Chapter Nine
Once upon a time in Knockturn Alley
I was suddenly aware that I was not lying in a hospital bed, but rather sitting down and someone was gently cupping my face in their hands. I raised my eyelids to see worried green eyes staring back at me. This time, thanks to those eyes, I managed not to speak the name of the kind young professor who had probably saved my life. The name caught neatly in my throat as Harry tucked my hair behind my ears. I was reasonably certain that I had been out of it for only a few moments.
Of course, I did wonder how I had gone from standing near the door to the bath to sitting on the edge of the bed. The small mysteries of life.
"Alastor?" Harry questioned, removing his hands.
"I don't know what came over me," I said, rubbing my good eye.
It had been more than two weeks since I had had a similar flash of memory. I had expected it to stop once the lingering effects of my ... captivity ... diminished. Apparently I was wrong about that. But why Anastasio? Why remember the accident that had nearly cost me my left hand and had permanently damaged my vocal cords? I could not say for certain. Anastasio had most recently visited me in the hospital wing, and we had renewed acquaintances after many years apart. Was that the reason?
Or was it because, even as much as I did not want to admit it, Harry also reminded me of the young professor.
"Are you all right?" Harry asked.
"Of course," I said, still trying to clear my head. I happened to glance at the medical kit and noticed that it had been rummaged through.
"I was looking for something ... but I didn't know what ..." Harry explained.
"How long was I out?" I wondered silently. Longer than I had initially thought perhaps.
"You haven't had any lessons with Madam Pomfrey, have you?" I asked him.
"Not yet."
I rubbed my head for a moment, unable to decide if I had hit the floor again when I blacked out, before saying, "There's a bottle containing a blue-green potion ... for minor injuries and the like."
Harry rummaged around for a moment before finding it. He examined the bottle for a moment, which made me smile slightly as I took it from him. The boy was cautious, or else very curious. Both were fine qualities.
After a swallow of the potion, which I was almost certain would induce drowsiness, much to my displeasure as it was nearly noon, I looked at Harry's pajamas and decided to find some robes for both of us. After spending the night in muggle clothes, I was beginning to remember just how uncomfortable they could be. As I started to stand, he put a hand on my arm and looked at me questioningly.
"You can't spend all summer in your nightclothes, lad," I told him before stumping toward the bureau in the corner.
"I have my school robes in my trunk," he said.
"Very good," I nodded, "though I was going to loan you some of my old things from when I was in Auror training ..."
"Really?" he asked, brightening a bit at that suggestion.
"Most of my newer things are still at the castle," I explained, "but I can certainly shrink a set of Aurors' robes for you. Of course, most of the clothes I have here are training robes and the like, stuff from before the ... well, the first days of Voldemort anyway. They had changed the uniform a lot by the time your father joined our ranks."
"My father? He was an Auror too?" Harry questioned.
I turned and frowned at him. Had no one told him why James Potter was on the top of Voldemort's enemies' list?
"Yes, lad, and a damn good one," I replied.
"Did ... did you work with him?" asked Harry. The excitement in his eyes was rather amusing, but sad too. It seemed as though no one had told him anything about his father. And I wondered about that.
"I suppose you could say that. He was assigned to me when he was first starting out."
I wanted to give him a better answer, but my heart wasn't in it. I had so many stories about James and his wife, who was well on her way to becoming an Unspeakable when Harry was born. I wanted him to know everything about them. But I just didn't have the heart.
As he began to ask another question, I simply shook my head and said, "Let me get you those robes."
The black robes, once they had been sized adequately and Harry had put them on, made it more apparent than ever that the young wizard was rather pallid and seemed almost sickly, which, to the best my recollection, he had not been those few weeks ago when I had seen him at the school. It was obviously due to his illness and probably because he was kept in a dark room without any sunlight for a long while. But that was all over and done with, I reminded myself, watching Harry's green eyes shine as he looked at the robes.
"I think some day I might like to an Auror too," he said, looking up from the garment, which was old, but had been magically preserved.
"Do you now, laddie?" I asked, taking a seat on the edge of the bed where he was reclining, propped up with a pillow.
He flushed slightly and said, "Thought I might be good at it."
I had heard about some of his exploits and could not disagree with him. He had a lot of Auror in him, not to mention an abnormal amount of practical experience. But encouraging him to become an Auror ...? I didn't want to do that to James' son. I didn't want to see the young wizard follow in his father's footsteps. I thought that Harry deserved to live to a ripe old age and raise a proper family instead. Not that such things were for me to decide.
