Chapter 15

Together Again

(alternate title- Questions and Answers)

Raven made to get up from the bed, but Dumbledore put a hand on her shoulder

to stop her.

"Raven, I must insist that you stay here," he said. Raven could not believe her

ears. These were her friends they were talking about. She had not seen them for days

because they had been kidnapped and he had the nerve to tell her what to do! Why did

she have to listen to him anyway?

Dumbledore seemed to know what she was thinking. He lowered his voice to a calming level, looked Raven in the eyes, and he said, "I promise to bring them here as soon as possible. I just need to make sure this isn't a trick." Raven nodded reluctantly in agreement. "Plus," he added in a louder and more cheery voice, "Madam Pomfrey will have my head if I let you out of bed." With that the man began walking swiftly from the room with Raven's amethyst eyes following his exit, surprised at herself for actually following his orders. The red-headed girl, limped out slowly after clutching a stitch in her side, with one last glance at Raven before she closed the door behind her.

The bed-ridden Teen Titan sat up on her bed and put her legs over the side, but remained sitting, rather impatiently, as timed seemed to slow. It felt like hours, even days before she heard approaching footsteps coming up the adjoining corridor. All of the sudden Raven noticed her pounding heartbeat, sweaty palms, and her loud breathing. Why in hell was she so nervous? Was it because she was afraid that it had been all a trick? Or that her friends might even blame her for what happened? As her doubts surrounded her, time seemed to speed up, passing its normal rate and doubling. Before Raven even could suppress her negative thoughts the door at the end of the room opened and it was the best sight she had seen in a long time.

Before she realized what was happening, Raven was lifted off the ground into one of Starfire's infamous backbreaking hugs. "Friend Raven! How have you been? Are you well? Where have you been?"

Before Raven could answer even one of these questions, she heard a familiar voice say, "Let her breath, Star." Starfire let go and backed away a little absolutely beaming to reveal the speaker, Robin. He had a light grin on his face as they shook hands. "How are you?"

"I'm-, " Raven cut off. She was going to say 'I'm fine,' but somehow that did not seem right. Fine was a word people used all the time, it was so mundane, common-place, meaningless.

"Raven?" She was brought back to reality by Robin's inquisitive, slightly worried tone.

Raven looked him in the eye (or more like in the mask) and with a small, yet sincere smile she said, "I'm great." And she was. In fact, Raven was in such a good mood at that moment that she gave Cyborg a high five, which normally is a very rare occasion, and, if truth be told, had never happened before in her life. Out of all her greetings, Beast Boy was last.

He was standing oddly subdued at the back of the group. She approached him and they meet each others eyes, she gave him a rare grin before saying in a whisper to him, "Good job."

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Madam Pomfrey was rather put back when she discovered the discord in her infirmary and had a good time scolding Dumbledore, who had watched the reunion from the doorway. A few minutes later she had gotten Raven back into bed and checked the others for any injury. Starfire was now sitting on the foot of Raven's bed, Beast Boy and Cyborg were sitting on the bed next to them, and Robin was on a wooden chair between the two and they were taking turns retelling their side of the story.

Beast Boy had now picked up again and as exuberantly describing their journey threw the forest to the school.

"When we reached the forest's end all we saw was this giant castle, but it looked all rundown and it was in ruins," Raven had to control herself from saying that they were pretty much the same thing, "And it had all these old wood signs saying like, 'ENTER AT YOUR OUR OWN RISK,'" continued Beast Boy. He went on telling her about how the went to sleep right about them with a slightly guilty look on his face and then how in the morning when they went out to look for her they found a whole group of kids at the edge of the forest by this hut with a 'giant.' "I mean he had to be like eight feet tall or something," said Beast Boy now standing up, on his tippy-toes, reaching his hand above his head for emphasis.

Around here Raven zoned out. Maybe it was from being tired, or all the excitement of the day, or the story was just not that interesting, but Raven knew it was something else. She looked at each of her friends in turn. Star was at the end of her bed, leaning back on her hands, looking genially interested in what Beast Boy was saying. Cyborg looked simply amused, while Robin seemed exasperated, yet that did not seem to matter at all. The good thing, no, the great thing, was they were all here, all together, and safe no matter how weird here was at the moment. It was strange, because Raven remembered a time when she did not appreciate all these people were around for her. There were times when she frankly hated it inside, but now she could not remember how it felt to hate their presence and all of their unique personalities.

Raven's eyes fell back on Beast Boy as he finished his recounting of the story with Dumbledore coming down and tapping each of their heads in turn with a 'stick' and how the castle changed into a beautiful building.

Their really unique personalities…

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The newly reunited group had a good time for a good part of the day. Raven remembered when Madam Pomfrey waved her wand and created a lunch of sandwiches for the teens, getting pure looks of amazement from four of the five to Raven's amusement, though she hide it. She had to say they were still a little shell shocked from the magic thing, but it was okay.

After lunch, Beast Boy conjured a deck of playing cards out of nowhere and attempted to impress everybody with some slight of hand, and only ended up amazing Starfire and the only good trick was where he got the cards in the first place. They spent the rest of the afternoon playing cards games which were really only fun to Raven because of Cyborg's and Beast Boy's over-determination to beat each other and Star's total confusion.

Dumbledore came along again that evening to check up on them and to conjure them dinner. As he was about to exit Raven stood up and followed him a little way from her friends, "Uh-Sir?" she asked not sure what to call him.

He turned around to face her, apparently not surprised at all, "Yes?"

"May I ask you a few questions?" Raven did not know why she was feeling such a need to be extra polite to this man, but his demeanor just seemed to demand respect.

"Of course you may, but I dare say you already asked one." (So I stole it from the Sorcerer's Stone, so what?)

Raven was taken back for a second then asked, "I just wanted to know how do you know you can trust me? I mean…"

"You mean that you didn't make a very good first impression," he said seeming to think her question was slightly humorous. "I have several reasons. Firstly, let's just say I am an extremely excellent judge of character," his eyes sparkled as though he was hinting at something much bigger, that Raven could not possibly fathom. "I pretty much know when people are lying to me. Second, and maybe more importantly, so I trust you not to repeat it, I have a …let us say a spy."

Raven nodded solemnly.

"Anything else?"

"Yes…," Raven had wanted to know this since her friends had been kidnapped, and she thought she knew the answer, she just needed it confirmed, "Why me? Why did –Voldemort want me?"

Dumbledore raised as bushy eyebrow, "I believed you would have figured it out by now."

"I have an idea…" returned Raven a little defensively.

"You are probably right. See, your brand of magic and our kind is different. Usually when different kinds meet, though most wizards naively deny that their other kinds, either do not effect each other at all, or cancel each other out, but it seems when our brand comes into contact with our brand it is canceled out, while yours stays, because it is dominant. Is that what you were thinking?"

Raven answered monotonously, "More or less."

The elderly wizard turned to leave when Ravens stopped him one last time, "Wait, one more thing?"

"Of course," he sad inquisitively as though he had predetermined what her other questions had been and this one came as a surprise.

Raven started a bit reluctantly, she had not been planning on asking this and she already regretted it, "Voldemort kept referring to himself as T.M.R. and said that is who he used to be. Do you know anything about it? I know it is not relevant, I was just curious…" Raven was feeling a bit stupid.

"Oh, Tom," Dumbledore said shaking his head more to himself than to Raven, before snapping back to the present. "T.M.R. You see, Tom Marvolo Riddle was what Voldemort used to be called. He has long changed from that…Is that all?"

"Oh, yes," said Raven who was mulling over this new information. Dumbledore turned and left the room. Raven went back to her bed and enjoyed a dinner with her friends.