Hello all, yes, I'm finally back, but only for a limited time I'm afraid. Sorry this chapter's so mega short, but luckily school has now finished and updates should be quicker in coming. (Mind you, I said that last time and it's been, what, a month?) Anyway, writing has become harder seeing as this fic is nearly finished and I'm working hard on the actual climax of the story and keep forgetting to write more of the build up and POST something!

Oh by the way, I'd like you to meet Robin and Adeline. They'll be appearing in my profile very soon.

Robin: Hi!!

Adeline: Push over.

They're my new muses/inspirational material/original story characters.

Robin: Yes, thank you for the classification, I really needed that…

They started as a school project and now they're my best friends. Kinda. You'll be able to read about their adventures as soon as I've brushed up on the first 'chronicle' as it were…

Adeline: For 'chronicle' read 'twelve pages'…

All right, thank you smarty. Yes, well, here it is, anyway. Hope you like it. Thanks to all you great reviewers!!

"That must have been the day Hermione found him," said Sirius when Ron, with shaking hands, at last put down the diary. "She said he'd been carrying food."

No one said anything for a moment. Then Dumbledore said. "Thank you Ron. You may leave."

"What?" said Ron. "Aren't you even going to tell me what happens now?"

"I cannot tell you because I do not know," said Dumbledore.

Ron thought this over for a moment before getting up silently from his seat and leaving. Dumbledore took a bundle of paper from the inside of his desk, where the words Ron had spoken had been recorded.

"Dumbledore -!" Remus started to protest, but the old wizard merely sighed and sat back in his chair.

"What comes first?" he asked no one in particular. "Morality, or a boy's fate?"

………………………

When Ron returned to the Gryffindor Common Room, the party had already dispersed, the mood having lowered considerably after Anneka's outburst.  Neville was asleep in one of the armchairs; a first year girl appeared to have passed out on the girl's staircase. Shaking his head, Ron climbed the staircase to the fifth year boy's dormitory.

He closed the door behind him as silently as was humanly possible. Dean and Seamus did not stir, but Harry – Harry sat bolt upright in bed.

"Where've you been, Ron?" he asked, calmly.

This was the test. This was the part when Ron found out whether he could lie to his own blood.

"I…"

Harry's eyes were cold, and stared straight through him like ice rays.

He already knew.

Ron sank down onto his four poster with his head in his hands. "Oh god, Harry – they didn't give me any choice!"

"That's what Pettigrew said. 'Didn't have a choice…?' Come on, you can give me better than that!"

"Harry, I can't, I really can't!" The tears started to come then, piercing the film over his eyes and rolling over his eyelids.

"I can't believe you," Harry sat, turning around in bed to face him. "You didn't even think to close the barrier. I heard you through the whole thing."

"What? But I did close it! I – "

Ron realised too late that this had been the wrong thing to say.

"Oh, you did, did you? Didn't want me finding out? Well, I suppose you wouldn't want someone knowing you'd betrayed them –"

"Harry! They'd lock you up – you know that! As soon as the school year is over – they'd make you spend the summer in a wizarding orphanage!"

"So? Can't be much worse than the Dursleys."

"Harry, you're the Boy Who Lived! They'd never leave you alone after being in an orphanage! You KNOW I don't want that for you … I … I…!"

Seamus rolled over and they both froze. After a moment Ron spoke inside Harry's head.

~ You're my Blood Brother. I love you. I'd never do anything to hurt you. ~

Well, you have.

~Harry – I'm sorry… ~

But… I guess I forgive you.

~I… what? ~

I guess you did what you thought was best for me, right?

~But you HATE it when people do that – you think that only YOU know what's best for you… ~

Yeah?

~Harry, I'm really, really… ~

Stop apologizing. You know that if we fight and never talk to one another again, we'll both die.

~Still no reason for me to have done it… ~

Hey. I'm not going to end up in an orphanage, Ok? Dumbledore'll sort it.

~I believe you. ~

And he wouldn't have been able to do it without… I mean… it was stupid not telling him in the first place. But if someone had just asked me…

~I know. Maybe even Dumbledore makes mistakes. ~

That's a really BIG maybe. But you're right.

~Yes, he made a mistake sending you to the Dursleys in the first place. ~

Let's not talk about it, ok? It was bad enough having to listen to you…

~Ok, ok, I get it. Goodnight. ~

Some while later, Harry heard:

~Harry? Let's not fight. I don't want to die. ~

Don't worry. Neither of us are going to die.

