Lost: One Godson, Answers to Harry

by Tawa bids you good day

After Harry's capture by Death Eaters, Sirius and Remus never give up the hope that somewhere, he is still alive and whole. COMPLETE: The final chapter of the series comes to a close.

22. His Last Refuge

A/N: I know this is, like, um, FOUR WEEKS LATE. I know and I'm real sorry, guys, the whole time I was thinking "mustfinishLost" over and over in my head. There was just so much real life work going on and I was so exhausted. I haven't gotten a proper night's sleep once for the last fortnight. But to make up for the extreme lack of punctuality, this chapter is – um, hang on, let me think – about five times longer than my usual chapters.

Probably more. I'm not kidding, guys, this thing is so friggin' long. Take it in pieces, chew thoroughly, and pause between bites.

Now, let's commence.

Lost: One Godson, Answers to Harry

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Hestia Jones Apparated onto the main street of Little Hangleton in the early hours before dawn. The sky was filled with a sleepy half-light from the setting moon and the rising sun mixing tenderly across the deep blue sky, the yellowish glows dulled by a watery grey mist that was dissipating above the village. For a few moments she glanced left and right down the empty street as if preparing to cross a stream of unseen traffic. Then a voice broke out in the silence.

"Jones! You stupid witch – get over here!"

Hestia looked up to find Sturgis Podmore charging out of a nearby alley like a pink bull clad in wrinkled blue robes. He grabbed her arm and before she could protest, pulled her onto the pavement and down into the small side-lane, darting around parked cars overshadowed by the leaning buildings. A tabby cat leapt off a windowsill and raced away down the gutter, pausing further down the lane to glance back at them with its tail curled around its body before it darted away and out of sight.

"Ouch! Let go, Sturgis – what is it?"

"Muggles, Hestia," Sturgis growled, dragging her onwards with a fierce grip on her wrist. "We've had three close calls already – and one memory charm – and we don't want the tally getting any higher!"

"But it's five o'clock in the morning…" Hestia argued, trying to push a yawn back down her throat with her spare hand.

"Don't you think you might wake up if you heard a loud crack outside your bedroom window?" Sturgis replied. They passed under an old brick arch into a small public courtyard. Spruce country houses faced the courtyard, their curtained windows looking like eyes set in sleeping faces. And in contrast to all that sleepy imagery, Emmeline Vance and Minerva McGonagall were striding across the courtyard towards them. Hestia waved to McGonagall, who nodded stiffly in reply.

Emmeline made a dismissing gesture in Sturgis' direction. "Podmore, get back to the road and watch for anyone else arriving – Hestia, did you find Arthur?"

"He'll be here as soon as he's dressed. He was very much asleep when I got to the Burrow so it might take a few minutes," Hestia replied, pulling her cloak a little tighter around her shoulders. The air was filled with a heavy chill.

"Good," McGonagall said in a weary voice. "We need his expertise – you don't know how to work the come-pewter in a muggle post office, by any chance?"

Hestia shook her head. "Arthur's good with computers. I've seen him take them apart. But look – have you found Sirius yet? Have you found anything?"

Emmeline glanced shiftily across the courtyard as if she thought there might be spies poking their heads up out of the flagstones. "There's been no sign of Black yet, Hestia. We don't know if he even got here at all. But we know we're in the right place," she said grimly. "Half an hour ago two of my Aurors caught three Death Eaters in the main street of the village. They were disorientated and pleading for mercy after we disarmed them. And just now we get a message from our scouts on the edge of the village – they found the Lestranges desperately trying to set up a beacon for the rest of the Death Eaters. They're bringing them in now."

Hestia felt her heart give a jolt. "Bellatrix Lestrange? That cold blooded bit-"

"You should get back to wait for Kingsley," McGonagall interrupted, turning to Emmeline. "I'll stay on patrol and alert you when Arthur arrives."

Her face seemed to grow blurry and in the blink of an eye she shrunk down into a long-legged tabby cat. Hestia watched her lithe form disappear under a scrawny rhododendron bush and then hurried to follow Emmeline across the courtyard.

They headed a short way down another street and through the back door of what a sign on the wall proclaimed to be the village post office. The lights of two wands flicked around as they entered. Hestia squinted and found they were standing in the low-ceilinged foyer of the post office, the glow of their wands playing over the striped brown wallpaper. Two Aurors who Hestia knew were loyal to Dumbledore but not actually members of his Order were leaning over the grey box of a computer behind the office desk. They leapt up when the door opened. Emmeline raised her hand in greeting and they lowered their wands.

"Any word from Kingsley and his group?" she asked in her soft, commanding voice.

One of the young wizards spoke up while hammering the keys of the computer. "He's coming in now, sir."

"Good. Have you gotten anything useful out of the captives?"

The young wizard shrugged. "Malfoy just keeps saying he's been under the Imperius curse. He's got a nasty bruise on his throat, sir, but he won't say how he got it. We got sick of talking to them so we stunned them."

"Malfoy?" Hestia asked, her eyes widening. "Lucius Malfoy? But – he's –"

"One of You-Know-Who's highest ranking Death Eaters," Emmeline finished for her. "Something big happened in this village tonight, Hestia. The rest of the Order is searching the whole area for Sirius Black - and anyone else who might be able to tell us what was going on."

No sooner had she finished speaking than there was a bang and a loud shouting from outside. Emmeline waved for the two young Aurors to stay where they were while she and Hestia dashed out into the street, their wands raised.

Kingsley Shacklebolt stood at the head of a curiously assorted group of witches and wizards. Sturgis Podmore and Arthur Weasley, his pyjama bottoms poking out from under his robes, were standing in the midst of the mess looking as if they had walked into the wrong room at a hotel. Edgar Bones and two of Emmeline's Aurors were holding the bound and struggling forms of Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband Rodolphus. Dedalus Diggle and a third Auror were keeping their wands trained on the captives.

Bellatrix was the one shouting. "Let me go! You dogs, you worthless fools – let me go, my master needs me!" Her eyes were rolling and she was throwing her head from side to side so that her long, dark hair became a tangled mane across her face,

"Shut her up before she wakes every Muggle in the village," Emmeline snapped at once. Kingsley nodded and in a moment he had his wand at Bellatrix's throat. She whimpered but fell silent.

"We deserve to die," said a hoarse voice. All eyes turned to the square-jawed Rodolphus Lestrange, who was standing between Edgar Bones and the Auror, his head hanging low like a sick dog. "We are lost. Our Master is dead."

It was as if everyone present had been jolted with a few volts of electricity. Bellatrix began to shout again. "No! You're wrong – I was mistaken – he cannot be! He cannot!"

"Shut up," Kingsley pressed the wand harder against her white neck. His hand was shaking, and that made Hestia shiver in response. She had never seen Kingsley caught off his guard before. Emmeline strode over to Rodolphus but she didn't have to prompt him into talking.

"Bellatrix saw it all," he gasped. "The boy killed him and he turned to dust. Bellatrix saw it all. She came and told us and nearly all the others fled – abandoned him! We hoped they would return if we sent His mark into the sky, but they didn't…"

Rodolphus sighed and sagged forward in his captor's arms.

The Auror who wasn't involved in subduing the Death Eaters was a short, young woman with a stern, humourless face. As Rodolphus finished speaking she said, almost to herself, "Is it true? Could he really be dead?"

Dedalus Diggle made a gulping noise and put his hand on his forehead as if checking for a fever.

"She must be lying," Emmeline Vance said, but her voice had lost its dead certainty. She was standing in front of the defeated Rodolphus, her gaze boring into his hair as if she wished to pry open his head and discover whether his words were the truth. Her green robes gave a weak flutter as a breeze rushed down the lane.

"If they're lying, they're doing a very good job," Edgar Bones said, glancing at Bellatrix, who was staring at the fading stars in the sky and making tiny sobbing noises.

"If it is a lie, why would all five of them allow themselves to be captured?" added one of the Aurors holding Rodolphus.

"Is it possible…?" Arthur Weasley murmured, running his hand through his thinning hair.

"The war is over," the young Auror finished for him in an awestruck whisper. Hestia looked over and saw that she had her face pressed to Sturgis Podmore's shoulder, and he had clasped his arms around her wiry form. Dedalus Diggle dabbed at his eyes with the hem of his cloak.

"Don't be foolish," Emmeline snapped. "There are any number of explanations for what is going on tonight. We have to proceed with caution."

Hestia was not really listening. She stood shock still, suddenly unaware of the cold. She felt as if she was being sucked out of her body and dragged up above the roofs of Little Hangleton to look down at the little cluster of witches and wizards. She could not believe, yet, that Bellatrix was right. It was simply too much to accept. But in some buoyant corner of her brain she was looking at the mismatched group and thinking, we heard it first – the death of the Dark Lord! And we're going to be the ones who spread the news.

As Hestia suddenly realised she was holding her breath and gasped it in, Kingsley was reaching across and to put his hand on Emmeline's elbow and draw her away towards the doorway of the post office where they wouldn't be overheard. "We have to find the house," he said quietly. "The house where all this took place. I don't think it can be in the village or we would know by now. Whether or not the Lestrange couple are telling the truth, Dumbledore told me it was vitally important we find Neville Longbottom and bring him home."

"There is a road leading out of the village," Emmeline replied. "We were going to investigate when we saw the Dark Mark and followed it to the Lestranges. But from the village we could see what looked like a large wall up on the hill. I'd say that is at the top of our list."

Hestia materialised beside them, receiving a nasty glare from Emmeline Vance.

"Let me come with you. I have to find Sirius," she said in a strangled voice. Her face was white.

"We'll go to the house to find him," Kingsley said soothingly. "But you stay here, Hestia. You're not up to a fight."

Her eyes flashed and she yelped, "That's ridiculous!" Then lowered her voice, her hands trembling as she fiddled with her collar. "Kingsley, please, let me come. Don't you see? If…if You-Know-Who is dead, then…then so is Harry," she whispered. "And if Harry is dead, I have find Sirius before he does…something stupid…something terrible…"

Kingsley didn't speak for a moment as he considered this. "Alright," he said carefully. "We're moving out now."

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The mist was thick at the edge of the village, twisting in teasing whirls around the ankles of the four wizards and one witch who moved in swift steps out of the shelter of the nearest houses. Before them, barely visible in the mist, a thin gravel road split away from the main street and vanished into the forest. Kingsley Shacklebolt plunged ahead like a great icebreaker, parting the fog before him. Sturgis Podmore, the two young Aurors from the post office and Hestia Jones followed in his wake.

The mist soaked up the crunching of their footsteps and the huffs of rapid breathing. None of them spoke, simply following the road with their eyes and straining to see some danger approaching through the treacherous fog. It was not long before Kingsley with his long legs found suddenly that he could no longer see the others behind him and he stopped to wait for them catch up.

The war is over, someone had said. The words were still turning cartwheels in the back of Kingsley's head. He couldn't even comprehend their meaning yet. But Hestia's quiet conclusion, Harry is dead… that, he could believe. It followed all the rules of this war – sacrifice of the innocents. It made a bitter kind of sense to Kingsley.

He heard the thump of feet on gravel and looked back, expecting to see his companions hurrying out of the streaming mist. But his sharp ears quickly picked up that the sound was coming from up the road.

Kingsley's wand was in his hand in a moment and he brought several spells to the forefront of his mind. The footsteps sounded solitary – one lone Death Eater fleeing his master's ruin? Or just a harmless muggle scared out of his home by flashes of light and strange noises? The outline of a man formed through the wreathing fog. The loping gait looked suddenly familiar to Kingsley.

Sirius Black emerged. He was striding quickly and carrying a sleeping boy on his back, the child's stick-thin arms draped over his strong shoulders. Behind him came a strange, lop-sided figure which materialised into a limping Severus Snape and Neville Longbottom supporting an unconscious Remus Lupin between them. Neville's feet were stumbling but his face was fierce. Snape's was just weary.

The moment was surreal – the strangest travelling companions Kingsley had ever seen.

Sirius was expressionless as he approached Kingsley, who had straightened up and lowered his wand. He glanced at the tall black Auror standing motionless on the road, inclined his head towards him, said, "Hello, Kingsley," and walked on past.

As Neville, Lupin and Snape followed, Snape growled at Kingsley, "I suggest you go back, Shacklebolt, and tell whoever you've got with you to get ready for a battle. Because soon enough I suspect the forty Dementors running around in that forest are going to come hunting."

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Dawn was coming.

Peter Pettigrew was racing the dawn. Scrambling through the weedy, eroded forest. He thought he might have been weeping as well, either that or it was just the scratches on his hands that put the tears in his eyes. He told himself it was just scratches, just as he told himself he wasn't really lost, but he didn't know yet whether either was true.

Then he came out into the clearing, and knew that at least he wasn't lost.

There was the little shack he and his master had visited, months and months ago. It had not changed, except perhaps it might have sunk a little and the trees cast longer shadows over its roof. Peter Pettigrew stumbled through the tall grass towards the broken cottage, thinking and praying that nothing had changed.

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His master had brought him here, presumably to assist with the spell work, saying, "This house has always carried a piece of my soul, Wormtail. The ring of my grandfather was buried here since before you were born, but not for many years now. I put the ring somewhere else when Dumbledore began sniffing around, but he found it all the same. It is gone now."

"Gone?" Pettigrew had asked, forgetting to say 'master', but Voldemort had not rebuked him.

"Yes, gone, Wormtail. Dumbledore found it and by now he will have destroyed it. Now, you will be wondering why we have come here?"

"Yes, master," Wormtail had mumbled.

"For this," his master had said, and like a cheap muggle conjuring trick he had flicked his wrist and out of his sleeve had flowed a long golden chain with a heavy oval weight on the end of it. A locket – it was a golden locket that a lady might wear in bed.

"I must have it near me, Wormtail, I must have it safe and nearby. There are certain rituals that are to take place on a full moon some time in the future, and there is…a slight chance that things could go wrong for me. Yes, even I, Wormtail! If things should happen as they did eight years ago, when I tried to kill Longbottom, then I will be left a brittle shade, neither alive nor dead. And who knows whether my Death Eaters will have the brains to bring me back at once? I could be trapped in that state for some time. This locket will be a kind of shelter for my soul until such time as I can be restored. I am prepared to be torn from my body if that is what will happen – I am prepared to try again if things go wrong the first time. But if, instead of floating aimlessly, I plant myself in this locket, it will be easier to return, safer for me if I am being hunted. This is all precaution, you understand – I don't expect anything to go wrong. But if it does, only you will know – only you, Wormtail, will know where I am, and will have to bring this locket to the other Death Eaters once you know they are prepared to revive me."

