Disclaimer: Please don't make me repeat this old thing again; it's painful!

Author's Note: Whee, only a week between chapter posts. Not bad, for me. I'm so glad the people that read this enjoyed it. (That bright light you might see keeping you awake, is just me beaming P)

Review Responses:

Beewitt: Yay! Thanks.

SpicySugar: I think the story is getting more understandable... or perhaps you are getting smarter, lol. Thanks a lot for reviewing. D

Keahi Spitfire: I'm sorry! But everyone needed to be sad for that chappie, because it was the Harry!memorial chapter. This one, they aren't all so sad all the time. Er, I don't think. Thank you!

Bex: Puh, I got two reviews from you. That's to make up for the really short one from last chapter, right? P By rights, I shouldn't even be putting this in the update, I should be waking you up and telling you myself... But what are sisters for? (Mwahaha, I made you sad! Take that!) Go huggle the werepuppy.

o.o.o.o

Things They Never Thought To Know

Bill followed the M.L.E.S officer through the front door of number four Privet Drive. The young woman had agreed to let him in for a look, but only after a lot of flirting on his part (he hoped Fluer didn't hear about that). Remus and Mad-Eye were waiting back at Arabella Figg's, because the M.L.E.S officer -- Bill thought her name was Rachel -- hadn't thought she could get away with showing more than one person around the scene.

They passed through the front hall, stepping around the empty white-spark outline of a body at the foot of the stairs. In the living room there was another string of sparks, also outlining nothing but a bit of floor. The second of the two outlines was wider and shorter than the first.

Bill grimaced.

Rachel took him into the kitchen. In front of the sink was another outline, this time with a body inside it. Bill almost took a step back when he saw it.

The woman's body was bloated and grossly discolored. Her blond hair hung limp and tangled around a face that was frozen in a mask of pain. One of her stockings had been pulled down to her foot, revealing the bloody mess that should have been her ankle. The stocking was also soiled, and Bill could just make out what appeared to be twin holes, right in the center of the blood spot.

'Merlin,' he breathed, unable to take his eyes off the ghastly sight.

'Snake bite,' Rachel explained matter-of-factly. 'We don't know what kind, but the cap'n says he's sure it took her a long time to die.'

Bill looked away. 'Where are the other bodies?'

'Oh, we shipped 'em off to Mungo's already,' she said with a shrug. 'First thing, really.'

'They're still alive?' exclaimed Bill, startled. Leaving survivors wasn't the usual thing for the Dark Lord.

'Yeah, if you want to call it that. They-- Hey, where are you going?' she demanded. Bill had brushed roughly past her and was hurrying toward the front door. He didn't answer Rachel as he practically sprinted from the house. He had to tell the rest of the Order about this.

o.o.o.o

'This isn't fair,' grumbled Ginny, slamming her fist into the armrest next to her.

From where she was curled up in the corner of the sofa, Hermione sighed. 'I suppose.'

'Suppose?' Ginny snapped, glaring over at the older girl. 'Don't you think we have a right to know what's going on?'

Across the room, in a chair by the empty fireplace, Ron shook his head. 'Not really. It has nothing to do with us.'

'Nothing to do with us!' repeated his sister furiously. 'It was Harry's relatives they were talking about back there!'

'Yes, Harry's relatives, whom we have nothing to do with.'

Snarling wordlessly, Ginny leapt from the couch and stormed out, leaving Ron and Hermione alone. They sat in the awkward, tension filled silence for several minutes, each trying to pretend that they weren't uncomfortable in the otherwise unoccupied room. Then, while Ron was sneaking a glance at Hermione, he noticed that she was shivering slightly, despite the temperature of the room.

Slowly getting up, he pulled the blanket from the back of his chair and walked over to stand in front of the sofa. She looked up at him nervously, but all he did was drape the blanket over her. He tucked it in gently and took a step backwards, avoiding her eyes.

'Thank you,' she murmured, smiling slightly. After a moment, she added in a barely audible whisper, 'That was sweet.' He blushed deeply, his ears turning red. Cautiously, he moved closer to her and knelt down.

'I'm sorry about earlier, at the memorial,' he apologized quietly. 'I shouldn't have done... what I did.'

She inched up on the armrest, so that she was sitting a little higher. Her eyes were searching his face for something he wasn't sure should be there. 'Why'd you do it?' she asked.

He licked his lips, hesitating. Then, slowly, 'Why do you think I did it?'

'I don't know.' She blinked several times, quickly, as if there was something in her eye, but she didn't look away. 'I'd like... to think...'