Unseen to each other behind the curtains of their four posters, both of them reached up to touch the wooden headboards.

………………………………

Before anyone knew it, Halloween was upon them. In desperate need of some celebration to secure their sanity, Harry and Ron started celebrating three days early, using their newly enhanced powers in ways that Hermione most severely disapproved of.

"Really!" she exclaimed on the evening of the 29th, after extracting a Gryffindor third year from the wall in the common room, which appeared to have turned into upright jelly. "You two are supposed to be prefects, and Halloween is hardly an excuse for this sort of behaviour…"

"Oh, come off it, Hermione," Ron yawned, leaning back into the soft confines of an armchair. "We deserve a bit of fun – you might be enjoying all this OWL build up, but I'm most certainly not."

"Join the club," said Harry, an unusual wide grin on his face. "He's right Hermione. Look, it'll all stop after tomorrow. Promise."

"That's a whole day," Hermione pointed out worriedly, before shaking her head and climbing the stairs to the girl's dormitories, after checking that no one else had gotten stuck in the walls since she'd looked away.

They were now alone in the common room. With a snap of one hand, Harry restored the walls to their original stone state. "Show off," Ron complained. Harry laughed and lifted the hand slowly. Ron looked around to see what he was moving before realising that he was no longer in the chair. "Hey!" he yelled. "Put me down!"

Harry couldn't help it. He dissolved into hysterics, rolling around on the floor, whereupon Ron promptly transformed and flew down to tug at his hair hard with his bird-of-prey beak.

"Watch it!" Harry yelled. "Those claws are sharp!"

"They are not claws, they're talons," said Ron, switching back and standing up in human form. "As you should well know, Monsignor Jetwing."

Harry said something very rude and went up to bed.

888

On Halloween morning the castle was as alive as usual. Harry and Ron were up early, as was also usual, and went down to breakfast before most of the teachers, who hailed them as they came in, except Professor Snape, who was once more absent.

"All right, you two?" said Wendy, coming over to their table. "Up early again, I see."

"Too right," said Ron, rubbing his eyes. "I mean, I knew there were downsides to Harry's life, but I never thought the worst of them would be having to get up at four every day…"

Harry punched him at the disapproving look in Wendy's eyes. "He's exaggerating," he said quickly.

"I most certainly hope so," said Professor McGonagall, who came up behind Wendy as they were talking. "I trust you used the extra time to prepare for the Transfiguration exam you have today, boys?"

Harry and Ron looked at each other. "Yes, Professor," said Ron quickly.

"Oh, definitely," Harry added. "Couldn't leave the books alone."

Professor McGonagall left. Wendy raised one eyebrow.

"Completely forgot," Ron continued, out of McGonagall's hearing. "Didn't give it a single thought."

Harry was about to add his fair share but couldn't due to suppressed laughter.

"Oh, you two," Wendy sighed, and went over to the staff table. Harry noticed, not for the first time, that she was sitting in the ornate chair he had transfigured from a pin on his first week back at Hogwarts.

"Like you're going to have a problem," Ron said. "Mr. I'm-Growing-Up-To-Be-Just-Like-My-Father… you should start a club with Draco –"

"Don't even THINK the words," Harry cried, stuffing his fingers in his ears.

~Malfoy~, Ron finished, silently. Harry swore.

"Language, Harry," said Hermione, dropping into the seat beside him, looking dishevelled, but happy.

"What're you grinning about?" Ron asked her, before she dumped a crisp new copy of the Daily Prophet into Harry's lap. Harry looked at it.

"Let's get out of here," he mumbled.

"What?" Ron said, suddenly looking worried. "What's it say?"

"Let's just get out of here," said Harry, grabbing a slice of toast and wrapping it in a serviette. "I'll show you outside."

As they rushed out of the Great Hall, they missed the worried look on Wendy's face.

888

"But that's good isn't it?" Hermione was still insisting half an hour later, when they'd been over the article a hundred times. "The Dursleys in prison with a fine, you taken off the endangered list… I mean, what else did you want?"

"I can't believe Dumbledore did this to me," Harry moaned. "I still can't."

Ron looked back at the paper, where extracts from Harry's journal were outlined in bold and described as terrifying evidence. "This is all my fault," he said quietly. No one heard him.

