AN: Thank you for being patient with the wait. I won't bore you with the rollercoaster of reasons this took so long. But I am… really happy with this one. I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Please see chapter 1.

Last Time on Sailor Moon H: Setsuna is finally getting closer to some answers regarding Lestrange and her fellows defense against her powers. Usagi and Neville are stumbling – quite literally at times – into a relationship, and are going on proper date in Hogsmeade for the Valentine's Holiday. All's not well though – Hotaru of all people has landed in detention with Harry Potter!

Hostage in Hogsmeade

February the 15th dawned with a bright sun over the highlands and a rare dearth of the usual winds that put everyone in Hogsmeade, and the students on their way there, in a jovial mood. The bright day, the large number of students who'd signed up to attend, and the holiday itself made it easier to ignore the aurors stationed around the village routes, or those order members who lurked around their own watch posts. Most people had even convinced themselves that the fuss was a bit silly. After all, most people in the village were purebloods of one sort or another, many of the students too, and besides there had been no attack in January, so surely there would be no attack now.

This confidence did not extend to those tasked with watching over the Hogsmeade visit. It, in fact, fostered a greater sense of unease, especially amongst the senshi and their friends. Whether it was Jadeite and Luna, conversing and joking together as they surveyed the village from the top of Zonko's, or whether it was Usagi and Neville, using their date as a pretense to keep watch (or as Mina and Rei had put it, using their watch as an excuse for a date) everyone was a bit on-edge – and none more so than the five senshi stationed atop the roof of Three Broomsticks. The outer senshi, Jupiter, and Mercury were there, masked by a decent notice-me-not charm. Mercury and Jupiter were sitting highest up in the middle of the roof, Uranus and Neptune lounged on the peak above one of the attic windows, and Pluto stood in the shadow of one of the chimneys. While Uranus, Mercury, and Jupiter kept an eye mostly on the village, Pluto was keeping a close watch on the immediate future using the Garnet Orb. And Neptune, with her trident and the Aqua Mirror inlaid in it balanced on her lap, was keeping an eye on every location in the country the Order had identified as a potential target over the Valentines weekend.

It proved to be a good thing that she was, for while Hogsmeade remained quiet, signs of trouble had been popping up across the country all morning. Only a few were those Pluto had foreseen (those devised by Voldemort without Lestrange's input). All the other trouble, Neptune had to report in real time.

She'd noticed the first spot of trouble just after Jupiter and Mercury had alighted on the roof at 10. "Fire's just popped up at that muggleborn apothecary in Wales," Neptune had announced. "Rabastian's there,"

Uranus, Mercury, and Jupiter had traded looks, all wondering if they'd again made a bad gamble concentrating all together in Hogsmeade.

"Rigel's in place to handle that," Pluto had said.

But as the hours had gone on, more attacks had continued to pop-up, all while the merry Valentines festivities in Hogsmeade remained peaceful.

"A large force just apparated into Diagon Alley," Neptune noted shortly after the clock in the main square struck noon. She peered more closely at her mirror. "That looks like Dolohov."

Pluto hummed, staring into the Garnet Orb and then shaking her head. "It doesn't look like they're planning to cause any major damage."

Neptune abruptly looked up at her. "They've just started raiding the Prophet office."

Pluto's hands clenched around the Garnet Rod and she closed her eyes, brows furrowing. "They appear to have… several targets… or perhaps they believe they do, but I cannot see what those targets are."

"Bet that means they don't know either," Uranus guessed. "Lestrange or one of hers must be feeding them instructions as they go – to keep you out of the loop."

"We still do not have to intervene there," Pluto insisted. "The aurors put most of their force in Diagon."

"Another group just apparated into downtown Manchester… they have dementors with them."

Pluto bit her lip, and shifted her head from side to side, scanning across Hogsmeade village as she did. "We stay here," she insisted, twisting the Garnet Rod.

"Another group's just appeared over in…" Neptune looked up and sighed. "Pluto, I know you think the holiday makes Hogsmeade a perfect target, but perhaps that is part of the ruse," she said, standing and moving from Uranus side over to Pluto. Neptune put a hand on her back. "She may be just as good a strategist as you."

"Then she'll attack here last, hoping we've spread our forces thin," Pluto insisted.

Sitting some distance away, Mercury and Jupiter exchanged a look. Jupiter shrugged.

"We've separated before," Mercury said. "Like on New Years." She saw Neptune nodding; Uranus looked pensive. "And we know the Order and the Aurors have trouble being… everywhere." She cleared her throat. "Maybe, I mean if we're needed elsewhere."

"We're all staying here," Pluto insisted. "I've told Mars and Venus as much."

Neptune looked down at her mirror, which had just revealed two more teams of Bellatrix and Voldemort's forces descending on two other targets. She looked over at Uranus, who had her arms crossed, one sword in her right hand.

"Please," Pluto whispered, drawing all of their attention to her. "If we can't trust my powers, at least trust my instincts."

"Never doubted them," Uranus said, twisting one of her swords so it reflected the opposite side of the village. Three hours since the Hogsmeade trip had started, and it was still annoyingly quiet.

"We just hate the waiting," Neptune assured Pluto.

Pluto blew out a long breath, watching the resulting cloud spiral up towards the blue sky. "I know." She trained her eyes on Puddifoot's, where Usagi and Neville were seated, laughing, in the front window. "I do hope I'm wrong."

~SMH~

Hotaru sighed, tapping her dried up quill against the English words of her essay – ones, which had transformed from fluid cursive to large, blocky printing. At the top of the current sheet of parchment (the second in what was shaping up to be a five-page detention assignment) was an entire paragraph that she had had to cross out when she realized she'd simply copied the same sentence out of the textbook four times– a surer sign than her deteriorating handwriting that detention was making her lose her mind.

Beside her, Harry looked to be faring a little better – blinking heavily, glasses low on his nose as he bent too close to the parchment. He was looking back and forth between his essay and a textbook, looking between the two, word after word, as he transcribed a quote carefully onto the third page of his essay.

"Daydreaming will be another 5 points from Ravenclaw, Miss. Tomoe," Snape said, not looking up from the small cauldron on his desk, bubbling with some red brew.

Hotaru glared at him – this was the third time he'd taken points from her for lack of focus – forget that it was Harry who'd come up with the curse they'd used on Malfoy and Nott. Surely it mattered more if he were focusing on their essay about it than her.

But if Snape felt the deadly glare she'd directed at him, he paid her no mind. He carried on tending to the cauldron on his desk. He pointed his wand beneath it, lowered the flames that wicked up around the sides, and then carefully gave it what looked like one-and-a-half stirs with a pale wood spoon. That action caused a fresh wave of the potion's scent to waft across the desk.

Hotaru wrinkled her nose. The thick, acrid smell of it was not helping how… twitchy she felt sitting in the hard, creaky chair in the defence office. She shifted in her seat, glancing away from Snape lest he nag her about focus again. Her mind drifted to thoughts of her friends and her parents in Hogsmeade, where there might be an attack. Might be. No one was sure. How long had she and Harry been writing?

She wrinkled her nose as the scent of Snape's potion wafted past her again. Now he was checking his watch.