He eagerly fixed his blue eyes on her brown ones, feeling something warm building in his chest, something he couldn't or wouldn't name. He prompted her, just a touch too quickly, 'Yes? Go on.'

'I'd like to think... that you did it... because...' She had to stop and lick her lips, but then continued, 'Because, you... wanted to.'

His face broke into a wide, happy smile that somehow made him look older. The warmth inside him was growing, so quickly he thought his chest would burst, until it had swept into his entire body. She was looking at him just as she had that morning, when they were all there was in the world. His heart started racing. He spoke. 'Well, you're right -- that's why I did it.'

She was smiling, too. 'Then do it again.'

For the second time that day, Ron leaned over and kissed Hermione.

o.o.o.o

Ginny was sitting under the window in the room she shared with Hermione, arms wrapped around herself, when she felt an all-too familiar blackness creep over her. She tried to cry out, but the sound was lost as she feel into the silent, crawling dark. Once again, she was no longer herself. She tried, but she could never resist.

The long arm of the Dark Lord was a swift and wicked thing of nightmares.

o.o.o.o

When Tonks got to Headquarters, the first thing she did was go where she knew Molly would be; the kitchen. She needed some tea.

'Tonks, dear!' cried Molly from the stove, as the Auror came in and slouched down at the table. 'You look pale. What's... How's...'

Tonks shook her head to show that she knew nothing. 'I need a cuppa,' she sighed.

'Let me just put the kettle on,' murmured Molly. Tonks nodded to Molly's back. In just a few minutes, Molly was setting a cup of tea in front of the younger witch, and sitting down across from her.

Tonks wearily smiled her thanks, and took a large gulp of the steaming liquid. 'Merlin,' she mumbled, staring into her cup. 'What a god-awful day.'

The kindly woman reached over and patted Tonks's hand gently. Tonks reached to clasp the hand, switching her gaze from the cup to Molly's face.

'How do you do it?' she asked softly, anxiously. 'How do you keep living when you that this is... all every day bring, until it's over?'

Looking at the young, distraught witch in front of her, and seeing something of the girl that she had been all those many years ago, Molly sighed sadly. 'Oh, Tonks.'

'How do you do it?' demanded Tonks, tears welling in her eyes. She was clutching Molly's one hand in both of hers. 'I'm not used to this, Molly. I wasn't close to Sirius and I wasn't close to Harry, but I knew them, and I feel I'm going to burst out crying whenever someone mentions them now. And I wonder, every time something happens, and even when nothing has -- which one is next?'

'Oh Tonks,' Molly repeated, resting her free hand over the other three on the table. 'I worry about that, too. I feel as if it's all I do, worry.'

A tear sliding down her cheek, Tonks whispered, 'How can you handle it?'

'I...' Molly paused. She regarded Tonks with a somewhat critically look. And then, slowly, carefully, she asked, 'Tonks, how would you like to learn to cook?'

o.o.o.o

An old man regarded the twenty-two-year-old wizard across from him at the table in their hotel room. The young fellow was holding his head, sighing to himself every few minutes. He would occasionally glance over at his mentor sadly.

'What should I do now, Cain?' he inquired almost brokenly.

The old man thought, smiled, and said, 'Well, you need some better clothes, I'd say.'

Harry sighed again. 'Very funny,' he snapped. His mentor shrugged. Sitting up straight in his chair, he demanded, 'Couldn't you be serious, please?'

Cain's expression sobered. He, too, straightened. 'I was being serious, lad,' averred the old man, just a hint of amusement coloring the words. 'You can't do what you need in those rags.'

'Rags?' Harry stood and moved to look at his attire in the giant mirror hanging on the far wall. After examining himself critically, he finally grimaced and went back to the table. 'I guess you're right. But they were all I could find at the time.'

'Yeah,' agreed Cain with a snort, 'but you're not sixteen and scrawny anymore, are you?'

Harry shook his head, looking very weary suddenly. 'No. Not for awhile, anyway. How long will-- this-- last, did you say?'

'A few months, I think. You didn't take as long as my brother, so I can't be sure,' the white-haired man explained. The lonely young wizard groaned.

'I wish I'd never agreed to any of this,' whispered Harry, lightly brushing the fingers of one hand against the back of his own neck. Cain made a sympathetic noise but said nothing.

With a frown, Harry left his chair and reached for the cloak laying on the seat beside his.

'All right. Let's go do some shopping, old man.'

o.o.o.o

Dumbledore's head suddenly appeared in the kitchen fireplace. 'Molly?' he called, his face somber.

