AUTHOR'S NOTE:  Again, thank you for waiting so patiently for the next chapter.  I didn't want to post rubbish, so it's taken me a while to shift through my raw ideas and get it ready for posting.  Hope you enjoyed it.  Please, REVIEW and let me know what you think.  Feel free to email me too.          

Sarah sighed as she pulled into the driveway of Gatewood House.  Her car gave a shudder as she pulled it to a stop.  'Damn,' she thought, 'This one's way beyond repair.  Now I'll have to spend the money to get a new one, on top of everything else!  Damn, damn, DAMN!'

There were a few people home, but nobody talked to her and she didn't talk to them.  Gabriel took a quick moment to help get the glass out of her skin and set a few healing charms in place before the hopped in the shower.  Mud, blood, ash, and whatever else she'd gotten into sloshed down the drain.  She'd washed the worst of it off standing under the hose outside in the garden.  She wished her spirit could be cleansed as easily; just as easily put to rest in something that might make it reborn as life.  She dried using an old black towel to hide the stains of fresh blood, dripping from re-opened wounds.  A few bandages later and she headed to her room to change. 

She preferred the Muggle way of healing wounds—it felt more real to her.  She wanted to keep her pain.  She wanted to remind herself of the cost of keeping others alive... of keeping things right and true.

Dressed in old jeans with holes in them, a black leotard, and combat boots and shoving her hair into a worn baseball cap, Sarah threw another similar outfit into a duffel bag and checked on Harry for the hundredth time that hour.  She kissed his forehead and laid a pale hand on Chloe's sleeping face.  She blew a breath of healing onto Harry's lips, and left the room, closing the door softly behind her. 

Downstairs, she swiped a bottle of vodka and lit up an herbal cigarette.  Exhaling the smoke, she threw raisins and bottle of Gatorade into the duffel.  Making a mental note to stop at the pharmacy and pick up more painkillers, she stuck the vodka into the bag and filled a bottle with water.  After grabbing some Nutri-Grain bars, she left the house without anybody knowing she was there.  With one last look at her bedroom window, she started in mild surprise when Nia came walking out of the shed.  She was wearing one of Nadia's old summer dresses in a casual floral print.  It suited her.

"What are you doing here?" Sarah asked.   

"I was potting some herbs for Nadia," she answered honestly, "Where are you going?"

"I'm going France to talk to our Beauxbatons people, and then to Durmstrang for some news and supplies.  You be careful not to pop in and out from now on, unless I tell you."

"I understand.  Sarah," Virginia Weasley hesitated, "When it gets too rough, please don't hesitate to call for help.  I'm sure if Mims..."

"No," Sarah cut in calmly, "I won't involve her at all.  Hermione needs to be stabilized right now.  I don't want her finding out about all of this, and then gallivanting off with the Suicide Pack trying to take on His Asshole-ness too early, before we're ready.  And certainly not until you've had some more experience in the field yourself."

"But..."

"And," Sarah continued smoothly, "I need you to keep your eyes and ears on Dumbledore!  Nia, I need you to do that for me.  When the time is right, we'll take Azkaban back from... well, when it happens, you'll know."

"Not when you keep giving me only half of the truth," Nia crossed her arms over her breasts.  Sarah's expression was hard to read.  Her dark mahogany eyes had a dark blue mist over them for a few seconds before clearing.  She sighed then, and Nia thought she could see bursts of white in her eyes, but it may have been a trick of the sun.  The moment was over when Sarah abruptly kissed her cheek and strode purposefully to her truck.  

Nia watched her peel out of the parking lot and driveway at breakneck speed, her arms wrapped around herself and her eyes almost unfocused.  Then she turned and went into the shed to finish potting the rosemary.

A few weeks later, early June of 1999, Gatewood House:

"When Sarah gets back...." Nadia sighed.  When Sarah gets back... and when the hell will that be?! she wondered.  Dear God, the stress was getting to her.  She understood what had to be done, and did her part to help... but Gods, she wished she could be out there with her sister, and not stuck in the kitchen with a Death Eater's brat on the way.  STOP RIGHT THERE! she commanded herself, Don't you dare go down that road.  You're doing your part here... it's just a different role this time.  And my baby is not a Death Eater's brat... it's MY BABY.  Mine...

"When Sarah gets back... what?  What then, Nadia?  We can't wait for her!" Saskia interrupted her thoughts.

"When Sarah gets back, maybe we'll get some more answers for Harry," Nadia replied calmly, hands folded neatly over her swollen belly.  "Have some faith, Saskia."

"Hey, I'm sorry, babe.  I just... hate the waiting for her.  It's worse when waiting for her."

"I know," Nadia stated quietly.  Of all of them, Sarah was the worst case in the end, and yet she would still believe that the dawn would follow the midnight; she would still keep the world of pain and darkness she knew away from those she loved. 

"I hope she meets somebody... someday... who can save her from herself," Saskia said quietly, her hands shoved into her pockets, where moments before they had been balled into fists.  Nadia had to bite her cheeks to keep from saying that she agreed. 

They both knew that it was exactly that—Sarah giving herself wholly unto the world—which kept so many nightmares from becoming a reality.

It was amazing how easy it became to just overlook the muck, mire, blood and soot... to simply blur ones vision, and instead of a grimace of pain, see a smile of Sarah's patented brand of sarcastic humor.  Her lips would quirk to one side first, before blossoming into a radiance unknown before. 

"It's been a long time since we've seen Sarah smile," Saskia remarked quietly, seemingly reading Nadia's thoughts, as usual.  She was looking at the floor, her long blonde hair, long overdue for a haircut, obscuring most of her face.  Shadows encased her, as though embracement.  Nadia suppressed a shiver.  Saskia tilted her head up a bit to look at Nadia, her cornflower blue eyes almost too big for her face.

