Some is mine some isn't. What isn't mine I don't claim.

Some of you have been reading this for a while and so, aren't aware that I have been going back and 'tinkering' with some of the chapters. I have added to the author notes in some of the chapters. One of my best reviewers (Sunna) has a gift for drawing, she has drawn some pics based on a few scenes in this fic. The url's for these pics can be found in the author notes for chapters: 10; 16; 20; and 21. Please check them out. Her main page url is listed in the author note for chapter 1. This is a temporary notice and will be taken down about a week after I post, so… Go. See. Obsess!

And, People! I still need help with a Scottish accent for Hagrid. I'm working on a chapter where we actually hear from him and he'll sound just like everyone else if I don't get help.

Chapter Forty-seven:

After a tense Saturday breakfast Remus had returned to his quarters and worked at finishing grading some papers. Harry had come down and visited with his godfather for a while then they had invaded Remus' quarters and played Wizard poker. (The major differences that Harry could see between it and Muggle poker were that the cards would offer advice and occasionally cheat on their own.) It was fun, but eventually he left to go with his friends to Hogsmead. When he had shut the door Sirius waited several seconds. Then he hit the roof.

"No way!" he shouted, "You saw it too right?! And now you're going to ask me to treat It like It's human or something!" Remus opened his mouth to try and defend himself; Sirius cut him off again, " I know you, it's exactly what you were going to say. The woman, on the table, Remus you saw her too."

"Yes I saw her but the pictures were flashing so fast, I'm not sure what was really going on. Maybe it was one of the classes he took to become a coroner. Like you thought earlier," he reminded.

"What was really going on, Remus, was her chest was cut open her ribs were spread and her heart was still beating. There is no Magic or Muggle procedure that I know of that requires that while the patient is awake."

"How do you know she was awake? If she was awake she should have been screaming or struggling or something!" Remus shouted back.

"If she wasn't awake then why was she tied down- her wrists were tied down, you saw that didn't you?"

"I don't know what I saw. It was all black with silver outlines," Remus dropped into a chair and held his head in his hands.

"Black Remus," he sat in the armchair across from Lupin, "Red means that time is running out and black means it's almost too late. He forgot about a vivisected woman and it is almost too late. The hallway is almost too late. And near the end, what was that supposed to be? Some kind of swim class, where everyone's hands and feet were tied? That is almost too late? How could time be almost up for a model of a human skeleton?!" He pushed back in his chair and it obligingly became a recliner. "I'm not sure I can think of him as an It after what he's done for me. But now he seems more like a monster than before."

"What was that like? Meeting a Witness I mean." An obvious topic change, but one they both needed.

Sirius sat up quickly, "She started the whole thing off by saying that there were always at least two witnesses. I told her 'Ya me and the guy who really betrayed my dead friend, and neither of us is going to testify.'"

Remus softly Accio-ed his chess set from the shelf and began setting up the board on the low table between them. "After I found out you were innocent I applied for a Witness. I really did."

"I know, I just wish it could have been done sooner," Sirius took the white (he had been black last time.) "I missed so much time with Harry… How much do you know about the Witnesses?"

"Almost nothing," Remus shrugged, "they are very well protected and in high demand. The Witnesses were established as a sort of backlash to the conviction frenzy that happened at the end of the war. They're supposed to be telepathic or something and that's about all anyone knows."

"Well Cardigan is the Witness for North America, the whole continent. There is another one for South America, one for all of China, and so on." Sirius pushed his queen's pawn up two and tried to remember all that Cardigan had said. "She was chosen because she's a strong Telepath and was able to pass the integrity and intelligence tests that the Global Wizards' Council decided upon."

Remus moved his king's knight forward and gave Sirius time to get things straight in his head. Freedom and a clean record were suddenly within reach, the impossible happened last night. 'And it was because of him…'

Sirius moved his queen's bishop's pawn up one (he was going for a queen's gambit) "I took some Veritaserum and she stepped into my mind. She used a globe that's sort of a cross between a Pensieve and a Remembrall and, based on her reputation and brainwave signature…"

"You go free," Lupin finished for him.

@--'---,-------

Alastor caught up with Albus soon after breakfast, they headed to Albus' office and after charming the door for silence they got down to business.

"He looked bad," Moody announced without preamble as he took a seat by the fire.

Albus summoned his favorite reading chair from his Quiet Corner, "He had a rough night. I think he used that Heroin substitute he worked out last time."

Alastor huffed, "So they're polarizing? That was not what I wanted to hear."

"And Severa?" Dumbledore countered.

"The same, just less violently."

Moody leaned forward, "We need to tip the balance. They are going to gain strength from being together just as Severus and Severa will. It's another stalemate that we can't afford."

"No," Albus shook his head slowly, "Severus and Severa need to bond first. Right now they are too weak to survive the separation."

Moody jabbed a finger into his palm ticking off things as he spoke, "It took him three years to gain the strength to work independently, and another two to accept Lupin as a charge. Even if he has started to accept Black already, I don't see how he will have enough time to bond with her."

Dumbledore took off and rubbed at his glasses, "Severus was treated much more harshly than Severa and it created walls that needed breaking down. After Remus was able to get through Sirius had a nearly clear path."

"I would be surprised if Snape even noticed that I was at the table this morning," Alastor growled. "You say he had a rough night, I say he's slipping. He knows about her, Voldemort told him."

