A/N: Well, I've gotten a review asking where I get all of my ideas. Finally. The answer is very simple: I bought them. Yes, you can get a big boxful for about five bucks here in America, cheaper if they're second-hand, and if you really want to be picky you can have custom-made ones done up for a little more. Just kidding.

Well, I was obviously kidding, because that's silly. Everyone knows you put ideas in bags.

And again with the silliness. Seriously, though, I get ideas from wherever I am, from what happens around me, the usual spots. Sometimes I even crib a bit from my own life, which is easier than it looks, you know, just camouflage it enough to make it interesting. Here's some examples: The scar- I have one, except mine's from a dog bite and it sliced a nerve. The fight with Matius Flint- that happened, except I didn't come out quite as bad as she did. Anthony the Ferret- is Thumper the Bunny, altered just a bit. All of the Muggle clothes are real ones, very soft and worn-out. Chloe is a combination of my sister and the little girls I babysit. The situation where Julie's both the youngest and the only girl on the team is what happened to me on a field trip once. It's all real-life situations and props translated to a more fascinating story line. Because let's face it, who wants to read about Jan McNeville getting bit by a rabid dog when you can have Julie Starcatcher being cursed by Lord Voldemort? It's all in the presentation, isn't it?

Anyway, the first part of this next chapter's told in first-person by an… unusual narrator. Ten points to your house if you can figure out 1. who it is before I tell you, 2. where I've been getting these last few chapter titles from. Here you go.

Chapter Thirty: My Story's Seldom Told

How I wound up in the middle of all of this, I don't know. Normally I'm very content just to do what I'm told, not make a fuss, and protect my friends when they need it. It's an easy life. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm brave, but that might be why I'm up here in Gryffindor. I'm not incredibly smart, but I'm not that stupid, and I know something's up with Julie and that professor guy. Something big. I don't really care for the way he looks at her. Something tells me that people his age and people her age are just not good mates.

Chloe came and talked to me for a while today after Julie left with her folks, and she seems to believe Julie's playing two guys at once, and that's not like her. I think the only reason Chloe told me is because I'm sort of the quiet type. And Chloe likes me, I know that. She speaks to me in French, and it sounds wonderful. Sometimes she kisses me, too, and she smells very nice.

I'm not sure what my exact feelings on her are yet, but she's definitely nice to have around, you know. It's not every girl who brings you little bits of sugar-coated cereal. I mean, Julie brings me lots of treats, but that cereal is wonderful if not precisely good for me. Junk food is one of the habits I picked up from her. She's also taught me a lot of Japanese since we've moved from Abercroft.

My paw hurts where that rat scratched me. I hate rats. The tall one with the reddish hair who talks funny, though, he's nice. He brings me scraps of soda bread. I can't quite pronounce his name, as Julie's never told me who he is, but he seems to know mine as well as the spot I like scratched the most. I know for a fact that Julie and he have something going on. She smelled like she'd been around him the night I had a roommate in my new house. He was a nice fellow for an all-white one, even if his accent was terribly muddled and I couldn't understand his ear-twitch 'hello' at all. He must have run away before that professor guy showed up. Julie kissed him, which to her kind must be some kind of mating thing. I mean, not when they do it to smaller ones or to friends like me, but sometimes it's a mating thing. I don't like it. I mean, Julie and I were almost like litter-mates after she got me, and her kind age a great whole lot slower than mine. She's not old enough to want a mate. My kind mate for life, but I'm not sure about hers. And she hangs around with so many bucks these days! Chloe and her mum are the only does I seem to smell. If you ask me, she's acting very strangely since we came to this place.

But nobody really wants my opinion.

-Anthony Starcatcher

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Madam Pomfrey was checking Julie's bad eye again. Professor Snape was certain the red flickering had something to do with what had happened at Halloween, but he was also hoping that it could be cured without undue trauma for his daughter's sake. For her own part, Julie was bearing up well considering how much her injured eye was hurting her, chatting about baby stuff with her mother, who sat next to her.

They had just about decided on the décor for the baby's room when the door of the Hospital Wing burst open and a figure bolted over to Julie's side.

"CHICKPEA, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?"

Madam Pomfrey looked a little ticked and the elder Snapes shocked at the twinkly-eyed figure, who turned out to be Dumbledore. Julie, however, was in the outer levels of hysterics, unable to anything but positively shake with laughter. The Minister of Magic straightened as if nothing bizarre had happened in the slightest.

"Well, she got it. Humor helps to drive out evil, wouldn't you say, Severus? Though I wouldn't mind a Chocolate Frog or two to get it out."

"I would have thought you were trying to cure the hiccups instead, Albus, yelling at her so," Madam Pomfrey chided.

"It wouldn't be funny if I didn't sound hysterical," Dumbledore pointed out. "Right, Julie?"

She tried to nod despite being presently unable to breathe correctly. Not a single person in the room besides she and Dumbledore got the joke. The fact that her parents looked entirely mystified only served to make it funnier. It was a bit like the King suddenly coming in and quoting a book only you had read.

"There's also a little bit of better news, Albus," Snape started. "It seems that I'll have two children to worry me senseless soon."

"Really?" The grandfatherly old wizard's blue eyes twinkled. "That is considerably better news, Severus. When do you expect him to be done baking, Gingersnap?"

