Chapter 11 - Corban Yaxley

"LIZ!" Hermione shrieked. Lizzie blinked into focus and sat up. Her ears rang loud over the sound of the train rushing by which muffled the noise of Ron yelling in immense pain.

"My bag! The dittany!" Hermione sobbed while she tended to a badly bleeding Ron on the leaf littered floor of the forest clearing. Lizzie took a moment to register the situation, looked down at her arm where she felt a laxed grip, and screamed at the sight of a mangled, disembodied hand clutching her wrist. She peeled it off, trembling violently in shock.

"LIZZIE, NOW!" Hermione screamed at the absolute top of her lungs. Lizzie scooped up the beaded bag and summoned the bottle of dittany. She crawled toward Hermione and handed it to her as Hermione feverishly tended to Ron. Ron had both his hands, but his arm at his rotator cuff was severely disjointed and torn.

"What did you do?!" Hermione yelled in panic. Lizzie blinked quickly, trying to remember.

"Yaxley had h-hold... He saw the house number, I moved us here, but -" Lizzie said frantically and then the hand suddenly made sense. She whipped her head around and saw Yaxley on the ground several yards away. He was speechless with his mouth gaped open in a sort of shock. He was missing a hand and part of his left leg. Lizzie saw his existing hand clutch a wound at his abdomen near his ribs which was bleeding through his robes. Lizzie looked at Ron curling up in a ball in pain as the bleeding ceased, but the horror of the splinching set in. Her heart thudded violently against the back of her chest in anger until it was all she heard while she walked up to Yaxley's sprawled and mutilated body and towered over him.

"You..." he muttered through gritted teeth, obviously in an exorbitant amount of pain.

Lizzie dropped the hand by his head and glared reproachfully. She noticed his wand on the ground about a yard from him and picked it up. He was now trembling in rage and Lizzie thought he might combust if she prodded just a little longer.

Lizzie held his wand above his head almost tauntingly and a wave of sick pleasure rushed through her skin. "Can't call him, can you?" She asked in the most demeaning way she could muster. His right hand was gone, his wand in hers, the dark mark on his left forearm useless without either. He glared at her with a look that could set the trees ablaze.

She took the wand in both hands and snapped it in half, tossing the shards aside into the tree branches. "You, bitch!" He spat. Hermione's head snapped up and she hurried over with wide eyes fixed on Yaxley's dismembered body. The train continued to rush by, seemingly endless as the caboose was surely still on the other side of the horizon line.

"Lizzie... my God," Hermione whispered in disbelief. "I can't mend splinches like this, his leg must be at..." she said but Lizzie held up a hand to silence her.

"Why bother?" Lizzie hissed. "Corban Yaxley..." she said, and then crouched down close to him.

"We can mend the bleeding if you cooperate with us," she whispered.

"Liz!" Hermione hissed and he laughed.

"No, ok, try again, how many death eaters are at Hogwarts aside from Snape and the Carrows?" Lizzie asked. He smirked slightly as his lips continued to tremble in anger.

"More than a brat like you could manage," he muttered. Lizzie hit him hard in the face with the side of her fist.

"Are there dementors at Hogwarts?" She asked. He laughed in a way that answered her question, it sounded almost deranged.

"Is Snape his right hand?" She asked, holding up his disembodied hand to mock his predicament. He glared back with intense reproach.

"Don't tell me you still don't trust Severus Snape? We just might have that in common," Lizzie asked with a bit of chuckle at the absurdity.

"See, Yaxley, I can read you, I know when you're lying, and I know when you're omitting. So just save yourself the trouble... Is he still using Malfoy Manor?" She asked. He shook his head a micrometer, but Lizzie could read otherwise.

"Who gave our whereabouts away the night Mad Eye died?" She asked. He glared more maliciously, and Lizzie had a rush of suppressed anger. She grabbed his collar and dragged his body toward the tracks. Between each train car was a enough space to toss him, but she couldn't lift his body completely off the ground, so she held him by the throat collar of his shirt close enough to send his head and shoulders into the tracks by simply letting go. His left hand clenched tight at her forearm in desperation.

"Who?" Lizzie asked furiously. Fear had now broken down his concentration and Snape came into focus. "Who was Snape's informant?" She asked.

"He didn't - say," Yaxley stammered. "Someone - in - the Order," he added. Mundungus, but she had thought as much.

"Has your flock killed any other Order members?' Lizzie growled. He didn't respond.

