Albus Dumbledore walked along a path near the village of Hogsmeade, searching for...

For several things, actually. For a place he'd had described to him. For artifacts, or traces of those artifacts, that he'd also heard descriptions of. And for a message, which he surmised might be present.

If my counterpart in the other world is similar to myself, he will be searching for some way to bring these people home. As I am. For their sake, and for ours. Such a magical imbalance cannot be good for either world.

Traces of magic were everywhere along the path, making it obvious, to one who knew how to look, that wizards and witches often walked here. To Dumbledore's vision, aided by a certain spell, they appeared as threads or ropes of variously colored light.

He came around a bend in the path and had to shield his eyes. The scene before him blazed with magical traces. Carefully, he reduced the glare of the magic to a level he could deal with, then looked at it again.

The spot matched Aletha's story. Dumbledore could easily see several places where a watcher could have waited to ambush the Pack. And there was magic everywhere. There could be no doubt – this was where the eight unwilling interlopers had entered his world.

And here, if anywhere, they will be able to return.

He began to examine the area carefully. Fawkes arrived while he was working and perched in a nearby tree to shed some more mundane light on the place. At the end of an hour, he was ready to return to the castle.

I know more than I did, but still not enough. Something seems to be blocking my spells, keeping them from working correctly...

Fawkes shrilled, a sound Dumbledore seldom heard him make. It betokened surprise and possible fear, and very little frightened a phoenix. He turned slowly in a circle, looking for the cause of Fawkes' distress, and finally found it – a single, shining feather lying on the ground. As Dumbledore reached for it, it seemed to shrink, its outer edges shriveling away...

Oh, no. Not if you are what I think you are.

He quickly laid magical protections on the feather, binding it to stay in its current form. When that was done, he picked it carefully up and ran his finger along it. It was the feather of a phoenix, but Fawkes had not shed any feathers lately. And the fact of its beginning to dissolve, as Aletha had described herself and the others doing, made him think it was more likely than not from that other world from whence his visitors came.

Let me see if I can find the way it came here.

Fawkes fluttered to his shoulder and peered at the feather, then leaned down and took it in his beak.

"You wish to try?" asked Dumbledore, slightly surprised. He should not have been, he acknowledged. The phoenix was no coward. Indeed, it was quite possible that the other Dumbledore had asked his Fawkes to send the feather here through his fire-traveling magic. "Return quickly, please. I would be loath to lose your companionship."

Fawkes preened Dumbledore's hair briefly, then took flight and disappeared in a flash of fire. Dumbledore counted slowly, and as he came to fifteen, the flash reappeared, with two identical forms in it. Fawkes and another phoenix, like enough to be his twin, twined necks joyously before the other disappeared.

"Excellent," said Dumbledore, holding out his arm for the bird. "Communication has been established."

Now to work out a way to send messages.

Draco Malfoy couldn't sleep.

It wasn't just the proximity to several much larger, meat-eating animals, though he supposed that was part of it. Nor was he having indigestion. That had been earlier, and he was not going to make the mistake of eating all of a human-sized box of popcorn again. His ferret host had been rather annoyed with him over that.

No, this was something else. Something to do with Black, as usual.

Damn him. He wasn't happy with messing up my life once, or twice. No, he has to keep on doing it.

Not that Draco hadn't enjoyed the afternoon and evening. On the contrary. He had enjoyed it, if anything, too much.

Their plans had changed after discovering a street festival on the way to the half-price ticket booth. The show could wait until the evening. They had attended two short open-air concerts, watched a magician – Draco had been astonished at what a Muggle could do without any real magic at all – and Black had even joined in an impromptu circle-dance near one of the street musicians playing.

From his place in the backpack, Draco had watched it all with a growing feeling of unreality – or perhaps it was the opposite. Perhaps, he thought, this was reality, and the world where he had grown up was the unreal one. Perhaps real life was filled with color and music and laughter, and this odd sensation inside him that he wasn't used to at all, but rather liked.

It took him a while to identify it. It was a curious mixture of lightness, as though his front half could float off the ground, and awareness of everything around him. All the lights were brighter, all the sounds clearer, and it wasn't all due to the ferret's keener senses. He could, Draco discovered, share Black's vision and hearing if he tried, and things looked the same way to him.

