodded as Elinwy held her brother close as she waked past the stair case to the other side, going down past all the doors and straight into the wall?! "ELI?!" "Don't be such a baby." Elinwy's head popped out and frowned at him, "Let's go." She disappeared into the wall and Duo followed behind her. Duo saw why the room had been hidden. It looked to be a master bedroom, it was huge and lavishly decorated. Elinwy handed her brother to Duo, who ocwardly held him. Elinwy moved from Duo, after giving him a reassuring smile, to the large bed at the end of the room. Getting down on her knees, she reached under the bed and pulled out a black box. She got up and took the box with her to the over sized closet. Opening the door, she set down the box and pulled out a black cloak, throwing it over her shoulders and tying it around her neck, then picking up the box again. The cloak covered up any part of body that her dress didn't. "Thank you." Elinwy thanked Duo as she once more took her brother into her arms, "Now we can go back." She once more walked through the wall and out to the hall. Duo followed close behind her, still carrying the violin case. They walk back down the staircase and out the front door. By the front gates all five dogs stood, "You see there?" Elinwy motined to a rose bush that had popped up near the front door, "It's starting to rebuild it's self all ready. Next time we come around, it'll be back to normal." Duo was confused, but some thing told him not to worry about it. Duo smirked down at Elinwy, as she smiled back at her house. "You ready to head back?" Elinwy looked from her house to Duo, "Yeah, before I get to emotional." Duo smirked some more. "It's too late for that." He motioned to the child in her arms, Elinwy moved her eyes from Duo to the road in front of her. "If you tell anyone about this, you will pay." A small smirk replaced Duo's smile. "Sure." With that they started to walked through the desert and into the night. The small group took only another day and they were ¾ of the way back. Soon enough, and half way through the night, Duo got the first look at Hogwarts. "We seemed to take longer going than coming back." "That's understandable." Duo looked back at Elinwy, she had walked behind him the whole way back. "We should reach the school some where around dawn, maybe a little after." She looked to the slowly rising sun. "Such a beautiful red." Elinwy stopped walking and stared at the blood red sky, "Such a sky I may never see again." Duo frowned at the picture. There she stood, dressed in black, dark blue eyes, staring coldly at the sunset, in one arm, her brother, the other a small black shoe box. It was a sad, sad look she gave the sun. She sighed, closing her eyes and looking from the sunset. "Would you hold Jim for a minute." She handed Jim to Duo and set down her black box. Pulling back her sleeves, she started to braid her hair, strangely enough the purple streak stayed in it's own lock of hair. After she was done, Elinwy picked up the box and took back Jim. "Here goes nothing." And with that, she finally took the lead back to Hogwarts, although it didn't last for long, her steps falling slower and slower. "Eli, are you all right?" He looked back to her, a light sheet of sweat covered her face. "Yeah, I'm fine. We're all most there, don't stop." Duo nodded, but slowed his pace anyway. "We're in no rush, we can go as slow as you need." Elinwy stopped only for a second, to hand Duo Jim, "I'm fine, we don't need to slow down. See we're almost there. I can hear voices." Duo put an arm around Elinwy's waist and held Jim tight with the other one. They walked through the forest some more before a sun break and Duo reconized the two figures standing out in front of the school. "We're here Eli." Duo looked down to Elinwy, who still smiled through a pain look and small sweat. "What's the matter Eli?" She didn't reply. "Feira."