Lizzie disapparated with him in hand and they reappeared in an open train car on the moving freight. She dropped him to the steel floor and he groaned in pain as she sat down on a stack of wooden crates and sprawled her arm across the back of a taller stack behind her to stare down at him.

"We obliviated Dolohov and Thorfin, but they were still tortured. I have very little desire to actually kill you though... some ...but not enough..." she said, then moved closer to him to at a minimum stop the bleeding.

"What you're going to do, whenever you find your way back, if you survive his raging fury... is show absolutely no indication of disloyalty to your master, but discretely remove the tracking on the Weasley Family, release Dirk Creswell from prison, and none of your people are to go near known Order members. I can't stop you all from responding to an overt attack, but attacks will not be initiated by you, not under your authority at the ministry because I know damn well you couldn't stop him," she said. He laughed in a way that sounded like a cough.

"Why makes you think -" he started to say.

"Obliviate," Lizzie muttered, and his face went blank and confused as he blinked back into present focus. He no longer registered who she was since he'd forgotten the events that led him to the realization. He was perplexed by where they were and then shrieked in horror to freshly discover his mutilated condition. He reached for a wand with his left hand that wasn't there, and for a grown man, he looked completely disheveled.

"Imperio," she whispered. She gave him the instructions again silently and then disapparated back to the clearing.

"Where is he?" Hermione asked as Lizzie watched the train depart into the distance.

"Wherever that's headed," Lizzie said bitterly. Hermione stared at her with saucer eyes. "I didn't kill him. I mended the bleeding... obliviated him... and put him under an imperius," she said.

"He'll be killed the second an imperius is suspected. You know he'll be able to tell," she said.

"That's sort of the point. He doesn't remember enough to say anything unless they can reverse the charm. I could care less if he gets killed. I just didn't want to do it. Buys time for the Order to sink further into hiding. I don't want Tonks..." Lizzie trailed off. The thought of a pregnant Tonks, Remus or no Remus, being tortured made her insides writhe in pain.

Hermione looked exasperated while Lizzie got down next to Ron and inspected the injury. "I'm so sorry," she said quietly and pressed her forehead into the side of his. He lifted his other arm weakly to pat her shoulder. Hermione crouched down next to her while Lizzie pulled off the scarf sash and helped get his arm slung in it comfortably.

"I think Yaxley got into the Fidelius at Grimmauld. He won't remember, but if it gets tortured out of him... I just don't think we should risk it. I can go back and try to collect anything while we have time..." Lizzie suggested.

"No, I got the essentials already..." Hermione said.

"I left notes on Estrella, the stack of Regulus's stuff on the locket is on his dresser, it's easy to find and if he finds out we aren't just on the run..." Lizzie said.

"Well, he'll know that much, why else would we break into the ministry?" Hermione reasoned.

"He won't know why exactly though... but if he goes and puts the remaining horcruxes further into hiding..." Lizzie retorted. Hermione grimaced.

"Where are we?" She asked. Lizzie clenched her jaw.

"Outskirts of Little Whinging, but - oh don't look like that! This forest cluster is deserted. The school I went to is not far up the hill. I thought we could check..." Lizzie reasoned.

"Why would a horcrux be there?" Hermione asked sharply. She had never liked this theory.

"I don't know. I just want to check. I need to check. There's so much I don't recall correctly, so much I wasn't fully present for. I would have been fair game any time I left that house. If him or a follower tasked with it managed to manipulate any of those clergy members into hiding one there, even me potentially... I just have a feeling it will help point the way. Both Melody and Katie died there, and both were related to victims of Riddle..." Lizzie explained. Hermione bit her lip nervously.

"They'll stake out anywhere connected with you," she reminded her. Lizzie nodded.

"I have a rough plan. Let's get Ron into the woods here and conjure enchantments. We can go tomorrow or the next day once he's feeling better..." she said.

"You got the locket, right?" Lizzie asked. Hermione pulled it out from under her neck. Her hands were trembling uncontrollably, and Lizzie clasped hers around them to steady.

They got Ron situated and the tent Arthur loaned Hermione fixed for occupancy. They were surrounded by protective enchantments.

"I'm going to Grimmauld before Yaxley has any time to do anything. I need to order Kreacher not to spill secrets and grab those notes at the very least, I'll be back in less than a half hour, alright?" Lizzie said but Hermione was uneasy. She handed Lizzie the cloak and conceded that the endeavor was necessary to ensure at the very least that Kreacher couldn't spill secrets, so Lizzie left.