And there was a third aspect as well, one without any physical component as well. It was the feeling that nothing could daunt him, that he could conquer any obstacle, defeat any foe. He had urges to run out and join the dance himself, and was promptly horrified by them, but they had existed. He couldn't deny that.

It had taken Black's question, Enjoying yourself? to make him understand.

Because he had responded, quite without thinking, Yes.

It was happiness. He was happy.

I am not supposed to be happy! My life is in shambles, I'll never get anywhere that I wanted to – I'm a flipping ferret! I can't be happy!

But his emotions weren't listening. Argue against it as he might, Draco Malfoy was having fun.

Part of it, he knew, lay in the simple fact that no one could recognize him. No one here had ever heard of the house of Malfoy, or even knew that it existed. No one here would carry tales to his mother, and from there to his father. Nothing he did here would endanger his future. He had no need to be the perfect son of the perfect house. He could just... be.

Though it would have been nice if he could just be a human, he didn't really mind the ferret-shape all that much, truth be told. He could get a lot of places he couldn't as a human, and he didn't have to walk. Plus, Black hadn't twitted him on it once.

Because he doesn't know about it.

But he got the feeling Black wouldn't twit him on it much even if he did know. Maybe once, or twice, but then he'd let it drop. He seemed easygoing in many ways.

Which had brought up the question Draco had been wanting to ask, in one form or another, ever since he had discovered the strange voice in his mind.

How did you end up with your Pack, anyway? I know that's what makes us so different, but how did it start?

"Well, do you want the whole story?" They were sitting on a park bench, watching a bunch of kids playing on the grass.

I guess.

"All right."

It took quite a while to tell, and when Black was done, Draco wasn't sure what to feel, other than confused. You were four?

"I think I said that."

But... didn't you want to stay? Didn't you understand that you were going to live with Mudbloods?

"Watch your mouth, metaphorically speaking." Black tapped him lightly on the top of the head.

Sorrrry. Draco drawled out the word. With Muggleborns, then?

"No. Remember, for all I knew, Muggleborns wore skins and grunted a lot. I saw people, and what was more important to me then, I saw people who liked me. By the time I found out Letha and Danger and Neenie were Muggleborn, I was already learning that it didn't matter. Who their parents were didn't change what they could teach me, or how they played with me." Black looked into the distance. "Or how they loved me."

You keep saying things like that. That they love you. That you love them. All I know about love is it makes people look silly and do hard things.

Black laughed a little. "When you really love someone, you don't mind looking silly, or doing hard things, if it means they don't have to, or they'll get something out of it. And that's what a family does. A real family. They all do the hard things together, so no one has to do it alone."

Gag me. Draco tried a different angle of approach. Do you have a girlfriend?

"Not exactly. Do you?"

You could say that. Pansy Parkinson, bless her pretty little hands.

Black choked on spit. "Parkinson? You go out with a pug dog?"

Oy! She does not look like a pug dog!

"Oh, dragon dung. If she looked any more like a pug dog, you'd have to keep her on a lead." Black raised his eyebrows. "Might not be a bad idea anyway."

Draco grumbled. Well, who do you go out with?

"I don't go out with anyone. But I do have a prospective mate."

Well, excuuuuuuse me. Who might that be?

"Her name is Luna."

It was Draco's turn to choke. Luna? You mean Lovegood? That nutty Ravenclaw who wears radishes for earrings and a necklace made of butterbeer caps?

"Well, she's a Gryffindor in my universe, but other than that, yes, that sounds like her."

Why?

Black's face took on a distinctly dreamy look, not unlike Lovegood's. "Because she's beautiful, and understanding, and smart, and she listens very well. She plays the piano wonderfully, she dances like an angel, and she can beat me up seven times out of ten."

Do I even want to know how you know that last one?

"Get your mind out of the gutter. We do self-defense practice a lot. She can sing, too. Misses her cue sometimes, but when she's got her mind on it, she's great."

Oh, I'm sure. Draco considered whether or not he really wanted to ask the next question on his mind, but it slipped out anyway. Why do you call her your... whatever-it-was mate and not your girlfriend?

"Because words are powerful. If I call her my girlfriend, I'll treat her that way, like something I can trade in and replace if it doesn't work out. But that's not how either of us thinks of it. We're prospective mates. When we're old enough, we'll mate-bond and have cubs of our own."