"You might be," I agreed hesitantly, patting his knee.
"You wouldn't tell me about the sort of things you did as an Auror, would you?" Harry questioned.
I winced at his question. After a certain age, and a certain number of years in that line of work, the stories stopped being so enjoyable to tell. There were too many of them and more than a few of them did not end happily. But I didn't want to dodge any more of his questions, especially such a harmless one as that, so I wracked my brain for something that I could tell him that wouldn't be too much for the lad to hear.
"I suppose I could," I answered reluctantly.
"If you would rather not ..." he began. Maybe Harry could sense that reluctance.
"It's all right," I shrugged. "Of course, you understand that an Auror's work isn't always glamorous," I added.
"I can imagine," he nodded. There was an eager and expectant look in his eyes. I had seen that look in James Potter's eyes more than once.
"You want to hear about how Evan Rosier was defeated?" I asked, rubbing the dent in my nose in memory of the altercation.
Harry's eyebrows raised. I knew that he had heard the Death Eater's name. I wasn't surprised. Rosier's name, after he had been apprehended, became quite well-known. He had been a monster, a demon disguised as a human being, as far as I was concerned, and a very clever wizard.
"Sure," said Harry.
"It was December of 1981, right after the fall of Voldemort, and we were all working overtime rounding up all of those who had perpetrated crimes during the dark years. Three of us -- Longbottom, Bones, and myself -- got word that Rosier had been spotted on Knockturn Alley, trying to buy something illegal as likely as not. We were out there in a flash," I told Harry, smiling at the rapt attention he was giving my story.
"Longbottom? You mean Neville Longbottom's father?" Harry questioned.
"Er, his given name was Frank," I informed him.
"Yeah," he nodded.
I realized that Harry probably knew what had become of the Longbottoms. I was tempted to ask how, but decided that I would rather not know.
"So ... we spread out, each of us covering one of the major entrances of the alley. I had the Diagon Alley entrance because I wasn't so mobile. I had already lost my leg, you see," I told him, tapping the wooden appendage for emphasis.
"But if he ran ..." Harry began to ask.
"Dozens of witches and wizards would have come to my aid. The really problem was apparition. If he did that, we couldn't follow him, so I started putting up a Shelob's Web, a strong anti-apparition field over that end of the alley, while Bones was doing the same at the other end. Longbottom, the youngest one of us, had the harder task: finding Rosier without getting himself nor anyone else killed," I explained.
"How?" asked Harry.
"We knew approximately where Rosier was when we apparated because of a tip we received. He was in one of the shops ..."
"Borgin and Burkes?"
"How would you know about a place like that?" I asked sharply, narrowing my eyes. I didn't mean to, but Harry caught me by surprise.
"I ... I got separated from the Weasleys once and wound up there," Harry stammered in reply.
I relaxed slightly and nodded. Everyone knew what sort of shop Borgin and Burkes was, but because its proprietor was from such an old and respected family with an enormous vault in Gringotts, the shop managed to stay open and probably thrived, much to the misfortune of law-abiding witches and wizards. Some of the things that passed through that shop were as dangerous as an unforgivable curse.
"Best you don't wind up there again, lad. It isn't a safe place."
"I know," he agreed. "But was that where Rosier was found?"
"Actually, Longbottom never said where he found him, but I expect that it's in the official incident log. They exchanged a few curses before Rosier got away from him -- and keep in mind that we didn't know who it was at that time, only that he was a Death Eater and at least partially in costume -- and he ran up the alley in my direction."
"What about the other Auror?"
"I'm getting to the part. Longbottom signaled Bones before dashing after Rosier. But he was heading straight for me. We both had our wands out, of course, so I cast a disarming spell at him. A wizard without a wand is substantially less dangerous. Or so I thought. His wand flew out of his hand, but being chased, he no doubt realized, by two very serious and very determined Aurors, he couldn't stop to try to recover it. But I didn't anticipate that, because nine out of ten times I've disarmed a witch or wizard, they've stopped, tried to get their wand back, or attempted to use wandless magic on me."
"But Rosier did something else?" Harry questioned.