Kreacher had already made steak and kidney pie and Lizzie felt a sharp pang of guilt when she told him she needed to leave, and then ordered him not to say anything to anyone about what they discussed while they were here.

On her way out of Regulus's bedroom, she heard a click at the door and the howl from the jinx downstairs. Lizzie retreated on tip toe back into the room and tossed the cloak over herself. There was only one set of footsteps. Had Yaxley managed to tell Voldemort and he'd sent anyone, which she highly doubted he would have been capable of so quickly, there would be more, Lizzie reasoned. Her immediate suspicion about someone else was confirmed when Snape entered the room. Her blood shot to high boil. Was it Yaxley, news of the ministry, or Finius divulging to the new headmaster that his portrait here at the old headquarters was taken? Lizzie pondered silently. The look on Snape's face told her that he knew someone was in the room, more so that he knew she was in the room. So then summon the cloak, she thought, hoping he'd pick up the wavelength. His face flashed with slight recognition, but he didn't take the bait. There was a part of her that wanted to confront him more than anything. She looked like herself again, he'd never known she learned to transfigure her appearance and even though she was far from having full range capabilities of doing so, she still thought best to keep that in the dark. He was a legilimens, after all, and probably the last person she could hide from with such superficial methods. He knew her better than most having spent so much time in her head, as much as she hated to admit it.

"I didn't think you quite this foolish," he whispered in the silent room. Lizzie had a hand over her mouth and nose to stifle her breaths as he got astonishingly close to her hiding place. He paced from the door to the window while she lowered herself to the ground and tried to slip under the bed unnoticed. To her he seemed especially agitated. She could now see only his feet patrolling the perimeter but no suitable means of making it to the door silently.

"I'll warn you now that exposure like today will get you killed, if you are... fortunate. The ministry will hold a trial for public record and support, but you will be delivered to him. He will not show mercy, he may not send you... how do you put it...home? Either... merely reduced to a miserable state of existence for viewing pleasure... He won't kill you until he's extracted every possible ounce of agony..." Lizzie pointed her wand toward the gap between the bedframe and the floor and shot a curse to bind his ankles in a lock. When he toppled backward into the armoire, she scrambled from under the bed, clutched the cloak over her, and lunged for the door. He shot it closed and summoned the cloak which she caught and yanked hard to release before bolting into the hall and down the stairs. She missed a spell that crashed into a painting in the stairwell and another that hit and shattered a vase as she bolted for the hallway with him close in tow.

Lizzie hit the floor of the hallway and crashed into the trolls foot in the process. She feverishly pulled herself to her feet, and darted toward the front door to apparate. Snape seized the back of her shirt and then her wrist when he spun her around, but stopped dead in his tracks for half a moment when she looked back at him. "Will he torture you like he did the others when you don't deliver me? Don't pretend like you're going to... Or does he not know you're here?" Lizzie asked with a sinister stare. She couldn't read him but didn't expect to. Then, with a twinge of hope, she eyeballed Kreacher in the drawing room peering around the corner and gave him a tiny nod with her eyes.

"Where's Yaxley?" Snape hissed.

"He could use a hand," she whispered with contempt. He let go of her wrist and reached for something in his cloak. Lizzie took a step back, held an open palm out to her side, felt a smaller one in her grip, and disapparated immediately, leaving Snape to clutch at air when he lunged forward to grab her.

She and Kreacher stood on the cliffside she recognized and the memory made her shudder. "Kreacher, don't tell anyone where you took me. Go back or go somewhere safe, it's up to you. We won't be back at Grimmauld Place," she said.

"Did mistress find the locket?" He asked with an edge of hope.

"Yes, but don't repeat that to anyone..." she said quietly. Kreacher nodded, and with a crack, he was gone.

Lizzie and Hermione spent two hours attempting to destroy the locket while Ron sat against a tree trunk and watched in dismay, still halfway delirious from the immense blood loss.

After three rebounded curses, Lizzie was done trying. Her skin was synched from a rebounded fire charm, she took a sharp cut to the face from a ricochet when she used a severing charm, and was kicked backward to the ground with a swift blow to the chest from a bombarda curse. Hermione was still shaken by Lizzie's recap of the encounter with Snape.

