Chapter 20

"It's just not right," Jeremy muttered as he looked at his parents' listless forms.

"You're lucky they were found," Kate reminded him.

"That's what you think. I hate seeing my parents like this. They're just- invalids." Jeremy looked away from both the small blonde woman and his parents, sitting calmly and gazing blankly into the distance. "They're not like that."

"It's ok, dear. How about you go and eat dinner now?" Kate pushed the boy out of the room, closing the door behind him. She turned back to look at Harry and Meredith.

"Ah, two more casualties. I guess we may all be by the end of this." Kate sighed, motioned to Poppy that she could take them now, and walked out into the cold corridor. She shivered slightly. "Drafty," she mentioned to the wind. Her feet took her out of Hogwarts, down the path and outside the grounds. Here, she apparated back to the Auror Training Facility. "Too much damned walking in security."

~*~

Jeremy finally found his way to the Great Hall, although his feet kept trying to take him somewhere else. "I've been gone too long," he muttered under his breath, trying to ignore Sir Caddogan in the portrait beside him, yelling at him ("Stand and fight, you mangy cur!").

The Great Hall seemed somehow empty without a thousand mumbling teenagers seated at the long tables, and it was incredibly weird to be sitting at the Teacher's Table.

"Hi, Professor Varimont, may I sit here?" Varimont winked at the boy, before nodding.

"Go for it, my boy. How have things been- I mean, apart from the panic over your parents. How's University?" Varimont's smile was sympathetic, and Jeremy knew that he had to get his mind onto other things.

"Not bad- this is my last year, fortunately. The assignments are getting to be quite overwhelming."

"What were you studying again, dear?" Varimont played the old lady so well, but, after having been a student at Hogwarts for seven years, Jeremy wasn't fooled.

"Transfiguration and Charms majors in my Bachelor of Magic. I considered doing Magical Methods, but decided that a general degree would be better for me, because I would be able to personalise it more."

Varimont nodded, as though she had not heard this before. "And are you enjoying it?"

"Yes, and no. There is not as much community as there was here- and fending for myself lost its novelty a long time ago. I have a few friends that I have kept contact with, but many more that I have lost. The people in my degree are all nice enough- but there's too many of them to know them all. It's all just a bit too impersonal." Jeremy looked down at his plate- yes, food there now. He began to eat.

Adrienne and Hermione entered the room, Lianna trailing after.

"Oh, Jeremy…" Adrienne rushed over to Jeremy, a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her, seeing in her eyes an echo of the despair in his own. He glanced over at Lianna, understanding.

"I really want to find this woman, Adrienne. I want my parents back," He had to turn away, so she wouldn't see the tears threatening in his eyes. Adrienne sat down beside Jeremy, and Hermione sat with Lianna between her and Adrienne. She began to feed her daughter, as well as herself. Adrienne just looked at the food on her plate. She looked back at Jeremy, who seemed to be eating his food out of no real reason but to occupy his time.

Adrienne sighed. This was all just too hard. Too many people were being hurt. If not for the innate rationality of her mind, she might have decided to do something rash. She might have decided to go on a midnight rampage into the crazy woman's house and break open test tubes; or she might have decided to do something slightly less suicidal- like jump from a turret of the Hogwarts walls.

But as it was, she just sighed again and went back to pushing food around her plate, desperately wishing that Lianna were awake to blurt out all her thoughts, to smile her sparkling smile and convince by her mere presence that everything was going to be ok. Adrienne fought down the bubbling tears that fought their way up her chest to sting in her eyes. She could feel the frustration at being able to do nothing clenching its teeth into her gut and gnawing on her innards.

This is despair, Adrienne thought abstractly, staring at her uneaten food and fighting to keep from weeping, this will not help me in the slightest. She again wished that Lianna were awake to make everything seem ok. They were, she had decided, flip sides of the same coin. Lianna was day, Adrienne, night. Together, they made a 24-hour cycle- they were whole. When lacking each other, there was either despair, in Adrienne's case, or lack of depth, in Lianna's case.

Adrienne could feel that she would lose the battle with her tears if she continued on in her current thoughts, so she deliberately turned her thoughts to what she could do with the DNA they had collected. Adrienne pondered this for a while, and, when she looked down again, realised that she had eaten most of what was on her plate. She stopped chewing in amazement, before resuming, somehow feeling a little better at having some hope in this desperate situation.

"Hey, Ri, do we have a plan to get this woman?" Jeremy asked, looking over at her from under his too-long fringe.

"Umm- not really. We're actually trying to locate Draco Malfoy at the moment." Adrienne looked down at her food.

There was a silence from Jeremy. "Why are we looking for a Malfoy? Why would we bother? What does he know?"

"It's what he doesn't know that we need. I don't know. We're chasing ghost trails at the moment. If we go and raid the woman's house, she may just decide to destroy the entire world today. If we wait until tomorrow, she may do it tonight and we will have done nothing to save ourselves. I just don't know where to turn." Adrienne turned her face away from Jeremy, looking at her empty sister. Hermione was sitting beyond her, her face weary and forlorn.

"But," Adrienne turned back to Jeremy, "We will find a way to win. We managed to beat Voldemort in the end- the most feared dark wizard in the history of magic. We will find a way to beat this woman!" Adrienne fought to keep her voice level. Jeremy smiled weakly, nodded hopefully.

"We will find a way."

~*~

A/N: ok, slow chapter. Sorry about not updating for a while- I went away for a week. Now it's back to the hard slog of normal life.