'Yes?' answered Molly, from where she sat at the kitchen table. She had just been explaining a few things to Tonks about being the unofficial cook for the Order, and a sort of a code she'd developed for reading-into things Dumbledore said when he told her he'd called meetings.

'I've called a meeting of everyone in the Order -- I think perhaps you ought to make a very large pot of tea.' He paused and glanced over his shoulder. Then he added calmly, 'I'll to be there in just a few moments, once some things have been cleared up over here.' He didn't specify where "here" was.

Then his head was gone from Grimmauld Place. Molly hurried from her chair to refill the tea kettle on the stove, while Tonks went (extra-carefully) toward the cabinets, for the cups.

'That sounded bad?' queried Tonks, trying now to judge how the request for tea figured into things.

Molly gave her a half smile, over her shoulder, as she looked for the second kettle. 'If it had just been "a pot of tea", it would have sounded bad. That... sounded very bad.'

o.o.o.o

Harry Potter had just walked out of a top-end Muggle clothing store and was chatting very animatedly with the bit of air just next to his elbow. Except he didn't look much like Harry Potter.

His unruly jet-black hair had been colored a dirty-blond and jelled so that it looked as if it were supposed to be unruly. It also, conveniently, covered his trademark lightning bolt scar. His brilliant emerald green eyes were covered by extremely stylish dark sunglasses; but that didn't really matter because they looked blue today, anyway. As for the rest of him, well... who looks for a scrawny, dead sixteen-year-old wizard in the body of a twenty-plus Muggle, anyway?

Both arms laden with packages, Harry rounded a corner, still talking to nothing. When he found himself in an alley, he paused, and said, 'Come on out for a second, Cain, would you?'

Beside him appeared an bent old man, grinning broadly. 'Fascinating people, female Muggles. What d'you need, lad?'

'Can you take these back to the hotel?' Harry grinned rather ruefully. 'I don't think I could handle my next trip if you're along for the ride.'

'All righty, lad,' Cain laughed. 'Just don't be too long. It makes me nervous when you're out on your own.'

'Afraid I'm going to run away?' joked Harry idly, passing the things from his arms to the old man's. Cain fixed him with a piercing look.

'Yes, I am,' muttered Cain, just before he disappeared again.

Harry snorted. Shaking his head at his mentor, he turned his feet toward Diagon Alley, where he had to buy what Cain had dubbed "spy clothes". And that did seem to be what the old man was turning him into...

Once he got to Diagon Alley, he went straight to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. He was so relieved to see it was virtually empty, that he didn't even need to fake the smile he threw at the pretty young witch behind the counter. She smiled back immediately.

'Good afternoon,' she called in a too-pleasant voice. 'How may I help you?'

For a second Harry couldn't remember the list that he and Cain had spent so long coming up with, but then it -- thankfully -- came crashing back. Harry tried not to drop it 'round his ankles. 'Hullo,' he said, now having to work to keep his engaging smile in place. 'I'm afraid I've got rather a lot of things I've been sent to get...'

'Oh, order size is never a problem,' the girl assured him. Her eyes were busy raking up and down Harry in such a way as suggested that she didn't think his size was a problem, either.

'Oh, good.' He winked at her, as if he thought he was being sly. She blushed, and he cringed internally. 'Then I suppose I'll start with... Oh...' He waved vaguely in the direction of a rack of fancy robes for men that looked to be his size. 'That gray set over there, while I try to remember what else she told me to get.'

Glancing quickly at him from the corner of her eye, the saleswitch waved her wand at the robes. They floated over into a dressing room, and Harry followed them. He barely managed to shut the door before he rolled his eyes at his own performance.

He hated flirting, but Cain insisted that it would keep a salesgirl's mind off whatever he bought, and on him. Which was somehow good. Harry didn't understand it, really. But it was Cain, so he did as he was told.

'She?' inquired the girl, in a tone that would have been casual if she hadn't looked at him so sharply just before. 'The girlfriend send you out today, eh?'

'Nah, not girlfriend, haven't got one. It's my mother,' explained Harry, trying on the robes he'd randomly selected. 'I got back from overseas just a few days ago, and all of a sudden she thinks I don't know how to dress myself anymore. Bloody Mum, honestly.' He stepped out and smiled at her just as charmingly as he had before. 'It's what I get for spending time with the family over holidays.'

Looking relieved, the girl giggled. Thankfully, she'd already stopped listening to what he was saying, as he rambled on. 'Oh, that won't do at all, you need something darker. Hang on, now, I'll just go find...'