"I think we need to open it, but nothing I do will get it to budge," Hermione said after a half hour of prodding it on the kitchen table. Lizzie took it and stared at the serpentine symbol. It was cold no matter how hard she clenched her hand around it, and it seemed to beat furiously like a heart full of combative adrenaline. She slipped it over her neck and resigned to sleep. There was nothing they could do, and they were utterly exhausted.

In a restless dream, Lizzie was walking alone through a cobblestone alley in a hurry. She was holding something in her left hand and felt an urgent need to hide it. No matter how hard she tried to open her hand, it stayed closed around the object. Her opposing fingers couldn't pry the clenched ones free and she found herself crying and begging with herself to give something back.

In a sudden haze, she found herself in Petunia's kitchen, nearly pitch black while she looked through the pantry for something, arm outstretched in blind search. There was a small cardboard box that once housed a set of tiny tin cans of sardines and she dropped her small item into it before hiding it at the far back of pantry. The light switched on behind her and Lizzie froze.

"Stealing... food?" Vernon asked. Lizzie was rigid but shook her head both to deny the accusation and in fret because she had no explanation.

"Were you outside?" He asked. There were dirty footprints on the floor, and he frowned at them as they traced a path back to the back door.

Lizzie shook her head again. Her hand was covered in blood, and she tried to wipe it away on the hem of her dress. "It's late," he said with a clenched jaw and crouched down to be eye level with her. "You need to tell me what you've been doing," he said. Lizzie was silent.

"Ten" he said, holding up an index finger. She knew this was a count and that it doubled with every pang of his impatience.

"I wasn't doing anything, I just..." she whispered.

"Twenty," he said, holding up two fingers and glaring.

Lizzie decided to lie, an incriminating lie, but less so than what she was doing. She didn't remember exactly what she was doing to tell him.

"I can change twenty strokes to twenty minutes if you don't answer me, Azalea," he warned and Lizzie swallowed, knowing how bad he could make those twenty minutes.

"I was hungry," she whispered. He raised his eyebrows and looked down at the floor between his knees with a loud exhale.

"What did you take?" He asked.

"Nothing," she said truthfully. He looked around as though examining the pantry for evidence she was lying.

"What were you doing outside?" He asked. She didn't know the answer to that.

"Sleep walking... woke up by the flower bed," she fabricated in a small voice. He was still squatting down at eye level with her but got up and paced. She decided to make things ever so slightly better for herself and walk toward the hallway between the kitchen and the garage, where the coats, work bag, hats, and a belt hung ready for him to grab before leaving for work in the morning. Lizzie lifted the belt from the hook with a shaking hand and carried it back into the kitchen. He scoffed at her when he saw the pathetic gesture and gave a mean up-down flick with eyes she was familiar with the meaning of as well.

Lizzie opened her eyes when he took the strap from her and folded it in half. The sound of metal buckle jolted her awake and she stared up at the canvas of the tent.

"The house," she whispered, knowing in her bones to go back to Number 4, but she didn't know where she had come from in that dream, the school, the church? She racked her brain, but nothing surfaced.

Lizzie made coffee the following morning and rummaged through the beaded bag long enough to find the advanced potion making book, one without the Prince's annotations, and ingredients for an aging potion.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" Ron asked, dragging his feet into the kitchen and sitting down.

"Aging potion," Lizzie said. Her stomach growled loud enough to scare away the birds from a nearby tree.

"Same," Ron sighed. "We haven't really got anything because we thought we'd be back at Grimmauld Place..."

"Oh... and Fred and George already made us a batch of that. Said they thought it might come in handy if you need to disguise yourself that way," he added.

"Bloody brilliant those two imbeciles are, God bless them," she said. "How's your arm?" She asked.

"Hurts, but it's better," he said, removing the improvised sling and trying to extend his arm forward with a grimace of pain.

"I'm sorry..." she said sadly.

"More concerned about food, actually," he said halfheartedly.

Hermione sat down at the table. "Slept that bad, did you?" Lizzie asked. Hermione groaned in response and Lizzie passed a cup of coffee.

"What's this all for?" She asked.

"I want to check the school, the church, the graveyard, and the... the house..." she said, adding the last part quickly. The horcrux twitched on her neck and sent a sharp pain down her face she didn't expect.

"You're not going to that house," Hermione said firmly.

"Listen, been thinking about this all morning... the things we have in common... the graveyard and the church just make sense if you consider what he did to Nora, and we're looking for whatever that particular horcrux was, right?" Lizzie asked. "The house and the school sort of comprise what he experienced at that orphanage if you look at them together...the dynamics of the living situation closest to that of Hepzibah and her niece, and we're looking for that horcrux too. I just think it will at least yield clues or insight even if we don't find an actual object..." she added.

