A/N: Strong R for this chapter to be careful. Nope, no madly erotic sex scenes, just unpleasantness. First off, I recommend you re-read the previous chapter before beginning this one, as that part of the story has likely changed quite a bit since you last read it. (Sorry about that.) A beasting is a punishment, much like this chapter was to write. My apologies for taking so long to update, and thanks to those who've reviewed.

There and Back Again Lane

Ch.19 – The Beasting

Mors janua vitae. ('Death is the gate of everlasting life.')

Ron and Hermione's Muggle flat, London

---(Hermione's POV)---

They arrive in dribs and drabs.

Ron first, Apparating with the snap of a Muggle Christmas cracker. He quickly embraces me before he thrusts some dossier into my hands and launches into the day's events in a rush as he trundles about the flat, grabbing the odd item and tossing them blindly into cupboards, bureaux, or drawers. What other habits has he half-learned from me? I am barely able to stifle an outright guffaw at his peculiar behaviour when Tonks appears. She's as flustered as he is, mumbling about having to contact someone named Sunita as well as Mr Shacklebolt. Seeing the manila folder in my grasp, she ushers me into the kitchen and orders me to read it – or at the very least the one page précis – before the other two arrive. Then I should I hide it. Seizing the apron as she leaves the room, I sit myself down at the counter for a light read.

Oh dear.

Just then, Ron comes in. He sees the apron but not the document. 'You're not going to bake it, are you?' he asks incredulously, perhaps facetiously though with that grimace sometimes it's hard to tell. One glower is enough to silence him.

'How much of this did you get through?'

'A quarter,' he swears, ears reddening, shoving his hands into the pockets of his robes. 'Maybe an eighth,' he mutters, shrugging a little.

'I don't blame you,' I murmur sweetly. 'This would put Binns to rest.'

A heavy knock at the door announces Ginny and Harry's arrival. Both are in fine form as they tell off Tonks for leaving them to their own devices.

'What were you doing, leaving us at that cab rank?' Ginny bellows. Her voice is remarkably like her mother's when she does that.

'The least you could've done is make sure she arrived here safely,' Harry growls. What's happened to Ginny?

Correctly interpreting my anxious glare, Ron splutters. 'She may have a broken rib.' What? 'They didn't tell me how it happened,' he adds as my right eye begins to squint with rage. Hiding the dossier within the apron, I storm through to the sitting room. The three of them are standing there in mid-argument. Tonks has her hands out in supplication, an aggrieved look on her face. I must've caught her before she had the chance to explain. Ginny's scowling at her mentor, hanging onto Harry with one arm and to her ribs with the other, hunched over slightly. The arm around Harry clutches his shoulder involuntarily each time she winces, although she glowers at his worried glances. That's what strikes me most about Harry, just how concerned he is about her.

Noting my arrival, the three peer at me. Happily, they all seem pleased to see me. Tonks appears relieved if not saved, using my interruption to swiftly Apparate out of Ginny's hexing range. My sister-in-law gave me a small but agonised smile as well before glaring at where Tonks had stood seconds earlier. Continuing to peer nervously at Ginny, Harry grins uneasily. I wonder what she might have told him about Ron and me.

With Tonks's Disapparation, he releases Ginny as she stubbornly makes her towards me. Ron distracts him with an offer of a butterbeer that Harry accepts with a quizzical look. I don't know whether Ron's just being the good host or if he's trying to trigger some further memories in our friend. Either way, Harry seems a little more comfortable in our presence.

'He doesn't seem to have gone off you,' I whisper, guiding her towards the nursery. She girns murderously at me, though I detect a smirk lurking underneath. Even so, she refuses to speak until the door is closed.

'God, he can be such a prat at times,' she finally mutters. '"Let me examine you," he says, like we're playing Healer or something,' she grouses slumping gently onto the rocker next to the pram. She frowns at the bland walls. 'When are you going to get my oaf of a brother to paint these bloody walls?'

A scowling remonstrance silences her as I perform my own examination. 'Harry's just concerned about you,' I chide, brandishing my wand at the offending rib. 'I hear you've been doing the same for him.' I can feel the intensity of the glare as I secrete my wand up my sleeve. 'As for the paint,' I gaze directly into those brown eyes, reddened from missed sleep and tears, 'we're expecting you and Fred to help.' Ginny fidgets a little, as she ponders an excuse that's strangely evading her. 'Unless you're doing some expecting of your own...' I probe.

The scandalised expression reveals such isn't the case. The Auror's life doesn't tend to permit children in one's twenties. Ginny's been rather leery of discussing being a mother for a few years now, not that that's a topic I'd willingly bring up with her in any case. Once she recovers from the shock, she blusters. 'What about Ange?' she asks with a sly grin. 'Why's she allowed to skive off?'

'Quidditch,' I admit. 'Champions League games in America.'

Ginny shakes her head in resignation. 'I knew I chose the wrong career.'

I'm glad she's taking my request with such good grace. And terrified that my next question will cause another explosion. Here goes. I struggle to look her in the eye. 'So, er, what have you told Harry?'

She fixes me with a Gorgon's stare. 'He knows about the Empathy Charm.' Ah. Unconsciously, my brow furrows in puzzlement, but my mouth is impassive, giving me away. 'Thought you knew,' is all she says as she shakes her head free of our sins of omission.

'How did he find out?'

'He's beginning to recollect events through dreams,' she replies while stretching to test my handiwork. Should I be insulted?

'Do the memories always provoke such a violent reaction?'

Her face contorts with worry before she's able to reassert self-control, her eyes finding the door to her right before searching the floor. 'Only when they're thrust upon him,' she mutters. An awkward lull develops in our conversation, threatening the fragile rapport we'd created thus far. 'He knows a bit about the Fidelius Charm placed on him,' she divulges, 'that it's connected with why he can't remember.'