Snape glanced up and caught her eyes. He raised one of his eyebrows. "5 more points," he said in a bored tone.

Hotaru huffed, returning her gaze to her essay and scribbling down something without bothering to check if it made sense, then moving on to the next paragraph.

Snape then looked at Harry, who was now looking at Hotaru, frowning as he dipped his quill back in the well. "Potter," Snape drawled. "5 points from you as well."

"For what?"

"For overusing the ink," Snape said, and then returned his gaze to his potion.

Greasy git, Harry and Hotaru both thought in that moment.

Harry kept looking at Hotaru, who could not seem to sit still. When he was sure Snape was engrossed in stirring his concoction, Harry elbowed her.

But Hotaru ignored him at first, sure Snape would notice. She did not look up from her essay again until the professor checked his watch and hummed. There was the sound of the wood spoon being set down on the desk, and then the flash of Snape's black cloak as he lifted the small cauldron up and swept out of the office into the backroom. He locked the door.

Hotaru took her chance, tearing her eyes away from her essay, reaching for the glaive, and whispering a rushed time charm.

12:32. The time hovered in the air above the desk a moment before fading.

"Alright?" Harry asked.

"I don't know," Hotaru whispered, staring at her essay and watching the words swim together. "How long to Hogsmeade trips last?"

"Depends when it gets dark." Harry shrugged. "S'pose they might be walking to the carriages by half four today."

3 hours. Hotaru spun her quill between her fingers and lifted the glaive from where it leaned on the desk beside her. She drew it close and leaned her head against the handle.

"D'you think there'll be an attack?" Harry pressed, pushing back his chair.

"I don't know," Hotaru said again, furrowing her brow as she tried to establish a psychic link to Setsuna, or Michiru, or even Rei. No luck. Hogsmeade was just too far away. "I don't like being stuck here," she complained to Harry.

"Tell me about it," Harry said, and jumped as the deadbolt clicked on the door to the back room. "We finish quick, we can sneak down," he whispered hastily. "I know a way." He shoved one of the textbooks on his side of the desk towards Hotaru as Snape emerged, cauldron-less, from the back.

"No collaborating," Snape drawled as he sank down into his desk chair and steepled his fingers. His eyes flicked between them. "Neither of you is half done. Am I to assume then, Mr. Potter, that it has been outside help carrying you through the NEWTs' rigor?"

"Yeah – decent teaching's been a huge help," Harry said. "But luckily I've always had a knack for Defense."

"10 points from Gryffindor," Snape sneered. He then turned to a stack of essays on his desk and began to grade them with a red-inked quill. "Get back to work."

Hotaru and Harry exchanged a look before refocusing on their essays. Hotaru put her quill to the parchment and scowled. The ink had dried up again. She re-dipped it in the well. Be careful, she thought, hoping at least Mama Suna or Mama Michiru would hear. I have a bad feeling...

~SMH~

The last three of their teams had been portkeyed away, and Lestrange had begun to seethe, pacing impatiently before the hearth, when the low flames there jumped up and turned green with an abrupt roar. A parcel sprang up through them, and Lestrange snatched it, crushing the burning brown paper around the parcel as it smoldered to ash, revealing – Rowle and the other remaining, young death eaters raised their eyebrows – two bright red vials of potion.

"We've been waiting for that?" Rowle muttered incredulously. He'd thought they'd been waiting around for something… grander.

"I assure you," the strange white-robed wizard whispered near his ear as a swirl of ash raced past. Rowle shivered as the man materialized next to Lestrange and took the spare vial. "It's quite essential." He held the vial under his nose, perhaps peering at it from beneath his hood. He was smiling as he uncorked it. "Years of theory, and never the proper circumstances to carry it out." He uncorked the vial. "Until now." He tilted the contents down his throat. Lestrange was already finished with hers, and her vial was a smattering of shattered pieces at the back of the hearth. The Wizard was more delicate with his, merely vanishing the emptied vial. "Now," he said. "There's no chance of a weakened protection foiling our plans."

Lestrange grinned and waved her wand. Six pins – portkeys – appeared on the left sides of all of the death eaters' robes. "Now this is the most important of todays missions – anyone who screws it up will be answering to My Lord," her grin twisted. "And then to me." She giggled, and crooked her finger at the armchair by the door. A small unassuming bag, which had been resting there all morning, soared into her hand. She opened it just enough to check the contents, but not enough for any of the death eaters to see.

Rowle jumped as a stream of dust swished up from beneath the rug and darted into the bag before Lestrange drew it closed again. Something in it rustled and pushed against the cloth sides.

"Now," Lestrange continued as she stowed the bag below the neck of her robes. "All of you will appear around one building. Tallest one in the area."

"You're job," the white-robed wizard continued, turning his hooded face towards Rowle in particular. "Is to create as sizeable… and sustainable a distraction as you can."

"And then move through the area," Lestrange said. "Any building you see with a red mark, attack it."

"Yes, Madam Lestrange," the oldest Death Eater with their group, Crabbe, bowed to her. "It will be done."

"For your sakes, I hope so," Lestrange said.

"Hmm." The Wizard drew all of their attention. He was watching Lestrange, rubbing his chin. "Lady," he said. "Suits you much better." His feet lifted off the ground as he sailed around Lestrange. "Such a pity," the foreign wizard continued. Lestrange's smirk curled into an irritated frown and Rowle wondered if this wizard wasn't a fair bit insane. "I suppose you'd have to ask your Dark Lord's permission for such an… equal title."

Lestrange's nostrils flared and she swiped her hand at the wizard. Her fingers passed right through him. "I don't need permission," she hissed, and then glared at the six Death Eaters. "Do I?"

Rowle gulped. The others, especially Crabbe, looked uncomfortable, but Rowle was not yet so devoted to the Dark Lord's customs. And he was very invested in saving his skin.

"Absolutely not, Lady Lestrange," he blurted out. "Shall we get going?"
"Hmm…" her eyes appeared to sparkle as they widened, reflecting the hearth fire. "I do like the sound of that." She checked her watch. "Yes. We will go, right… about… now."

Rowle closed his eyes as he felt the sudden jerk behind his navel. The portkey dragged him through space and dropped him only a moment later into a cold alley. He gasped in the much cooler air and stumbled once, but he'd been training with portkeys for months now and he was not so ungainly as he'd been in the past. He looked left, at a building with a red mark that appeared to hover over the bricks – a target mark – and then right, staring up at the four story building with pixies giggling as they wove between the icicles which, unlike on more conventional buildings, had been charmed to flash in the Hogwarts' house colors. He'd recognize the décor anywhere.

Zonko's.

Rowle scanned the ground. There was a sizeable brick that would be good for his uses, and a basement window. He rushed to both, smirking. Lestrange wouldn't regret selecting him for this.

A sustainable distraction: Rowle had the perfect thing. He lifted the brick, concentrating as he waved his wand above it, muttering a long incantation.

Even before he'd finished, the brick had begun to warm in his gloved hand. Rowle grinned when he opened his eyes to look at it. The tan stone had grown pure white, crackling within like the coals under a dragon's nest. This wasn't one of those, but it was a decent facsimile.