"I'm guessing you have a plan to search these undetected?" Hermione asked a little hotly. Lizzie smirked a little.

"We go to mass as a family..." she explained. "A family interested in the church, see? One that just moved here..."

"Family of three siblings?" Ron asked.

"No," Lizzie said flatly, eyeballing a measurement of aging potion into a vile, stoppering it, and handing it to Ron. "You will age up 25 years," she said, "Hermione will age up 6 years," she added, handing her a smaller one. "And... I..." she said, pouring hers out and adding a drop of something to it before shaking it furiously. "Will age down eight years," she added.

"Old dad, young mum, daughter enrolling in Sacred Heart. They won't question it," she reassured. Ron snorted on a laugh.

"Lizzie... that's mad," he said.

"Ok, other option is to go as two nuns and priest but I wanted to avoid clergy questions, that gets complicated, especially with Cyprians... not always on the best terms with the Vatican," she snapped a little indignantly.

"I need to go over basics though, we should take a night..." she said. Hermione and Lizzie left to get food under the cloak from a bakery in town she remembered. That night, Lizzie went over everything she thought Ron, who as the man would be doing most of the talking, would need to know about the congregation.

They dressed accordingly the following day. Lizzie had two of the nicer dresses from Petunia packed and shrunk one down for herself. Hermione meanwhile fashioned the other to fit her better. Ron wore what the men wore in the church, dark trousers, brown or black shoes, leather belt, white collared shirt, tie, and suspenders in the absence of a vest. He aged up decently, and trimmed his facial hair accordingly while Lizzie did Hermione's hair in a modest bun and braid. Lizzie did her own in a French braid that sat just between her shoulder blades.

"Alright, so there's a path up here that goes up to one of the residential roads. Not far up that is the church, can't miss it, big cathedral. It's Sunday, we should make mass, then afterwards, you can chat with priest, I think it's still Father Simon, it was a couple of years ago. Don't go into any great detail about faith, just tell him you are moving your family out here from London to escape the city congestion and need a suitable house, a tight-knit congregation, and a school for your daughter," Lizzie explained. "Hermione can answer any questions about faith, your dad mentioned to me he was raised catholic?" Lizzie asked to confirm. Hermione nodded. "Just don't be mouthy or overbearing. Think meek, they won't outright admit it in words, but they hate it when women speak," Lizzie reminded her.

"Jesus," Ron muttered.

"Exactly, except - Father in Heaven - is better, they're more old testament," Lizzie corrected.

"What does that even mean?" Ron asked.

"Pre-Jesus, less forgiving, real vengeance is mine version of God," Hermione said.

"Yeah... ok, and if I say something out of line, you hit me," Lizzie said.

"What the bloody hell, no I wont!" Ron protested.

"Then threaten to... all you have to do is put on a head of household, 'don't cross me or else,' patriarch facade and they'll think you're a great fit," Lizzie said, rolling her eyes.

"Names?" Hermione asked.

"David, Heidi, and Eva Wooley," Lizzie made up off the top of her head.

"While Ron talks to Father Simon, I'll wander around to see if I see anything that stands out. He will probably introduce you to the Chaplain of the school, I don't know who replaced Matthew, and then Mr. Collins who works in real estate in Little Whinging. I'm hoping he will show us Number 4 since my relatives have since...you know...vacated," Lizzie explained.

Hermione nodded like the plan might work but was nervous because their timeline was wholly dependent on the congregation members. Lizzie took the potion and felt ridiculously small in a ten-year-old body. Ron barked out laughing when she tried to give orders and direction, but Lizzie's glare was still silencing, even with a younger face.

They made it up to the residential street and were on route to the cathedral. Hermione grabbed her hand and squeezed tight when they saw men patrolling the radius at a distance. Lizzie squeezed back to confirm she recognized at least one of them as a death eater. She didn't know his name, he had dark curly hair, a pointed face, and black eyes. He'd been in the castle the day they fled after Dumbledore's funeral, and she remembered either Dean or Seamus striking him with a stunning curse. When the man with him turned around, she recognized Stan Shunpike immediately and nearly stopped dead in her tracks.