I was wondering when that particular viper would rear its horrible little head.

'Did you tell anyone else that I was living with Harry?' she enquires sharply.

And then there's the Basilisk…

'Er, Ginny, there's something Ron and I have been meaning to discuss with you.' Her jaw once more sets firmly with George-like determination, those soft, kind brown eyes hardening into oak, her brow creases with barely concealed fury. I move back a few paces in case the worst happens, turning my back to her defensively, peering back at her over my shoulder. 'Do you recall the night you Flooed us about encountering Harry outside The Leaky Cauldron?'

She offers a barely perceptible nod.

'I hadn't asked you there to berate you about what happened between you and Neville,' I begin cautiously. 'Ron and I'd just learned that morning that Perkins had placed our Floo under surveillance.' Her jaw slackens and her eyes widen. Flustered by her reaction, I move back to her. 'I had wanted to tell you first off, but when you told me what had transpired between you two, I…' am unable to continue as she blanches. Some colour returns to her cheeks, but not for the best. 'I'm sorry,' I plead, trying to console her.

But she brushes quickly past me, running…

---(Ginny's POV)---

I fling myself into the toilet, locking the door with a spell so Harry can't follow me inside, though I wonder why he would now. Somehow I reach the loo before retching. Blood's pounding in my ears, yet through it I hear another pounding answered by arguing. A female voice calls to me but I'm too busy with a rapid succession of dry heaves to respond properly. Then the wailing begins.

Vaguely I realise a woman's entered the room, the faint trail of scent wafting its way through the stench of my spew. A hand rests gently on my back as she flushes away the reminder of my sins. 'Ginny, it's not your fault,' the voice explains. Then whose fault is it? 'You didn't know; we should have told you.' Perhaps you should have, but it doesn't matter now. Nothing matters now. 'Harry's still here for you,' Hermione declares, 'though Ron had to dissuade him from breaking down the door.' She smiles briefly but sweetly. 'Harry doesn't, we don't blame you for whatever it is you think you did.'

But he doesn't know all that I have done, does he? Only now does everything make sense. I wish it didn't.

He returned four years ago. Tom.

It was during my first year of Auror training. An escape and evasion exercise in which all of us apprentices, sent wandless into the countryside, were inevitably captured and subjected to interrogation. While the training staff made it as realistic as they could, the experience could never match the truth. They treated us a little roughly, disorientating us, weakening our wills as well as our bodies. We were humiliated as a group then individually. Sent for private interviews, our captors ordered us to strip to their jeers and taunts, as well as the occasional prod by a truncheon or wand. Dressed in rough linen sacks, we looked like house-elves, albeit very disobedient or unfortunate ones, our bruises almost black. So much for introductions...

Once in the camp, they subjected us to a wide array of mistreatment, all precisely monitored, regulated, and enacted. Professor Snape would have tugged a greasy forelock in admiration. Even Filch might have finally been satisfied by the handling some of us received. The training staff performed the Unforgivables on us, including mock Killing Curses. Convincingly, I must add, until one sees a flash of red instead of green. Not that the Enervation that immediately followed was much easier. Several strong apprentices were invalided out for health reasons, to have their memories altered. The staff administered Veritaserum to us, putting those who cracked on display before us as to shamefacedly reveal parts of the secrets we were meant to keep. We couldn't sleep, whether from the song of nearby Augureys or the screams of our fellow apprentices, I've no idea. I don't know how Tonks could have undergone this and kept her chipper demeanour. One by one, we broke until only I remained. Of course, I didn't know that.

I couldn't remember how many days had passed since my capture. It might have been a week, a month, or possibly a few days. All I knew was that my limbs had lost any sensation but for an all-encompassing agony that coursed through every cell of my being. I was weak, starving, raving. Visions of Luna screaming plagued me. I saw it all, yet I'd seen nothing. At my weakest, Tom came.

It was during one of the many interrogation sessions. The all-too-bright white room scarred eyes that had grown accustomed to being covered in sackcloth. There was space enough for a heavy, scarred oak table that had been bolted to the rough stone floor and two free-moving matching chairs. An arclight burned far too high for my manacled hands to reach, it's buzzing falling in tune with that in my head. I had the vaguest notion they scheduled these meetings at odd times to muddy my sense of time. My interrogator was blethering on about something, precisely what I had no idea. At that point, I likely would have told him I was a potted plant if he would have let me have a little something to eat, the chance to doss down for a few hours. But he wouldn't belt up.

The question that finally released Tom escapes me even today, though I doubt my interrogator is so fortunate. Whatever it might have been, I had him pinned against the wall, all six-and-a-half stone of me, with one hand gripping his throat until his eyes bulged and his wand resting between his eyes. 'I was thinking of starting a little dirty protest,' a strange strained voice uttered, 'by spreading you across the walls, you little shit.' An unwelcome calm washed over me as Tom surged past my consciousness to the fore. I desperately tried to rein him back in, but the training regimen had shattered my last defences. My interrogator screamed – insofar as he could – for assistance, his eyes widened further as his face went an unhealthy shade of purple. I could taste the Killing Curse forming itself on my tongue, the bile threatening to burn a hole straight through as I forced my mouth to remain shut. Just one little death, my dear, Tom argued, his voice as charming as ever, and you'll be free. As the last vestiges of my consciousness ebbed away and my mouth opened to cast the Killing Curse, two other members of the training staff burst through the interrogation room door, quickly stunning me.