Pettigrew had stammered his thanks, "an honour, an honour, my lord…"

"Stop your babbling," his master had hissed. "I did not choose you for any qualities of loyalty, Wormtail. I merely know that of all my servants, you have the most to lose from my disappearance. You are the only one whom I know for sure would not seize upon the foolish notion of taking my place – would you, Wormtail?"

This seemed like a loaded question, so Pettigrew had just shaken his head with a mortified expression.

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Now he reached the door of the shack and paused, gasping for breath and telling himself he wasn't weeping, it was just the pain from the scratches. The door creaked under the weight of his hands. Pettigrew noticed there was a nail hammered into it at head-height and wondered if someone had once pinned a note there.

He did not know what spells would be activated when he opened the door. Maybe none. Maybe he'd be fried to a crisp as soon as he stepped over the threshold. With this thought in mind, he took a few deep breaths to calm himself and a moment later Peter Pettigrew was gone and a small greying-brown rat was crouched in the grass, nose twitching as it surveyed the crumbling holes around the bottom of the door.

It was not even a squeeze for the rat to fit through holes in the door. It skittered onto the dirt floor inside and without even taking a moment to get its bearings, honed in on a patch in the middle of the floor and began to dig. The dirt was packed hard but the rat worked furiously until it had uncovered a small metal ring sticking upright from the floor.

Successful, it allowed itself a pause to rest. That was when it heard the growl.

The rat froze and sniffed the air. A strong, animal scent filled its nostrils and the rat trembled in horror. The scent was both familiar and unfamiliar – it knew well that wolfish, magical smell but not the human vestige lingering underneath it. There was a werewolf in the shack – but a werewolf that the rat had never met before.

It flicked its eyes around the room, searching for the monster. Then the shadows shifted to its right and something huge and salivating emerged from the corner of the fireplace and the wall. It was not a large werewolf, nor a very healthy-looking one – it was light-furred, rather skinny and its shoulders were lop-sided. The rat backed away slowly as the wolf padded towards it, tongue hanging languidly from its jaws. Long silver chains set into the stone fireplace held it in check.

The rat realised that the wolf was not snapping and hunched over as it would be if it was really interested in eating the small rodent that had entered its territory. In fact, the open-mouthed, tail-wagging body language looked curious, friendly – almost pleading. It occurred to the rat that the wolf, with its sensitive nose, probably knew perfectly well that it was not truly a rat but a possible ally against its captivity.

The rat had made friends with a werewolf before. A million years ago, it seemed – and it had had help with that friendship – but still, why not now?

Keeping an eye on those long yellow teeth, the rat crept carefully back to the scrabbled trench in the dirt where the buried ring had been exposed. It began to dig around the ring once more. The wolf whined, its hot breath ruffling the rat's fur.

The rat leapt away in fright. But the wolf, after watching its new animal companion for a moment, bent its head and began to scratch at the ring with its paws. In only a few minutes it had done what would have taken the rat the rest of the night to do. The dirt had been cleared away from a small wooden trapdoor in the floor of the shack. The wolf looked up at the rat, which was grinning toothily and giving a self-satisfied smack of its tail on the dirt floor.

Now the hard part was coming. The rat would have to explain to the wolf that they had to open the trapdoor attached to the ring. Within was a hole too small for anything except a human arm – and any person who put their arm in that hole would not get it out again. They would be stuck there until the creator of the trap returned. A rat, however, would find it much easier to slip into and out of the hole, and that was exactly what it wanted to do.

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It took all the rat's strength to drag the golden locket up out of the hole, through all the layers of hidden spells and tricks that its master had taught it to disable. When it reached the surface it lay for a moment with its body protectively covering the locket from the eyes of the curious wolf. It did not notice the rays of sunlight peeping through cracks in the boarded-up window until the sun crept onto the wolf's flank and suddenly it wasn't a wolf any more.

The rat scrambled up, transformed, and in one movement Pettigrew grabbed the locket and whipped out his wand. He jabbed it at the slumped bundle of legs and skirt lying at his feet but somehow the words of the killing curse got stuck between his brain and his tongue.

The girl looked more feral as a human than she had as a wolf. She raised herself onto her hands, staring up at his wand with a terrified expression. However, as the seconds ticked away and no fiery jet of light emerged from the wand-tip, her fear faded.

"Aren't you going to kill me?" she demanded, scratching at an oozing cut on her shoulder. There were bite-marks on her dusty, bare ankles and scratches on her face and arms. Werewolves didn't like being locked up.

Pettigrew backed towards the door, clutching the golden locket to his chest. His head was still reeling and he didn't answer the girl.

"I remember you," the girl replied, getting woozily to her feet. "You were with the Death Eaters in that the house. You're just a servant, aren't you?"

"I am not!" Pettigrew cried angrily. "How dare y-you!" He only vaguely remembered the girl – she had come to the house with Greyback and then run away. He winced as he remembered Greyback's rage that Pettigrew had let the girl go. Was she a spy against the werewolves? A pretty miserable sort of spy, if so.

The girl sniffed, leaning against the fireplace for support and staring at the gaping black hole from which the rat had taken out the locket. The silver chains on her wrists still bound her to the foundations of the shack and she looked hungrily at the hole.

"Is there more treasure in there?" She asked abruptly, looking up at him. He was still pointing a wand at her face but she seemed to have disregarded it now.

Pettigrew said nastily, "See f-for yourself. Put your arm in th-there."

The girl narrowed her eyes at him. "Nothing doing! What, it'll get bitten off? You're a horrid wretch for trying to trick me!" she snarled, sitting down and curling up in her sooty corner. "Just go away. Keep your treasure. I don't want it."

She looked so pathetic that Pettigrew felt bad for trying to get her trapped in the hole, where she would have starved to death before anyone came to rescue her. Deciding he didn't want to be out in the open forest just yet and he could always kill the girl later, he bent down, placed the locket in his open palm and looked at it fearfully.

His Master's soul could be in this gleaming trinket, barely clinging to life. It was Pettigrew's fault. All his fault…he'd let the boy get the wand…he'd let it happen… unable to stop himself, Peter Pettigrew burst into prickly tears.

From across the room floated a horrified voice. "Are you crying?"

"Sh-shut up!" Pettigrew shouted at the girl, who was staring at him with a kind of disgusted fascination from under her long fringe.

"You are!" She said, mouth hanging open. "You look pretty stupid, doing that! Whatever's the matter? What's happened out there? What are you doing here, anyway?"

Pettigrew growled to himself and found to his surprise that anger had replaced his self-loathing. It felt much more comfortable and faded away to a dull determination not to provoke the girl's tongue any further. He pointed his wand at the locket and whispered something.

Nothing happened.

Pettigrew felt a little flutter of panic. He repeated the spell, waiting for the green flash that would confirm what the locket was carrying. Nothing! But how could it be? His master was supposed to be waiting in the locket, waiting to be revived by him, Wormtail! Why was the locket carrying only the tiny fragment of soul that it had always carried? This wasn't right! Unless…

"He's dead," Pettigrew whispered. He felt his legs wobble and he slid down the wall, staring at the ashen fireplace without seeing it. "My Master is dead."

It could not be. Pettigrew had fled as soon as the great cage of light had arched over his master and the two boys but as he had snuck out of the house he heard Bellatrix's shouts to the other Death Eaters. He had thought her mad. But if the locket was empty, then it was true…but how?

Pettigrew clutched the golden glint in his hand. It was still a Horcrux. Surely it was. Surely, somewhere, somehow, his master had survived.

"Your Master?" the girl echoed from across the room. "Do you mean Him? What's-his-name? But Fenrir says he can't die!" she said in a disbelieving tone.

"He's gone," Pettigrew sobbed, half to himself.

The girl was silent for a moment. "I'm stuffed," she said aloud. "I'm absolutely buggered. I hate myself," she added loudly. "I'm so stupid!"

"Be quiet!" Pettigrew replied. Her voice was grinding on his nerves.

"Oh, go on, kill me!" The girl said hysterically. "Do it! Look at me. Do you know what I've done? I've done in everyone who was worth anything to me! Oh, Fenrir…" she crooned, hugging her knees. "Kill me, you stupid rat-man. Who's s'posed to take care of me? Remus and Fenrir both hate my guts and I don't want to go live with wizards. I hate them. I'll have to run away and live with ordinary people and they'll kill me as soon as I turn into a wolf…" she choked, briskly wiping a few tears out of her eyes.

Pettigrew had listened to her speech in silence and now he found that once again, his anger at her annoying chatter had ebbed away. "D-do you mean you've betrayed them both?" he asked. The mention of 'Remus' had made him jump, until he remembered that Remus Lupin was probably dead by now.

The girl nodded and blew her nose on the back of her wrist, wiping what came out on the dusty floor.

"Me too," Pettigrew said.

The girl raised red-rimmed eyes to look at him. "What?"

Pettigrew nodded, feeling his throat constrict. "I betrayed m-my friends too. If they saw me o-on the street they'd curse me as soon as look at me. And tonight, I did something a-awfully stupid and now my master is dead," he said hoarsely. "Every Death Eater that escapes will want me dead. All the rest of the Wizarding World too. What am I to do?"

The girl sniffed sympathetically and held up on skinny arm. "You couldn't get these chains off me, could you?" she said with what might – with a little imagination – have passed for a smile.

Pettigrew got wearily to her feet and stumbled over to her through the darkened shack. It took him a few minutes to find a spell to remove the chains but at last they clinked to the ground in a puddle of silver links. He helped the filthy girl to her feet. He saw that she had a round, rather ugly face under her straggly hair, yet it wasn't an unfriendly face when you really looked at it. It was young and rather bitter, that was all.

"What's your name?" the girl asked, rugging her wrist.

Pettigrew paused. It took him a long time to answer. "Peter," he said finally.

She made a wry face like she thought it was a stupid name but wasn't going to say so. "I'm Maud," she answered gruffly, pushing past him to the door. "And I'm getting out of this disgusting little hole before Sirius Black comes back to get me."

"What?" Pettigrew spluttered, hurrying after her. How stupid he'd been! Of course a wizard must have chained her in that shack! Why didn't he think of that?

They both broke out into the early morning sunshine. Maud put her hand to her brow to shade her eyes. "Sirius Moron Black," she replied. "He said he'd be back at dawn and since he's a stupid self-righteous prick, I don't really want to be here. Do you know how to ride a motorbike?"

Pettigrew started to shake his head, then stopped. "Y-you don't mean Sirius' bike, do you?" he asked, frowning.

"Yes. It's right under that tree there," said Maud, pointing into the forest with one hand and the other on the hip of her ragged dress. "Can you fly it? I don't really want to, but I thought I'd bash up the paintwork with a stick before I left. Serve him right for leaving me here."

Pettigrew waded through the long grass in the direction she was pointing and, after a few minutes of searching, found the bike hidden by a Disillusionment charm under some small branches. He removed the illusion spell and pulled it upright. Maud was watching him from a distance and she flinched as the bike's growl cut through the quiet tittering of the birds.

She gaped at him as he wheeled the bike over to her, the engine chugging away surlily as if it knew it was being stolen.

"How did you do that?" she said in wonder. "Even Remus couldn't ever get that damn thing to start! And what happened to all the anti-burglar spells the dumb bastard put on his precious wheels?"

Pettigrew shrugged. "I u-used to fetch Sirius' bike from work for him sometimes," he muttered. "A long, long, time ago. Once y-you know the tricks it's not hard to get it going. I know w-where the tracking spell is so I took that off as well. And I guess e-even after all these years, he never bothered to change the password."

He managed to climb onto the seat of the bike, his feet dangling several inches off the ground. He could only just reach the gas pedal and he felt very insecure, sure he was going to slip straight off. But it was a lot better than fleeing on foot. He looked at the scruffy girl standing in the grass not far away, hunched over her crossed arms and staring at him with suspicious eyes.

"Look," Pettigrew said reluctantly. "A-as long as we're both on the run, I mean…it will be e-easier to hide together. Won't it?" He held up the locket. "I h-have to protect this in case my Master ever comes back but you can't w-wear it if you like. I don't l-like touching it."

Maud glanced at the sun peeping over the top of the trees, at the shining locket dangling from Pettigrew's fist, then at the balding, rat-like face of the man sitting astride the absurdly unsuited motorbike. She stomped over to him and snatched the locket in one filthy hand, looping the chain over her hair and tucking it under her dress.

"Yeah, alright," she said, clambering onto the bike behind him.

Pettigrew nervously gunned the engine, trying to remember how to fly the bike after all those years. Maud, a little unwillingly, put her hands on his shoulders. She was exactly the same height as him.

"Well," she said impatiently. "Let's get out of here."

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Harry dreamed of his parents dying and couldn't remember their faces. He saw a woman in a grey apron with a haggard look leering down and felt a rush of hate for her. He saw snakes and thought he would drown in them. He saw a lemon-yellow ceiling and a man with a long white beard leaning over him. The man disappeared and nearby, a conversation began that he could barely understand. Dumbledore's voice he recognised, though it seemed a lifetime since he'd heard it. The other voice was oily and sharp, nameless. Dumbledore supplied a name.

"…yes, Severus, I have seen Bellatrix's condition. I do not think in her present state she would know her own mother from a house-elf. But still, what could possibly drive her to such distress but the death of her beloved master? What possible…?"

"You only believe Bellatrix because Longbottom said it was so," the man named Severus replied. He sounded almost petulant. "But the simple fact remains, Dumbledore – how can that Potter boy be alive if the Dark Lord is not?"

Dumbledore sighed, an old-man sigh. "It is the only part that does not fit, Severus. Look: the Mark faded from your arm, Bellatrix's hysteria, the ashes of Voldemort's body, the dementors he controlled turned loose, his servants masterless, his spells broken…only Harry's survival denies that he is dead. I do think you might at least open your mind to the possibility. I don't mean to flatter you when I say I count your opinion highly in these matters."

"So he was weakened! Weakened to the brink of death, but not beyond. It's happened before, I tell you. They brought him back once – when the remaining Death Eaters find him they will bring him back again. He is not dead."