"Maybe we were wrong to even start this," Albus said accepting the tumbler of Ogden's Old that Alastor held out to him. "Maybe we were wrong to do what we did."

"Maybe we were," Moody took a sip from his own glass while staring into the fire, "But I wouldn't trade her. Not even for your life, my friend."

"I wouldn't trade him for you either."

Alastor nodded, "We give them time."

"And when the time comes," Albus held his glass out, "we finish what we started."

With wan smiles they clinked glasses and drank on it.

"So," Alastor asked with a wryly, "How are you planning to hire her without it seeming like pseudo-nepotism?"

Albus' eyes twinkled, "That is the easiest of our problems to solve. To keep from looking like I'm hiring her because you and I are friends, I don't hire her." Moody looked skeptical and he chuckled, "He hires her and I am informed afterward."

~

The informal Potion's Convention didn't break up until long after the tall pale woman had been hired. After dinner in the Great Hall, Snape Lupin and Miss Moody headed down the stairs to the dungeons.

"I don't mean to be rude," Lupin began as politely as he could. "But I didn't know Alastor Moody had a daughter." 'And he's old enough to be your grandfather!' he added silently.

"I was adopted," she spoke with the same casual sneer that Snape used in conversation.

Remus filed the idiosyncrasy away so that he could mention it to Sirius.

Chapter Forty-eight:

Remus rang the door chime until Sirius answered then pushed his way in and closed the door behind himself. "Sirius we need to rethink your little theory."

"I had a great day, thanks for asking. After you left I came back over here and cleaned my chimney, just for the heck of it. Then I found time to do even more reading."

"I told you they were hiring the new female Head of Slytherin today," Remus didn't wait for a reply, "Snape hired her. Albus didn't even review her resume, and she left Durmstrang to come here."

Sirius perked at that last one.

"It gets stranger," Remus assured him. "Her name is, Severa Moody."

Black didn't see the significance, "So, is she related to old Mad-eye?"

"Related? She's his bloody daughter!" Remus fell back into a chair, "She says she is adopted, so that's ok but," he struggled for a while trying to piece together half-felt impressions. "They look exactly the same," he said at last.

"You think she's actually his daughter?"

"No Sirius, not Moody." Remus flung out his hands in frustration, "She looks exactly like Snape."

Sirius took a moment, "Well all Potion's Masters end up with black hair and dark eyes." He was grasping at straws because Remus still wasn't making sense, "They tend to be obsessive about their work, right? So they're usually on the thin side."

"Sirius!" Remus was suddenly deadly serious, "You don't get it. I 'm not talking about looking alike. I'm talking about looking exactly alike, like she's just a female version of Snape."

"Do you think they are taking Plasti-juice based on each other?" Sirius asked calmly.

"I don't know, you're the one that's been reading up on it. I prefer your other harebrained idea- that he's taking Plasti-juice based on the Garom so he can have more power."

Sirius walked over to a table strewn with open books and pages of notes, "Here," he hefted a largish tome and passed it to Remus. "This is a progressive illustration of someone taking Plasti-juice." He used his wand to tap the drawing of a wizard in the center of the page. The Wizard was labeled (Wizard A2) "The time is sped up," he explained, "So every time he takes a drink it represents a six hour period."

Wizard A2 began taking sips of Plasti-juice every thirty seconds. In the upper left-hand corner was a still shot of the animated Wizard before he began taking the Plasti-juice (Wizard A). There was also a still illustration in the upper right-hand corner of the page (Wizard B). The caption beneath Wizard B explained that this was the Wizard that the Plasti-juice had been based on, for the illustration. Wizard A2 had taken eight sips when the sequence ended. It had taken two days (in time lapse) to get the full effect, but now that it was done the change was obvious, sort of.

Unlike with Polly-juice Wizard A2 did not look like a copy of Wizard B. The Plasti-juice had instead blended the features of Wizard A with those of Wizard B. Wizard A2 looked like a cousin or middle brother.

"Why would anyone want to look sort of like someone else?" Remus asked.

Sirius closed the book and placed it back on the table, "The Idea isn't to look like someone else." He shuffled through his notes for a minute then, finding what he was after, he returned to Remus' side. "I figured it out," he smiled, "You don't take it to look like someone else, you take Plasti-juice when you don't want to look like yourself."

~

Sunday morning was quiet, as usual, and most of the students were playing outside. Pick-up Quiditch and Wizard's chess were the most popular, but some were playing on the edge of the water daring, First years to touch the Squid. Hermione was trying to teach Ron how to play Mancalla. Ron was having trouble believing that it could be all that fun if the pieces didn't even move on their own. And Aidan just laughed at them when Hermione had to explain the same rule for the fifth time.

~

The moon was high and the meeting was nearly over.

The Founders' table had a wood inlay pattern in the shape of the Hogwarts school crest. The table itself was a square with the corners cut off. The crest, was not the crest that could be found in various places on the school grounds. The H on the tabletop more closely resembled a cross, or an H when viewed from the seats around the table.

At each of the four longer sides was a chair. Each chair was upholstered in the colors of one of the houses, with the respective house's crest embroidered on its back. In each ornately carved high-backed chair sat one of the four heads of the Order of the Phoenix.

There was no strict adherence to a format, they tended to informally discuss ideas strategies and plans. They voted on action and gave updates but didn't waste time with formal trappings and trimmings. The Order of the Phoenix had stood beside the Aurors to combat the Deatheaters twenty years ago. Now they stood alone.