You mean you'll get married and have kids.

"That too."

Draco thumped his head gently against the wood of the bench. And has it occurred to either of you that this is not normal?

"Why should that matter?"

I think I see another reason he likes Lovegood. How long have you been... perspective mates?

"Prospective, not perspective. And I'm not positive. We've known each other since I was seven and she was six, and we've liked each other a lot ever since then. I don't know when we realized we'd be mates someday. I guess it just kind of happened."

That conversation, luckily for Draco's blood sugar level, had died a natural death right there. They'd found other things to keep themselves entertained for the rest of the afternoon, eaten dinner at a small restaurant with open-air seating, and then headed for the theater.

The show had been amazing to Draco. The sets were astounding in themselves. Just thinking of all the work that had to be done, by hand, since of course Muggles didn't have magic, made his head spin like the stage. The dancing made him stare. He hadn't known people could do things like that with their bodies. But the singing, and the music...

Why didn't I ever know about this before?

He felt as if he could gladly have stayed in the theater forever.

In Act Two, Black suddenly straightened in his seat. Listen to this one, he commanded. This is my favorite song in this whole show.

Draco listened. The singer was an older man, who had just discovered that his foster daughter was in love. He was pleading with God to save the young man she loved from the dangerous situation they were both in. It didn't matter if he died himself, the man sang. Only let the young man return.

"Bring Him Home."

Draco touched Black's mind as he listened, and felt it full of that strange emotion he knew was called love. Black understood the song. He had people he would sing it for, if he had to. People whose lives he would value above his own. People who valued his life above their own.

And I don't.

I don't have anyone like that.

The scenes changed. Soon they were in the sewers, where a thief was stripping corpses of their jewelry and singing about how the world was a dangerous place, where you had to either eat or be eaten, how there was no other choice, and no reason to try anything else. Draco felt sick.

I don't like this so much anymore.

Not since I started hearing my father in what this bloke has to say.

He watched the end of the show in a kind of fog.

Is that all I'd be, if I joined the Death Eaters? A sewer rat?

He thought of all the life he'd seen that day, all the happiness, including what he'd felt himself.

But if the Dark Lord wins, there won't be any more of that.

Do I really want to fight against it?

It wasn't a question he was ready to answer just yet.

He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to answer it.

Sirius Black was confused.

He'd been having a very odd dream, in which he was hiding behind boulders and pillars of rock, watching Aletha Freeman walk along a mountain path, her gaze alert as though she searched for someone. Whoever it was, she was obviously looking forward to meeting them, but also hoping to show to advantage in their eyes. She was dressed beautifully and moving with the elegance of a queen.

Which was why it had been such a shock to watch her slip and fall on her rear in a large patch of mud.

He had been about to emerge from his hiding place and offer to help her up, when he had heard someone – a man – laughing. And something about the laugh had been familiar.

Aletha's head had turned toward the laughter. "Did you do this?" she had shouted, sounding understandably angry, but also amused. "Come out and face the music!"

The laugher had jumped down onto the path near her – he must also have been hiding in the rocks – and Sirius had stared doubly.

It was him.

But it can't be me. I'm up here.

So it was somebody who looked like him.

And laughed like him.

And yelped like him, when Aletha got him in the chest with a handful of mud.

"That's for you, Sirius Black!" she scolded.

He's got my name, too.

"Now get over here and help me up, you big lout!"

"Help you up? Sure." The man had walked over and leaned down, offering her his hand. Sirius had sworn under his breath. Don't be stupid, she's going to try something...

Sure enough, Aletha had yanked on the hand, intending to pull the man down into the mud with her, and it had worked, but not quite as she intended. Instead of falling on his face, he went to his knees, slid his other arm around her, and pulled her in for a kiss, disregarding the mud speckled on both their faces.

Well, maybe it did work the way she wanted it to.

After that, they'd had a mud fight, plastering each other until they were a uniform shade of dirt-brown, dumping loads of muck onto each other's heads, and squealing like a pair of kids. When they were finished, they'd found a pond and washed up, and then gone down the path together, telling stupid stories and laughing over them like good friends reunited after a separation.

Or like more than friends. The way they were holding hands certainly looked like that. And the way they were kissing every now and again...