"He went for the pocket of his robe and continued barreling toward me. I tried to stun him, but he shrugged it off and lunged at me as he drew a knife. Never expected that. I half expected him to have another wand or something. He knocked my wand arm away as we hit the cobblestone, but he wasn't able to drive the dagger home. I was always barely adequate at physical combat, but I kept my wits about me. He grazed my face with the blade," I said, touching my mangled nose for emphasis, "but I managed to turn the tables on him."
"How?" asked Harry as I paused to take a breath.
I smiled and answered, "I got a hold of his knife hand and head-butted him, which sent Rosier sprawling and gave me enough time and maneuvering room to get my wand up."
"Is that when you killed him?" he questioned eagerly.
I frowned. Had I mentioned that Rosier had been killed? I didn't remember saying that. Harry must have jumped to that conclusion on his own. Or had he?
"How did you know that Rosier was killed?" I asked, trying not to sound too suspicious.
"I ... I heard it somewhere," he answered uneasily.
"Where?"
"In a Pensieve," he replied sheepishly.
"Ah ... Dumbledore's then?" I asked. It was a reasonable assumption since the things were rather rare and the headmaster was in possession of one.
"Yes," he admitted.
I considered that for a moment, wondering how or why Harry had looked into the device, but chose not to press the matter.
"You want to hear the rest of the story?" I asked him.
"Of course."
"I wasn't looking where Rosier fell after I knocked him away. He had skittered back about three meters, more or less, by the time I managed to regain my feet ..."
"Wait a minute. Where are the others when this was happening?" asked Harry.
"Bones and Longbottom were unlucky enough to learn that Rosier had an accomplice. There was another Death Eater there that afternoon, probably acting as a look-out for Rosier and doing a terrible job of it. They were still tangling with him at that time, I believe. Brian Bones met his maker during that fight, I'm sorry to say. His muggle-born wife had been killed in a raid during the previous summer," I told Harry, shaking my head. Bones had been a very good Auror, but nothing could stop the unforgivable killing curse.
"I'm sorry," said Harry. "Was he a close friend of yours?"
"Not particularly, but Bones was a good man, a family man. People were always telling him to get out of the business, to retire and spend time with his grandchildren, but Bones wanted to see that war through. I expect it was because he had been too young to serve during the war against Grindelwald. Gryffindor sense of duty," I shrugged.
"You were a ..." he began to ask.
"Slytherin."
His eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he recovered quickly.
"Oh," he stammered, "interesting."
"Thank you, lad. Should I go on with the story?"
"Please," he nodded.
"Before I realized what was happening, Rosier had his wand in hand again and was leveling it at me with this fiendishly gleeful expression on his face. There was no need to ask what he was going to do. But I was faster than him ..."
"Did you use ..."
"Yes, but in those days we were given special permission for such things," I answered.
I didn't tell Harry, but even if Aurors had not been granted the right to use Avada Kedavra against the Death Eaters, I might have done it anyway and damn the consequences. I had had blood streaming down my face and could hardly stand, thanks to my rather recently acquired wooden leg and my aching ribs.
"So that's the sort of thing that Aurors do?" Harry questioned.
"Mostly, yes. Catching and defeating Dark Wizards, that's our job."
"How many have you ..." Harry started to ask. He hesitated.
"I never kept count. After my first few years as an Auror, the number became too unsettling," I admitted. I didn't mean to brag, but Harry seemed rather impressed.
"A lot then."
"Unfortunately so," I agreed, watching him intently as he looked down at the training robes he was wearing. "Still want to be an Auror, Harry?" I asked him.
"I don't know," he replied as he looked up at me.
"You've got years to decide," I assured him before leaving the bed.
A/N: I'm still not sure if James Potter was an Auror or not. Actually, I think he will turn out to have had a boring job in the books. Luckily, this is fan fiction. I am guessing that the Bones family, like the Weasleys and Blacks, were a very large family. Brian would have been related to Amelia and Susan somehow. And, yes, I hate the idea of Harry becoming an Auror more than words.
Thank you all for taking the time to review: Molly Morrison (I really appreciate your comments), ER, feudlqueen (I thought the dreams were in italics; did the formatting not carry over?), Michelle (he is cute), Barbara Kennedy, Jennifer, Badassgothicgirl, silversea, Alena, Marz1 (I'm trying to take OotP characterizations into account), darlingdearheart, SheWasWhatever, Somnio (the jury is still out on that), and Kieara Sampson. You are all wonderful!