"And you, Severus? What will you do when you find him?"

A pause, then, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"He knows – or knew – you have no more loyalty left for him. He probably thinks – or thought – that you are dead. If you are so certain he will return, what are you planning to do when he does?"

Silence.

"I do wish Poppy could close his eyes," Dumbledore said softly. "Harry has been staring at that ceiling since he was brought in here…"

Dizzying dreams again. A woman in a green robe feeding him something sour and thick with a silver spoon. Snakes, in his throat and on his chest. The sound of the sea booming on the rocks and the weeping of children echoing in a dripping cave, "Tom! Stop it! Please, stop it Tom!" Voices whirling around him. A freckled face looking down and saying. "Isn't he awake? How come his eyes are open if he's not awake?" The long, crooked nose of Dumbledore filling his view. Had Sirius left him? Had Sirius died? Hadn't he seen the silver ghost of a bear-sized dog, or had he only dreamed that?

Dumbledore was saying, "I am not from the asylum. I am a teacher and, if you will sit calmly, I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you –"

And Harry had sneered. "I'd like to see them try."

But no, it wasn't Dumbledore, because looking at him now Harry saw his beard was red and shorter and his face was young and less weary – but it was Dumbledore's face.

He dreamed of fire encompassing his father's body and not understanding, yet, that his father was dead. The snakes were writhing in the fire – they were being consumed by it. Harry pulled their charred tails from around his wrists and tossed them into the inferno where somewhere the body of his father had vanished. Sirius had not come – and now Frank was dead – but at least the snakes were gone. And there was London grey and smoggy and he watched through a grimy window a man walking with a top hat, but even London faded and slowly, scrambling and slipping on the slope of his conscious mind, he closed his eyes and woke up.

Blinking up at the lemon-yellow ceiling, Harry found he was alive again.

It was very quiet. The light was strong around the bed he found himself lying in but it faded as he followed the plaster patterns of the ceiling. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the top of a tall window and blue-black night shining through it, but he couldn't see anymore without turning his head. So he turned his head and saw that there were rows of beds stretching out on that side of him, the distant ones in shadow. He thought he could see someone about three beds along but he couldn't make out anything about them. He turned to look in the other direction and there were beds there, too. There was also someone beside him which gave him a start. He reached out his hand until he felt the corner of a bedside dresser and his fingers explored it until they met the rim of his glasses. He put them on, noticing by the polished feel of the frame that they must have been newly repaired by magic, and the person came into sharp focus.

It was a woman sitting asleep in a chair right beside his bed, with a bright lamp glowing on the cabinet behind her and a book that had fallen out of her hands and onto her lap. She didn't look like a very old woman, only a little plump in the arms and with a young sort of face that probably smiled a lot. Her cheeks were flushed pink, which wasn't surprising since she was wearing thick robes and a warm travelling cloak still splattered with mud right up to the elbows. Her hair was black and cut in a bob around her face.

Harry studied this woman for several minutes, wondering a lot of things until he had learned all he could about her just from looking, which wasn't very much, except that she was reading Quidditch Through the Ages and the stamp on the page that had fallen open said Hogwarts School Library.

He raised himself onto his elbows, wincing as he felt tendons groaning and stiff muscles stretching. He had one more chance to glance around the long room before the woman's eyelids fluttered and she raised her head with a yawn.

She saw Harry. She gave a yelp, said a jumble of syllables that might have been, "Ohmygodyou'reawake," or some similar exclamation and threw her hands to her mouth. Quidditch Through the Ages tumbled to the floor and slid under the bed.

The woman jumped to her feet, still with her hands over her mouth. She said, all in a great flood of words, "I should get someone. Madame Pomfrey… but they're all asleep. I must have fallen asleep! Are you alright? Your glasses! Oh, that's right, Neville brought them this evening. Are you really awake? Should I get someone?"

Harry tried to speak and realised his throat was as dry as dust. He swallowed and croaked, "Could I have a drink of water, please?"

"Yes, of course!" the woman sighed, relaxing considerably at this decision. She cluttered away around the bed and came back with a pitcher and a glass from another cabinet. Her hand was shaking as she held out the full glass. Harry had to take it from her before she spilled it.

He drank the whole thing and she poured him another, which he drank half of before he pushed himself properly upright, sipping gratefully at the cool water. For a moment fire flashed in the back of his eyes – what had he been dreaming about? – but he pushed thoughts of his dreams aside and asked, "Am I in Hogwarts? Not in St Mungo's?"

"In the hospital wing at Hogwarts, yes," the woman said breathlessly. She had sat down on the chair again and was watching him as if he were a particularly strange animal in a zoo. "They were going to take you all to St Mungo's but Dumbledore said no, Neville was not to leave Hogwarts until he was certain it was safe, and Professor Snape neither, so they brought you all back here instead to save making two portkeys."

Harry absorbed this information with the water. After he'd finished the second glass the woman was still staring at him, so he reached past her to put the glass on the cabinet and said. "Er…sorry, but who are you?"

She jumped as if she had been thinking about something else and said. "Sorry! I'm Professor Jones. Hestia Jones, I mean. I'm not a Professor anymore, I keep forgetting."

"Ah," said Harry. "You taught at Hogwarts?"

"Until Lupin gets better, I still do. But he said he'd be on his feet by Thursday, if Poppy – the matron, I mean – lets him out of his bed."

"Moony?" Harry asked anxiously. "He's been hurt?"

Hestia Jones looked taken aback. "Sorry! I keep forgetting you don't know anything! Don't worry, he's all right now – thanks to you," she beamed. "Do you know what you've done? You and Neville Longbottom?"

Harry did not know what he had done, but she seemed to take his silence for concurrence and didn't elaborate. She kept goggling at him with a kind of childish wonder that made him feel uncomfortable and agoraphobic in the great big room with its lemon-yellow ceiling. Where were the closed-in hallways of the Riddle house, the hedged garden with its towering wall a constant reminder of his imprisonment? Everything felt strange.

"If you don't mind," Harry said quietly. "Where's Sirius?"

Hestia Jones gave another gasp. "Of course! I'm sorry. He's been sitting right here all day but they all said he had to go and get some rest and Poppy – er, Madame Pomfrey – said he couldn't stay in the Hospital Wing because he and Severus would fight. And she wouldn't let Severus leave because she says he still needs to be under observation in case he gets worse or something, but he said he was leaving in the morning no matter what. So Sirius has gone to sleep in Remus' office. I'll go get him…"

"Well, if he's asleep…" Harry said, feeling that he wouldn't like to be woken if he'd been sitting in a chair all day watching someone lie unresponsive on a bed.

"Harry, he had to be practically dragged away from your bedside! I don't think he's going to mind!" Hestia Jones said loudly, then looked down the length of the room with a guilty expression. "Damn, I hope I haven't woken anyone up…"

"Wait," said Harry as she spun around with a swish of her unwashed cloak. She looked back over her shoulder at him. "Um," Harry tried to think how to phrase his question. "How do you know Sirius? And me?"

Hestia Jones looked a little perplexed at the question. It took her a moment to get to the answer. "Don't you remember me? But I suppose, you only saw me that once, for about five minutes, when you were four years old. I used to be an Auror with Sirius. I've been helping look for you with him and Remus."

"You're not his…" Harry could not bear to say 'girlfriend' or 'wife', but all his paranoia that Sirius had gotten married and gone on with life without him were bubbling up now.

Luckily Hestia caught his meaning at once. "Oh, no, nothing like that," she said rather quickly and scurried away to the door. She slipped through it backwards so that her head was the last part of her to disappear – she gave him a final smile and then closed the door with a click.

Harry, feeling assuaged of his fears, lay back against the huge cloudy cushions. He was so warm and comfortable that he couldn't help closing his eyes and enjoying the softness of the heavy sheets. Before he could even remind himself not to, he had fallen asleep once more, but this time it was a rich, dreamless sleep with his glasses still on his nose.

----------------------------------------------

It was morning when he opened his eyes and found a new person sitting in the chair: it was Sirius, slumped sideways, leaning on the side of Harry's bed and fast asleep on his folded arms.

It was strange how his Godfather didn't look changed in the slightest. His cheeks were a little more hollow, and perhaps there were a few flecks of grey at his roots, but nothing else that would suggest Harry had not seen him for a year. Yet he was sure that Sirius looked different somehow. His own memory, it seemed, had changed his Godfather's face and now the reality was what was alien to him.

"You're awake, then?" said a sour voice from behind him. Harry twisted his neck around to see a beaky, pale man limping down the aisle towards him, slipping a crystal vial into a bag balanced on his hip. The man had greasy black hair, flint-sharp eyes and a bitter curl to his lip. He did not look even vaguely familiar to Harry.

He put his hand out to shake Sirius' shoulder and the black haired man closed his bag with a snap and hissed, "Don't wake him up!"

Harry's hand froze in mid-air. The man was looking irate as he limped quickly towards the door of the hospital wing, keeping his eye on Harry's hovering hand as if willing it to hold still. However, before Harry could ask what on earth was wrong, another voice broke through the tense silence.

"Don't be ridiculous Severus," it said softly from the bed a few down from Harry's. This voice he recognised. He turned again and caught Lupin's placid smile.

"Moony," he yelped, throwing back the covers and sliding out onto the cool tiled floor. Sirius gave a snuffle and shifted on his arms without waking up.

Lupin was lying back against the great fluffy pillows of his bed, appearing as nothing more than a stick inspect on a large paper towel. His arms resting on top of the blankets showed toothpick wrists and his face was grey and sunken. He looked as if he had been battered about in a hurricane for several days.

"Severus, you couldn't go and see if Tonks is around, could you?" Lupin asked faintly, calling after the black-haired man who had just reached the door of the hospital wing.

The unpleasant-faced man paused, gave Lupin a deeply pessimistic look as if this small favour was tantamount to a life-long quest, and said grudgingly, "I will see, Remus."

Lupin smiled gratefully and then transferred his gaze to the boy who had reached his bedside by now. "Hello, Harry," he said, raising his arms weakly.

Harry sunk into Lupin's hug, pulling back quickly as the professor hissed in pain.

"You alright?"

"Quite," Lupin said reassuringly, but his voice was still small and husky. "Severus was just bringing me an elixir that should have me right as rain in a few days."

"Why's he looking so angry? Why didn't he want me waking Sirius up?"

Lupin chuckled. "Nothing serious. They just tend to – er – disagree. Whenever they're in the same room together. Don't grimace, we both owe Severus our lives."

"Why? And how'd you get so hurt? Was it a bad transformation?" Harry asked all at once.

"No," Lupin replied, and the smile disappeared. "No, I won't be transforming anymore, Harry. But we'll talk about all that later," he added quickly. "Go wake up your godfather. It can't be very comfortable sleeping in that chair."

Harry squeezed Lupin's hand and made his way back down the row. He couldn't help hesitating as he approached Sirius. But he forced himself to take a breath, reach out and shake his godfather's shoulder.

Sirius twitched, mumbled and sat up in the chair. It took him a moment to focus on Harry standing in front of him in the long hospital gown. There were several seconds of drawn-out silence while neither of them could think of anything to say.

Finally, "I'm back," shrugged Harry.

"You are," Sirius said in a dazed voice. He seemed to struggle inwardly for a moment, then took a hold of Harry's wrists in an iron grip, "Sit down, hold still, let me see you. Just for a moment," he directed Harry to sit down on the bed but his grasp on his godson's wrists did not lessen.

He thinks if he lets go, I'll disappear, Harry thought. His feet were starting to get cold from the tiles and he felt Lupin watching them from across the room. He felt exposed and pinned between the two pairs of eyes. There was so much space in this room, so much freedom. It made him want to crawl away under the bed and stay there until things returned to normal. Until Pettigrew came to call him downstairs for a soup-and-bread lunch, until the mouldy, prickly sheets of the Riddle bedroom replaced the impossibly white ones he was sitting on, until Frank came limping across the garden with his gardening tools tucked in the brown leather bag under his arm.

"Harry?" Sirius said hoarsely, concern swamping his features. "You alright? You look…"

Harry shook his head, trying to smile. It came out as a sort of contorted leer.

"That a yes or a no?" Sirius said softly, managing a grin where Harry couldn't.

"I'm fine," Harry croaked. "I'm…" but he wasn't fine and the next moment he folded forward against Sirius' chest and let his godfather's arms close over him while he stayed there, trembling, for what seemed like a week or a month or a decade. Not crying – if he could hold back tears after what he'd faced at the full moon, he could certainly hold them back now – but just letting his shoulders shudder and the tensed muscles in his arms and chest slowly unwind.

No, he wasn't fine – not at all – but that didn't mean he had to keep soldiering on by himself. Not anymore.

Sirius lowered himself back into the chair and Harry flopped onto the bed, both wearing identical sheepish grins though there wasn't really any reason to be embarrassed.

"Look at your hair," said Sirius, jabbing his finger at it in mock horror. "It's down to your collar! And it's a mess."

"Yeah, well you got uglier too," Harry replied, scratching at his – undeniably filthy - hair.

"Doubtlessly." Sirius nodded smugly. "Those tangles are never going to come out, we'll have to hack them all off. Did you have even one bath since I saw you last?"

Harry wanted to say something cheerful in reply but thinking of the cold baths and long days spent in mindless lethargy for want of a ray of sunlight made his tongue seize up before he could reply.

Sirius saw at once what was wrong and leaned forward quickly, looking distressed as he said, "Sorry. You don't have to talk about that yet," his brows knotted when he amended suddenly, "But you weren't – they didn't starve you or hurt you or anything? They caught a lot of the Death Eaters and I swear, you tell me names and I'll see they get every single thing that's coming to them…"

"No, no, you don't need to go swearing revenge," Harry cut him off hastily. "I wasn't hurt."

Sirius patted his hand. "We'll talk about it later. I'm not letting a single day that you were lost go unpunished."

He sounded so firmly determined to seek retribution Harry almost laughed. There was a gleam in his Godfather's eye of disbelief and joy mixed in with his grim, craggy features. Sirius had been handsome once – now he looked only weather-beaten, like a rock carved by a millennium of raindrops.

In a great unexpected flood, Harry remembered everything that had happened and the memories swamped over his relief. Visions of gleaming red eyes and towering black-cloaked figures that rattled death when they breathed rushed across his retina and he saw again the golden threads of light arching over him, through him, and the dead weight in his arms of an old man's body.