Curious, Sirius had trailed them, and suddenly found himself in his bedroom at the cottage, aware but unable to control his body. Someone else was in charge of it. He was just a passenger.

Why does this not bother me? I ought to fight, I ought to do something... am I under Imperius?

But he had a strong sense that whatever was happening was for the good, and interference would not be wise or appreciated.

Of course, I'd feel that way under Imperius too.

Still, he allowed whoever was guiding him to walk out to the living room of the cottage, where three mattresses had been set up. Hermione and Meghan slept on two of them, seemingly undisturbed by his arrival. Aletha's eyes opened as he entered the room, and she hurried across to the back door and opened it. Someone standing just outside the door handed her something, and as she came back in, Sirius saw that it was a lead, attached to the collar of a large black dog, which looked rather like he did when he transformed into Padfoot.

Aletha led the dog across the room to him and had it sit in front of him. Sirius felt his knees bending as he went down on one knee and looked into the animal's eyes. There was the sensation of hearing a conversation too far away to catch any of the words, only being able to make out that two voices were involved, and then his right hand rose and laid itself on the dog's head, while he held eye contact with it for a long while...

Sirius swayed, and caught himself with his left hand. His eyes were watering from being open too long. He blinked several times, trying to clear the tears away, and then realized that Aletha was beside him, helping him stand up. "Are you all right?" she asked quietly.

Sirius took stock. He was a little dizzy, but otherwise seemed unharmed. "Yes. What happened?"

"I think you were sleepwalking. Have you ever done that before?"

"No. Was there a dog in here?"

Aletha frowned. "No, there's no dog in here. Why?"

Sirius shook his head. "Never mind. I'd better go back to bed."

"Good night, then."

"Good night."

As he returned to his bedroom, Sirius felt strangely empty inside, as though something hadn't happened that he'd been expecting. It was just on the edge of sleep that he noticed the strange little voice in the back of his head was gone.

Hardly a loss.

He fell asleep again, and this time had no dreams that he could recall, waking up in the morning refreshed and perfectly willing to dismiss what had happened the night before as a bad dream or a bout of sleepwalking. Losing one's magic, and then finding out that one ought to have lost one's soul, could certainly be grounds for much worse things than sleepwalking, he thought.

Someone tapped on his door.

"Come in."

Remus opened the door. "I need your help with something," he said, his face very carefully emotionless.

"What?"

"I need you to look in the living room and tell me what you see."

Sirius suddenly identified the lack of emotion on Remus' face as that of a man who doubts his own sanity. Emmeline stood in the corridor behind Remus, Sirius saw as he got up, looking openly bewildered.

Sirius walked into the living room and stopped dead.

The mattresses containing the three guests to the cottage were where they had been. Hermione looked as she had the night before. She was the only one who did.

Between Aletha and Meghan slept a huge black dog, the twin in every way of the one Sirius had "dreamed" of seeing the night before. Meghan was snuggled up to it on one side, and Aletha had her arm over it on the other. Sirius wondered if she would wake up with a mouthful of fur.

But by far the most impressive additions to the living room were by the fireplace. Closest to it lay a magnificent male lion, with a calico cat curled up between his front paws. A grey wolf had its head pillowed on one of those paws, and a brown-haired boy of about Harry's age was asleep against the lion's shoulder.

Sirius opened his mouth, knowing what was about to come out would be stupid and obvious.

"There's a lion in the living room."

"All right," said Remus resignedly. "So we're not crazy."

"No, just confused," said Sirius. "How did they all get in here? And who's he?" He pointed at the boy. "I've never seen him before, and I thought I'd seen all the kids in Harry's year."

"He might be foreign," said Emmeline. "Or home-schooled."

"We can at least find out his name," said Remus. He walked quietly over to the boy, drew his wand, and performed a forensics spell on him.

The hologram which formed was blurred and hard to read. Remus frowned and tried again.

Sirius stared. The second hologram was not hard to read. Just hard to believe.

Harry emerged from his bedroom, putting on his glasses. "What's going..." He trailed off, staring across the room at the animal-human tableau, and the hologram hovering above the sleeping boy.

Malfoy, Draco Regulus

Aged: 16 years

Son of Known Death Eater

"What is he doing here?" said Harry loudly, waking most of the people in the living room.