Once upon a time in Knockturn Alley
I was suddenly aware that I was not lying in a hospital bed, but rather sitting down and someone was gently cupping my face in their hands. I raised my eyelids to see worried green eyes staring back at me. This time, thanks to those eyes, I managed not to speak the name of the kind young professor who had probably saved my life. The name caught neatly in my throat as Harry tucked my hair behind my ears. I was reasonably certain that I had been out of it for only a few moments.
Of course, I did wonder how I had gone from standing near the door to the bath to sitting on the edge of the bed. The small mysteries of life.
"Alastor?" Harry questioned, removing his hands.
"I don't know what came over me," I said, rubbing my good eye.
It had been more than two weeks since I had had a similar flash of memory. I had expected it to stop once the lingering effects of my ... captivity ... diminished. Apparently I was wrong about that. But why Anastasio? Why remember the accident that had nearly cost me my left hand and had permanently damaged my vocal cords? I could not say for certain. Anastasio had most recently visited me in the hospital wing, and we had renewed acquaintances after many years apart. Was that the reason?
Or was it because, even as much as I did not want to admit it, Harry also reminded me of the young professor.
"Are you all right?" Harry asked.
"Of course," I said, still trying to clear my head. I happened to glance at the medical kit and noticed that it had been rummaged through.
"I was looking for something ... but I didn't know what ..." Harry explained.
"How long was I out?" I wondered silently. Longer than I had initially thought perhaps.
"You haven't had any lessons with Madam Pomfrey, have you?" I asked him.
"Not yet."
I rubbed my head for a moment, unable to decide if I had hit the floor again when I blacked out, before saying, "There's a bottle containing a blue-green potion ... for minor injuries and the like."
Harry rummaged around for a moment before finding it. He examined the bottle for a moment, which made me smile slightly as I took it from him. The boy was cautious, or else very curious. Both were fine qualities.
After a swallow of the potion, which I was almost certain would induce drowsiness, much to my displeasure as it was nearly noon, I looked at Harry's pajamas and decided to find some robes for both of us. After spending the night in muggle clothes, I was beginning to remember just how uncomfortable they could be. As I started to stand, he put a hand on my arm and looked at me questioningly.
"You can't spend all summer in your nightclothes, lad," I told him before stumping toward the bureau in the corner.
"I have my school robes in my trunk," he said.
"Very good," I nodded, "though I was going to loan you some of my old things from when I was in Auror training ..."
"Really?" he asked, brightening a bit at that suggestion.
"Most of my newer things are still at the castle," I explained, "but I can certainly shrink a set of Aurors' robes for you. Of course, most of the clothes I have here are training robes and the like, stuff from before the ... well, the first days of Voldemort anyway. They had changed the uniform a lot by the time your father joined our ranks."
"My father? He was an Auror too?" Harry questioned.
I turned and frowned at him. Had no one told him why James Potter was on the top of Voldemort's enemies' list?
"Yes, lad, and a damn good one," I replied.
"Did ... did you work with him?" asked Harry. The excitement in his eyes was rather amusing, but sad too. It seemed as though no one had told him anything about his father. And I wondered about that.
"I suppose you could say that. He was assigned to me when he was first starting out."
I wanted to give him a better answer, but my heart wasn't in it. I had so many stories about James and his wife, who was well on her way to becoming an Unspeakable when Harry was born. I wanted him to know everything about them. But I just didn't have the heart.
As he began to ask another question, I simply shook my head and said, "Let me get you those robes."
The black robes, once they had been sized adequately and Harry had put them on, made it more apparent than ever that the young wizard was rather pallid and seemed almost sickly, which, to the best my recollection, he had not been those few weeks ago when I had seen him at the school. It was obviously due to his illness and probably because he was kept in a dark room without any sunlight for a long while. But that was all over and done with, I reminded myself, watching Harry's green eyes shine as he looked at the robes.
"I think some day I might like to an Auror too," he said, looking up from the garment, which was old, but had been magically preserved.
"Do you now, laddie?" I asked, taking a seat on the edge of the bed where he was reclining, propped up with a pillow.
He flushed slightly and said, "Thought I might be good at it."
I had heard about some of his exploits and could not disagree with him. He had a lot of Auror in him, not to mention an abnormal amount of practical experience. But encouraging him to become an Auror ...? I didn't want to do that to James' son. I didn't want to see the young wizard follow in his father's footsteps. I thought that Harry deserved to live to a ripe old age and raise a proper family instead. Not that such things were for me to decide.