"Frank," Harry gasped, sitting upright and twisting around to face Sirius. "Did you find Frank? Did you bring him back?"

"Who?" Sirius said. The genuine puzzlement in his tone made Harry want to shout. But of course, Sirius couldn't understand who Frank was and what he meant.

"There was the body of an old muggle," Harry explained, trying not to rush his words. "On the road leading up to the house. He might still be there – I have to find him –"

Recognition dawned on Sirius' face. "No," he said a little reluctantly. "I think they found the man's body."

"What's wrong? Where is it?" Harry was frantic.

"Um," Sirius looked past Harry as he spoke, probably meeting Lupin's eye. "Well, the Ministry determined he died by the killing curse, and their policy at the moment is to keep anything, er, suspicious like that from falling into muggle hands. The muggles are clever at picking these things up, you see, and so – well, the ministry destroys the bodies. If the victim has family they modify memories and substitute in an empty coffin."

"Frank's gone," Harry said distantly. It felt as if someone had just punched him in the stomach.

"I'm sorry," Sirius said lamely, running his hands through his hair in a uncertain gesture. "Was he sort of a friend?"

"Yes," Harry said tonelessly. The horror of what had happened was still whirling inside him with Frank's death at the pinnacle of it all. "And it's my fault."

Sirius leaned forward, his face looking older and craggier than ever. "Your fault? Harry, do you know what you've done?" he said in exactly the same way that Hestia Jones had said it. "You've done a greater favour than the whole Wizarding world could ever repay. You-Know-Who…I mean, Voldemort," he corrected himself firmly, "is dead. You're not a blasted Horcrux anymore. We're free, all of us. Because of you."

Harry raised his eyes to take in his godfather's thrilled expression. He swallowed. "Sirius, I have to tell you what happened," he said.

There was a thump and a crash as the door of the hospital wing was thrown open and a pink-haired bullet flew inside, robes billowing around her. Nymphodora Tonks charged down the aisle without even glancing at Sirius and Harry, and like a muggle heat-seeking missile she headed straight for Lupin. She slid to a halt beside his bed and there was a brief moment for Lupin to brace himself before Tonks collided with him.

"What is she doing?" Harry watched, open mouthed. Tonks was kissing every inch of Lupin's face that she could reach – which was all of it – and the oddest thing was that Lupin did not seem to be resenting the attention.

Sirius looked faintly embarrassed at his cousin's lack of discretion. "That's news for you, of course," he said, to distract Harry from the spectacle. "They're – er – together now, in a manner of speaking. I'll tell you the whole story later."

But Tonks, it seemed, had not come alone. Three figures had arrived in the doorway, sneaking in behind Tonks in a slightly guilty manner.

Harry felt his stomach do a funny sort of pirouette and land wrong-side up on his liver. Ron was taller and ganglier than ever and Hermione's hair had grown several inches in a horizontal direction but he had not forgotten their faces. Neville lurked behind them, glancing over his shoulder. Harry could not believe they were here to see him. Friends his own age? Never! He found himself grinning at his own disbelief.

Hermione gave a little squeak as she saw him and put her hands to her mouth. Ron and Neville followed her across the aisle to the end of Harry's bed where they all stood there like a trio of very unconventional guardian angels, goggling at him.

Sirius looked scrutinisingly between the children before he noticed a very irate looking woman in a wimple hurrying down the wing towards them. "There's Madame Pomfrey. I'll go waylay her before she kicks you out," he offered to the trio, patting Harry on the shoulder and getting to his feet. He strode off and intercepted the determined-looking Matron before she could reach any of her patients.

Under the stares, Harry was beginning to feel like an ornament in a glass case. "Um," he said after a moment. "Hello. How did you know I was awake?"

"We were coming out of the hall from breakfast and Tonks went past at a hundred miles an hour," Ron mumbled into his collar. He looked nervous and embarrassed.

"We couldn't get in without her," Hermione added breathlessly. "There are Aurors patrolling the corridor outside."

"Why does the nurse need waylaying?" Harry asked as he noticed that Sirius and Madame Pomfrey seemed to be having a rather energetic conversation.

"She's very protective of you all," Hermione explained, looking just as embarrassed as Ron. "She threw Tonks out yesterday for disturbing Professor Lupin's rest."

"I see."

There was another few seconds of awkward silence, during which Sirius' debate about what constituted disorderly behaviour in a hospital carried over to their ears. Ron was fiddling with the clasp of his robe and Neville was looking at him and Hermione as if they had forgotten their lines during a school play. None of them had tried to move any closer.

"Look," Harry said. "What's wrong with you all? Am I diseased or something?"

Hermione and Ron both gushed reassuring statements to the contrary. Harry sat himself up a little higher and crossed his legs. "Then why are you acting like I'm a particularly nasty dragon asleep on your roof?" he said in exasperation.

"No, Harry it's not like that, it's just…" Hermione protested weakly, "well, look!" She reached into her bag and pulled out a freshly printed copy of the Daily Prophet. "We don't mean to, but – Neville, stop hiding behind me, we feel just the same when we're talking to you!" she said furiously.

"But you always talk to me like that," Neville said, rolling his eyes.

"We do not!" Hermione replied as she unfolded the newspaper and turned it around so Harry could see it. On the front page were two large black-and-white photos. One was of the Riddle House by daylight with tiny robed figures swarming in and out of its doors and waving what might have been Secrecy Sensors. The other was of a pair of closed double-doors guarded by a furiously-gesturing Madame Pomfrey.

"That's the doors of the hospital wing. A couple of reporters got in yesterday but she chased them off," Ron said with a fearful glance at the matron.

Hermione began to read from the newspaper. "The rumours you are hearing are true," she spoke in a shaky voice. "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is, and will remain, defeated and utterly destroyed. Representatives from the Ministry today confirmed the death of the man who so nearly overthrew the precious world that we, as a nation of witches and wizards, have tended for centuries. Daily Prophet reporter Celeb Figaro writes from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where Headmaster Albus Dumbledore refused to comment on claims that the evil Sorcerer was defeated, not by the Ministry's trained Aurors or by mature wizards such as Dumbledore himself – but by a pair of young students from Hogwarts school."

Hermione paused and raised her eyes and met Harry's stunned gaze. "Do you see why we're so nervous?" she said quietly. "It's you, Harry. You they're talking about."

"They haven't mentioned you by name," Ron added hurriedly. "They paper says Neville was in on it but you're just 'another youngster.' Dumbledore hasn't let slip you who you are."

Harry looked at Neville, who gave him a weak smile. "I haven't said anything to anyone apart from Dumbledore," he said. "I only woke up yesterday evening. You've been asleep since they brought us back two nights ago. But what could I tell them, Harry? I don't know what happened."

Ron took off for a moment and came back with two spare chairs which he dumped by the bed before dropping down into Sirius' absented one. Hermione and Neville took the other two. "We brought you breakfast," Ron said, opening his bag. He took out two plates of toast, spreads, bacon, fruit and a pitcher of pumpkin juice with Do Not Remove From the Great Hall written along the handle. The plates were covered with a wobbly bubble charm that Hermione removed with a tap of her wand.

"Will you tell us?" she asked tentatively. "A whole year, Harry – how did you survive that?"

And Harry, not really sure what else to do but feeling as if a wall of friends had grown up around his bed, began to describe that past year as best he could.

----------------------------------

Sirius came back and sat on the end of the bed while Harry talked. And talked. And talked. Before long Tonks and Madame Pompfrey both slipped closer to listen in. Every now and then somebody would interject with a question or a horrified exclamation but that only made it easier to get the story straight. Hermione and Ron both got very excited when Harry talked about Frank and there was an interlude while they described Frank's arrival at the Burrow and how awful they had felt when his information had proved useless. When Harry told them what had happened to the old gardener Hermione burst into tears.

"Did you get Malfoy?" Harry asked once Neville had given her a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. "Are they giving him to the Dementors for murdering Frank?"

"We got him," Tonks said with a touch of nastiness in her voice. "And he's not squirming out of what he deserves, not this time. He'll go to Azkaban for the rest of his days if there's any justice in our Ministry. They tracked down most of the Werewolves, too – but Greyback is still on the loose. He took off as soon as he became human this morning."

"Werewolves?" Harry asked with a frown.

So there had to be another interlude while Sirius – aided by Lupin, who called weakly across the room when Sirius got some detail wrong or spoke particularly venomously about Maud – told the whole tale about Lupin's dealings with the werewolves, his capture and forced trial of the Lycanthropy cure, and Maud's spectacular arrival at Grimmauld Place.

"I must have found the Riddle House right after the Death Eaters had fled it," Sirius said once he had told the story of his and Maud's flight to Little Hangleton. "It was empty when I got there so I headed back to the village. I ran into the Dementors on my way down the road and I saw at once that they were already honing in on someone. When I heard you shouting, Harry," he gulped. "If you can rent a Dementor limb from limb, I would have done it right then."

"Shouting?" Harry asked. "When…?"

"When the Dementors surrounded us you started shouting for Sirius," Neville supplied helpfully.

Harry was silent for a moment. "What do Dementors look like?" he asked slowly. "I don't think I saw them. At least, I don't remember them. Were we still in the grounds of the house?"

Neville and Sirius both stared at him.

"We were on the road," Neville said. "Snape found us in the basement – don't you remember? He lead us down the village but we were attacked by the Dementors on the way. You kept sort of passing out but I'm sure you were awake by then…"

"Poppy, you did say there was nothing wrong with his head, didn't you?" Sirius asked the Matron anxiously.

"He's been through an awful trauma. It's shock, no doubt," she said, but there was an uncertain waver in her voice. "The hallucinations he was having are gone, I'm sure of it."

"Hallucinations?" Harry's eyes widened.

"You were all funny when they brought you in," Ron cut in. "You looked like you were awake but you couldn't see or hear us. Just babbling on, calling to people who weren't there, lying stiff as a board…Neville said you'd been like that since you-know-what happened…"

"But he is perfectly healthy now. I would know if there was the slightest damage to his brain, magical or no!" Madame Pomfrey insisted, while everyone else fidgeted uncomfortably, reluctant to disagree.

"What happened to Maud?" Harry asked, to cover up the confusion. "Was she alright?"

Tonks let out a triumphant, "Ha!" and looked at Lupin, perhaps expecting him to reprimand her, but he stayed silent.

"When I went to find her, she was gone, along with my bike," Sirius said grimly. "No one's seen hide nor hair of her rotten pelt since. But she couldn't have rid herself of those chains, or gotten my bike started, without magic. Magic and Maud don't go together even in the best of times, so someone either killed her or flew off with her."

"If she comes back," Lupin said quietly from along the way, "my door will be open to her."

"Remus, she threw you to that foul Greyback beast without a care!" Tonks answered angrily.

"And I wanted to skin her for it," he replied, breaking into a racking cough so that everyone winced in sympathy. Once the fit was over he continued croakily. "But she betrayed Greyback and the Death Eaters as well. None of you can tell me she did that for selfish motives."

Hermione cleared her throat. "Harry still hasn't finished his story," she said. "And neither has Neville. Neither of you have told us what happened that night, after –" she paused. "-after Neville was kidnapped. How you…survived," she finished.

Neville and Harry looked at one another. Neville hunched his shoulders so that the lower half of his face was hidden in the swathe of red and gold scarf wrapped around his neck. His voice muffled through the material, he said, "If Harry can tell you anything, it's more than I can. I don't understand it. But Dumbledore will figure it out, don't worry, Harry."

Harry didn't reply. A curiously reluctant look had come across his face.

Hermione, meanwhile, had been craning her neck to read Ron's watch. "Oh, hell! Ron, we missed the whole of Divination! We're already late for Care of Magical Creatures," she said frantically, grabbing her bag.

"Hagrid won't mind," Ron said cheerfully, picking up his own schoolbag and putting the empty plates and the juice pitcher back into it with a deliberate slowness that was obviously meant to irk his bushy-haired friend. Harry sighed. He'd never met Hagrid but he'd heard about him from Hermione and Ron and he wished he could come to their Care of Magical creatures class.

Madame Pomfrey got up, smoothing the creases of her apron. "I'll go and see if Severus' potion has improved Remus' condition," she said primly and floated off down the aisle.

"So will I," Tonks added, stretching and hurrying after her.

Hermione had grabbed the Daily Prophet and was stuffing it into her bag but she paused and held it out to Harry. "You take it," she mumbled as she turned away. "And I hope – oh, Harry, I hope it really is over. All of it," as he took the paper she leaned forward and hugged him quickly. "It will be wonderful having you in school," she smiled.

"It really will, mate," Ron agreed, though he refrained from the hugging.

"Are you coming Neville?" Hermione asked as the two of them headed for the door of the Hospital wing.

"In a bit. Tell Hagrid I'll be there soon," Neville answered. He looked nervously at Sirius and then at Harry.

"Neville-" Harry began.

"You know something," Neville said bluntly. "Tell Dumbledore first. It's like Hermione said – all I want is for everything to really be done and finished. All I can ask is, what do you remember after…after you woke up? It was like," Neville struggled for words, "like you were living your life backwards, you weren't even there. And you don't remember the Dementors? I don't think I could forget them if I tried," he shivered.

Harry opened his mouth to answer but it took him a moment. "I don't remember anything," he said. "I mean, I knew time was passing – if that makes sense – but what I was thinking during that time," he paused. "Only flashes."

Neville nodded and picked up his schoolbag. As he stood up he gave Harry a rare smile. "I sorted it out," he said.

"Sorted out what?"

"The difference between us," Neville replied. "It's going to be good to have my head to myself again," he tapped temple with one finger. Tucking his chin back into his scarf and his hands into his pockets, he turned and marched away out the door.

Sirius was the only one left, apart from Tonks and Madame Pomfrey bickering over Lupin's welfare further down the aisle.

"Can we go for a walk?" Harry asked quietly, sliding out of the bed.

Sirius shot a guilty glance in Madame Pomfrey's direction. "Yeah, alright," he said in a lowered voice. "But go quick before she notices."

As they sped out the door of the Hospital wing, Sirius took off his outer robe and draped it over his godson's shoulders. Harry was glad for this as he was wearing only a thin white gown that must have been the uniform for hospital wing patients. It suddenly occurred to him that someone must have taken his old clothes off to get the gown on. He tried not to think about that.