Waking up in hospital a week later, having regained much of my earlier weight, I learned that all but three of the other apprentices had failed, their memories modified to erase the horrible experiences from their minds. While a combination of the Augureys, the seemingly interminable interrogation sessions, Veritaserum, and the Unforgivables broke the rest of my mates, I resisted. After three years of the DA and battling real Death Eaters, I'd developed some resistance to the Imperius Curse. Something, I didn't know what at the time, prevented the Veritaserum from having any appreciable effect on me. Remembering what had happened to Neville's parents, I refused to succumb to the Cruciatus Curse. In an effort to break me, the staff overstepped the training regimen. At that point, both they and I seem to have forgotten it was simply an exercise. So, I received the full treatment. Imperius, Cruciatus, Veritaserum, Augureys, sleep deprivation, starvation, humiliation, who knows what else. I succeeded in putting six Aurors on stress leave, not counting my last interrogator who threatened to resign, something the Ministry was eager to prevent in light of the losses incurred by the War. I was about to tell the messenger what she could do with her information when I realised it was Tonks. She looked like one of the six on stress leave, her features drawn, eyes red from lack of sleep and crying. She hugged me and apologised profusely for having sponsored my application to join the Aurors despite my protests to the contrary. It was then that I finally broke. I remembered doing something similar over Luna's grave.

Holding Tonks tightly, I wept inconsolably, bringing us back to other unhappy times. Mum, Charlie, Harry when we finally had the chance to see his resting place. For only the second time in my life, I related what had happened to Luna as I gasped between torrents of tears. How I'd failed to protect my friend and for what purpose. Tonks shuddered as the details spilled from my mouth, unbidden and unwelcome. Before, only Dumbledore had needed to know. I couldn't even tell Harry all that had been done to our friend, fearing his need for vengeance might consume him. Yet Professor Dumbledore had to know. Only he could save Luna's father the horror of knowing what exactly had been done to her, what so very easily could have been done unto me. The Headmaster needed to know so that he could train Harry to use that long-forgotten spell, a charm so terribly personal, so dangerous that it hadn't been used in almost one-and-half centuries. But I didn't tell her about Tom. Eventually, I succumbed to a restless sleep filled with visions of Luna, Harry, and Tom.

Tom. Voldemort. Handsome young man, charming in a vile way. A procurer, then the deformity seeking immortality. Voldemort. What can be nicked from death? A few precious moments, if one is lucky. Eternity's pointless without those you love. And Tom never loved anyone, really, not even his mum. He blamed her for his situation, much as he cursed all Muggle-born and 'half-blood' witches and wizards. But he knew she had loved him and felt ashamed he couldn't respond in kind. Bereft of affection and burdened by the affectation as the Heir of Slytherin, he sought revenge upon all others. Still, the original shame of 'half-bloodedness' never left him.

He's the ominous shadow constantly lurking behind you on a late night down a dark road, a distant face you would rather not recognise in a crowd. Tom is there, unbidden, unwelcome, but essentially harmless. Unless...

Luna. Of all people...

She and Harry. I was jealous of the rapport they shared and frightened of how well she knew me. She would say things, ask questions he would pretend not to hear that made me suspicious of how close they had become after the Department of Mysteries. Her queries grew in frequency after that little misadventure in October of my fifth year.

She caught me soon after I'd apologised to Harry for thrusting myself on him in that alcove, convincing him that I was seeing Dean then. Harry left me perplexed, smiling as he wandered back to the Castle after he congratulated me and the recently dishevelled Ron and Hermione on our love-lives. Hermione peered at me with those piercing analytical eyes. I returned a sympathetic grimace that I hoped didn't portray me as too much of a scarlet woman as I longed to seep into the earth to mix with the tears that threatened to flow forth. She girned, battling off a telling rebuke for betraying myself and her friend when Harry needed us most. Ron gawped at his friend's back with astonishment. Harry's cavalier acceptance of Ron and Hermione's good fortune and the odd control Harry seemed to maintain over his emotions contrasted dangerously with his behaviour of the year before. Thick though he can be, occasionally a subtle manoeuvre or gesture can penetrate, probably winding its way through whatever part of his brain's for chess and Quidditch. Fearing the worst, they set after him.

I, however, was rooted where I sat beside Harry, where I lied to him about Dean, about that kiss, everything, watching the grass slowly rise to recover the indentation he and his book had left. Absentmindedly, my hand played over the surface of the lawn, the chilled autumn air sending gentle waves across the grounds, a short current flowing through my arm as each blade succeeded in its struggle to rise once more. I've no idea how long I'd sitting there when a vague shadow loomed overhead. Thinking it was Malfoy and his trolls, I leapt upright with wand outstretched only to be greeted by Luna's bemused expression.

'I think you forgot a wrist motion in that hex,' she corrected. She always knew the precise phrase that guaranteed to unsettle her collocutor.

'Harry does it that way,' I returned, raising an interrogatory eyebrow.

Cautiously avoiding the shape he had left, Luna circled to my other side and primly sat, elegantly smoothing her skirt and robes. 'Yes, but he's become a little accident prone lately.' She fixed me with those calm blue eyes as she said those last words, usually so vague but now terribly stern, quashing whatever rebuttal I might have had before it had the chance to form. 'I ran into him as he was headed to the Infirmary,' she explained. 'He'd injured his hand somehow.' The hint of an accusation echoed in my ears.

'I've done nothing to him,' I pleaded.

'I don't think he feels that's so.' I still don't know what was more off-putting, the initial accusation or the smile she then gave me. My mouth widened in shock as I realised she knew what I must have told him. 'You look a lot like Ron when you do that,' she declared, smiling while patting my hand before trailing off to the Castle, leaving me alone with two worn and warm patches of grass, a bemused look, and more questions that I doubted I could ever answer.