Ron led them into the cathedral, and they sat in the back pew. The locket twitched violently on Lizzie's neck, she felt a sort of maniacal laugh in her ears, but it was muffled and oddly distant. It was a like a portal in time for her, feet not quite touching the floor, hands clasped tight in her lap, but also pressed on her stomach protectively. Her eyes were cast down. This is a mistake, she thought. But her thoughts were slipping quickly and her heart beat louder with the rhythmic ticking of the locket. With a loud crack in her ears, everything around her was rendered unnaturally silent.

Lizzie was staring back at a young woman looking over her shoulder at her. The girl was eighteen, and Lizzie knew that with certainty only because she had been in her year. The look she gave Lizzie was one of sheer terror. The influx of images that ran through Lizzie's mind consisted of the crack of a tennis ball in a rally, a scream of horror and blood on the court, and a persistent fear that the little red headed girl was watching her sleep at night.

Heather was holding a small, sleeping child on her shoulder, no more than a year old. Her husband sat next to her, his hair graying slightly but he wasn't more than twice her age, if that. A little boy, perhaps two-years-old, sat on his lap. Heather stared back at Lizzie transfixed before her husband noticed and put a hand on her chin to look forward again.

Lizzie could feel her heart racing but couldn't hear a thing in or around her. Hermione squeezed her arm to get her attention and Lizzie looked up with wide eyes. Her chest swelled with every breath and her eyes darted around the room at familiar faces that turned her stomach over in knots.

Hermione was looking around as well, but no objects were in sight that would fit the description of the cup or a small, valuable object they imagined the sixth horcrux must be.

By the end of mass, Ron made his way over to the priest who greeted the prospective new congregation member enthusiastically. Hermione took Lizzie's cold and clammy hand and walked the perimeter. When they reached the door to the back prayer room, Lizzie pushed it open, and the locket twitched even harder. She had the urge to run screaming, but her feet took her to the center of the room in front of the cross.

"Lizzie, I don't think there's anything here," Hermione whispered.

Lizzie looked back at Hermione and the look on her friend's face in response was the same look on Heather's. She wanted to scream at her to get out, she wanted to diminish the building to soot and ash and could feel the heat of flames rise in her chest. Hermione's eyes flicked to the locket then back into Lizzie's. "We need to go," she whispered. The door swung open abruptly and Father Simon strode in assertively with Ron in his wake.

Lizzie backed up several places impulsively, and with a huge smile, the priest reached for Hermione's hand and clasped it in both of his. "Mrs. Wooley, Heidi? Yes?" He asked. Hermione nodded. He looked ahead of her at Lizzie and frowned. His mouth opened slightly in a gape, and he seemed to shake his head back into the present. "Eva?" He asked. Hermione nodded and smiled.

"Well... I set up a meeting at the school with Father Joseph. He would be happy to meet with you all this afternoon," Father Simon said with a smile. His eyes were still on Lizzie. She stared back and caught a wave of images of the eye dropper he used to taint the sacrament, making her kneel in front of this same cross for hours, telling her to be grateful and obedient in confessional. Yet still he was the one to untie her during an exorcism, scoop up her heavily drugged body, lie her down in the backseat of his car and drive her to Holy Cross hospital. Vernon objected, said to leave her overnight, let God decide. He didn't want questions asked. Apparently, Simon could stomach injecting a ten-year-old with hallucinogens, but not letting her die on their watch. I'm sure the Lord looks down fondly, Lizzie thought cynically. He smiled weakly at Ron and invited them back into the mass hall for communion. They declined politely, claiming they had an appointment at the bank. Hermione took Lizzie's hand, and the moment they exited the building, a blanket of dread lifted even though the resentment still boiled. Her ears cleared and her breaths now went down into her chest the way they should.

The aging potion wore off, so they stayed back at the campsite to brew a fresh batch before the meeting at the school. "Are you alright?" Hermione asked, sitting down with Lizzie on the bunk and handing her a hot cup of coffee.

"I'm fine," Lizzie lied. The locket still thudded on her chest and ticked to the rhythm of her heartbeat.

"They recognized me," she said quietly. "It confused them. Heather stared like she was seeing a ghost, Father Simon... he relived some guilt -" Lizzie said uncomfortably. "They were scared of me..."

"Guilt over what?" Hermione asked carefully.

"I don't think I can get into it, I'm... truth be told... terrified of going back to that school," she said.

"Did he...?" Hermione asked.

"No, he didn't do that," she said with a hoarse voice. "But he knew."

"The last time you were at that school..." Hermione said.