Sirius raised his hand to a tall black man with an Auror badge on his shoulder who passed them in the corridor. The man nodded in reply and bent at the waist with a flourish of his hand when he looked at Harry.

"Did he just…?"

"Bow to you? Yes I think so," Sirius replied as they reached the end of the corridor and started down a winding flight of stairs. "That was Kingsley Shacklebolt, by the way. He's a good friend of ours."

Harry wasn't sure whether 'ours' meant 'me and you' or 'me and Remus and everyone else I'm friends with that you don't know about'. He tried to imagine Sirius living life in the Wizarding World, having the sort of friends that he'd never had when the two of them had been in hiding, and found he just couldn't get his head around it.

"You are alright, aren't you?" Sirius asked as they wandered down an empty corridor. From a half-open door came the riotous laughter of a class of children whose teacher had performed some clever conjuring trick. The cheerful sounds died away as they turned the next corner. "I mean, I'd trust Madame Pomfrey to bring the dead back to life, but you did seem very ill only yesterday. You don't even feel faint?"

"Not at all," Harry replied firmly, tightening the robe around his shoulders. "And I need to get my blood moving. Take me for a tour of Hogwarts, won't you?"

"It's a few years since I've been acquainted with this place," Sirius laughed. "And it does tend to change as the years go by. Rooms don't stay put."

Nevertheless, he endeavoured to point out Hogwarts' most interesting features as he lead Harry through sun drenched hallways and up and down spiralling staircases. Harry, of course, had already explored a great deal of Hogwarts undercover of the Invisibility cloak when he had been illicitly living in the Room of Requirement. He really just wanted to keep Sirius occupied while he tried to piece together the impossible things that had happened over the past few days – along with all the other things in his life that were only now falling into place.

"Harry?"

"Hmm?" Harry looked up at his Godfather.

"Have you been listening to me at all for the last hour?"

Harry looked around and realised they were standing in the cloisters of a small courtyard. Trees had grown up and rooted their branches into the roof-tiles and the stone was so worn on the path it looked as if it were sagging in the centre. "Sorry," Harry admitted. "It isn't that I'm not interested. Just other things on my mind."

"I'll bet," Sirius replied, raising his eyebrows.

Silence fell between them again. Harry leaned against the colonnade of the cloister and said heavily, "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be such a gloomer."

"After all you've been through, I think you can be pardoned."

He looked up at his Godfather and wished he knew what felt so awkward between them. It was like a great pit had opened up with Sirius on one side and Harry on the other. Now it was taking all their strength just to carry out the simplest conversation, having to shout across that gaping chasm of muddled feelings and uncomfortable politeness. Was Sirius disappointed in him somehow? Was he subconsciously angry at Sirius? Or was it something else entirely?

As if his godfather had read his mind, Sirius sighed and said. "I think the trouble, Harry, is that I still think you're twelve years old, and you're not. Hell, thirteen – that I could adjust to. But you've overshot your thirteenth birthday and gone straight on to adulthood. I wish I could say it's only been a year since I saw you last and things will go back to normal, but it hasn't been a year for either of us. It's been a decade."

This felt so true that Harry smiled his assent. "Yeah. It really has."

This time the silence was comfortable and unnoticed. Harry's mind snagged on something in his memory and he laughed out loud. "I do remember something from the Dementor attack," he said reproachfully. "Your Patronus! It saved my life, I remember it clear as anything. It looked – well, like Padfoot! It looked exactly like you when you're in your animagus form."

"Your point being?" Sirius glanced innocently at the square of blue sky above and tucked his hands under his armpits.

"Isn't that of bit… egotistical of you?"

Sirius shrugged. "It didn't always take that form. It used to look like something else. I think it changed after your Mum and Dad died."

"I didn't know a Patronus could change its shape," Harry said in amazement.

"Well, it takes a bit of a shock to change something that intimate," Sirius explained. "And after all that happened back then, with us being on the run without so much as a penny to fall back on, I had no one to rely on but myself. If the Patronus represented something in which you put all your trust, the only person I could put my trust in was…well, me."

"But not anymore?"

Sirius shook his head. "Things are looking up," he smiled.

He raised his eyes and the smile vanished as if it had Disapparated. Harry twisted around to look over his shoulder and saw that Severus Snape, the black-haired man who had been in the Hospital wing when he woke up that morning, was standing in the archway that lead back inside. He was carrying a pair of thick volumes under his arm and seemed to have been snapped out of a trance – he was paused on the threshold of the corridor with a look of surprise on his sallow face.

Harry, standing directly between Sirius and Severus Snape, felt as if an invisible electric current had passed through him. His Godfather was as taut as piano wire, one fist clenching and unclenching by his side. Snape seemed to have recovered from his surprise and though his features had arranged themselves into an apathetic expression, something beneath his skin was seething.

For a few moments there was utter silence, then Snape said lazily, "You should be in the hospital wing." He seemed to be addressing Harry but his eyes had not left Sirius'.

"Harry's fine," Sirius barked at once.

Snape's gaze swung towards him and Harry flinched away. There was pure hate in those eyes. "I should thank you, boy, for doing the deed that they said was impossible," he said in a slippery tone. "If only you would tell me exactly how it was done."

Harry forced himself not to draw away from that interrogating gaze. He was not sure if Snape was actually asking him a question, so he didn't answer. He heard Sirius clench his fist yet again, his knuckles clicking under the skin.

After a moment, Snape continued softly, "Or, indeed, if it was done at all."

He'd hit the bullseye. Sirius lurched forward, drawing his wand out of his pocket. He would probably have gone so far as to grab the front of Snape's robes if Harry was not still standing between them, "Keep talking, Snivellus, and we'll just see how well you can spy with your insides on your outside," he said brashly.

Snape shot him a very patronising look and said with a greasy layer of sarcasm. "Eloquent as ever, Black."

"Get out of here, you filth," Sirius hissed.

"Might I remind you that I am a Professor of this school and you, Black, are nothing more than a guest," Snape replied, his eyes narrowing. "And if I wish to speak to your precious Godson you would do well not to interfere."

"Or what? You'll go crying to Dumbledore?" Sirius gave a very humourless laugh and the hand that was not holding his wand came down on Harry's shoulder.

"I believe Dumbledore is making a grave mistake in allowing either of you to remain within the walls of this school," Snape said silkily.

Harry felt shocked anger boil up in him. "I'm fine!" he said, taking a step towards Snape, who did not meet his eye.

The tendons were beginning to show in Sirius' neck. "That's your plan?" he said tersely. "You'll have Harry transferred to St Mungo's where your friends, your Master's scattered cronies, can take revenge on him, will you? I thought you were supposed to be clever, Snivellus."

"Do not," Snape breathed, the indifferent tone vanishing, "accuse me of that, Black. That is all over for me," he regained his composition and continued. "As it stands, it is Dumbledore who suggested that the boy remain under his observation, at least until all the facts are gathered about the night of the full moon."

Harry felt Snape's words clang and echo in his head like a gong. Did Dumbledore think he was crazy, or did he suspect something worse? What did the old Headmaster know?

"Dumbledore will tell me if there's something wrong," Sirius replied hotly.

Snape gave a snort of derision.

Sirius' voice rose, "You might have duped Remus into giving you his gratitude, Snivellus, but snakes don't change their colours," he spat.

"I have no need of the ex-werewolf's gratitude," Snape straightened his back and strode past the both of them with a whirl of black robes. "Once less werewolf in the world does not necessarily make one more man."

Sirius' hand on Harry's shoulder tightened until his grip was so strong his fingers with digging into Harry's collarbone. "Two less werewolves," his Godfather said proudly.

Snape slammed to a halt a spun around. "Two? Sorry to disappoint you, Black," he did not sound sorry – in fact, he sounded faintly triumphant, "but that boy is no less a werewolf than he was a year ago."

Sirius' brows knotted sceptically as if Snape had said something absurd and he could not decide whether it was a joke or not. "You must have missed something, Snivellus. Harry's cured. That damned potion worked on Remus, didn't it?"

"Remus got all three doses, Black," Snape leered. "But he," his eyes flicked to Harry, "could not have received the final elixir. I was in Slughorn's research group before he disappeared a year ago, and believe me, I know what I'm talking about. The effects of the first two potions become null and void at dawn unless the third is delivered. I'm so sorry," he finished before he turned his back on Sirius once more and swept away with a jaunty step in his stride.

Sirius stared after him, mouth ajar. "He's a liar," he said fiercely, glancing at Harry. "He's messing with us."

"No, he's not," Harry said quietly. Sirius' lips drew back in a defensive snarl.

"But Remus said…!"

"You-Know-Who said I was going to be cured at dawn," Harry explained. "But we never… er … got that far. With all the things going on, I completely forgot about it," he gave Sirius a weak smile. "So no harm done, really," he shrugged.

"No harm? But Slughorn…"

"Is dead. I know. Along with any chance for a cure," Harry scowled. "So why don't we just drop it?"

Sirius did not reply, but he was vibrating with fury. Harry glared out across courtyard, hoping his Godfather would take the hint and not make a fuss. It was painful enough to think that he had been only hours away from ridding himself of the lycanthropy that had plagued him since childhood. But he had known that he was giving up that chance when he fought back against Voldemort. It had been a choice between ending his life as a werewolf or keeping his soul and there was no way in a million years he would have it the other way around.

Sirius opened and closed his mouth several times but at last he didn't say anything. Instead, he let go of Harry's shoulder and stomped away in the opposite direction Snape had taken. Harry hurried to catch up with him.

"Where are we going?"

Sirius glanced over his shoulder at the archway behind them where the potions professor had disappeared. "Snape's a liar but he taunts better with the truth. I want to know why Dumbledore is keeping you under observation."

With a sick sensation trickling into his stomach, Harry nodded and followed him.

---------------------------------------------------

There was no answer when they knocked on the door of Dumbledore's office. He was not in the Great Hall either, but on their way out they met Tonks, who was looking rather flustered and a little irate.

"Just watch out when you go back to the Hospital wing," she warned Sirius. "Madame Pomfrey is baying for your blood because you took Harry out of her sight."

"Have you seen Dumbledore?" Harry asked her quickly.

"No. Have you checked the staff room?"

Classes were ending as they went in search of the Hogwarts staff room. Sirius waded through the packs of students with Harry trailing behind him and trying not to get separated. He kept his head down to avoid the stares of the students around him, hoping it was merely his unorthodox Godfather and lack of school uniform that was making him stand out, rather than any rumour that he was the boy who had somehow defeated You-Know-Who.

Someone looked at him and touched their cheek as he hurried past and he realised that it was nothing more than his scars that were making people gawk. He nearly laughed aloud – it was a year since he had seen a mirror. He'd nearly forgotten how other people reacted to the old marks of the werewolf.

He could not help noticing, though, that there were smiling faces everywhere. Friends whispered behind their hands, hugs broke out unexpectedly, people covered their mouths as they heard some fresh bit of news, their eyes wide and disbelieving. The front page of the Daily Prophet was flashed and passed around beneath shocked faces. The good news seemed to be emanating through the air as if it did not even need gossip to spread it.

The gargoyles that guarded the door of the staff room would not let them through, but McGonagall opened the door for them and understood at once who they were after. Neither she, nor Flitwick who was sipping coffee at the table across the room, knew where the Headmaster had gone to. The last time they had seen him was the day before, when he had been talking to Lupin.

Frustrated, Harry and Sirius were just leaving when Hestia Jones arrived, carrying a stack of textbooks and grumbling about "friggin' Weasley twins".

"Dumbledore?" she said, banishing the textbooks to a cupboard with a wave of her wand. "I just passed him, he was talking to Neville, but then he said he was in a hurry and took off in the other direction – Minerva, did you see what those two red-haired terrors did to my wallpaper? Do you know how long that will take to remove?"

"Where was he going?" Sirius overrode her complaints and she caught the urgency in his voice.

"To the dungeons," Hestia answered. "To see Severus, I suppose. Come on, I'll show you where his office is."

She walked quickly with Sirius at her heels but to Harry, no longer studying their surroundings, the journey to the dungeons seemed to last hours. The lower levels of Hogwarts were chilly and murky despite the warm day. Through the door of Snape's office they could hear raised voices.

"I cannot let you leave the school yet, Severus, even to go to Diagon Alley – especially if you yourself are so adamant that there is still danger-"

"Danger from within, Headmaster," the oily voice of Severus Snape growled. "Did you hear a word I said about the Dementors? The way they reacted when Potter stirred and woke up? The way they honed in on him – going straight past Remus and myself without a glance!"

"I heard, Severus. But as yet you have no explanation for this behaviour…"

"By the time I do, it will be too late. And yet you tell me to sit in the corner like a dunce, defenceless, and mind my manners until we have undeniable proof…"

"Yes, Severus," Dumbledore said firmly. His voice had the slow roll of thunder. "Until we have proof."

Hestia cleared her throat and Sirius and Harry both jumped.

"Eavesdropping?" she mouthed, raising her eyebrows. Sirius looked guiltily at the stone ceiling while Hestia stepped forward and knocked on the door.

Snape jerked it open and his eyes narrowed fiercely as he saw Sirius and Harry. "Get out!" he snapped, and he sounded half-maddened. "I don't want to see your faces again! Get out!"

"Severus, that's no way to speak to your students," Dumbledore's voice floated through the open door and a moment later he appeared in the gap between Snape's arm and the doorframe. His blue eyes widened a little. "Ah. I see. Well, don't be so rude – invite them inside."

"We are not finished, Headmaster-"

"For now we are," Dumbledore replied sharply and Snape's mouth closed shut like a trap. With show of a great effort, he lowered his arm and stepped away from the door.

Harry slipped past Hestia and into the room, his eyes flicking quickly over the sickly-coloured jars that filled the shelves around the room, filled with unidentifiable creatures and body-parts suspended in noxious liquids. Sirius followed him, striding past Snape without acknowledging him. Hestia lingered outside, eyeing the seething potions master and the slimy jars.

"You should be in bed, Harry," Dumbledore said kindly. "You've been through a harrowing ordeal."

"If I needed more rest I wouldn't be here," Harry replied. "We came because…"

"…we need to know what happened that night, Dumbledore," Sirius said with a dark look at Snape. "There's more to this than I've been told and if Harry is somehow involved in this danger Snape is ranting about…"

"Eavesdropper!" Snape shot.