Luna was the only person I told that bloody dream to, until I finally told Harry that May of my sixth year. She insisted that I tell Harry and Dumbledore immediately. 'At the very least,' she muttered, toying with her butterbeer cork necklace, 'you should tell him how you truly feel.' It was just before Christmas holidays, fifth year. When Mum died.

Dean and I had separated by then, after our hands had become a little too adventurous (you're young but the once). The Hogwarts wards separated us before our hands groped and slid further, reminding us of the consequences and of whom we'd rather be with in that broom closet. We gaped at each other, faces flushed, lips swollen, hearts bursting, skin tender, bodies still aching yet minds rebelling. I slid to the floor, just aware enough to cover my rumpled modesty. Equally embarrassed, Dean spun about, tucking his shirt back in. 'Sorry,' we both grumbled, saddened by our failure as well as being reduced to such a state by our hormones. 'We should end this,' we parroted unintentionally, producing a bit of nervous laughter between us that did little to settle our anxiety.

It was then in our distress that we decided upon the great Gryffindor Hallowe'en Break-up. Or battle royale, really. It was four days to the Feast when we stormed into the Common Room hurling insults at one another. Ron didn't know whether to be pleased that Dean and I had split or furious with him, eventually settling on trying to punch him. My git brother only managed to hit Seamus who, seeking to take a poke a Ron, struck Neville who had likewise sought to mediate. Then the fists truly began to fly. I was about to leave for the girls' dormitories, shaking my head at the boys' sheer stupidity while my fellow Gryffindors gazed on aghast, when I noticed Harry emerge through the portrait hole. His downcast eyes were dead to the world – as they were shortly after Sirius died – his body moved in that same mechanical fashion. I struggled to get beside him, to ask what happened when one of the louts collided – Neville, I think – with him.

The cat-calls and cheers that had started among the boys and some of the girls died immediately. When Harry rose, the crowd scattered havering about homework, clubs, or other endeavours. It wasn't that he was angry; he looked positively murderous. He put Snape to shame. Yet Harry didn't so much yell as reprimand, roundly and surprisingly calmly. 'What in bloody hell do you prats think you're doing?' he snarled, helping Neville back onto his feet over-exuberantly. 'What bleeding example are you setting for the younger boys, hmm?' glaring at the four of them, concluding with a poke at Prefect Ron's chest. The faintest trace of a grin wavered on Harry's lips. 'If ever I have the misfortune of witnessing any further display of sheer git-like behaviour, I'll duly inform a responsible prefect, Hermione Granger, who I'm certain knows the right punishment for at least one of you.' True to form, my brother gulped. 'Now bugger off, the lot of you.' And move they did. Harry continued on up to the empty sixth year boys' dormitory, failing or unwilling to acknowledge my presence but a few feet away until I called to him.

He turned with a smile, but it had died long before it reached his eyes. 'Not now, Ginny,' he pleaded, 'I just need some rest.'

A quarter-hour later, with the boys still out, I sneaked next to Harry's bed. He was on his side facing away from the door, causing me to circle round the four-poster to see his face. The trace of a single tear was still visible on his cheek as the drop had navigated its way down to the tip of his nose where it had fallen onto the bedclothes. Even so, he seemed peaceful. My eyes lingered on his features so long I had to remind myself not to touch him. A silvery ball sat within the palm of his left hand, the right splayed beside it. I wanted so much then. For him to wake, to have him hold me in his arms like my parents and my brothers had when I was younger, to kiss him softly as he lay sleeping... most of all to tell him the truth.

I don't know how long I'd been out when a male hand gently shook me awake. 'Ginny,' the voice whispered, 'you'd best get out before Ron comes.' Glancing upward along the line of that arm, I saw Neville's worried face half-hidden in shadows flit between mine and my hand entwined in Harry's. And, and... Though the gloaming October sky permitted just the faintest shafts of light into the room, I witnessed another eye, a tempestuous sea green peering through a forest of black. How long had Harry been awake, how much had he known?

We danced that Hallowe'en in the Common Room, but we each danced with several others besides, more for fun than for courting. Harry had tried to speak with me that night, but we're a popular pair individually... When Dean wasn't trying to divert Parvati from Harry or one of the seventh years, he would occasionally cast me a worried grimace and a nod toward the other boy. Harry, who had taken to looking like his old sullen self when he thought no-one was looking, would recover momentarily for a joke or a turn. Who ended the evening seated in the coveted fireside chairs with Neville chatting about DA lessons.

Even Luna would have tried to slap some sense into me after that night. She nearly did the next time we met.

'The Antipodean Hoary Salamander can only imprint on one mate, ever,' she spoke softly to me in Herbology class. A shiver ran down my spine. 'I hear you're no longer seeing Dean Thomas,' she continued cautiously as Professor Sprout examined our efforts. 'Did you finally decide to tell him how you feel about Harry?' sprang out as the little witch stood before us, soil-covered notebook at the ready. Thankfully, the Professor pretended not to hear.

Yet how would things have changed had I told him I loved him then? Would Mum still be alive, would Harry still be whole? How many other members of my family would have survived? Which others would have died? And what about Luna herself...

After nearly a year of shame, of keeping him away because of that damn vision, I, we broke. Harry's resolve stiffened each time we met, kissed, embraced. He could hold Tom back for longer periods, hiding thoughts – hiding me – while probing Voldemort's. Harry was becoming happier, stronger, more dangerous. Foolishly, I'd decided to celebrate our happiness by telling Luna down by the lake, well within school grounds. Safe.