When the brick had turned from warm to hot, and when the smell of burning leather glove reached his nose, Rowle approached the basement window of Zonkos, and chucked the enchanted brick through. "Protego." He cast just in time.

The smoldering, super-heated brick fell right into the middle of several sealed barrels of potion, heating it to unstable temperatures in seconds. A boom sounded from the basement of Zonko's – one that made the foundations of the whole building tremble and many support beams under the ground floor buckle and crack. The explosion tore up all the bricks on the road around the building, spewed burning debris up through the floorboards, and created a shockwave that sent any loose object between the joke shop and Three Broomsticks rattling.

Rowle let down his Protego as soon as the last brick had settled. The first and second floor also looked to be on fire, courtesy of his colleagues' efforts. One enterprising soul had even weaponized the building's icicles. They were now breaking away from the overhangs like a pack of bats – and were circling the building. Several zeroed in on fleeing shoppers and students, diving towards them.

Rowle stepped nimbly across the torn up alley and cast a simpler fire charm on the building to his right. He emerged behind the buildings and scanned in both directions, searching for another building marked with Lestrange's target symbol.

In and out, she'd insisted over and over for weeks as she'd trained he and a few other newer recruits. In and out, leaving as much of a mess as you can make.

Rowle didn't know where the aurors were, or how long it would be before his portkey took them back to the mansion. But until then, he smirked. He had a good impression to put on.

~SMH~

Uranus and Neptune had begun to worry about Pluto. The precision of her strategic instincts aside, it was unnerving to see her stare past them: scanning across the roofs of Hogsmeade in between long periods gazing at the Garnet Orb. The concern didn't show on their faces, practiced as they were, but it did show on Mercury's and Jupiter's. Mercury was worrying her lip between her teeth, occasionally passing her Ravenclaw-colored staff between her hands. Jupiter was more restless: kicking her heel against the roof tiles and smacking her hammer against her palm. Nervous static raced through her hair.

All of them glanced intermittently at Pluto: a silent sentinel standing rigidly in the shadow of the pub's largest chimney. By 13:04, when even the professors patrolling the streets had let down their guard and drifted into the shops, Uranus and Neptune had begun to wonder how Pluto would react if this second Hogsmeade weekend did end without a single attack to show for their preparedness.

And then at 13:05, Pluto jerked her head up. "Zonko's," She said. Mercury and Jupiter leapt to their feet. Neptune concentrated on her mirror, directing it to show Zonko's shop-front. It appeared in the mirror just in time for all of them to get a close up of fire shattering the basement and ground floor windows. They could hear the boom, and the roar from the flames all the way across the village.

"Shit," Jupiter swore, moving to leap to the next roof.

"Hold up," Uranus said. "Pluto how many Death Eaters are there?"

"Six."

"Lestrange isn't with them," Neptune confirmed.

"And the Wizard?" Pluto whispered.

"No way to know." Neptune shook her head. "He's never shown up in here."

Uranus scanned round.

"Mars and Venus and headed over to Zonko's now," Pluto said. "As well the professors… and the aurors."

"Should we?" Mercury asked.

"You and Neptune go," Uranus ordered.

"What!" Jupiter exclaimed as the two other senshi dashed away.

"They can handle the fire." Uranus looked over at Pluto. "This feels like a distraction to me."

"It is," Pluto whispered. She stepped out of the chimney's shadow and stood beside Uranus. She pointed across the square… at Puddifoot's Café. "Usagi's just noticed something strange about the window."

"But?" Jupiter squinted. "I don't see anyone over there."

"And I don't hear anything," Uranus muttered. "Still…"

"Something's definitely wrong," Pluto confirmed. "Mr. Smith's having trouble with the front door…"

~SMH~

Later, Neville would say it had been foolish to think they could remain focused on surveillance and each other at the same time. Though in his own, private thoughts, and in several later conversations in the common room with Harry, he would concede that, perhaps, even if they hadn't been distracting each other, it still might have caught them by surprise.

When they noticed, sometime around 13:00, Neville and Usagi had been laughing at the chocolate fondue that had just splattered across Neville's nose.

"Here, here," Usagi managed through her giggles. She fished her napkin off her lap and held it out to him, leaning around the chocolate fountain to reach his face.

In doing so, her arm brushed against the window.

Usagi jumped away from the glass. And her shoulder bumped their dessert, sending a wave of chocolate splashing onto the floor.

"Woah!" Neville said, narrowly missing staining the sleeve of his new robe. He chuckled. "Okay, I concede – you may be clumsier than…" His voice then trailed off as he registered that she had stood up, and had not looked away from the window. "Usa…?"

She lifted her left hand. Her right, Neville realized, had grabbed her wand. "Do you feel that?" she said, putting the fingers of her left hand over the wooden frame that divided two of the picture window's panes.

Neville copied her, putting his hand slightly over hers. Static shocked his fingertips. "It's just magical discharge isn't it?" he asked. "Happens all the time around the castle..."

But Usagi was frowning. "No. This feels like... like something else." Absently, she put her right hand over her chest, covering the locket concealed beneath her robes.

The motion brought Neville back to a conversation they'd had a few weeks ago, after a defense class where they'd been tasked with identifying dark objects. Usagi had been twitchy the whole time, sensitive to the dark magic.

"I used to not be able to feel it," she'd told him after class. "Or maybe the Negaverse traps were never soaked in it so strongly."

"How'd you learn to feel it?"

She'd covered her locket then, as she was doing now. "I was kidnapped once, on a dark planet," she'd confided. Her voice had made Neville shiver. And she had too as she's spoken. Shifting closer to him as they'd walked towards the Great Hall. "I've never been able to ignore what it feels like since then."

"What's it feel like?"

She'd closed her eyes. "It makes your skin crawl," she'd told him vehemently. "It's something that's just wrong."

Neville'd shivered "I guess it is dark magic," he'd said.

She'd shaken her head. "It's what makes it dark. All your dark magic has a spark of it."

"Of what?"

"Chaos' energy..."

Neville looked round Puddifoot's main dining room. Most everyone else hadn't noticed anything. He turned and looked out at the street. It was quiet.

But something was off. There was movement across the square.

"Look there!" Neville told Usagi, pointing across the street. The notice-me-not charm over Three Broomsticks had weakened as all those hidden by it stood up at once, gathering around Neptune's mirror.

As Usagi spotted them, a soft "Boom," made all the cutlery and glassware in the shop rattle.

"What the?" Zacharius Smith exclaimed. He and many others stood up from their chairs and, out the side windows, they saw the owls in the Emporium all flee from their roosts.

"The fuck?"

"What's wrong?"

"Was that fireworks?"

Smith, nosey as he was, pressed his face to the widest side window, searching for whatever had caused the disturbance. Whatever he saw out there made him yelp. He bolted for the front door.

"Zach!" his date exclaimed.

"What'd you see?" others clamored as the Hufflepuff threw the front door open.

Neville wasn't looking there. Rather, he was straining to see whatever Zach had from the angle of the front picture window. Whatever it was was down the far end of the village, because Mercury and Neptune had just bolted that way. He squinted; the front window didn't have a good view down there.