"…then I have to be in the know," Sirius finished loudly.

"Completely understandable, Sirius," Dumbledore said with a warning glance at Snape. "Indeed, I would tell you everything I knew, if it were not for…"

"You can't keep controlling other people's lives!" Sirius barked.

"Sirius…" Harry said quietly, shaking his Godfather's wrist, but he was brushed away.

"Don't you see how that's led to disaster in the past?" Sirius continued, his voice getting louder and louder. "Just stop not telling people things!"

Dumbledore raised his hands in protest. "I was merely going to say, Sirius, that I would tell you everything I knew – if it were not for the fact that I know no more than you do."

A stunned silence followed this remark. Snape gave a triumphant snort at Sirius' shocked face.

"What? But…"

"I am not omnipotent, Sirius," Dumbledore said sadly. "I have interviewed Neville, Severus, Bellatrix and as many others as I could about all they witnessed on the night of the Full Moon but it is not enough. I simply do not understand what happened in those brief, world-defining hours. I do not have the faintest clue how Harry and Neville managed to destroy the most feared sorcerer in a century and yet come out alive and apparently unharmed. If I did, I would have divulged the information to you the moment I learned of it."

"But…" the disillusionment on Sirius' face would have been amusing if it hadn't been so awful to watch.

"I'm sorry, Sirius. As soon as I have pieced together a little more of this puzzle I will inform you."

Sirius shook his head, apparently unable to phrase a question. He stared appealingly at Dumbledore. "Surely…?"

"Take Harry back to the Hospital Wing for now," Dumbledore suggested gently.

"Yes, get out of my office, Black, before you make yourself look like any more of a fool," Snape drawled.

Sirius' muddled expression tightened and his lips pulled back in a snarl.

"Be quiet!" he roared, whirling to face Snape and stabbing his wand towards the potions master's throat. Snape had been standing lazily against his desk and now he nearly fell over backwards in his keenness to avoid Sirius' trembling wand tip. Their two faces were mirrors of hatred, each reflecting the other perfectly.

"What's wrong with you?" Harry said angrily, "Get off him!" He was trying to pull Sirius' arm away, but he might as well have tried to bend a steel bar. Hestia and Dumbledore were both speaking angrily overtop of one another but Sirius didn't move an inch.

"Oh, go ahead, Black," Snape whispered in a voice like slow-dripping venom. "I'm unarmed. The Death Eaters broke my wand two days ago. Isn't that how you like your enemies in a fight?"

Sirius gave a bellow like a wounded bull and turned away. Snape straightened up, unable to keep an expression of relief from spreading across his face. Perhaps he had really thought, for a moment there, that Sirius would kill him. Harry could not believe what had taken place – he had never seen his Godfather act with such meaningless hate.

He turned back to Dumbledore. "You don't understand what happened," he said, raising his voice to make sure everyone was listening. "But I do."

Sirius' head whipped around to stare at him but Dumbledore only nodded as if he had been waiting for this all along. "Neville told as much," the old Headmaster said.

"I couldn't have done it without Neville," Harry answered. The chill of the dungeon was starting to make him shiver but the thought of explaining everything to Dumbledore made him feel like he was sick with fever. Even after all these years Dumbledore still represented the ultimate authority, tall, menacing, all-powerful – a force of pure good that made Harry cringe to think of it. He turned to look up at his Godfather, whose character had proved so different from Dumbledore in every way.

"Would you all leave? I have to speak to the Headmaster alone."

Snape displayed a sneer to the room in general but stalked towards the door, accepting the request to remove himself from his own office. Hestia Jones was leaning into the room looking as if she was watching a particularly tragic play and she got out of Snape's way in a hurry. Sirius didn't move.

"Sirius, please. I'll tell you everything, anything you want to know, but only after…"

"I'm not going anywhere."

Harry met his gaze and said, "Sirius, I'm telling you to leave now. Don't argue with me."

There was a weight in his voice that might have made even Dumbledore hesitate to defy. Sirius took a moment to look surprised and then let his feet take him back to the door of the office. He glanced over his shoulder at Harry.

"I'll be waiting out here," he said.

"You'll listen at the door. No, go with her," Harry ordered, indicating Hestia, who was hovering just outside. Snape had vanished.

An awkward silence followed this, then Hestia said timidly. "Come on, Sirius, you can come to my third-years' class. I'll say you're our guest speaker for the day or something."

Harry watched until they had disappeared down the corridor and then shut the door behind them.

----------------------------------------------

"Begin however you like, Harry."

Dumbledore had set himself against Snape's desk, his hands folded in front of him and his features conveyed a calming influence. From the strangely blackened right hand to his long crooked nose, he looked composed and serene. Harry had taken one of Snape's seats across the room, leaning forward a little when it occurred to him that the Professor's greasy black locks regularly came into contact with the back of that chair.

Harry sighed. "I need you to do two things for me. Then I'll tell you everything."

Dumbledore looked curious and gestured for him to continue.

"First, I want you to promise me, unconditionally, that when I've told you everything I can, you will let me enrol in Hogwarts and become a normal student here."

"And why would I deny you that, Harry? With Voldemort dead, you are free to seek any education you like, are you not?"

"Just promise me," Harry insisted.

"I see no reason why you could not come to Hogwarts. Obviously you will be a little behind in your studies, of course. An entire year without any magical training is not something to be taken lightly, not to mention the preceding year in which your learning was somewhat hampered by a lack of professional tutors. But I do not doubt your determination, and Miss Granger told me she believed you perfectly capable, given a little extra tutorial, of catching up with the rest of the students your age…"

"Promise me."

Dumbledore paused, gave a gracious nod and said, "I promise you that you have a place in this school."

"Alright," Harry said, but he did not relax. "Now tell me the truth about my parents death."

The old wizard took a moment to reply, a crease forming on his forehead. "What is it you do not understand?"

"I've heard…well, he told me that you leaked out the first half of that stupid Prophecy, to lure him in, hoping he'd meet his downfall when he tried to kill me or Neville," Harry said with an unfriendly expression. "I couldn't believe him. But he didn't lie to me any other time that night. If he was right, then you – you orphaned Neville and I."

As Harry laid out his accusation he carefully watched Dumbledore's face for any sign of guilt or remorse, but the wrinkled brown features remained impassive.

"Well?" Harry snarled after a drawn-out silence.

"I wish I could have known you, Harry," the old man replied quietly. There was an angry tone underlying his words. "I wish you could have known me without the bias that has been instigated by your Godfather. Then you would know how foolish this claim is. Kill four innocent people, four loyal friends, four of my allies, and possibly kill their infant children as well, on the distant chance that their deaths might weaken the Dark Lord?"

Harry felt bruised by the hurt in his voice. "You would have killed me," he said weakly.

"I gave you my reasons for that when we met a year ago," Dumbledore said coolly.

"Yes, it was out of spite! You wanted to hurt him! So why not use the same tactic with my parents' death?"

"Do not cast me as your villain," Dumbledore cut him off, shaking his head slowly. "I asked Sirius for your death because I believed it was best for you. I regret that a hundred times over and I understand that you will always hold that against me. But bait Voldemort with the lives of you and your parents? No, Harry."

"Then why?" Harry croaked. "Why'd you let the Prophecy get out? Why didn't you just keep it hidden from the beginning? Then none of this would ever have happened!"

"And what? You'd be living happily with your parents? Harry, the war would still be on and Voldemort would be stronger than ever. It is he who is responsible for all this hurt and misery," Dumbledore said gently. "As it stands, blows have been struck on both sides – and he has come out the worse. You have done what I never could do – destroyed him."

Harry gave a bitter laugh.

"Your parents, if they were here, would be very, very proud of you, Harry," Dumbledore continued. "And I am sorry if that is cold comfort for their loss."

"Would they?" Harry said sadly. There was a long pause, then he added with a shrug, "I've got Sirius."

"If it would be any consolation, you are welcome to go to the Daily Prophet and sell them the account of how Albus Dumbledore made the biggest mistake of the century," the Headmaster said with a mischievous twinkle. "He tried to kill Harry Potter. I don't doubt they would pay handsomely to cover that story."

Harry gave a sad smile. "Maybe I'll take you up on that," he said. "But in the meantime. How much did Neville say to you?"

"About your captivity?" Dumbledore asked mildly. "Everything you told him. Don't take that the wrong way, Harry – he did not think you wanted it kept secret."

Harry nodded. "I suppose I didn't. So, Neville told you that I couldn't keep track of the days between the full moons – that You-Know-Who was wiping my memory every time he came to speak with me?"

"Voldemort, Harry," Dumbledore said. "You may call him by his name."

Harry shook his head. "No. I can't," without elaborating he went on. "Now what I told Neville and the others – what I thought at the time – was that You-Know-Who didn't want me to remember our little chats because then he could always find out what I was up to without my trying to hide it from me. Whenever I came up with a new plan to escape, or annoy Wormtail, or anything like that, he would know. And I wouldn't have any clue that he was aware of my every move."

Dumbledore nodded to show he was following.

Harry took a breath. "I was wrong," he said, a waver running through his voice. "That was only part of it. The real reason he didn't want me to remember was because of what happened whenever I got close to him."

He paused, trying to figure out how to put it into words. His hand snuck towards his chest as if he was making some vow of loyalty, his eyes hooded under their lids. "It's like," he licked his lips. "It's like having your heart ripped out. Every time he was near me, this foul bit of his soul inside me was trying to get out, and taking my soul with it. That's what it felt like. That's what he didn't want me to remember."

Dumbledore was frowning as if he was already beginning to see where things were heading. "Neville told me that one night, when he saw you in a dream, you spoke his name. I found this hard to believe. Were you really aware of him?"

"I really was," Harry said, leaning further forward in the chair. "I think that's how deep the connection ran between me and You-Know-Who. I forgot a lot that day – all I remembered was Neville. But when I met him again, on the night of the full moon," Harry made a wry face, "then I remembered, because I felt that awful tearing in my heart all over again. And I forced it all down and resisted it. I suppose Neville's told you everything that happened that night?"

Dumbledore shrugged. "From his perspective."

"Do you know what that thing was, with all the light? When Neville faced You-Know-Who and their spells didn't work?"

The old Headmaster nodded. "I cannot be sure, since it did not carry through as far as it should have, but I believe it was a very rare effect called Priori Incantatem. Were you aware that Neville and Voldemort's wands share a core from the same Phoenix?"

Harry shook his head.

"The consequence of their duel would have resulted in one of the wands divulging all the previous spells it had performed. The effect is not well documented but witnesses claim that while the 'cage of light' that seems to envelope the two wand-bearers, no one can come between them. But Neville tells me that you did."

"Well, I'm part of him, aren't I?" Harry said savagely. "We share a soul! I realised that when it happened. We were – we are – one and the same. Connected beyond separation."

"'Are'?" Dumbledore asked quizzically.

Harry looked at an ugly creature like an unborn dragon floating in one of Snape's jars. "When Neville stood up and fought him and their wands connected, I realised this was the only chance we were going to get. You-Know-Who would have given my soul to the dementors and taken my body – I suppose Neville told you that? – and then he would just keep on going for ever and ever, killing people like my parents until someone stopped him. I don't believe what that Prophecy says about there being only one person who can defeat the Dark Lord, but still – once he'd killed Neville, I knew there wouldn't be anyone else who had a chance for a very long time."

Harry gave a humourless laugh. "You know he was using me to get Neville, don't you? Not just to lure Neville into his clutches – it was more than that. Once he had possession of my body, all Neville would ever see was my face. That way, if he didn't manage to kill Neville before we exchanged bodies, Neville wouldn't ever be able to defeat him. Just imagine it – ten years from now, Neville is an Auror who has spent his life hunting down the Dark Lord and preparing to destroy him. At last, they meet – but You-Know-Who looks just like Harry Potter! Even if Neville understood what had happened, he would hesitate too long, unable to kill the boy he remembered from his childhood dreams – giving You-Know-Who the chance to strike first."

"Merlin," Dumbledore whispered as this new piece of the puzzle fell into place. He could imagine it all too clearly. Harry was right – Neville might learn to be the greatest wizard in the world but his good-hearted nature would still hold him back from killing a friend. By providing Neville with the dreams of Harry, Voldemort had essentially neutralised his would-be nemesis in any future battle.

"I knew all this," Harry said, folding his hands in his lap. "I knew what it would mean if You-Know-Who went through with his plans. Maybe Neville would be able to defeat him while I sat on the ground and watched – but I couldn't be sure. I had to do what I did."

"And are you going to tell me what that was?" Dumbledore asked.

"I told you the piece of his soul was trying to escape mine," Harry said. "And at the same time, the rest of his soul was trying to rejoin its missing piece. Both of us had been fighting it, holding the two pieces back. Well, I just stopped fighting."

Dumbledore didn't speak for a moment. His hand went to his long white beard and he ran his fingers through it pensively. "But surely, Harry, if the two pieces of soul rejoined, yours would have gone with them, torn out of your body? You would have lost your soul?"

The boy shook his head slowly. "It was the other way around. He lost his. It came into me, destroying his body as it escaped. It's in me now."

-----------------------------------------------

Dumbledore might have known, if only he had been paying proper attention to all the signs. The dementor's attraction to the child, his miraculous survival, Harry's strange hallucinations and the names he muttered during them: 'Stay away from me, Mrs Cole – Please, Professor Dippet – Potter! I'll kill you, James Potter!' – those were not names or words from Harry's memory. Dumbledore could have figured it out, but his mind was older than it once was. It had forgotten how to be that imaginative.

His hand tried to reach for his wand but he forced himself to stay still, holding the gaze of those piercing green eyes. There was defiance there, and suspicion, yes, but was there something else? Was there a serpent seething behind Harry's pale face? Might it not rise up without warning – might it not already control the boy that sat before Dumbledore? Perhaps it was not Harry who sat there at all: perhaps it was Tom Riddle, rejuvenated, returned to the strength of youth, and ready to act out the part of Harry Potter for as long as need be. Perhaps he would return to the life he had been living up until the last full moon, or perhaps he would begin a new life – that was perhaps the more terrifying option. Tom Riddle, imbued with all the knowledge and power of a lifetime, but hidden in the form of a thirteen-year-old boy, able to step back into the world and see what cards fate dealt him the second time around.