We never saw whence the ambush came, only the red light of their Stunners. Waking in transit, bodies jostling uncomfortably down some rough country road, a hand connected with a familiar voice, ordered 'Drink this,' holding my nose when I refused. Gasping for air, the man poured some foul tasting liquid down my throat, holding my chin and covering my mouth afterward so I spilled none of it. I felt strange, as if my joints were being twisted out of their natural orbits. As my body shuddered from the first potion, the same hands forced another on me, spreading oblivion before it.

What woke me next were the screams and the overwhelming desire for unconsciousness or deafness, whichever came first. I yearned to tear of my ears so that I would no longer be able to hear the shrieks of agony and horror that echoed through the dull, damp pock-marked grey stone. Worse still was the insane laughter, male and female, hideously responding to the keening. The potions still clouded my senses, but a sudden brightening of the room and the creak of an iron door announced the arrival of a newcomer. And the moaning, the cackling became louder...

'Where's the other one?' a slurred older male voice demanded.

'That one's for the Dark Lord,' a younger, familiar voice answered.

'Bugger that, boy,' the man rebuked. 'Where is she, the blond one?' God, no. Luna. 'I see her...'

A coarse hand latched to my ankle and dragged me across the rough ground.

'The Dark Lord...'

'Shut it, boy!' the man bellowed. I tried to lash out but hadn't the strength. Despondent and unable to do anything in my current state but cry, I felt reason flee me, a presence forced my consciousness howling in terror into an observer's role. A horrible calm washed over me. Though unable to actively respond, I could see and feel all that was happening. And it was becoming clearer and sharper. As that older man pulled me to the centre of the small room, the will replacing mine grew stronger.

'Mine...' a third voice spat. Every wrinkle, every fleck of spittle and who knows what else on the gob that depraved swine holding my ankle became visible, drunken salacious leer and all, the split-second before he travelled the three feet to the wall, his head making a heartening yet sickening crack against the concrete to crumple dead before me. 'Dare touch...' the voice swore as the presence vainly attempted to roll me onto my knees as my eyes scanned the room for the young man. I guess that one exertion was all Tom had, all I had to save me...

A pair of hands raised my back brusquely from the hard surface and pushed me roughly forward. My hands, already scraped raw by the first man's endeavours, clattered once more on the concrete. 'No questions,' the young man grunted lifting me under my armpits with such a tug my feet left the ground. 'Not a sound,' he grumbled, pulling my arm tightly about his neck, 'if you want to live.'

Living was the least of my concerns at that point. The whimpering, however... And the chortling... I never wanted to hear laughter again. 'She's dead, or as good as,' he swore, guiding me up the crumbling stairs down which the sea air refreshed me. Coming into the light, I noticed my hair changing colour, my arm slip slightly lower down his back, causing him to wrench me upright again, nearly dislocating my arm.

He continued muttering as he struggled to bring me to the surface. Cursing Voldemort for his imbecilic followers, inveighing against the idiotic beasts in the other room for their inability to perform a simple Cruciatus Curse, railing against his father for his incompetence, his arrogance. 'Malfoy?' I ventured.

'No questions,' he answered with a poke of his wand into my ribs to silence me. Once outside, he dropped me unceremoniously onto the turf to sit inches from my face. Wrenching off the silly Death Eater mask, I saw my suspicion was correct. 'Now listen.' Able to do nothing else, I did.

'Tell Dumbledore about that vision.' My eyes must have widened as he swiftly added, 'Don't ask.

'Tell him about the other girl as well; he'll know what to do. And lastly and most importantly, you will remember to tell him, Potter, your thick prat of a brother, and his Mudblood who saved your life.' Vaguely, I recall he muttered Portus and thrust his mask into my bleeding hand. 'Remember.'

How could I forget?

Luna and I were found within hours of one another in a nearby park. I was taken to a Muggle hospital immediately where I was kept sedated when the healers – the doctors – weren't prodding me with strange implements or the police with questions I couldn't answer. The doctors wouldn't let me contact anyone from the outside, not even Hermione's parents. The investigating officers were furious that I could tell them nothing, thinking I was protecting my attackers rather than them. Luna was made the subject of a murder investigation. The Order found us two days after the Muggles and removed us back to Hogwarts.

The first thing I recall upon waking was the question I feared most. 'Had she been ... interfered with?' I think it was Dad, maybe it was Bill. I saw both of their heads looking towards Madam Pomfrey, following her as she navigated around them to reach me.

'No,' she declared flatly with no intention of answering any further questions. She peered into my eyes, seeking something. Having discerned nothing unusual therein, she gave me a sorrowful, sympathetic smile, a tear resting on an eyelid before shuffling off, grumbling about intrusive visitors.

I was surprised only the two of them were there until the last drops of the dreamless sleep potion drained from my bloodstream. Then I remembered it all.

Madam Pomfrey was, is nothing if not entirely attuned to the needs of her charges. Instinctively rolling to my right, I found a convenient bucket to be sick into. She returned shortly after to place a compress on my head and order Bill to take care of the pail. Though a young woman of sixteen, I clung tenaciously to Dad's work robes, sobbing bitterly into them, knowing what I had to do but dreading every moment up to that point, wanting to remain where I was, revelling in being able for that brief instant to reverse time, to be a little girl again. Never again.

Dumbledore was no more pleased to hear my words than I was to utter them. Worse still, he recognised something else in my vision that had passed my notice. Ordering Fawkes to bring Harry to his office, the Headmaster commanded me to tell no one else of the dream or what had happened except as Malfoy had instructed and assisted me from his office into Ron and Hermione's embrace.