"I mean, all right, maybe they should have got more than a couple of years between them," Hermione was busy admitting. "But you've got to admit it's a pretty hefty fine – and it says they're discussing who gets custody of you now, see?"

"I'm fifteen, Hermione," Harry retorted. "I've only got three years of being 'custody' left… besides, I don't even know half those people, and there's tons of them…"

"We know most of them," Hermione told him, flicking through the list of suitable candidates to foster Harry Potter. "Look, Albus Dumbledore at the top of the list…"

"No thanks," Harry muttered. "Not after what –"

"Mundungus Fletcher, Arabella Figg –"

"Never heard of her."

"Oh, don't you ever read, Harry? Hey – wait…."

"What?"

Hermione's eyes widened as she drew her face closer to the paper. "Harry… who's Alula Black?"

888

"I thought it sounded familiar," said Hermione, finally, after Harry had gotten through the explanation for the second time and they were lining up outside Charms. "I hadn't forgotten."

"Sure," said Ron, rolling his eyes as the door swung open by magic and they all filed in.

"Now, now," said Professor Flitwick in his normal squeaky voice, "just because it's Halloween doesn't mean you're all on holiday!" Harry might have imagined it, but he thought he saw the small man's eyes flicker towards him for a moment. "Today we will be focussing on the mirror charm…"

"Damn," Harry whispered to Ron. "The one spell I could never get right…"

"Boys, is there something you'd like to share with us?"

"No sir," came a murmuring from various areas of the class, which didn't just include Harry and Ron. Hermione banged her head on the table.  

"Now, normally this spell would only appear on N.E.W.T practicals, but I have been informed by the exam board that the mirror charm will appear on the theory side, if not the practical side, of you O.W.L papers," Flitwick continued. "Ahem, if you'd all, ah, like to turn to page three hundred and seventeen…"

They did so. It took perhaps three quarters of an hour to read up and copy the chapter on the mirror charm, before Flitwick announced it was time to try and test the spell out, to 'get the feel of it'.

"Ahm… you said you couldn't do this?" Ron asked Harry, again, looking worriedly at the criteria.

"Wendy said it was just a block…"

"Bloody weird place to put a block if you ask me…" Ron muttered before Hermione shushed him.

Harry struggled to remember everything Wendy had told him about the mirror charm as he looked really deeply into Ron's eyes. Taking in every aspect of his face. He waved his wand ever so slightly, whispered the words, and pointed. Nothing happened.

Suddenly the barrier between their minds was gently dropped, just as though Ron was about to say something to him. Instead, Harry stared as Ron's hair turned black and messy, his eyes green, his face leaner, and his freckles faded into a slightly paler skin than was usual. Harry was staring into his own face. And, from the look this new Harry was giving him, so was Ron.

Hermione, who had been staring fixatedly at Neville Longbottom with only a slightly disgusted expression on her face, turned around to find Ron sitting next to her. "Hey!" she said. "Why'd you…" she'd been about to say 'change places', but a couple of things clicked all at once and instead she said "you DID it!"

"Yes!" cried Flitwick. "Look, everyone! Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley have done it!"

"Aw sir," said Seamus, sounding disbelieving. "How do you know they didn't just switch places?"

You cheated, said Harry.

~Oh no I didn't. I just made it a bit easier. ~ Ron fought.

Er, so what happens when he asks us to do it with someone else?

Good question…

Luckily, Professor Flitwick did not have time to ask them to do any such thing, as the bell rang just at that moment. He also didn't ask Harry and Ron to switch back, so they didn't.

"We're going to potions," Hermione reminded them after break, in which they'd succeeded in thoroughly confusing both Filch and Mrs. Norris. "You can't stay like that!"

"Why not?" Ron, who looked like Harry, asked. "It's just Snape, I mean, he doesn't have to know or anything."

"Oh Harry – I mean, Ron, look, do you honestly think he won't be able to tell the difference?"

"Er, yes?" said Harry, who was at the moment bearing a significant resemblance to Ron. "Look Hermione, we'll change back after dinner, ok? Dumbledore deserves a scare after making my private things visible to the public…"

"And how do you propose to do that?" Hermione demanded. "You're Ron, for heavens sake."

"Only until this evening," Harry promised.

Hmm, I want to do more but I know you're all dying for a chapter, so I think I'll just post this now and move on to FAtAtS.

Robin: And that's…

From Age to Age the Same of course! Dunderhead.

Robin: Gee sorry.

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