Yet still, it was Lily Potter's eyes watching Dumbledore's aged face. There was no sheen of red, no bitter, manipulative will looking out of those eyes. Just a boy who had grown up too fast and been forced make decisions that even the greatest witches and wizards of the age had never even contemplated.

So what could the Headmaster do now? He could not let this secret escape – could not let the Death Eaters who had fled get even a hint – but did he dare hide the truth from anyone else? Who else had to know? And what would they want to do about it when they did?

Severus had not guessed yet, but it would not be long. He would keep his silence if Dumbledore asked him to, but he would see only one possible course of action, and that was to kill the boy. Others might figure it out eventually. And would they not view things as bleakly as Severus Snape?

"I can see why you did not want Sirius hearing this," Dumbledore said placidly, buying himself time to think.

Harry nodded, his brows furrowing regretfully – ah, but was that only Tom shaping those expressions? – "I wish Sirius could never know. I mean," he gave a timid chuckle, "he can be a bit reckless, can't he? I love him more than anything but coming back after all this time has made me realise…well… it feels almost like I'm the elder of the two of us. I want to protect him."

"And you're afraid of what he will think."

Harry nodded. "Will he hate me?" he whispered. "Will he try to distance himself from me, treat me like a different person? Like at any moment I might turn into a monster?"

"You must remember that this is the same man who has raised you, knowing you carried a piece of You-Know-Who's soul and yet not knowing whether that would affect who you were as a person," Dumbledore replied. "The same man who has befriended werewolves since he was a schoolboy. The same man who never once ceased his search for you during all the long months that you were missing."

Harry nodded, resting cheek on his knuckles. He glanced back at Dumbledore. "Do you believe me when I say I'm still Harry Potter?"

Not a question you could flat-out lie to. Dumbledore paused before he answered. "If I believe you, then I must believe that you are repressing the soul of Voldemort completely, preventing it from taking control of your body. Would you easily believe that, if you were in my position, Harry?" there was the faintest emphasis on the last word, as if it was a question more than anything else.

"I am!" Harry said at once, straightening up, his hands tightening on the arms of the chair. "I am holding it back! And it won't ever get free – it won't ever get control of me – I swear!"

"Harry," Dumbledore raised his hand for silence. "How can you be so sure that Voldemort is not letting you believe that you can control him? Biding his time until he can swamp your willpower and take your form?"

"Because I know," Harry said, gritting his teeth. "I know he's there. That's why I was having those hallucinations – because he was trying get control of me – but he won't ever get out again. I know it, I know it."

He sounded so fierce and sure that Dumbledore knew he believed what he said. But that didn't mean it was true. At least Harry's strange sickness following the full moon was now explained. Another sign Dumbledore had missed.

"You won't break your promise, will you?" Harry asked faintly, sounding suddenly frightened. "You'll let me come to Hogwarts?"

Dumbledore looked away, saddened that that was all the boy was worried about. His voice heavy with reluctance as he answered, "I do not like breaking promises, even those made in ignorance. But Harry, how can I let you stay here?"

"No," Harry shot to his feet. "Professor I would bargain my life to prove to you that I will never be a danger to this school. And I would rather die than let him control me! I've spent a year as a prisoner. I have to study at Hogwarts, I have to meet other wizards like me. I will not go back to Grimmauld Place and be stuck in my room for the rest of my life with no one but Kreacher for company!"

And that, Dumbledore felt, was the sort of thing Harry would say and Tom Riddle would not know to say. What could he do? He had done terrible things in the past to keep Harry Potter from living life, literally and figuratively. But he had never had to face him before, look him in the eye, and say I forbid you to live.

What can I do? Albus Dumbledore thought. What can I do but trust him?

"Very well," he said, softly and wearily. "Come to Hogwarts, Harry. We will see how things go from there."

And the green-eyed boy sat down and grinned with the biggest, purest smile Dumbledore had ever seen.

-----------------------------------------------------

"How did Dumbledore con me into this?" Severus Snape muttered aloud, sitting on the edge of Remus Lupin's bed as he measured into a small glass cup a few drops of a black syrup and held it out to his patient. Still grey, thin and shattered, the ex-werewolf did not look as if he had improved since the last potion, despite Poppy Pomfrey's claim to the contrary.

"You mean keeping me alive?" Lupin asked as he took the medicine cup with two shaky hands. His voice was still as faint as eiderdown.

"I mean keeping you alive," Snape confirmed, frowning at Lupin.

"How does Albus con any of us into doing anything?" Lupin replied, downing the potion quickly and making a pitifully sour face.

"What you mean is, you don't know."

"Yes, what I mean is, I don't know," Lupin smiled, handing back the medicine cup. With a show of great effort, he turned his head to look at the bed a few rows down. It was empty, but Sirius Black, Hestia Jones and Nymphadora Tonks were gathered around it in a huddle, murmuring darkly to each other. "Can you hear what they're saying?" Lupin asked.

"No doubt adding new features to their already extensive list of reasons why I'm not to be trusted," Snape said coldly, taking out another bottle and beginning to fill a clean cup with Lupin's next medication.

Lupin glumly watched his three friends until Snape pushed the next potion under his nose. "Drink."

"Thanks," he did not look very thankful as he tipped his head back and gulped it down. Snape began to carefully measure out a third remedy.

"May I ask you," Lupin said softly, his eyes smiling as he watched Tonks give Sirius a rough shove and Sirius reply with a burst of gruff laughter, "why you did save the three of us that night? No one would have blamed you if you'd fled the house at once instead of coming down to the cellar to find me. Of course, then Harry and I could have died, and Neville – well, who knows."

Snape thrust the third potion towards him. "You are an imbecile. The headmaster would never have let me back into this school if golden-boy Longbottom had fallen into the hands of the Death Eaters, or if that insufferable and yet wholly uncrushable Potter had gotten himself eaten by the dementors. And you – well, I mostly just wanted to know if you'd pull through or not. I suspected Slughorn might have made his potion fatal after a delay of a month or so as a last miserable attempt to assassinate the Dark Lord once he possessed Potter for good."

Lupin laughed. "That was a very complex way to say 'I have a heart of gold'."

"Don't be ridiculous. Drink."

Lupin drank the last potion and handed back the cup. Snape sanitized it with a wave of his wand and banished it back to his storeroom. He was just closing his bag when there was the sound of the door of the hospital wing opening and the conversation from down the rows fell silent.

"Oh, thank goodness!" Madame Pomfrey's voice cried from the other end of the wing. "Don't you dare leave the hospital wing again!"

"I was talking with the headmaster," Harry Potter said defensively, sidling into the room. Snape was certain he recognised that guilty swagger as a Potter trait.

"I don't care if you were being made the Minister for Magic, don't do it again," Madame Pomfrey fumed.

Harry managed to duck under her grasp and sat down on the end of the bed. "See? I won't leave this spot. Promise," he said soothingly. Tonks and Hestia Jones moved away a little so that they wouldn't get between the Matron and her patient.

Once Madame Pomfrey had finished her fussing, it was Sirius Black's turn. Snape tried not to give an amused snort at the sight of the ever-so-manly Black yielding to his thirteen-year-old charge with impatient questions about the private conversation with Dumbledore. At this point, since he was equally interested in the contents of the private conversation, Snape started listening a little harder.

"Is something wrong? Are you still sick?" Black said in a concerned voice.

Potter shook his head.

"But you said you knew what happened! Are you going to tell me or not?"

Harry shrugged. "I just told him how it went – it was all Neville's doing, really. Dumbledore figured it out once I told things from my point of view. Something was activated called the – um, the Priori Incantatem effect, and I was able to get close enough to disarm You-Know-Who so that Neville could get a clear shot. I'd gotten muddled about it because I was hit by the backwash of Neville's spell, that's all. But You-Know-Who is definitely gone for good."

Snape watched Black process this and accept it without question, but his own mind was not so hasty. The rubbish Potter had just fed his Godfather did not tally at all with what Snape had heard from Longbottom's mouth, and from what he had seen with his own eyes. Not to mention that it didn't even try to explain how Potter could have survived when the Dark Lord did not! Potter and Dumbledore must be in on the secret together, but what on earth could require that kind of secrecy? Or was Potter merely keeping quiet in front of the other listening ears in the room?

Potter lowered his voice, though not low enough that everyone else couldn't pick out his words. "Sirius, would you be angry if I told you I'm going to go to Hogwarts?"

Snape groan inwardly. He would have to teach that boy? Oh, Dumbledore was really going to owe him for this one.

His Godfather's eyebrows shot up, then down again so quickly they looked like a pair of yo-yos. "Oh. Of course not." he said in a slightly strained voice. Tonks and Jones glanced at each other.

"I'm sorry," Potter said awkwardly. "I'm not trying to leave you. But…"

"Merlin, Harry, I wouldn't expect anything else!" Black exclaimed, taking his Godson's hands. "No, I'm glad, I'm very glad, and if Dumbledore's not making difficulties about you starting so late…"

Potter gave a barking sort of laugh that he had obviously picked up from his Godfather.

"…then all the better. I'm sure he's not complaining about you being a werewolf. And you've got friends already, haven't you?" Black sounded miserable, as if he was desperately trying to think of all the reasons why he couldn't keep Potter from going to school and making himself more and more depressed as a result.

"I really am sorry," Potter said quietly. He meant it, Snape realised with a jolt – how odd to hear a Potter who was genuinely remorseful. "I'll write every week, and visit you in all the holidays. You understand, don't you? I've never lived in this world, in our world, my parents' world. I have to start getting used to it."

"I understand completely," Black said with all the enthusiasm he could muster. Which was very little.

Snape decided that was enough drippy sentiment for one day and turned back to bid Lupin goodbye.

What little blood Lupin's face had contained was gone. His eyes were wide and he looked as if he was going to be sick.

"What's wrong? Are you in pain?" Snape snapped, whipping open his bag again while he tried to think what kind of adverse allergic reaction Lupin might have had to one of the medications, or whether it was possible he had accidentally mixed the wrong ingredient into one of the potions (unlikely though the latter was).

"No," Lupin said hoarsely, shaking his head. "No…why'd Sirius say he was a werewolf? Didn't someone tell him Harry is cured?"

"Ah. About that," Snape said, mentally cursing. It had been very satisfying informing Black of the fact that Potter was still not cured, but breaking the news to Lupin was a different story. Snape told himself it was simply because Lupin was in such a fragile condition that he felt guilty about giving him the bad news.

He explained quickly. Lupin seemed to shrink and shrivel as he absorbed Snape's words.

"It isn't fair," he muttered, looking away. Snape did his very best not to roll his eyes at the back of his head. He waited for a moment while Lupin stared moodily at the far wall of the hospital wing, then closed his bag again and got to his feet.

"Wait," Lupin had turned his head back towards Snape and was looking at him as if he had only just realised he was there. "Severus – surely you met Slughorn while he was working with the Death Eaters?"

"I had not the faintest idea he was anything other than dead," Snape replied. "Otherwise I could have guessed that you were alive and all of this might have been easily avoided."

"But didn't any of the Ministry workers who searched the house find what was left of Slughorn's experiments?" Lupin asked desperately.

"If they did, I don't know, as the Headmaster has not yet permitted me to leave the school," Snape drawled, turning away.

"But you worked with Slughorn!"

Snape paused and looked back at Lupin.

"You worked with him before he was kidnapped," Lupin said, trying to lever himself up onto his elbows and failing. "So you know all about his research. And you can find what's left of the work he did for the Death Eaters, and you can make another cure!"

Snape felt a muscle twitch in his cheek. He wanted to say to Lupin, I do not have the time or the motivation to go chasing around the country just to cure some brat of the disease that you inflicted on him in the first place! So why didn't he say it? Thinking back on it later, he never could figure out what stilled his tongue.

"Severus," Lupin said weakly, in that annoying tone that always made Snape think of kittens being drowned. "Please. Don't do this for me, or for Harry – do this for all the other lives you could change if you gave the world a cure for Lycanthropy. Please. You're probably the best Potions Master in Britain – I know you could do it."

Oh damn you, Remus! Severus thought, Damn you and your stupid drowned-kitten voice!

"I will see," he growled, "what I can do."

Lupin collapsed back into his pillows. "Thank you," he smiled.

-----------------------------------------------------

"Celebratory Fireworks," said Ron.

"What?" asked Harry.

"That's the password," explained Hermione.

The portrait of the fat lady looked down at them and raised one brush-stroke eyebrow at Harry, looking and feeling completely out of place in one of Tonks' spare shirts and a pair of Sirius' trousers folded three times at the bottom and belted securely at the waist. Sirius had brought him an outfit from his room in Grimmauld Place but it was quickly discerned that Harry had grown several inches and, though he was thinner than anyone remembered, he had not a hope of fitting any of his old clothes.

"And who is this, my dears?" the fat lady asked.

"He's Harry," Ron grinned, puffing up his chest. "He's just been sorted into Gryffindor."

"He looks a little old!" the portrait said curiously.

"It's a long story," Hermione assured her. "Could we just go in?"

"Alright, but I always find out the truth about these things in the end," she said and grudgingly swung forward to admit them.

If Harry had been in the Gryffindor common before, he would have known that it was unusually full for this late at night. Every chair was occupied and there was very little sign of schoolwork, as the tables were taken up by the remains of several cases of Butterbeer. Some older students were laughingly sharing bottles and words with a few of their younger compatriots and others were huddled with their heads together, no doubt still discussing the scant information that was filtering through the school. It was not only Gryffindor that was celebrating, but families and friends all over the country. Very few people did not have reason to celebrate.

It took a few moments before anyone noticed the three third-years enter the common room. It wasn't until one of a pair of red-haired twins stood up and called. "Hey, Ron, come have a drink…who's that with you?"

That was all it took for eyes to widen and whispers to ripple around the room. Suddenly every Gryffindor in sight had looked up or twisted around to stare. Harry caught only scraps of the words.

"…look at his face…"

"…scars…"

"…he couldn't be…?"

"Never…!"

"…maybe…"

"Neville said…"

"…but who knows?"

Hermione stepped protectively in front of Harry. Ron's ears flushed pink. "Not now, Fred," he answered his brother as casually as he could. Fred's jaw had dropped open and he jabbed his twin in the ribs. George was pouring a naïve-looking second-year girl a glass of butterbeer but he did not seemed to have noticed the glass overflowing and running down his hand.