"You might be," I agreed hesitantly, patting his knee.
"You wouldn't tell me about the sort of things you did as an Auror, would you?" Harry questioned.
I winced at his question. After a certain age, and a certain number of years in that line of work, the stories stopped being so enjoyable to tell. There were too many of them and more than a few of them did not end happily. But I didn't want to dodge any more of his questions, especially such a harmless one as that, so I wracked my brain for something that I could tell him that wouldn't be too much for the lad to hear.
"I suppose I could," I answered reluctantly.
"If you would rather not ..." he began. Maybe Harry could sense that reluctance.
"It's all right," I shrugged. "Of course, you understand that an Auror's work isn't always glamorous," I added.
"I can imagine," he nodded. There was an eager and expectant look in his eyes. I had seen that look in James Potter's eyes more than once.
"You want to hear about how Evan Rosier was defeated?" I asked, rubbing the dent in my nose in memory of the altercation.
Harry's eyebrows raised. I knew that he had heard the Death Eater's name. I wasn't surprised. Rosier's name, after he had been apprehended, became quite well-known. He had been a monster, a demon disguised as a human being, as far as I was concerned, and a very clever wizard.
"Sure," said Harry.
"It was December of 1981, right after the fall of Voldemort, and we were all working overtime rounding up all of those who had perpetrated crimes during the dark years. Three of us -- Longbottom, Bones, and myself -- got word that Rosier had been spotted on Knockturn Alley, trying to buy something illegal as likely as not. We were out there in a flash," I told Harry, smiling at the rapt attention he was giving my story.
"Longbottom? You mean Neville Longbottom's father?" Harry questioned.
"Er, his given name was Frank," I informed him.
"Yeah," he nodded.
I realized that Harry probably knew what had become of the Longbottoms. I was tempted to ask how, but decided that I would rather not know.
"So ... we spread out, each of us covering one of the major entrances of the alley. I had the Diagon Alley entrance because I wasn't so mobile. I had already lost my leg, you see," I told him, tapping the wooden appendage for emphasis.
"But if he ran ..." Harry began to ask.
"Dozens of witches and wizards would have come to my aid. The really problem was apparition. If he did that, we couldn't follow him, so I started putting up a Shelob's Web, a strong anti-apparition field over that end of the alley, while Bones was doing the same at the other end. Longbottom, the youngest one of us, had the harder task: finding Rosier without getting himself nor anyone else killed," I explained.
"How?" asked Harry.
"We knew approximately where Rosier was when we apparated because of a tip we received. He was in one of the shops ..."
"Borgin and Burkes?"
"How would you know about a place like that?" I asked sharply, narrowing my eyes. I didn't mean to, but Harry caught me by surprise.
"I ... I got separated from the Weasleys once and wound up there," Harry stammered in reply.
I relaxed slightly and nodded. Everyone knew what sort of shop Borgin and Burkes was, but because its proprietor was from such an old and respected family with an enormous vault in Gringotts, the shop managed to stay open and probably thrived, much to the misfortune of law-abiding witches and wizards. Some of the things that passed through that shop were as dangerous as an unforgivable curse.
"Best you don't wind up there again, lad. It isn't a safe place."
"I know," he agreed. "But was that where Rosier was found?"
"Actually, Longbottom never said where he found him, but I expect that it's in the official incident log. They exchanged a few curses before Rosier got away from him -- and keep in mind that we didn't know who it was at that time, only that he was a Death Eater and at least partially in costume -- and he ran up the alley in my direction."
"What about the other Auror?"
"I'm getting to the part. Longbottom signaled Bones before dashing after Rosier. But he was heading straight for me. We both had our wands out, of course, so I cast a disarming spell at him. A wizard without a wand is substantially less dangerous. Or so I thought. His wand flew out of his hand, but being chased, he no doubt realized, by two very serious and very determined Aurors, he couldn't stop to try to recover it. But I didn't anticipate that, because nine out of ten times I've disarmed a witch or wizard, they've stopped, tried to get their wand back, or attempted to use wandless magic on me."
"But Rosier did something else?" Harry questioned.