Neville thus, was not looking as Zacharius Smith made to leave the cafe. It was Usagi who saw him step into the wide open doorway, and saw him bump his nose against a barrier that rippled with dark power as Smith contacted it.

Usagi looked at the window, at the frame, where she'd felt the dark power concentrated.

Am I imagining it? she thought. Or is it stronger than it was a minute ago?

"WHAT IS THIS!" Smith squeaked Usagi looked over as he waved his wand at the blocked doorway and shouted something. A plume of smoke blew back in his face.

"We're trapped!"

"Is it HIM?"

"Usagi, look," Neville said. He still had his face pressed to the middle pane of the front window. "I think there's a fire."

Usagi looked out. She could see the smoke all right. She also heard a shout upstairs, followed by a crash.

Right outside, they both saw the white chair tumble down from above, followed by the broken glass that suggested someone had broken a window with it.

"We've got to…" Neville started to say. But he trailed off as Usagi put her hand on his chest.

"Warn the others," she said, eyes fixed on the chair and the broken glass on the ground outside, she nibbled her lower lip. I need to get Neville out somehow. Why had no one followed the chair and escaped out that broken window?

A crowd by the front door drew Neville's eye. He watched one of Hufflepuff's beaters throw her shoulder at the front doorway only to get knocked onto her back.

Everyone on the ground floor then jumped as someone – several someones – screamed from the second floor,

"What was..." Neville began to ask and stiffened. "Usa?"

She had raised her wand.

"Warn the others," she repeated, having thought of a stupid, stupid idea. I hope this works. "I'll be fine." Then she pointed her wand at him. "Depulso."

The force knocked the wind out of Neville as it slammed into his chest. Neville flew backwards. He felt his foot knock over his chair and then his back hit the left pane of the picture window, shattering it. He shot straight through, tripping when his foot caught the window box and tumbling into the road. Shattered glass tinkled and chimed on the frozen cobblestones around him.

"Protego!" a low voice roared. Lightning crackled over Neville's head and he lifted it in time to see a bright yellow light collide with Sailor Jupiter's lightning-laced spell.

Then he looked back at Puddifoot's, at the broken window, at the barrier covering the hole his body had punched through the glass.

"Usagi!" Jupiter shouted, then grunted as another spell struck her shield.

"Uranus World SHAKING!"

The other guardian shouted as she landed, at a run, onto the road beside Jupiter. Her energy ball attack tore across the cobblestones and slamming into the barrier coating Puddifoot's. That barrier flickered when Uranus attack struck it, but remained strong.

"Damnit!" Uranus cursed.

Jupiter helped Neville to his feet. His eyes were still on Puddifoot's. Usagi wasn't in the window anymore; she was walking towards the middle of the cafe. He couldn't see her very well – all the lamps had gone out inside.

"We need to get in there," Pluto announced and Neville looked up to see her standing to his right. He started to speak.

"Protego!" Jupiter shouted again. Her lightning dome spread over the four of them just in time for a green spell to strike the side. A good thing it had the lightning in it too, for no normal Protego would have stopped a killing curse.

As it was, Jupiter's lightning-laced casting exploded along with the curse. Jupiter stumbled back.

"Garnet Ball!" Pluto shouted.

The stronger shield enveloped them, absorbing the next spell, a bright red Crucio, as it struck inches from Neville's nose.

"Why's she aiming at you?" Uranus asked, glaring in the direction of Puddifoot's roof along with Jupiter and Pluto.

Neville shivered, looking up already knowing whom he would find.

Bellatrix Lestrange lounged on the roof's edge – a dark blemish against the pastel pink shingles. Her imposing black boots kicked lazily against the white stone side of the cafe, and she twirled her gnarled, black wand in her hand.

Neville gulped. "Uh... unfinished business." He flinched as another Crucio cracked against Garnet Ball.

"Then we need to get you out of her sight," Pluto determined. She looked at Jupiter and Uranus. "Mars and Venus are on their way."

"We got this," Jupiter assured her, hammer raised like Uranus' swords to block Lestrange's spells and any of her surprises.

Uranus nodded "Go."

"Wait!" Neville protested as Pluto's hand touched his shoulder.

At once, Puddifoot's was gone. The bright sunlight and the airy village square were gone. Neville blinked as he took in the basement-like room around him. Footsteps were racing across the wood floor overhead, and then were clomping down a set of stairs across the room.

"This is the basement of the Hog's Head," Pluto told him "Your friends and the aurors are ferrying students down here."

"Why?"

"Zonko's caught fire just before Puddifoot's was locked down," Pluto said. "As well, there's a group of death eaters out terrorizing the streets." She fixed her sharp gaze on Neville. "You'd do a lot of good being part of the team defending this space. The first groups of students are on their way down."

"But," Neville sputtered. "But I can't wait down here."

"You don't have to," Pluto said. "You could join the battle outside or help protect the buildings. In fact, you might do well to help your friends move students down here." She closed her eyes and nodded. "They could use someone to organize them, as you've been tutoring many of the younger students this year, I think you should be more than able to manage those taking refuge here."

"Well, yes. But," Neville sputtered, flushing as he saw a group of students gather at the foot of the stairs and stare at them. "But Usagi is –"

"And Lestrange," Pluto said, cutting him off. "Are you ready to face her?"

Neville bit his lip and looked away.

"We can get Usagi out," Pluto assured him. "And she's not without her own powers." Then she stiffened. Her hand went to her temple.

"What?" Neville asked.

"Another creation of Lestrange's," Pluto murmured, frowning. She looked into her Garnet Orb and then towards the stairs, where more students continued to pile into the room. "I have to go."

And before Neville could argue, she had disapparated without a sound.

~SMH~

Back in the main square of Hogsmeade, Bellatrix stood up from the roof as soon as Pluto and Neville had gone. She snapped her wand from the left to the right, creating a volley of arrows that shot down at Jupiter and Uranus. Both of them easily leapt out of the way.

"Aww, no fun," Bellatrix pouted, conjuring a shield to block a lightning attack from Jupiter. She then whipped her wand across her chest and conjured a whip of flame. It snapped downwards towards them.

"Mars Snake FIRE!"

The serpentine fire hissed as it crossed Bellatrix's spell: both flames roared until Mars' had consumed Bellatrix's. And then Snake Fire, twice as large now, raced towards the dark witch.

Bellatrix was just as fast: conjuring a shield with which the snake collided, flames spreading across the barrier in a sunburst, flickering, sparking, and finally wicking out.

Mars growled, meeting Bellatrix glare as she and Venus stepped into line with Uranus and Jupiter. Mars lifted the spear that had transformed from her wand, the amethyst flame more vivid from her rage.

"That weakened her." Venus advised, taking note of Lestrange's clenched jaw and the sweat gleaming on her face. She was fishing something out of the neck of her robes. "Keep it up."

"Space Swords Blaster!" Uranus crossed her swords and sent the attack streaming upwards to Lestrange. She apparated away with a pop, re-appearing on the peak of Puddifoot's roof. She had taken a small bag out of her robes.