"…Harry!" Fred hissed to George in an awe-filled voice and added, "Remember Frank Bryce?"

"Come on," Ron grabbed Harry's arm and elbowed his way through the crowd that was thickening around them. They reached the bottom of the stairwell that lead up to the boy's dormitory but Harry took a last glance over his shoulder, looking for one person in particular. He finally glimpsed him over someone's shoulder.

Neville had not gotten up to stare at the new Gryffindor. He was sitting with his knees drawn up on a huge, battered old arm chair, reading a thick volume with great concentration on his face. Harry leaned away from Ron, wanting to call out, but he didn't need to. Neville looked up and met his gaze.

The chatter of the curious students was too loud to carry out any sort of conversation over that distance. Harry beckoned with a sweep of his arm, but Neville just smiled at him, waved, and went back to his book.

Ron and Hermione hustled Harry up the stairway.

"Hang on, what about Neville?"

"You can talk to him later," Ron said. "Trust me, you don't want to get stuck in that crowd. Too many awkward questions right now."

"But he's just sitting by himself…"

"Harry, he always sits by himself," Hermione said pointedly. They passed a small blonde first-year on the stairs. Harry offered the first-year a friendly smile – the first-year gave a terrified squeak and flattened himself against the wall until they were gone.

"Well, you do look pretty fierce." Ron said when Harry frowned questioningly.

The three of them reached the door of the Ron's dormitory and piled inside. It was empty. Ron threw himself down on his bed and Hermione seated herself on the windowsill. Harry leaned against the post of the another bed and folded his arms.

"So you're just dropping Neville for me, are you?" he asked angrily.

"Don't be dumb," Ron rolled his eyes. "We're still friends with Neville."

"He likes being by himself," Hermione added. "He's always been like that."

"Oh, yeah?" Harry snapped. He was acutely aware that Neville had gotten himself captured by Death Eaters to save someone he'd barely met and he felt that deserved a bit more gratitude.

Ron sighed and sat up. "This is a great start to your time at Hogwarts. Yelling at us already."

He realised how unfair he was being and sighed apologetically. "I'm just so nervous."

"We totally understand," Hermione said with a beaming smile. "But you better get ready. It won't take more than a day before the entire school knows you on sight as the boy who destroyed You-Know-Who. People won't bother Neville much because they know him and they won't believe he's capable of doing what did. But you," she laughed, "you're a mystery. They're going to be doubling back in the corridor just to get a proper look!"

The boy who destroyed You-Know-Who…

What have I done? Harry thought. It's all a lie. There was a small, square mirror hanging on the wall nearby and looking away from Hermione's joyful face he saw his reflection for the first time in over a year. It was a wild stranger looking out of the glass at him. A mane of black hair hung around the pale, drawn face of a mad-boy, the scars burning white on his cheek – only his eyes looked familiar. Lily's eyes.

He's in there, a voice hissed in Harry's head. Any moment now, those green eyes will turn red and you'll know he's in there – watching your life, waiting behind your face, ready to steal you back. Harry closed his eyes and shook his head, but the voice continued. What if Dumbledore's right? What if he's just letting you think he's beaten? What if he isn't really? You'll never be free of him – that rash, stupid decision you made didn't give you the freedom everyone thinks you've gained: it chained you for the rest of your life. And everyone who comes near you will be in danger.

"What have I done?" Harry whispered aloud, sliding down the bedpost to sit on the floor with his fingertips pressed to his forehead. He felt the thin lightening-scar stretched against his fingers.

Ron and Hermione had jumped to their feet and came to kneel beside him. "What is? What's wrong?" she asked.

"I can't come to Hogwarts," Harry said, gritting his teeth. "I've been so stupid. It's just too dangerous."

"There's nowhere safer in the world!" Ron snorted.

"I'm too dangerous," he moaned.

He couldn't see them but he knew they were glancing quizzically at each other.

"You mean, because the Death Eaters will come looking for you?" Ron asked.

Harry shook his head, letting his hands fall to his lap. "It's complicated. I was so sure Dumbledore would kick me out as soon as I explained but he hasn't. He's given me a chance to prove everything I said, but what if I'm wrong? I'm going to get someone killed!"

Hermione bit her lip and looked at Ron, her brows knotted nervously. She leaned a little closer to Harry and whispered, "Is it something to do with You-Know-Who coming back?"

Harry raised his head so fast it nearly gave him whiplash. "What do you mean?"

"Neville said," she paused, obviously trying to remember the exact wording, "he said that Dumbledore was grateful to him for delaying You-Know-Who's return for a second time. We figured that means Dumbledore believes he isn't truly gone."

"Yeah," Harry leaned his head against the bedpost. "I think Dumbledore has got the right idea there."

Ron nudged Harry with his foot. "So it's more than that?"

Harry nodded. He could not longer see his face in the mirror but he imagined getting to his feet, looking into the glass once more and finding a bald, snake-nosed reflection glowering back at him. Hermione and Ron had no idea what was waiting inside him. He might lose control one day – he might hurt one of them. Then they'd understand.

"I want to stay here," he said, folding his arms on his knees and resting his chin on them. "But Dumbledore doesn't like the idea. He's right. I was asking too much," a solid lump seemed to be stuck in his throat.

"Look," said Hermione in an exasperated tone. "Dumbledore still said yes, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"And has he ever been wrong in judging someone's character before?"

Harry would have liked to name a few times that Dumbledore had misjudged but he suspected Hermione would disagree with then, so he grunted, "Not much."

"And didn't we stick by you when we found out you were a werewolf?"

"Yes," he said hoarsely.

"And while you're obviously not going to tell us what's so awful, we can assume it's something life-cripplingly awful, can't we?"

Harry nodded mutely.

"But we're still here?" she said with a characteristic I-know-I'm-right look on her face.

"Yeah."

Ron finished for Hermione, "So why the blood hell, when you have two perfectly good friends on your side and the assent of the best Headmaster Hogwarts has ever seen, do you still think you know better than all three of them?"

They were both looking at him with the expressions on their faces of someone who cannot believe how stupid another person can be.

"You should be taking me seriously," he said, but it was all he could do not to smile.

"We do take you seriously, Harry," Hermione said calmly. She and Ron got to their feet, took a hold of his arms on each side and hauled him to his feet. "But it's not as if you aren't serious enough all by yourself. You're going to need us to stop being serious once in a while."

"Come on, mate," Ron shrugged. "Everyone is Britain is going to know your name. Let's get you ready for the rest of your life."

-----------------------------------------------------

Sock drawer empty – check. Desk cleaned – check. Photos packed – check. Weasley mess removed from classroom – check. Essays left for Remus to mark – check.

"I guess I'm ready to go," said Hestia to herself, looking around the office of the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, the office which had belonged to her right up until Lupin had been discharged from the hospital wing the day before. She summoned a stack of books from the corner and began to force them into her suitcase, some of them protesting in shrill voices that literature was to be respected and not abused in this way.

"Shut up," Hestia told the books. To herself, she grumbled, "Why are you so grumpy? You weren't made for this teaching business. Let Remus deal with the kids, he's the one who actually likes the little beasts."

She shut the suitcase, went to the cupboard, realised she had forgotten to pack her good set of robes and had to go back and endure the squealing of the books again while she tried to squeeze the robes in around them. "Maybe now the war is over, someone will finally replace Moody as Minister," she said to herself as she put all her weight onto the lid of the suitcase to try and hold it closed. "Maybe once he's gone Kingsley will get me reappointed as an Auror," she added brightly as the suitcase clicked shut.

Sighing, she slid into the desk chair and stared angrily at the suitcase as if it was the cause of all her unemployment woes. There came a sharp knock on the door.

"It's open," she called.

----------------------------------------------

Sirius came in to find Hestia sitting behind her desk – Lupin's desk, he corrected himself quickly – staring moodily at her bulging suitcase.

"What, did it bite you?" he asked.

She sat upright quickly. "Hello. What?"

"The suitcase. You seem a bit angry with it," she still looked rather confused so he waved away the joke and came to stand over her. "Could you tell me what books Harry needs for third year?" he asked, brandishing the piece of parchment in his hand. "I said I'd go and buy him all his school supplies but I really haven't got a clue what that entails."

"Let me have a look at what you've got so far," Hestia said, taking the list and scanning through it. She gave him a very sarcastic look. "What is this? An owl? A broomstick? What's wrong with the one you've got at Grimmauld Place? He's not going to need a broomstick anyway, unless he's on the house Quidditch team!"

"Well, he will be," Sirius replied confidently.

"Sirius, he needs practical things – school robes. A cauldron. Ink and quills. A new wand," Hestia said condescendingly.

"I was going to get those," Sirius replied defensively. "You write it all down, if you're so clever."

Hestia gave an unintelligible grunt and began to scribble onto the list. He leaned over her shoulder, making vague suggestions of his own, such as, "Why haven't you put anything from Zonko's on there?"

Once she had finished all the basic necessities and started on the schoolbooks, they lapsed into silence but for the scratching of the quill. Sirius was just wondering why this generation had to read twice as many texts as he had when he was in third year when Hestia cleared her throat and said quietly. "Sirius?"

"Yeah?"

"When Harry told you how, er, Neville defeated You-Know-Who – did you think maybe he wasn't quite telling the whole truth?"

Sirius paused, then said, "I know the story he gave us was complete nonsense. I'm not an idiot," he shot her a lop-sided grin which vanished quickly.

"And it doesn't bother you?" Hestia left off writing to look up at him.

He leaned forward and pretended to be reading the booklist while he thought about this. Finally he answered. "He'll tell me when he's ready. The only thing I don't like about the whole business is him being in league with Dumbledore, but I'll get over that."

"It's the same story Dumbledore fed the Daily Prophet, and now Neville Longbottom is getting all the attention. Harry obviously had much more to do with it, don't you think? Shouldn't he get some credit?" She asked crossly.

Sirius shrugged. "He said he's getting enough attention from his fellow students as it is. Hermione and Ron are the only ones who don't turn around in class to stare at him."

"But aren't you curious?" Hestia pressed. "I only ask because I'm dying to know what happened!"

"Then you are too nosy," Sirius said, punching her shoulder. "All that I care about right now is having him back – and having him free. All that matters is that he's still Harry, right?"

"Right," Hestia mumbled, turning back to the list. She scribbled down the name of the charms text book Professor Flitwick taught his third years with and was chewing on the feather of the quill thoughtfully when it suddenly occurred to Sirius that now was the best time to ask her a question he'd been meaning to put to her for some time.

"Hestia," he said, sounding mildly surprised, as if he had just read it off the parchment, "how long have you been in love with me?"

She slowly wrote down the name of a history book and for a moment he thought she was ignoring him, or simply had not heard. Then she replied offhand, "Oh, since we were in school together, you know."

Sirius thought she was joking. "We weren't in school together, were we?"

"Yes we were," she said, still calm and cool as anything. "I was four years below you. I don't think you even knew my name, but after all, who didn't know James Potter and Sirius Black?" she gave a soft laugh. "I wasn't the only girl who lusted after you from afar, of course. But as far as I know I was the only one who decided to train as an Auror because I heard that's what you had done when you left school."

"You what? You became an Auror because of me?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "My parents nearly went through the roof when I told them, they thought it was so dangerous and they wanted me to be a Healer at St Mungo's. I almost took their advice and quit after the first month – but then, of course, after old Flemming died and the war effort went downhill, you started tutoring the first-year Aurors and there was no stopping me."

Hestia was still scratching determinedly at the parchment without raising her head. Sirius stared at her. It had never once occurred to him, in all the years he had worked with her as an Auror, that his friendship with her had been anything other than mutually platonic. "But why didn't you say anything?" he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Would you have believed me? We got on so well as mates working together I didn't see the point in spoiling things. Especially when we all thought we could be dead tomorrow. Although you might have taken the hint when I started dating all your friends," she added, looking up at him at last.

"Remus, Loxley Lovegood, Gideon Prewitt – I just assumed you had terrible taste in men," Sirius said truthfully.

"And after you disappeared with Harry I turned into a veritable spinster," Hestia explained, a little embarrassed. "I kept saying it was just being an Auror that kept me from getting married and popping out a few kids, but I didn't fool myself. You know, Sirius," she said appreciatively, "I used to say to myself that you were a waste of a man. You could have made any woman happy but instead you stole a baby and became a fugitive wanted by both sides of the war. How about that?"

"How about that," he echoed. For a moment or two he looked at her, with her head cocked sideways and the quill trailing carelessly out of her hand. Cautiously, tenderly, he asked, "So, am I still a waste? Or would you be willing to give it a go?"

"I don't have much practise with public romance. I'm a bit of a risky undertaking," she said seriously. "Probably not worth the effort involved."

"So am I, when you think about it," he answered.

Another long minute stretched out while they just looked at each other, smiling like two children leaping off a bridge and laughing at their own foolish daring.

He pointed at the parchment under her hand. "Have you got Harry's Potions books? I'm certainly not going to ask Snape which ones the third-years need."

She scribbled down another two books, picked up the list and held it out to him. "There we go," she said. "I think that's everything."

--------------------------------------------------------

FIN.

A/N: Yeah, I might shed a couple of weeny little tears because it's all over. Thanks so much to all of you who've kept up with the endless creature that is the story of Lost: Answers to Harry. This thing started with two thousand words that never meant to go further than that and now, six months, fifty-nine chapters and over two-hundred and forty-four thousand words later, we wrap it up and say good day. There are a million things I could improve about this fic. For now, I'll just let it be.

LEAVE A REVIEW, guys. Even if you've never reviewed before, let me know you're still reading. Tell me what you liked, what you hated, at what point you first came across the series and how you wish the story had gone. Or just drop a one-liner. I don't mind – I just want to know how many of you there really are.

No, there will not be a sequel. The story beyond here is not one I feel needs telling. I have also in the past mentioned the possibility of redoing the entire series, adding in all the bits that are missing and posting it up in its revised form, either here or on a different fanfic site. I don't know if that's ever likely to happen, unless it happened early 2007. I just have too much real-life work and study this year which has to come first.

However, if you wanted to know when a revised form will be posted, keep Lost: One Godson on your ffn alert list and I will send a message to everyone on that list if I ever do clean up the whole series.

It's been a great ride. It's been exhausting. It's time to kiss Harry goodnight.

Cheers,

Tawa