Remus backed away hastily as the lion yawned prodigiously. The wolf nestled closer to the lion, making little whining noises that, if it had been human, would have been the words "Five more minutes?" The cat arched its back and sharpened its claws on the carpet, then daintily picked its way out between the lion's paws and froze, staring at the hologram above Malfoy. Its ears went back, and it hissed.

"Oh, bother," said a tired voice from the other side of the room. Aletha, too, was looking with distaste at the hologram. "Those things are based on the body, aren't they? I mean, you can use them to identify the dead?"

"Yes, of course," said Sirius, a bit surprised. All the Healers he knew understood forensic spells.

"Neenie, settle down," Aletha said to the cat. "A name can't hurt anyone."

The cat spat once more in the direction of the hologram before settling down on the carpet to wash.

"Why do you ask?" inquired Remus. "And would you happen to be involved with this little... invasion?"

Aletha rubbed her eyes. Sirius saw that they were ever so slightly bloodshot, and half-lidded, as though she hadn't slept well. "Can this wait until after breakfast, perchance? It's a very long story."

"Well, that depends on what he wants for breakfast," said Emmeline, indicating the lion, who had raised his head slightly and was looking around at everyone.

"He's not about to eat any of you, if that's what you're worried about. There's game in the forest around here, if you don't mind him hunting," Aletha said to Remus, as Hermione sat up, looking around in amazement.

"Oh, not at all. Not at all. I adore having big cats run around on my property. And his little wolfy friend too. Do any of them have names?"

"Yes. But that's also part of the story."

"Of course it is." Remus ended the forensics spell as Malfoy sat up, yawning. "This had better be one hell of a story."

He flicked his wand once more at the boy now rolling his shoulders back, revealing his pale-blond hair. Hermione's eyes had widened enormously at the sight of the lion; on seeing Malfoy, she let out a little hiss of distaste, and Sirius thought suddenly how like the cat she looked.

"What're you doing here?" asked Harry, his voice full of challenge.

"Harry," said Remus reprovingly. "He's a guest."

"He's no guest. Guests are invited. He's a bloody gate-crasher."

"Language," said Sirius.

"Don't scold him in front of everyone," said Aletha, standing up.

"I'll scold him anywhere I want to! He's my godson, and the last time I checked, you only met him yesterday!"

"That's what you think!"

"Yes, that is what I think! If I'm wrong, why don't you tell me?"

"I'm sorry we barged in like this," said Malfoy, standing up. "We can leave any time, if you need us to."

"Perfect." Harry jerked his thumb at the door. "How about now?"

"Fine with me." Malfoy picked up a backpack lying against the hearth.

"But it's not fine with us," said Sirius after a quick glance at Remus. "We'd like to know what's going on here. We heard you were mad."

A smile flickered on Malfoy's lips. "It's been... dealt with."

A chittering noise came from inside the backpack. Malfoy frowned, and it abruptly ceased.

Meghan, who had been sitting on her mattress petting the dog sitting beside it, now stood up and walked over to Malfoy, looking him in the eye calmly. "Hug me now if you're leaving," she commanded. "I missed you."

"I know, Pearl. I missed you too." Malfoy set the backpack carefully aside and hugged the girl tightly. "We'll go home soon, and everything will be all right again, and we can do this as often as we want."

"Liar."

"Well, as long as you know that."

"It may not be a lie," said a new voice. Sirius moved hastily aside to make room for Albus Dumbledore. "I wonder if I could prevail upon you, friends, to donate a certain memory to a magical project I am trying to make happen."

"Which memory, sir?" asked Malfoy, standing at what looked rather like attention before the Headmaster.

"The night certain talismans of yours were created. It has been suggested to me that recovering them might be a first step towards returning you to your home."

"Returning him home isn't so hard," said Sirius. "I know where Malfoy Manor is."

Dumbledore turned to face him. "The problem being, Sirius, that this young man does not live there. I take it explanations have not been given," he said to Aletha.

"I was hoping it could wait until after breakfast, but I guess I'd better do the quick and dirty version right now." Aletha sat back down on her mattress. "Get comfortable," she told everyone. "Even the quick version will take some time."