"JUPITER COCONUT CYCLONE!"

"LOVE AND BEAUTY SHOCK!"

Bellatrix dodged these, rolling across the roof. Venus and Jupiter's attacks slammed into the pink shingles with a mighty boom that made the ground shake. Fissures flickered through the ward blockading Puddifoot's as the attack faded.

"I think there's something on the roof maintaining that barrier," Mars said, both eyes closed. She pointed her finger to Puddifoot's Chimney. "In there."

"Then let's distract her and get up there," Uranus said.

Venus summoned her whip and cracked it "My pleasure. Jupiter, Mars: go round the ba-"

But she ceased her orders as the ground under them trembled. Loose dirt shook free of the cobblestones.

Bellatrix giggled, and waved her wand. She let the bag in her free hand fall open. Nine bits of parchment whizzed out. "You want to duel me?" She taunted. The loosened dirt and gravel around the senshi began to drift up into the air. The senshi crowded closer together. "Well too bad," Bellatrix said. "I'm afraid that's not how it's going to go today." She raised her non-wanded hand. "You'll have to earn that opportunity." And she snapped her fingers.

With a whoosh, the steady flow of dirt coming up from below burst upwards in a circle round them: entrapping the senshi between nine separate geysers of dirt and detritus. They all watched the scraps of parchment floating before Bellatrix soar overhead, into the nine masses of earth forming overhead, coalescing into humanoid bodies.

"Remember I saw these," Mars murmured, both hands on her spear. "Golems."

"Michiru looked them up," Uranus said. "They don't have much magic. Hard to kill. Fire ain't gonna cut it."

"Fantastic," Mars muttered.

"We need water," Pluto announced as she re-appeared in the middle of their circle. "Soon as that fire's out in Zonko's, Mercury and Neptune will come back here."

"Or we could just blow them up," Jupiter offered as the earthen bodies of the golems forming overhead became bigger and bigger. The fast-moving geysers of dirt around them were beginning to thin.

"That too," Pluto said. "The bodies will reform though. You'll need to get at what controls them."

"The parchment," Mars said as they saw two dents sink into the heads of each of the golems and a thin crack split into them underneath. When each of the creatures had these eyes and a mouth they dropped downwards, landing with a thud that made the loosened cobblestones tremble. All their eyes flashed pink and faded into a pitch black, as each of them smiled.

"Nine-on-five." Jupiter smirked as the lightning rod rose out of her tiara. She hefted her hammer. "Easy stuff." She aimed her weapon at the nearest golem. "Supreme THUNDER!"

Pluto couldn't see the result of that, the golems being too connected to Lestrange. But she saw the one closest to Jupiter open its maw. And reacted in that split second. "Garnet Ball!"

Jupiter's lightning raced away from her as Garnet Ball blossomed to life. As it did, black lightning – equal to Jupiter's own – launched in one great bolt out of the golem's mouth. It collided with Jupiter's and the energy recoiled, striking Pluto's shield with a boom that had all of them covering their ears.

"I thought they weren't much magic!" Venus snapped at Uranus.

"Normally not." Pluto informed her, eyes flicking around the circle of opponents as the other eight raised their earthen hands or opened their mouths. "They do physical work. Can hold small charms."

"Then she's done to these what she did to that Dementor," Uranus said. "Gone and made it stro..."

At once, in unison, all nine golems attacked. Lightning, fire, hail, water, and energy in different colors, and forms, and patterns exploded from their hands and make-shift mouths and crashed up against the sides of Garnet Ball. Pluto grunted, heel skidding on the road. Her shield flickered. But held.

"They shouldn't be able to do magic like this," Pluto muttered. "Charms at most."

"We'll worry about it later," Venus said. "I don't like being surrounded." She glanced up the street. Mercury and Neptune were sprinting towards them. "These all do different things." She muttered as another round of attacks bombarded Garnet Ball. Then Venus shook her head focus. "On three," she ordered. "We spread out. Isolate one if you can. Each of us gets a mark. Mars, that one spewing ice is yours. Jupiter."

"The lightning one is mine."

"No, take the water one," Venus ordered. "The lightning."

"Ought to be me," Uranus volunteered. "I'll out run it."

"Have Neptune and Mercury handle the..." Fire, faster than the rest of the golems, roared as it licked around their shield again. "That one."

"They're on it," Uranus said. Up the street, Aqua Rhapsody and Deep Submerge were surging together towards their assailants.

"Get ready to scramble," Venus advised them.

"We'll need your whip," Pluto said. "You'll distract the rest with me."

"Here comes," Jupiter whispered. Half the golems were turning, stepping back as Mercury and Neptune's attacks merged into one, great sphere of water churning with the power of a tsunami. One golem let a burst of dark energy strike it and the sphere burst, a wave crashing into the earthen creatures, knocking then down and dragging them into the tidal swell.

"Now!"

Garnet Ball vanished as the water attack flooded the square, and before the nine creatures could re-assemble, the senshi had dispersed: The now-group-of-seven senshi spread out to the edges of the square and readied for their fight.

All the while, on the roof of Puddifoot's, Bellatrix giggled and watched.

~SMH~

Inside Puddifoot's, everyone was on their feet, clustering near the door and the windows. Zacharius had just tried to Depulso himself through one, and been bounced back onto the floor for his effort. Whomever had locked them in had quickly wised to their tricks.

"Is this an attack? Susan Bones fretted aloud to Hannah Abbott and several of their friends.

No one deigned to answer her. No one needed too. The screaming coming from upstairs, and the sounds of spellfire were enough judge. All of them on the ground floor were frozen in place, staring up at the ceiling.

Several people gasped upstairs. Someone shouted something indistinct, words lost in a fresh round of screaming and the stampede of feet towards the staircase.

Then it all cut off abruptly, the terrible noise at once a terrible silence. Susan grabbed Hannah's arm as their whole group drew closer together.

"The-they're gonna come down here," Smith stuttered as his date dragged him underneath their over-turned table.

"We need to hide," Usagi Tsukino's voice drew eyes from around the room when she spoke – in a calm tone entirely out of place with the panic the rest of them were feeling.

Then again she looked out of place too: standing in the middle of the room, not huddled near a wall, and facing the staircase. She looked away from the stairs at everyone around the room. "Hide !"

That prompted most people to move: scrambling to stack chairs and tables high enough to obscure several people, or to untie the heavy curtains on either side of the windows. Susan was trying to remember the damn disillusionment charm – she could get the incantation fine, but not even Aunt Amelia could solve her trouble with the complex wand movement. She scanned the room. There was nowhere big enough for all her friends, unless they could stretch one of the larger tablecloths. "I hope those special aurors show up soon," Susan whispered. "Here – someone help me with this," she said, casting an engorgement charm on the nearest tablecloth."

"The ones from the Quidditch match?" Terry Boot asked.

"And the Department of Mysteries," Susan's date added. "Why are they taking so long?"