"The day she died," Lizzie confirmed and the sound of a train could be heard from a bit of a distance.

"Do you really think something is there?" Hermione asked.

"I just think... I need to see it from these eyes to know. I didn't know anything when I was there, things would not have registered they way they would now. I think I was a lot more like him than I remember. I think those girls died as a means of him coming back. Sort of like Ginny... I just don't know how it carried out that way unless I had the last object..." she said.

"How would he have left you an object, Lizzie?" Hermione asked.

"I don't know. There's nothing in anything that says one of these split souls can live in something that's alive...Nagini, but she's not actually alive..." she said.

"But you already know he animates a portion of you that died," Hermione reminded her. "It's why you share power, why he split the obscurial...why..."

Lizzie cut across, "Animation is different though. That's possession, a horcrux is a soul locked in an object. It has everything it needs in a small package to return to life. The creator has to package it with the object, the soul, and a body or promise of one as a debt. If the last one was given to me, it would explain the gaps in memory, it would explain the lapses in time and the fear. It would explain why I thrived when I left this place. It would explain the hold and the access to be able to animate me in the first place. I keep thinking about our second year, what that diary did to me and Ginny and I just think it's possible I had the last one...here..." she said.

"Do you remember anything specific though?" Hermione asked.

"No... but I've had dreams... a hand I can't open with something inside... it's hard to explain," Lizzie said.

"We should go... this has sat for an hour, should be ready," Ron said. Hermione examined the potion and agreed it looked fine before measuring out the vials. They redressed and left for the school. The same two death eaters were in the area, along with at least two others but none of them looked twice at the family.

Lizzie watched from afar as Sister Margaret escorted two young girls across the walk toward a Sunday School room. Their uniforms were the same, the school looked the same, but the Chaplain standing near the entrance to greet them was much different. He had graying hair, was older than Matthew was, more lined, and rather pale.

He shook their hands and gave Lizzie a weak smile. He led them past the choir room Lizzie looked almost longingly into, and then past the small cathedral. Lizzie closed her eyes tight to avoid looking up at a dangling body she knew her memory would have waiting for her, and tripped slightly on a table leg in the blindness.

"Sorry," she chirped quietly and the locket twitched harshly on her chest. It was ticking louder now.

The Chaplain started by showing them around the school. He stopped in on Sister Charlene's year five classroom to introduce her to the teacher. Lizzie never had Sister Charlene, she had started when she was already in her sixth year there. Lizzie looked at the classroom of empty chairs and imagined her classmates like Heather now married, miserable, mothers, courtesy of husbands groomed to be abusive.

On the grounds, Lizzie looked out onto the tennis courts with a sense of welcome nostalgia, and the water polo pool with a strong wave of foreboding.

The Chaplain insisted he speak to Ron alone in his office and offered to let Hermione take Lizzie around the campus. "Good for them to explore, there's a Sunday School lesson in the west wing if you're interested," he said. Lizzie led the way, knowing her way around already.

The first stop was the girls bathroom. Lizzie sat down in the stall and tried to clear her head of the relentless ticking. She heard heaving noises from stall next door and looked under the gap to see someone on their knees. Lizzie got up abruptly and opened the adjacent stall to nothing but a porcelain toilet. Hermione was washing her hands anxiously by the sink but startled when she looked up into the mirror at Lizzie who didn't understand why. It was the same face she gave her in the prayer room at the church. The water in the sink Hermione was at caught Lizzie's attention as it turned deep red.

Lizzie rushed to her side and grabbed for towels, furiously dabbing and squeezing her wrists. Her hands were shaking. "What did you do?!" Lizzie screamed, the locket ticking louder.

"Lizzie, what are you doing?" Hermione yelled back. "Stop it!"

"No! You can't! No, you can't!" Lizzie shrieked.

"Can't what!?" Hermione asked. She turned off the water and pried the wet towels from Lizzie's hands. Her arms were unscathed, there wasn't blood in sight, Lizzie shuddered and ran from the bathroom.

Down the hall, around the corner, past the cabinets looking for anything that resembled a goblet or a valuable object. Down to the locker rooms, and past the pool that suddenly seemed too murky to see into the depths. Then she went into the choir hall and the storage room in the back. She looked feverishly around for something, anything small, fits into one hand, she thought.

Nothing.

She rushed out into the hallway with the cathedral doors directly across and stopped dead at dangling feet near eyelevel with her. She reached out for them and held them against her face. Something was staring down at her but she couldn't bear the thought of looking up into Melody's face.