Harry was very glad to make it out of the store an hour and a half later, with everything Cain had instructed him to get packed away nicely in the bags hanging from his arms. He left Diagon Alley by way of the Leaky Cauldron, walked several blocks until he found the dead-end alley he was looking for, and Apparated directly to his hotel room.

Making a face at Cain, Harry threw the bags onto the table and stalked to the other side of the room.

'What's bothering you, lad?' Cain asked, as he leaned over to inspect Harry's purchases. He seemed quite pleased with everything, and didn't have a single complaint to make.

'Ugh,' whined Harry, flinging himself onto the couch. 'Chatting up real girls is even harder than chatting up you pretending to be a girl. Which was damn hard, trust me.'

Cain laughed at his charge.

o.o.o.o

'They're raving about him in the papers again,' the young witch remarked to her companion. She flipped a few pages and then, finding nothing else worth looking at, idly tossed the newspaper she'd been reading onto the seat to her right. 'Two stories in today's Prophets, one in each edition, and an article in Witch Weekly.'

The blond male whom she was speaking to made a face without looking up from the book he was pretending to read. 'He's bloody dead,' complained the equally young wizard.

'They've noticed that,' the girl assured him. She flipped over her wrist to look at her watch. 'Your parents were supposed to be back soon, weren't they?'

'Yeah.' The young man shrugged. 'But tell me, how many stories were there about the Dark Lord?'

'One, directly,' answered the girl, her voice dropping reverently as she spoke about the forbidden subject. 'And that came after Potter's front page memorial service coverage.'

The blond wizard threw down his book and surged to his feet, standing before his chair indecisively for a moment. Then he walked a few paces to the sofa the witch was seating on and, brushing the papers to the floor, lay down and put his head rather proprietarily in her lap. She giggled.

'What about today's attack?' he snapped. Just because he hated Potter too much to read the papers himself didn't mean he wasn't keeping up with everything.

'What about it?' she asked, her fingers playing with the fine blond locks of his long hair.

He tried not to roll his eyes at her too much. 'Do they talk about it?'

'Oh.' She nodded and smiled, coyly. 'Yes, they do.'

'Well?' he demanded, closing his eyes and attempting to relax into her gentle ministrations. 'When do they talk about it?'

'On the third page of the Evening Prophet -- as an addendum to the in-depth story about Potter's memorial,' murmured the witch helpfully, swinging her legs up from the floor onto the plush sofa and curling them under her slightly. This disturbed the wizard's head; he opened his eyes to send her a glare, but she kept talking. 'The actual words devoted to the attack barely cover half the available page. It's all squeezed in between the adverts for hair potion and --'

'It doesn't matter what the ads were for, luv,' he interrupted her, his cool eyes closed again. 'What matters is that it was between a couple of advertisments. The Dark Lord's going to be mad about that.'

'I suppose,' she agreed without really thinking about it. 'But what can he do about it?'

'He could start by not picking days when he knows the media will be otherwise engaged with taking down the story of the century, that's what,' hissed the young wizard, looking offended on behalf of all the people the Dark Lord was cheating from a good attack-story. 'I would have known better than to do that. I could have told him to wait, or do it sooner.'

The girl stroked his head in silence for a few moments, apparently rather uncomfortable with that kind of talk. After all, one didn't want to incite the wrath of the Dark Lord -- and one never knew when he could be listening.

'I suppose,' she repeated vaguely, not really paying attention to what she said, just trying to redirect the conversation. 'Say, did you get your letter yet?'

The wizard cracked open one eye and looked at her blankly. After searching his brain, he seemed to understand her, and closed it again. 'Yeah, I got mine,' he answered. 'Did you get yours?'

'Yeah.' Her fingers stilled in his hair, her hand cradling the crown of his head lovingly. 'I'll be heading to Diagon Alley in a couple of days, actually. You want to come?'

He smiled, looking unabashedly childish, in contrast to the put-on maturity he'd been displaying heretofore. 'Sure.'

o.o.o.o

'As far as we have been able to discover, there was only one Death Eater involved in the attack on Harry's relatives -- from the neighbors' description of her, Bellatrix Lestrange.' Dumbledore paused, and his eyes scanned the inhabitants of the large kitchen. 'We know she had Voldemort's snake with her, because that was what killed Petunia Dursley.'

Severus Snape sat several seats away from the Hogwarts Headmaster, looking fixedly at the table in front of him and listening with half an ear. He already knew everything Albus was saying, about not knowing why the attack had been planned, or why Vernon and Dudley Dursley had been left alive. Most of it was information that had come from him, so he didn't really need to hear Albus repeating it.