"I don't know," Susan said as she and Terry got the tablecloth in order. She charmed it to stick to the floor so whatever was upstairs wouldn't lift it up. "Come on, everybody under... Hannah!" she nagged, leaving Terry and her date to duck under the table and going to grab Hannah – who hadn't even seemed to notice their plan. She was staring off in space. "Hannah what's wrong with you? Come on," Susan said, dragging her by the arm towards their hiding place.

"Huh?" Hannah blinked, following along.

"Did someone just curse you?" Susan asked, lifting the tablecloth and pushing Hannah towards it.

"No," Hannah whispered as they crouched under the table. She shuffled over to peak out the one gap left in the tablecloth. "Just realized something."

"What?"

How did I never realize before? Hannah thought, focusing on Usagi across the cafe, helping other students create hiding places, looking around more carefully than anyone else, all with her wand hand clutching tightly to the locket she'd pulled from under her shirt.

"They're not aurors," her brother Timothy had told her over Christmas. "They're something... more than Aurors."

"Who are the rest?" she'd asked. "I know there's Meioh, those two Slytherins, and Hotaru, but..."

Timothy had shaken his head. "I shouldn't tell you," Timothy said. "It's better off a secret – some magic that does it. Bloody powerful too cause now I've seen them turn back to normal, now it seems so obvious."

So obvious... his words echoed in Hannah's head as she stared at Usagi, who was looking all around the room for a hiding spot of her own, from whoever was upstairs.

Or maybe from us, Hannah thought. To hide her secret…

"Hannah?" Susan shook her again.

I wonder why I never noticed the crescent and star on her locket before, Hannah thought as she lifted her wand. "Sorry," she told Susan. "I'm um, was trying to remember something that might help."

Please be who I think you are, Hannah thought of Usagi as something creaked on the stairs. She concentrated on the spell they'd learned last year in Herbology. "Cumulolus," she whispered, aiming deliberately at the floor.

A spritz of mist came out of her wand, rolling across the floor of the cafe and, once it hit the walls, billowing upwards.

It had happened by accident in Herbology last year – Neville'd gotten knocked over by a plant mid-casting. Pointed at the ceiling, it would've created a fine layer of clouds to shower rain down on an enclosed space.

But pointed at the ground, with so much room to rise, the clouds grew higher and higher, soon they would fill the whole room in a dense, impenetrable fog.

"Nice one!" Terry cheered, leaning in to kiss her cheek as the fog rose.

Hannah grinned, watching the fog roll upwards, over the height of the tables and chairs. She looked at Usagi's face as it grew up around her shoulders, and saw her smirk as she raised her locket over her head.

Once the fog had completely filled the room, there was a bright flash and a brief puff of wind as Sailor Moon flexed her wings. She promptly tucked them in behind her, readying for a fight. Then she closed her eyes. There was still something creaking on the stairs. And a whisper, like a cloak or a robe, slipping along the railing.

Not only that, she raised her scepter, but a very dark presence was making its way down from the upper floor.

"Oh how clever," a man's voice whispered through the fog. "Trying to blind me."

Sailor Moon clutched her scepter tighter, continuing to glare in the direction of the stairs. Hannah's fog began to hum as another spell vibrated through it. A chorus of chimes filled the room as the water droplets in the fog froze and shattered. The whole cloud collapsed as powder-fine snow onto the wood floor of the cafe, beginning around Sailor Moon and spreading to every corner of the room.

When the staircase was revealed, so to was the figure descending the stairs, appearing as white as the snow that was drifting to the floor: from the cloak that covered most of his face and ghosted against the edges of the stairs, to the white knuckles of his thin-fingered hands, and to the slippers on his feet. He left no footprints, Sailor Moon saw as she glared towards him.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

He chuckled. "Who you are, is the more interesting question," he said and sighed. "Imagine, the lengths I went to hide myself, which if I am correct are little more than a side-effect of your power." He drew his hands together, tucking them into his sleeves. When he drew them out, there was a crystal ball between them. "Power I can locate, but not identify. And yours is a remarkable power, one which you have somehow, managed to use more responsibly that those guardians of your outer worlds." In his crystal ball, she saw the faces of the outer senshi flicker through. "You can't imagine my delight last year when you entered our world so ill prepared. To see real names beside those mythic titles you carry. The youngest was so obvious." His crystal ball lingered on Hotaru's face. "Even after you realized how to glamour your identities, even then I knew her. No magic could possibly disguise the nature of that glaive." He looked up. "But then of course, I was faced with the realization that those whose magic was taking over Tokyo were not witches of any comparable caliber to my kind… but merely mundane, girls, with troubled pasts." He smirked. "Troubled fathers,"

Sailor Moon's nostrils flared. "You did lead Lestrange to Mr. Tomoe!"

"But of course," he said, feet leaving the ground as he began to circle the room. "What better way to test whether I could truly block your pesky Guardian of Time?" He appeared suddenly at her elbow and she jumped. "And then there's you: I have oft wondered what witch it was that controlled so much ancient power." His mouth turned down in an angry frown. "Or what mundane child, is perhaps what I have been missing. Hiding in Azu-Juuban all these years, of all improbable places."

"You've been watching us!?"

"For a while," he said nonchalantly. "You were the fascination of my formative years after all, the inspiration for my work whether my world appreciated it or not..."

"And then you entered my world," he said. "Practiced my magic – magic which is the birthright only of Earth's chosen, and yet you wield it as easily as our best sorcerers do."

"Now I know why you get along with tall, dark and nose-less," Sailor Moon muttered.

"Get along," he chuckled again. "Such a... childish assumption. You belie your real age like that. Riddle is, shall we say, aligned with my goals, though his are quite crude, shortsighted on the whole. He lacks vision. But," he curled his lips away from his teeth as he grinned. "He was convenient, as he provided the means and opportunity for us to meet. Which is something I have been trying to orchestrate for many a year." And then he rushed close to her again, and held out a hand. "Nice to meet you."

She didn't take his hand. Rather, she stepped back, preparing to use her scepter. And he turned to ash, retreating. She turned round looking for him.

"Sailor Moon," his voice whispered from above. She looked up. "Savior of the Earth." He was seated on an arm of the cafe's silver chandelier. "Destroyer of Demons." She jumped as he took out his glowing crystal ball, which projected an image on all four of the walls and the floor and ceiling: herself three years prior, diving into Pharoah 90 and destroying it from within.

"Marvelous Power," he whispered, seeming to stare at her from under his hood. "Power you have horded for yourself."

"What are you talking about!" she snapped, flapping her wings and flying up so she was level with him.

The wizard hummed and drifted around the edge of the cafe, over the tops of many students hiding places. He assessed her as she turned, tracking him. Sailor Moon shivered as she watched his foot pass through an overturned chair.

"I come here," he said. "As a researcher – an overly curious academic." He chuckled. "I wish to have a conversation."

"Then we can have it alone," she said. "And you can let everyone else leave."

"I think not," he said, and he crooked his left hand in a beckoning gesture.

There was the scrape of a chair across the floor. And a squawk as a fourth year Ravenclaw was dragged out of his hiding spot by the neck of his robe. He was lifted into the air, whimpering as the wizard curled his hand around the back of the boy's robes. "They'll not be harmed," the wizard said. "But I have observed that your opponents see better results when they come to speak with you bearing..." He smirked as the boy yelped, twitching like he'd been shocked. "Collateral."