Harry didn't return to the Common Room for several hours. When he did, the life had drained from his face. He hadn't believed the part about Malfoy any more than Ron or Hermione did until he saw my face. He just stood there near the portrait hole, an odd pained smile faintly cast on his face. Breaking from the pair and through the volleys of queries, I stood before him. I bit my lip to stop from sobbing aloud as the tears trailed down our faces as he hugged me tightly and led me out the hole.

In that forgotten classroom we had found when Harry first told me he cared for me, we embraced each other fervently, terrified of letting one another go. There, curled in his lap, mouth pressed against his ear, arms entwined around him, fingers clutching his robes firmly so he couldn't scarper, I told him I loved him. He tensed briefly before holding me closer to him, crushing me against his chest and answered in kind. We sat there on the floor the rest of the afternoon, saying nothing further, our hearts too heavy for anything else. He believed he was destined to die that night. I was relieved just to be alive to see him once more.

Once more.

Sometimes that phrase isn't so ominous. Like now.

Hermione explains to me that I'm not to blame for putting Harry and me at risk. Her arms embrace me firmly, ensuring that I won't escape from her this time. Gently, she rocks us as she discloses that their Floo had been under surveillance for several months, maybe even dating from the time of her miscarriage, and that only clever ferreting about by her clandestine friend in the Ministry uncovered Lucretia Perkins's ploy.

'Yes, Perkins,' she utters as if speaking the name of the Devil himself. Babbage as well, of course. He probably devised the scheme and means of obtaining Minister's eyes only clearance without ever having to inform Minister Bones. Perkins and Babbage must have had to call in a century's worth of favours for that little triumph. That Babbage is a fiendish little fox just waiting to get his tail docked...

'We wanted to tell you,' she adds, 'but you avoided us until long after they'd stopped observing us, and...' She stops as I look up at her, my eyes stinging from lamenting my sorry lot like some dejected schoolgirl, hardly able to speak with a throat raw from boaking. Why didn't you tell me? my gaze pleads. 'And we, I was afraid you would hate us even more if I told you...' she finishes lamely.

It was the wrong thing to have done to have concealed that piece of information from me. Perhaps we could have acted quicker, while they were still off balance... No, we still can't act, not while Harry can't recall who and what he was. But she's right for another reason. I would have betrayed them in my rage, forgotten they were family, neglected them, ignored how much I truly love those two bloody berks. I hug her upper torso tightly, careful not to crush her abdomen saturated with the fear of another miscarriage. I supplicate for her forgiveness, muttering entreaties that she answers with chiding pleas to stop suffocating her.

Hermione is pregnant once more. With luck, she and Ron will break generations of tradition and have a daughter first, one she can mother and raise to behave like a proper young lady while Ron, Fred and I corrupt her into becoming a right sinful Quidditch playing, cursing, prank pulling miscreant with the requisite thick Weasley veneer of respectable eccentricity. Then again, a boy might do as well, but people tend to be so less suspicious of us girls.

'Boy or girl?' I ask Hermione as she mops my brow, holding me close to her chest. I can already tell she'll be a good mum; she's had two superb role models, one for small families and another for small armies. She doesn't answer, though, just rocks me gently to calm our nerves. A woman of almost twenty-three, I should hate this but I've missed having... I've missed Mum. And Dad.

Oh, how Dad would've loved to meet Harry as he is now. They'd have discussions about films and football, spend endless hours talking about the gadgets modern Muggles use everyday. That's the great thing about men: they're always such boys.

I ask again about the baby's sex. This time Hermione refuses to answer. 'I don't want to jinx anything,' she mutters. How swiftly the tables are reversed as I spin 'round to comfort her. We've had our differences in the past, but Hermione will always be a sister to me.

'You are such a Mum.' Kissing her brow and smoothing her fears.

It was four years ago when we last had this conversation. After Tom had been released.

If anything, his reappearance made me sterner, more able to cope with the vicissitudes of life. Such as Hermione's miscarriage.

She had Flooed from St Mungo's, face drenched in tears, eyes burning in misery. Just the sight of her in that condition, despite all that passed between us during my last year at Hogwarts, was enough to send me immediately over. I held her as she inundated the pair of us as she relayed the wretched tale of my vile brother's departure. She failed to give me the reason why he left so suddenly that night, but the product of his disappearance drove any questions I might have had far from my mind. Now, only now, I suspect it must have been something to do with Harry. The way they cast sidelong glances at him, terrified that he will shatter. Her admonitions about our living together and our impending marriage, her dire warnings about the possibility of a relapse are enough to drive anyone mad. What else Hermione might know about his plight I've no desire to discover at the present moment…

While my sibling behaved like the churlish prat he once was, I cared for Hermione as she slowly recovered from her loss. She plagued me with questions about Auror training that she knew I couldn't answer, and wondered about my life in general. The remainder of the time, she mourned as I mothered her. The lamentation I could support, but the prying infuriated me. As days became weeks, my patience waned. I found it simpler to be cross with her than compassionate. Thankfully, my acting skills were able to disguise my mounting disgust with the exception of a few brief instances.

I said such horrid things on those uncommon but insufficiently rare incidents. Things I never would have said had I been in my right mind, things I'll regret to my last days…

Yet the rage surged within me, almost unquenchable. Spiteful, petty, and merciless… All so very Tom-like.

Then she told me about the miscarriage. And the scales fell from my eyes.

Seeing my only options as being insanity with Hermione or bellowing at Ron, which was not only deserved but an old favourite, I opted for the latter. He was very difficult to run to ground to chastise properly. Midway through a decent rant, he would blunder off, grimacing in hateful ire and agony. I couldn't fathom the cause of the latter emotion at the time. I only knew that its appearance enraged me more. Finally, after six aggravating weeks of this chasing about and in spite of Hermione's pleas not to tell him about the miscarriage, I blurted – OK, howled and hissed – it all at him shortly after one of his Quidditch practices. I've no doubt that had there been a Boggart present, Ron would have seen two of me doing unto him what needed to be done. They spent a month getting themselves sorted, granting me time enough to hammer the beast back down into the abyss.