But the words that he'd already said once that evening -- for it was evening by then -- made him think of all the questions he had been able to answer.

And all the questions he never wanted to answer.

Ever.

o.o.o.o

'Reg?' began Sirius, glancing sideways at his brother as the walked. It felt like minutes or weeks or years since he'd fallen through the Veil, since he'd started his journey alongside Regulus. And yet the scenery hadn't changed, at all.

'Mm?' was the other Black's response, spoken as he trudged along listlessly from one outcropping of rock to the next silly little ravine.

(Sirius really did disapprove of the decor here in Death.)

'How did you die? Exactly?' Sirius asked tentatively. He'd been thinking of this ever since he'd seen his brother's shade, wondering it as they ambled along together. It was such a silly thing to be preoccupied with, except they were in Death, the two of them, and only Regulus was really dead at all. But Sirius didn't even know how that had happened.

He hadn't ever known who to blame for his kid brother's death, though he'd certainly taken a lot of vindictive joy in blaming it on their mother. In his mind she had deserved it, along with their father, for corrupting someone who could have been a very sweet, caring and normal person. For essentially turning Regulus into, well, a Black.

'Oh. Well. Bella killed me,' answered Regulus matter-of-factly, as if stating that the sky was blue -- though, in Death, the sky was gray. Sirius had to stop walking to gape at his brother, and Regulus went on a good few paces before realising that Sirius wasn't with him. He blinked awkwardly at the man, 'What?'

'Bella killed you?' repeated Sirius, voice low and disbelieving. 'Our Bella? Trixie?'

'Yeah, that one.' Regulus nodded. He made as if to start walking again, but Sirius still wasn't following. '... Sirius? What is it?'

Sirius reached out blindly for his brother, voice choking angrily as he demanded, 'Our cousin killed you?'

'Well, yeah.' Regulus shrugged, having had lots of time to get used to this fact, in the many years that he'd been dead. 'She killed you, didn't she?'

'Tried to kill me,' Sirius corrected, his hands closing on nothing. He didn't seem to notice. 'I'm not dead. Remember?'

'Oh. Right.'

o.o.o.o

'I don't have to go through that again, do I?' Harry demanded, on his back on the couch, looking around for something to occupy his mind. There was a newspaper on the table by the door, and he summoned it with a tiny flick of his hand.

'No,' declared Cain, picking up the clothing bags and carrying them over to the wardrobe. He sounded extremely amused. 'No more flirting with attractive young saleswitches unless you want to, I promise.'

Harry glared at old man's back as he unfolded the paper. 'It's not that I don't like the saleswitches, it's just that I can't -- HEY!'

The young wizard sprang from the couch as if burned, his eyes fastened on the newspaper, indignation burning in the green depths.

'What is it?' called Cain, his head buried in the wardrobe where he was magically expanding the insides to fit all of Harry's purchases.

'Have you read this? They killed Petunia!' exclaimed Harry, reaching for his cloak almost absentmindedly. 'The dirty bastard! He's just mean, mean-spirited, mean--'

Cain interrupted the man's ranting with a sudden hand on the strong young shoulder. 'Where do you think you're going, Harry?' he asked in a quiet, even voice, calculated to break through all of Harry's irritation with Voldemort.

Dark blue eyes hooded, Cain looked at him coolly. The man's bald head gleamed as oddly as it had the night they'd met, six years ago in Harry's mind. His jaw tightened rebelliously, but he respected the authority of his teacher. The cloak fell from the young man's hand.

'I--' began Harry, but he didn't let himself finish. Instead he caught whatever words he was going to speak and sidelined them, saying the flat and obedient, 'Nowhere. I was staying right here, master.'

'Good.'

o.o.o.o

With all the excitement, it was well after 11pm before Molly even noticed that Ron and Ginny's Hogwarts letters had arrived, and Hermione's too for some reason. They'd been sitting on the table in the living room almost all day she realised, fingering the thick parchment as she stood alone in the darkened room.

And then she wondered why Ron and Hermione hadn't spotted the letters earlier; the two teens at spent nearly all afternoon in the room... alone.

Ah, well. That would explain it.

Molly wasn't as old as people liked to think she was.

She still remembered what it was like to be a teenager.

Oh, yes, she remembered.

Smiling to herself, Molly Weasley went off to find her husband and drag him up to bed, as he had to be up early the next morning and it was highly important that he got a good night's sleep.