Julie realized that it was very likely she might be getting a brother soon, because if anybody knew, it would be Dumbledore. She had heard enough from her uncles and parents about the uncanny way he seemed to know everything to be able to take him at his word.

"Early summer. We don't know yet which it's going to be."

"Well, you don't usually find out until they get Sorted, but considering you're faculty, Minerva might let you use the Hat early." Dumbledore's jokes made them all feel better. "Now regarding this problem with Julie's eyes… look over here a moment-"

Julie did and suddenly felt her right eye had healed.

"That should make it easier to check, you know. Poppy had it almost done, I just closed up the last layer, you know. Alright. Julie, when do your eyes turn red?"

"When I have bad thoughts."

"Like plotting to turn your dad's entire classroom pink? Or worse ones, like cheating on a Potions test?"

"I'm not sure. I only saw them change this morning, sir."

"Well, try it now. Think of something mischievous, then work your way up the scale, and if your eyes go red we can all see it."

"Uh…I'm sorry, but…I think it might be a bit more complicated, sir."

"Julie," Dumbledore said quietly, treating her as he might a younger relative, "you don't have to apologize. We need this from your point of view. What happens in your head whenever your eyes change?"

'Lie to him,' a voice whispered in her head. Her eyes flickered.

"Like that! There's this little voice, it's like an evil conscience, and whenever I hear it it makes my eyes go red."

"I see," Dumbledore said quietly. "Then it is as I thought."

For a second everyone in the room waited for his verdict; was this good or bad?

"The voice you are hearing is the darker side. Most people notice similar urges to do things that aren't scrupulous, but they show no physical indication that they do, you see? Whether they act on the urge depends on their character, so the only thing necessarily wrong with you is the clarity of the instructions yours is giving. Have you ever seen in Muggle cartoons an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other one?" Julie nodded. "What Lord Voldemort has apparently done to you is make the demon's voice clearer and have it make your eyes light up. Red eyes were a characteristic of his own, and this is probably his idea of convincing you that being bad is fun sometimes. And it can be. There are few things that I would find funnier than turning certain colleagues of mine temporarily into fluffy bunnies; it's only human. But the moment that being bad becomes the only way you like to be, then your eyes would become red permanently and you would be little better off than poor Tom Riddle was."

"Is there any way that I can get rid of it?"

"I'm not sure. There may be a way to sharpen your sense of good as well and create a more balanced state, and with that I think your eyes might go another shade, but right now it appears you may be stuck with the red flashes."

"Oh. Okay."

"If it makes you feel any better, there's something very useful those red eyes can do for us."

"Really? I'll do it!" Julie was in such a hurry to not be evil that any task seemed like a holiday chance for her.

"A litte eager, there, Julie. Wait until you've heard the terms. You are aware only of the kind of threat Voldemort posed to the magical world of Great Britain and Europe, not the entire world. Right now, the Texan Senator of Magic in the United States of America has requested not only the aid of all forty-nine other Senators and the American magical President, but overseas aid from the European Ministries in the termination of a Dark wizard calling himself Santa Anna de Diablo who apparently entered the country from Mexico. This isn't good, to say the least, as the other Southwestern Senators have moved to file complaint against the Mexican magical government, Los Senatores del Enchanta. Considering the degree to which American Muggles resent those from Mexico, this may well trigger a continental war across the pond from us." Dumbledore gave the awestruck Snapes a look of good nature in spite of everything. "I do not wish to brag, Julie, but many of the other European nations defer to me, both since the Second Muggle World War and the defeat of Lord Voldemort. The American magical President, as well, was an overseas scholar to England in his youth and has asked for my guidance in this matter. Right now, though, the only way I see of potentially defeating Santa Anna de Diablo involves taking two Aurors and an almost-sixteen-year-old to the United States and setting up a front that Diablo will mistake for the next Voldemort. He will then either a: try to sign an alliance, or b: attempt to remove this new threat to his ruling. My question for you, Julie, is simple: just how good were you in that drama club?"

Neither Snape nor Hermione were pleased by this. Madam Pomfrey tried to hide her fear of this terrible situation. Julie was petrified, but willing to go to any lengths to prove that Rita Skeeter'd lied, so she said:

"If Mum and Dad'll let me, Minister Dumbledore."

"You aren't afraid?" Dumbledore's blue eyes gazed into her brown ones piercingly, and Julie knew it had to be a test of some kind.

"I'm terrified, but I'll do it if you need me to."

"If she's going, I am," her father said.

"I'm afraid that that's impossible, Severus. Your reputation as the turncoat who utterly destroyed the evil Voldemort has gone ahead much farther in America. The wizards there are fond of something like the Muggle films, and there have been at least seven made based on your story. For you to accompany your daughter would be like… well, in Muggle terms, like James Bond coming along to help Dr. Hannibal. To wizards it's really untranslatable."

Hermione and Julie were cracking up.

"I'm afraid the only people to accompany your daughter will be Ronald Weasley, Draco Malfoy, and any others she feels she can trust to pose as her Death Eaters. The rest of the entourage will be made up of Americans. For the time being, at least, it must look as if your daughter is honestly the heir of Lord Voldemort. It will take every genetic gift and legacy from her corrupted upbringing, but I wouldn't have asked if I didn't find her more than capable. Will you permit it?"

There was a long silence during which Severus held Hermione's hand tightly.

"Alright, if it is the only way, Albus."