Sailor Moon bit her lip, glancing out the broken front window. She could see the shimmer of the shield imprisoning them and the flashes of magic outside that said her senshi were fighting just beyond the threshold.

"If this one isn't important enough," the wizard offered. "Consider how many I have upstairs." He nodded towards the fighting outside. "You wish to stall me and protect them all. And I believe you'll see as I do, that the best way to stall me, is to talk."
Sailor Moon gritted her teeth and lowered the scepter just a bit. "Fine – let's."

~SMH~

The basement of the Hog's Head hadn't remained empty for long. Within minutes of Pluto leaving Neville there, the space had filled with students and other Hogsmeade shoppers. It'd consequently been easy to distract himself from what he knew was happening in the square, and at Puddifoot's, when there were so many other things to do. Neville'd had to sort out a group of third years first off, all of whom were covered in soot and who didn't know the spell to remove it. Then he'd wound up lighting a number of candles that they could spread around the space. He'd noticed a few people with broken limbs then too, and had just started trying to get anyone hurt to sit by the basement stairs, when he heard the bell on the pub door chime and then the familiar sound of Ron's and Jadeite's cursing from the ground floor.

"It's not broken," he assured the fourth year whose wrist he'd been wrapping. "Just... go sit down with that group that needs Mme. Pomfrey, okay." He pointed the younger student to the near right hand corner of the room. And then he bolted up the stairs towards Ron and Jadeite's voices.
Neville had figured they'd been out fighting, but when he'd initially charged up to the ground floor to try to help outside, he'd found the street full of smoke and flaring with spellfire, far to dangerous to venture out into alone. (Especially as he'd forgotten the bubblehead charm.)

"Jadeite!" he gasped as he rushed up the basement stairs to the ground floor, where the injured aurors were congregating. All four of his friends were there: Luna wrapping a bandage around Ron's head, Hermione, hair drawn away from her face, the edges a bit singed, talking to an Auror and the barkeep, and Jadeite, their white and red uniform powdered with smoke and dirt, leaning out the open doorway.

"Gin-Jadeite get in here," Ron snapped. "Oi – Neville!"

"Did you come from Zonko's?" Neville asked. Jadeite and Luna would've been stationed there. "Is the fire out?"

"Fire's been out for a while," Ron said as Jadeite made their way over. He rubbed his forehead over the bandage Luna's just finished. "Or might as well have been after Mercury and Neptune flooded the basement.

"There's still steam coming up through the floor from whatever caused it," Jadeite said. "But it's covered." They spun round. "Are they here – I thought they'd be guarding the students... or rounding up the death eaters."

"You mean they're still in the square?" Neville bit his lip.

"What's in the square?" Luna asked as Neville checked his watch.

13:27.

It's been 20 minutes and they're still at it. Neville bit his lip. Even if they hadn't gotten into Puddifoot's yet, he'd at least assumed all of them together would scare off Lestrange... unless she's gone more crazy...

"Nev?" Jadeite nudged him with their foot. "How'd you get over here from Puddifoot's?"

"Pluto," he answered. "I-I thought they'd be done by now." He stared at his watch. "Usagi's... still inside."

"D'you run out on your date?"

"RONALD!" Hermione snapped, having finished her conversation and made her way over.

"She saved me," Neville muttered. And he looked at Jadeite. "She's trapped inside Puddifoot's. And Lestrange is guarding it."

Jadeite stiffened.

"Lestrange wouldn't be able to fight all of them," Luna said. "Unless she's got help of course. She does have that awful penchant for manipulating creatures."

"She's here," Hermione balked, and looked round at the wood walls of the pub. "Wards," she said. "We need more wards."

"I um..." Neville swallowed, he'd just caught a glimpse out the window. "The smoke's gone."

"Yah they've got most of the death eaters fighting down the road," Ron offered.

"So... so it's safe to leave?"

Hermione, Ron and Jadeite traded looks.

Luna was nodding. "I expect so," she said. "If you want to go and see what's happening in the square,"

"I do," Neville said.

"I'll go with you," Jadeite said.

"And me," Luna added, causing Hermione to give her a startled look and Ron a smile of approval. "Well I do know a lot about creatures," she said when Jadeite looked about to protest. "If Lestrange has brought any, I could be helpful."

"You're always helpful Luna," Neville said. "But it is dangerous." He bit his lip. "I just need to see how their fight is going."

"Yah, but if Lestrange see's you, you're toast, mate," Ron said.

"That is true – wait!" Hermione's hands darted to her cloak, and she pulled a silvery bundle out of the inner pocket. "Harry gave it to me this morning," Hermione explained as she passed the flowing, shimmering material of the invisibility cloak into Neville's hands. "Luna's small like Harry – all three of you might fit under it."
"Wait!" Ron gaped. "We have to go too – Jadeite's going."

"Jadeite is a knight," They grumbled, having justified their place in the war too many times to their mother and brothers.

"And we're prefects," Hermione reminded Ron. "And Mcgonagall told us to look after everyone." She pointed Ron towards the front door. "Now help me put up wards."

Ron sighed, and as they walked with him to the door, he clasped Neville, Luna, and lastly Jadeite on the shoulder. "BE careful," he stressed. "And-And don't do what Harry would do."

"You mean what you and Harry would do," Jadeite quipped as they pulled open the front door and, ahead of Neville and Luna, ducked outside.

"We'll look after them," Luna promised Ron as she too stepped out onto the street. Neville nodded, and Ron clasped his arm as he left.

"Good Luck, Mate," he said, releasing Neville's arm and waving at them as Jadeite closed the door.

"This way," Jadeite said as Neville threw the cloak around the three of them. Jadeite led them under the awning of the pub, away from the sounds of spellfire. "Let's see what's up."

~SMH~

"VENUS LOVE CHAIN ENCIRCLE!" The attack snapped around the square, once, twice, thrice. It wrapped round the five golems advancing on them – faster than their heavy composition should have allowed, and lassoed all four together round their knees.

"Dead Scream!"

"Deep Submerge!"

The two attacks swamped the four golems before they could attack. At the same time, a few meters away, Jupiter's Supreme Thunder struck another over the head, and Mercury turned a sixth from a muscled, 10 foot figure into a harmless slick of mud across the cobblestones.

"Love and Beauty Shock!" Venus shouted then, loosing her other signature attack on the Golem Uranus was dueling with her swords. That one exploded in a rain of dirt, and Love and Beauty Shock streaked right through it, and into the last remaining golem, which was chasing mars. While her fire had done little more than cook it into clay, Venus attack quickly shattered it.

"Quick the Parchment!" Mercury said, noting the things, which seemed to control each golem, were shooting up into the air.

"On it!" Mars shouted, jumping up in the air with her spear spinning, amethyst flames burning at both ends.

Finally something for her powers to do…

"Mars Burning Mandela!" she cried, watching fireballs spin off the spear and dart towards the glowing bits of parchment. They hit all nine.

"Nice!" Jupiter shouted as she alighted on the ground.