How that child would have changed us all… We mightn't be so distant as we are now. Or were.

'You'll be a great mother,' I tell her with a gentle embrace. 'What will you call him?' I ask mischievously.

Hermione's too clever to rise to the bait and prevaricates. 'If it's a boy, we decided on Arthur George.'

'Why not George Arthur?' I wonder.

'We,' meaning she, 'thought the wee one should have the chance to earn his Marauder credentials the old way.'

'So, it will be a boy?'

'Knowing this family, probably,' she finally admits. 'But if she's a girl,' she glanced at me nervously, fearful I'd create another scene, 'we were thinking of Molly.'

Odd thing, life. I'd feared she would say that, hoping I'd be able to pass down Mum's name. But now she's uttered it, it seems right and proper. As things should have been.

'Molly Hermione,' I say to her astonished yet happy stare. 'Well, we can't just leave you and Angelina to fend for yourselves against the three of us Weasleys alone, can we?'

'Four of you,' she corrects. 'Don't forget Harry.'

No, never forget Harry.

It was my first assignment as an Auror.

Seemed a simple case. Indeed, so simple the Muggle police had initially thought they could solve it. Headquarters discovered certain peculiarities through our contact, DS Silas Wakefield, a Squib working in the Greater Manchester constabulary. Wakefield has a keen eye for oddities and knew when to contact us. Saved the Muggle Liaison Office – always strangely filled with those having no comprehension of Muggles and their ways – the bother of sending one of their preening prats to the North-West.

Still, Tonks tried to get me reassigned. Tonks had tried to get me reassigned but I insisted. After my experiences before and during training, I'd grown tired of being the resident porcelain doll. I could've sworn there was a 'Meissen' hallmark stamped on my arse. (Except, of course, with the rest of the Auror training directing staff who were as beastly as ever.) Besides, of what use is an Auror who wiles away her days sharpening quills behind a bureau? Had I been aware of the similarities between this mission and... I wouldn't have argued so vociferously for my inclusion. Or at all.

The body was found in a copse near Macclesfield. A man walking his dog had discovered her. (That ought to have been the first sign something was amiss.) No Dark Mark had been witnessed nearby by the local witch-in-residence, Mabel Carstairs, octogenerian and tea fetishist. ('Typhoo? That rubbish never touched these lips!' Mentalist.) Even so, there were sufficient indications of Death Eater involvement. Tarting ourselves up in dress suits, stockings, and warrant cards – Tonks has an ironic view of fashion – we Apparated southward to the almost deserted crime scene.

The murder hadn't been committed amidst the trees, that was certain to both us and the Muggle police. There hadn't been many clues for them to find, and we had no better luck. Wakefield, who'd been waiting for us in his sedan with a flask of hot, sweet tea, drove us to see the pathologist and the victim.

God, it was horrible... Despite the deaths I'd witnessed during the war, especially after the dreadful losses my family suffered, I hadn't the bottle to see another like... She was a young girl of no more than thirteen. Her body bore all the marks of Death Eater abuse. Luna. Staring mesmerized at the shattered vessel before me I couldn't spew, nor could I move at all. I remember a single tear cutting its way down my cheek as the 'Our Father' curled and shrank on my tongue. Tonks told me after our cheery little visit that Shacklebolt had sent a pair of trusted Obliviators to set her discoverer's mind to rest. We weren't so fortunate.

Vaguely, I noted that the pathologist admitted he could find no single cause for the girl's death despite all that had been done to her. My mind mercifully switched off as he catalogued the atrocity exhibition for our benefit. The details could wait until they were on sterile paper back in my hotel room, safely reduced to a host of symbols on a page. There, then, I could understand none of it.

I just wanted to be home, whether in our flat with Harry to comfort me, or back at the Burrow where Mum could hug me 'til my eyes watered and tell me the past six years have simply been some horrible nightmare. If only.

I'd told Harry I had to go for a two-month refresher course on homeopathic practices at some hotel outside Manchester. He'd given me a disbelieving look then, not entirely accepting that Healers went on such training ventures, but trusting me not to leave him. Advising me to steer clear of wearing red in the East or blue in the West of town on match day, he wished me well with a kiss. I promised to ring him. I couldn't do that when all I saw was Luna on that examination table. Taking a Dreamless Sleep draught, I laid down on the hotel room bed and thought of England.

A week passed before I eventually felt myself able to ring Harry without immediately thinking about Luna. And our victim. It had taken me two full days beyond the first to finally separate those two girls. He was worried that I had not rung earlier but not suspicious, contentedly asking what I'd learned and accepting the tale I wove. His trust ought to have satisfied if not pleased me. Instead, I felt ashamed.

I yearned to tell him the truth, all of it, from his past to that case. My training and his treatment prevented me from doing so. I had to maintain my back-story for both of our sakes. Hermione's thinly veiled warnings about the potential repercussions of a relapse had I informed him about the destruction of his former self weighed heavily upon me. I needed the confidence in which he held me, but I hated him for that weakness I fully exploited.

His faith in me was canine, servile. Almost appalling. Yet dog-like he could perceive nuances within my necessary lies. As I profited from his belief, he manipulated me – the clever swine – into revealing more about his past than I should have. We were always thus, playing with one another's foibles but not always to each other's benefit. We kept one another honest. At least, inasmuch as fate allowed us.