"It's been a long time since anyone smiled," Nadia said in whispery voice.  The Grandfather clock in the Den struck midnight.  The house was silent, except for the creaking of the old wood and the soft tinkle of the wind chimes in the open window above the sink. 

"Sarah would think that was important."

Both women were silent.  Somewhere in the large house a toilet flushed, and soft footsteps padded back to bed.  Nadia felt her child kick within her womb.  Her expression softened as she looked down at it.  Suddenly, though not surprisingly, she felt Saskia's hands over her own.  The baby kicked again.

"Just don't tell Uncle Brian I told you that you could be a ballerina," Saskia told Nadia's belly.  When her bright blue eyes met Nadia's of twilight forest, they were sparkling.

They both smiled before they realized it.

"Good," Nadia said finally, and hugged Saskia close.  Sarah, wherever you are, come home, please.  She hooked her arm in Saskia's, and the two women went off to bed.  Saskia departed at the second floor landing, and Nadia climbed to the third floor landing.  She turned off the main staircase then, and padded softly down the hallway towards a light she saw coming down the back spiral staircase from the attic.  It was Magen.

"Come sleep with me tonight, dear," said Magen, keeping her voice low, "Gabriel's taken to doing Sarah's nightly rounds these nights.  You're lucky he hasn't given you hell for being up at this hour in your condition."

"And what are you doing up?" Nadia asked, reaching out a hand for her sister.  Magen hesitated a second before handing her the candle and grasping her other hand.

"I was waiting for you," she said simply.

Nadia knew what she meant.

"It will do us both good to have somebody in the bed with us again," she said to Magen as she turned the key to her room, "We need to get back in the practice.  Especially since Sirius and Remus are both bed-hogs."

The rest of their conversation could wait until morning it seemed, as Nadia closed and locked the door and Magen flopped herself on the bed, asleep the instant her head hit the pillow.

MEANWHILE... on the road to Gatewood House...

Sarah sent another prayer of thanks to the car gods that Derek was able to fix her truck again.  When the dear eighty-year old man had heard what she was doing, the only payment he would accept was food.  So Sarah had stayed long enough to cook him several meals, freezing most of them before she left so that he'd be well-fed for weeks.  Derek loved her cooking.  She almost smiled again when he called her his nickname for her, "Lassie-girl".  God, he was something else, that man.  A good friend and a steadfast ally, with some of the best wards in the game.  And he always seemed to know exactly when she needed him too...

A wave of dizziness took Sarah, and it was all she could muster to keep the car moving in the right lane of traffic.  She knew she'd hit her head a good one when she'd bounced it off the dashboard—yet again—while in the midst of her fourth attempt to run over a Dementor.  She'd also taken a bad hit from Goyle, who'd gotten lucky when he tackled her, putting most of his considerable weight behind his punch.  It had been a last-ditch effort to keep her from throwing a killing curse at Lucius Malfoy, and they both knew it.  The bastard had broken her cheekbone and popped her jaw out of its socket. 

But he won't be doing much of anything these days, she thought grimly, Can't really go popping people off when you're six feet fucking under.  There was no satisfaction for her.  It was merely what had to be done.  Too soon there would be far too many events out of her sphere of control.  It would fall to others... others who didn't understand; who couldn't possibly do anything more than shoot into the darkness surrounding them and hope to hell they hit something. 

Harry will be waking up soon, she thought with a tinge of lightness.  It almost hurt.  Harry will be waking up soon, and then...

... and then we'll have to pray to God that Dumbledore won't hold us against him. 

I'm trying Lily, she thought, slightly sad for a moment, I'm trying...  we're all breathing a little bit easier.  We'll be a family again, just like it used to be.  You'd be proud of him, Lily...

Her throat constricted suddenly, and she wheezed out a coughing fit.  She spit out blood.  She had managed enough healing spells to heal the worst of the damage, but for some reason, healing magic never worked quite well on her family.  It never worked just the way it was supposed to; healing the injury most of the way, but not completely.  Hence, she and her blood relatives preferred to heal slowly by Muggle methods.  Sarah often used a combination of the two realms of medicine. 

Against what she knew to be better judgment, Sarah rummaged through the glove compartment and swallowed some pain pills dry.  She lit up the second last cigarette of her third pack.  She had two more packs left.  Blowing the smoke out the open window, she felt herself getting dizzy and tired again.  She finished off the last of her vodka and caffeine, which had gone warm by now.  Her lower lip split and started bleeding again.  She sucked on it absently, snubbing the remnant of the steamy dream she'd had the last time she'd grabbed some sleep before it even planted itself into her head, and switched on the radio.

She frowned when she realized that the Dementor attacks were getting closer to some of her safe-houses than she liked.  Damn, more time off my ass, she grumbled in her head, and I really need a shower.  Gods I stink. 

Oh hells... not another damned drunk driver... yeah, yeah, asshole—fuck you too.  Y tu Mama tambien!

She sighed heavily, and cursing under her breath, she took the next exit and turned the car around. 

She just couldn't leave Arabella Figg in the open like that.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry that took so long.  I've gotten some hits... but come on guys!  Review me!  Let me know what you're thinking... whether I'm too slow, too complicated, if I should focus more on Gatewood House or Hogwarts... I mean, you guys breathe, right?  So then you have opinions.  Let me know what they are! 

By the way... check out my non-fanfiction stuff at www.fictionpress.net where I have all of my REAL Gatewood House stories.  Hopefully, one day, they'll be anthologized into a book!