"No!" She heard a woman hiss from above. Lizzie looked up carefully and the body was gone, but Sister Edith looked down at her with a mixture of hatred and horror.

She came down the stairs, eyes fixed in disbelief on the girl in front of her. "You... are gone," she said quietly.

Lizzie just stared, torn between tormenting the woman and playing her role as Eva Wooley. Edith seized her wrist and pulled her into a nearby classroom. "What are you doing here?" She hissed, her eyes were wide with trepidation.

"What are you... talking about?" Lizzie said meekly but was struck with an open hand on the cheek.

"Do not test me, Azalea," she growled reproachfully. Lizzie did her best to look confused. The woman was ready to bend her over a desk and cane her bloody, Lizzie could read that much. But she was stuck seven years in the past and couldn't break herself out of how absurd it was to be looking at Azalea Potter, who was now a young woman.

Sister Edith grabbed an ear lobe and walked her down the hall into the Chaplain's office. Ron was startled by the way she tossed Lizzie into the room. Hermione came running, panting hard, a moment later, she'd been looking for Lizzie since she sprinted from the bathroom.

The Chaplain's office was too much. Lizzie sank back against the wall and fell to the floor. Their voices were marbles and the ticking of the locket was loud enough to drive her into insanity.

"What did you to my daughter!?" Ron yelled at the nun. The Chaplain stood between him and the woman while Hermione cautiously moved her way around them to help Lizzie up.

"Your daughter?!" The nun asked sharply. "Vernon Dursley's niece?" She added. Ron's expression faltered and Hermione looked up sharply in horror.

"Edith, what are you talking about?" The Chaplain asked, confused.

"Azalea Potter, Father," she said matter-of-factly and pointed to Lizzie who had her face buried in her folded knees.

Ron moved to be a barrier between them and Lizzie. "Eva is my daughter," he said shakily.

"No! That's the Potter girl, Father. I could spot her a mile away. Go get Father Simon and ask! She killed Matthew, she killed the Warren girl, she -"

"Edith, stop! Azalea Potter was institutionalized almost seven years ago at the age of twelve, this girl is ten, do you hear yourself?" He asked. He put hands on her shoulders and spoke quietly.

"I understand that day was traumatic. You found Matthew, had to cut down that poor little girl, but it is impossible for Eva here to be who you think she is," he said sympathetically.

"Father, Warren was not the first, Vernon Dursley died a year ago, Mr. Whalen, the man who married her, died the same night... Poor Petunia and Dudley Dursley vanished off the face of the earth. We all thought that little girl was possessed. This is the devil's work. He's bringing her back here, you can't let her in. Nobody has died here since she left and I found her by the cathedral..." Sister Edith sounded unhinged and Lizzie suppressed the urge to laugh because in most respects she was right. Then her stomach turned at the thought that nobody else had died here since she left.

"I'm so sorry, David, we will proceed with enrollment, but it might be best to meet next week, is that alright?" The Chaplain asked. Ron nodded and Hermione helped Lizzie up and out of the room. She smiled at Edith on her way out and was sickly satisfied at the way the woman shuddered in response. The ticking around her neck got imposibly louder.

"Are we going to the house?" Hermione whispered. Ron shook his head.

"Tomorrow, Collins said he'd show us a few properties tomorrow," Ron responded. Lizzie laughed. It was a punchy sort of giggle that made them both uneasy, she was falling victim to a merciless fit of it. The thought that she apparently terrorized them all those years as much as they terrorized her was suddenly amusing.

She closed her eyes around the fit of giggles and remembered laughing in the locker room, drenched to the skin in wet clothes while she dried off. As she hurried past the pool toward the alley that cut through to the hospital, a shadow could be seen under the surface of the water. Lizzie skipped happily at the thought of Lisa Heard stuck on the goal post anchor with her head just inches from the surface but not enough slack to get air and nobody around to notice. Entitled brat who had the nerve to complain, two parents who loved her, nobody had ever laid a hand on her, boo bloody hoo Timothy Randall couldn't marry her. The least the untouchable girls like her could do is not make the others more miserable, she thought bitterly. Lizzie's hair was still damp and stringy when she stripped naked and put a hospital gown back over her shoulders. Her absence had gone entirely unnoticed between nurse shifts.

The locket ticked louder now and Ron clasped Hermione's hand apprehensively as Lizzie started to skip ahead of them still laughing silently under her breath.