Sirius sat down in his favorite chair, Harry on the floor beside him, while Remus and Emmeline took the sofa. Dumbledore took another chair, and Malfoy and Meghan sat down side by side, backs to the wall.

"Have you all heard of the idea of parallel universes?" asked Aletha. "Worlds existing alongside this one, where things happened a little or a lot differently?"

Heads nodded all around.

"It's true. We come from one. We being my family and I. There are eight of us. Four adults, four children. Five of us had counterparts – people very like us in face and form and, in most cases, behavior – in this universe. Three of us did not. This wouldn't have mattered, except that we also have powerful enemies, and one of them managed to break the barriers between worlds and leave us here to die. Or, in the case of those with counterparts, to become part of them."

Aletha looked at Sirius. "You can't tell me you haven't heard a voice inside your head lately. Making little comments, noticing things. Especially things about me."

Sirius nodded slowly.

"And Hermione. That episode you had yesterday was related to this. Your counterpart, inside your mind, trying to hold onto herself."

Hermione looked very unhappy with this. "Is she... still in there?"

The calico cat on the rug sat up and yowled slightly, drawing the girl's attention, then shook her head an emphatic no.

Hermione gasped. "She talks!"

"Only you can hear her," said Malfoy. "That's how it works."

"Is that why people thought you were mad?" asked Remus. "Because you had your counterpart in your head, and you told people about it?"

Malfoy snickered. "Actually, no," he said. "I was the voice in his head. Draco Black, pleased to meet you, sir."

"Draco Black?" repeated Emmeline.

"To honor my mother," said the boy. "It was her maiden name. Draco Malfoy's here, with me, but I doubt he'll be coming out. He's borrowing an animal body, like everyone else."

"Even us," said Meghan. "I was a deer, and Mum was a flying horse. Dadfoot borrowed your body," she said to Sirius. "When you lost your magic, it separated you. He still had his magic, so he borrowed your body and came to Hogwarts to turn us human, so we could help find everyone and get together again."

Several questions jostled Sirius for room. He opened his mouth and let one of them, he wasn't sure which, come out.

"Dadfoot?"

"Come now, Sirius," said Dumbledore, smiling at Meghan, "have you not noticed the young lady's eyes?"

Her eyes? Sirius looked, then stared. Great Merlin – they look just like –

Mine, said a familiar voice in Sirius' head. He turned, with a weary certainty, to look at the large black dog sitting beside Aletha. It winked at him. Sorry to harass you, but you'd have done the same.

"So you're my counterpart?"

Afraid so.

"Are you why I was dreaming about her?" Sirius let his eyes rest on Aletha for a moment.

Yep. We've been married a while. As you can probably tell, since Meghan's thirteen.

"You're Danger, aren't you," said Emmeline to the wolf, who nodded politely to her. "And that means he's..."

Remus' eyebrows went up. "I suppose I never thought of myself as the lion type," he said with just a trace of a shake in his voice. "Oh really? You didn't either? That's interesting."

"Hold on," said Harry loudly, over everyone else. "Madam Freeman. You said there were eight of you?"

Aletha nodded.

"One, two," said Harry, pointing at Meghan and her companion – might as well call him Black, it seems to be his name. "Three." The calico cat on the rug, now washing her tail. "Four, five." The lion and the wolf. "Six, seven." Aletha and the dog. "Where's the eighth?"

Everything went very quiet. Sirius looked at Dumbledore, and found him looking at Harry. So were all the animals, and Aletha and Meghan, and Black. So was Hermione, and Remus and Emmeline. And so, as the truth hit him, was Sirius.

The only person powerful enough to break through the walls between universes would be Voldemort. And the only person he'd be likely to use that power on would be...

Harry's eyes widened as it dawned on him. "Oh, no. No. No bloody way."

"Yes bloody way," drawled Black. "Like it or not, back where I come from, I call a prat who looks a lot like you my brother."

Harry blanched, took one appalled look around the room, and turned and ran, slamming his bedroom door behind him.

Sirius didn't blame him at all.

(A/N: Well, I wasn't sure about this chapter, but I think it'll work OK. What do you think? How did it work for you? Best way to let me know is to click that little purple button... second best is to go to the Yahoo group... a distant last is to yell so loud I can hear you from wherever you are. I don't really think that'll work too well.)