Fate, however, allowed that poor girl nothing.

Those first two weeks Tonks and I trawled the records. Tax rolls offered the names of the adult members of the wizarding community within the region while Departmental records gave us the known and suspected Death Eaters. We scoured the Muggle police files as well for other assaults. Our eyes ached from scanning page after page of official reports, our feet from all of the walking to visit the members of our society for any leads. In the end, we found him.

The bastard wasn't a Death Eater. Just some sodding nonce who had used some of Voldemort's followers techniques garnered from overly explicit books on the last war to deflect our attention from him and to satisfy his repugnant impulsives. A history of escalating attacks led us to his door. Had he reached for his wand, I've no doubt either Tonks or I would have blasted him through the wall without any immediate recriminations. Instead, he came meekly with us. His obsequious behaviour carried through to the trial before the Wizengamot. Perhaps he believed such behaviour would be misconstrued as remorse. Maybe he chanced that the magistrates would interpret his fawning as being incompatible with the bestiality of the heinous crime committed. But it was a fair cop; his wand and other exhibits revealed all, much to the collective disgust of his judges and jury.

Then came the question all had been dreading. The sentencing. The Wizengamot couldn't simply snap his wand and fling him into a Muggle prison, where Tonks and I had no doubt what his fate, wizard or no, would have been. Azkaban was still being reconstructed, the means of securing its future inmates still hadn't been decided. Exceptional punishments were, therefore, the norm after the war, and that bugger's was no different.

Upon the order of Minister Perkins, he was to be Obliviated to the point from which its was assumed his sociopathic behaviour arose. Afterward, he'd be placed within the finished portion of the new wizarding prison. Neither Tonks nor I was in favour. She felt Obliviation would remove from him the responsibility of his former actions as well as the possibility of feeling remorse for what he had done. Most days I'd have been satisfied given him a not so discreet shove off the Firth of Forth Bridge. Yet I couldn't help but image Perkins had other reasons for ordering his Obliviation.

The sentence was carried out shortly after it had been delivered, not allowing either of us to avoid the awful scene about to befall him. Four Obliviators – all trustworthy and looking quite uneasy with their court-appointed role – came through the door as the chair tightened its restraints on the convict. Behind them came a pair of Healers, neither of whom were known to us, though I noted Hermione shuddered when I mentioned their names just now. The first part of the procedure took three hours as the Obliviators peeled away the years from the guilty man. After which we observers were permitted to leave. Further treatments 'ensured' that his memories couldn't be recovered and that they had altered his memories to the intended period.

I saw the gormless, innocent-seeming look on his daft little face and wondered whether that was how Harry looked after Perkins's lot had done him over. Though the two men were so different in life, in this quasi-death they were brothers. I've no doubt that it was Perkins's intent to remind me of how far she would go to ensure her position and privileges.

We'll just have to show her how far we'll go to take them from her.

Sarawak, Borneo

---(Draco's POV)---

When I returned to the bunker, the remnant of an old Muggle war, I confronted a nightmare. Only the loathing in which I held four of the occupants of that squalid hellhole kept me from spewing at the repugnant display of depravity to which I bore witness. Three of them I'd known since I was a child. Goyle senior, drinking Firewhisky from the bottle, spilling most of it down his front as he encouraged his son. The boy, Gregory, had protected me, much as his equally dim friend, Vincent, whose antics had Millicent cackling hideously. I was, am, ever so thankful I kept Pansy from this. They hadn't even realised the girl had reverted to her true form, not that they would have cared anyway.

I always thought it would have been difficult to kill someone. Father was afraid I would be weak when the time came. But when struck by such a sight, it was easy. The Curse came to my tongue with ease, almost too much so. For my last victim, there was no hatred, only... ambivalence, mixed with a foreign emotion. Pity, perhaps.

'It had to be done,' I said, understanding I was trying to convince myself, that she was too far beyond reason to comprehend anything. Unable to look at the horror on her face any longer, I Obliviated her. She was not long for the world, I knew, so I did what needed to be done. Raising her head, I poured the Draught of the Living Death mixed with a gentle poison down her throat. And I patiently waited for her to die, holding her hand until it grew cold.

I burned the other five bodies. Nobody else had known Millicent, Goyle's girlfriend, had joined our group, leaving those who came to fetch us with the possibility I'd been killed along with the rest instead of hiding on the Continent.

Within a few days, Voldemort was dead and so was Potter and much of the Weasleys. Despite my efforts to dissuade her from going, Pansy died in that battle as well. The little Weasley girl, I was surprised and strangely pleased to learn, survived.

And yet I have these dreams...

A/N2: Again apologies for taking so long to update, and for likely taking even longer to update after this chapter.
Thanks!

To knbnnate for your kind reviews. I hope I'll be able to update more quickly and that this story continues to intrigue you. Hopefully the angst level will decrease after this chapter.

To GiGiFanFic, thanks for reading and the review. I hope I'll be able to keep your interest.

To GentleWaterSoul, I hope you're continuing to read and that you're still enjoying the story.

To Bobboky, thank you for reading this story, and I'm glad you're finding this a different post-Hogwarts fic.

To flyinhigh, sorry that the writing occasionally ventures into the obnoxiously florid. It's something that tends to plague mywriting from time to time. I blame too much education and not enough fiction! :)

To DJIN7, I'm ecstatic that you are finding the story and imagery so fascinating. Mostly the story comes to me in rare flashes that I try to piece together, though since writing is such a magpie affair, other things tend to slip into the story, hopefully not to anyone's dismay!

To AP Mom, thanks for reading this story both here and on SIYE. I'm glad you're finding it interesting and I hope to keep up the quality level in this and following chapters!