"He went for the pocket of his robe and continued barreling toward me. I tried to stun him, but he shrugged it off and lunged at me as he drew a knife. Never expected that. I half expected him to have another wand or something. He knocked my wand arm away as we hit the cobblestone, but he wasn't able to drive the dagger home. I was always barely adequate at physical combat, but I kept my wits about me. He grazed my face with the blade," I said, touching my mangled nose for emphasis, "but I managed to turn the tables on him."
"How?" asked Harry as I paused to take a breath.
I smiled and answered, "I got a hold of his knife hand and head-butted him, which sent Rosier sprawling and gave me enough time and maneuvering room to get my wand up."
"Is that when you killed him?" he questioned eagerly.
I frowned. Had I mentioned that Rosier had been killed? I didn't remember saying that. Harry must have jumped to that conclusion on his own. Or had he?
"How did you know that Rosier was killed?" I asked, trying not to sound too suspicious.
"I ... I heard it somewhere," he answered uneasily.
"Where?"
"In a Pensieve," he replied sheepishly.
"Ah ... Dumbledore's then?" I asked. It was a reasonable assumption since the things were rather rare and the headmaster was in possession of one.
"Yes," he admitted.
I considered that for a moment, wondering how or why Harry had looked into the device, but chose not to press the matter.
"You want to hear the rest of the story?" I asked him.
"Of course."
"I wasn't looking where Rosier fell after I knocked him away. He had skittered back about three meters, more or less, by the time I managed to regain my feet ..."
"Wait a minute. Where are the others when this was happening?" asked Harry.
"Bones and Longbottom were unlucky enough to learn that Rosier had an accomplice. There was another Death Eater there that afternoon, probably acting as a look-out for Rosier and doing a terrible job of it. They were still tangling with him at that time, I believe. Brian Bones met his maker during that fight, I'm sorry to say. His muggle-born wife had been killed in a raid during the previous summer," I told Harry, shaking my head. Bones had been a very good Auror, but nothing could stop the unforgivable killing curse.
"I'm sorry," said Harry. "Was he a close friend of yours?"
"Not particularly, but Bones was a good man, a family man. People were always telling him to get out of the business, to retire and spend time with his grandchildren, but Bones wanted to see that war through. I expect it was because he had been too young to serve during the war against Grindelwald. Gryffindor sense of duty," I shrugged.
"You were a ..." he began to ask.
"Slytherin."
His eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he recovered quickly.
"Oh," he stammered, "interesting."
"Thank you, lad. Should I go on with the story?"
"Please," he nodded.
"Before I realized what was happening, Rosier had his wand in hand again and was leveling it at me with this fiendishly gleeful expression on his face. There was no need to ask what he was going to do. But I was faster than him ..."
"Did you use ..."
"Yes, but in those days we were given special permission for such things," I answered.
I didn't tell Harry, but even if Aurors had not been granted the right to use Avada Kedavra against the Death Eaters, I might have done it anyway and damn the consequences. I had had blood streaming down my face and could hardly stand, thanks to my rather recently acquired wooden leg and my aching ribs.
"So that's the sort of thing that Aurors do?" Harry questioned.
"Mostly, yes. Catching and defeating Dark Wizards, that's our job."
"How many have you ..." Harry started to ask. He hesitated.
"I never kept count. After my first few years as an Auror, the number became too unsettling," I admitted. I didn't mean to brag, but Harry seemed rather impressed.
"A lot then."
"Unfortunately so," I agreed, watching him intently as he looked down at the training robes he was wearing. "Still want to be an Auror, Harry?" I asked him.
"I don't know," he replied as he looked up at me.
"You've got years to decide," I assured him before leaving the bed.
A/N: I'm still not sure if James Potter was an Auror or not. Actually, I think he will turn out to have had a boring job in the books. Luckily, this is fan fiction. I am guessing that the Bones family, like the Weasleys and Blacks, were a very large family. Brian would have been related to Amelia and Susan somehow. And, yes, I hate the idea of Harry becoming an Auror more than words.
Thank you all for taking the time to review: Molly Morrison (I really appreciate your comments), ER, feudlqueen (I thought the dreams were in italics; did the formatting not carry over?), Michelle (he is cute), Barbara Kennedy, Jennifer, Badassgothicgirl, silversea, Alena, Marz1 (I'm trying to take OotP characterizations into account), darlingdearheart, SheWasWhatever, Somnio (the jury is still out on that), and Kieara Sampson. You are all wonderful!