But a giggle from Lestrange interrupted their celebration. She cast a spell – orange – that raced away from her wand in a wave that all of the senshi had to duck or jump.

By the time they landed together in square, streams of gravel and dirt were rushing into the air all around them.

"WHAT!" Mars gaped. All nine bits of parchment were floating intact overhead, not even burnt, and new earthen bodies were forming around them.

"Love and Beauty SHOCK!" Venus shouted, but the nine reforming golems shot up further into the air, out of reach of her spell. It managed to catch ones forming leg, which was reforming again almost immediately.

"Never could be easy, could it?" Uranus murmured, power flooding both her swords.

Their nine foes did not drop right to the ground this time. Much to all of their frustration, they began to fly: circling the senshi from above.

One of the taller ones cracked opened its mouth as its eye sockets glowed green.

"Oh no you don't!" Jupiter shouted, leaping up with her lightning rod and hammer extended. She caught the lightning the golem shot, gritting her teeth as she absorbed it, and directed it at several of their other flying foes.

Two exploded. One escaped. Two more shot attacks – purple and dark red – towards the senshi on the ground.

Jupiter landed clutching her head, glaring over at the death eater currently in stitches on the roof of Puddifoot's. "You're laughing now," Jupiter grumbled. "Wait till we get Sailor Moon out here."

"We've got to create an opening first," Venus said. "Come on, let's keep them far enough away to get to Lestrange, lets try to fight them to the other side of the square."

"They're wising up to that..." Mercury warned. And they were. One, which had been causing violent bursts of wind when it clapped its hands, was now hovering in front of Lestrange.

Damnit, Venus thought.

"We'll try your plan first," Pluto said. "See if we can't keep most of them corralled together."

"Gotta ground them first," Uranus suggested, and her swords chimed as she crossed them and shouted "Space Turbulence!"

Venus made to pursue the golems that had dodged the attack, sparing a glance for Puddifoot's as she moved. It was too dark in the cafe to see anyone inside.We'll get in there soon Sailor Moon, she promised herself. But I hope you're faring better in there than we are out here.

~SMH~

They had easily made it to the square, and were now lingering just around the corner from it: Jadeite, Neville, and Luna all crammed under the invisibility cloak and using the wall of Honeydukes to hide from the occasional attacks that ricocheted away from the senshi's battle. In the square, they watched a joint attack from Mars and Jupiter cook and shatter five of the golems. Another from Mercury felled four in a sweeping, glacial blue wave. In the wake of those, Neptune and Uranus made a break for Lestrange, only for her to apparate away as she twiddled her fingers at them. Their twin attacks smashed against Puddifoot's, revealing a dark shield that shimmered as it was disturbed.

"That covers the whole building," Jadeite murmured. "Merlin… We need Bill." They watched as several of the senshi, together, combined their attacks and aimed them at the nine bits of parchment left over from the golems. But the blast – bright enough that they covered their eyes even under the cloak – yielded no result. And streams of dirt were already rushing up into the air to reform their foes. Jadeite swore. "And they need Usagi."

"But she's stuck in there!" Neville exploded. "Behind whatever… ward that is."

"I've seen magic like that before," Luna whispered and "On Daddy's trips. When – ahh!" she jumped as Jadeite's sword came up and blocked a stone that Uranus and one of the golems had just blasted out of the ground. "To reach the Snorkack's breeding grounds," Luna continued.
"We need Bill," Jadeite reiterated, not listening to her. "Only cursebreakers know how to beat wards."

"Or an Auror," Neville said back, biting his lip. "But they're all busy with..."

"I think I saw Mme. Bones over by…"

"Wait," Luna hissed, elbowing the both of them. They both looked down at her under the cloak. She took a breath. "I can," she insisted.

"Huh?"

"Daddy and I have travelled all over on expeditions," Luna shrugged. "People weren't always receptive to letting us search where we pleased, but it wasn't as if the creatures abided by borders."

"Alright then," Jadeite said. "Do the spell."

"I can't from here," Luna whispered and pointed across the square at Puddifoot's. "We'd need to move closer to the building."

"But Lestrange is over there," Jadeite hissed. "Nu-uh. No way. We're getting an auror."

"They're just as afraid of her," Neville said. He gulped.

Out in the square, a golem opened its palms and filled them with balls of deep red light, these swelled rapidly to three times their size and then the creature threw them to the left and right – aiming straight at Venus and Pluto.
Jadeite hissed, and Luna and Neville flinched as the Garnet Rod swung up to counter one attack. The resultant explosion kicked up a fog across an entire third of the square, even engulfing the ruined flowerbeds around the central clock.

At the same time, Uranus leapt in front of Venus. The deep red energy ball struck her crossed swords, metal chiming on metal. The energy pressed into the weapons until it exhausted itself and vanished, immediately after, Uranus wobbled and dropped to her knees.

There's no time to get the aurors, Neville thought. They need Usagi now. He swallowed the lump in his throat. "We have to do it. The aurors would call it too dangerous anyways." He adjusted the invisibility cloak. "Lets go."

Jadeite grabbed both their arms as they both attempted to walk right across the wide-open square on the fringes of the battle. "Wait." And they began to back up, into a nearby alley. "Follow my lead."

It took some maneuvering: navigating not through wide, main streets, but through narrow, cluttered alleys. But Jadeite was insistent, and Neville and Luna hardly disagreed – Lestrange was less likely to be looking down here.

And even then, under the cloak and off the main roads, the stayed pressed close to the back walls of the shops. Neville had to remind himself over and over that Lestrange couldn't see through the roofs and walls, and certainly not through the cloak.But an irrational part of him, informed by the version of her that lurked within in his nightmares, still couldn't put such skills past her.

When they reached Puddifoot's they, all three, pressed themselves against the chimney, under the edge of the roof

And Jadeite looked down. Their feet, even with Neville crouching, were peaking out beneath the hem of the cloak. "Cloak's too small," they said. "Lestrange is right over us, she'll notice. And they pointed their sword at the backdoor of the neighboring shop. "Alohomora."

It popped open.

"Neville," Jadeite whispered. "We're going to walk you to the door. Go in there until the fighting is done."

"Why me?"

"Because she's got it out for you!" Jadeite hissed back. "I'll stay out here with Luna until we get the ward down, and then she'll hide in there with you too." They glanced up as two bright flashes of light lit up the alley – the result of two attacks being let off in the main square. "I'll go help them after that."

"It looks like they need you now," Luna whispered, noting the red fire flickering around Jadeite's clenching fists. "You should help them."

"Yes, but," Jadeite bit their lip as something the square exploded again, and Lestrange cackled.

"Leave us here with the cloak," Luna said. "We'll be alright."

"But Lestrange."

"Sh-she's all the way up on the roof," Neville whispered. He gulped. She's all the way up on the roof. "We can get the ward down." And he laughed a little, looking up through the cloak at the edge of the roof that covered their heads. "How's she gonna see us."

Jadeite took a breath and shook their head. "I shouldn't…" but another explosion of cobblestones in the square distracted them.

Neville straightened up, holding his hand with his wand over his heart. "I can guard Luna."

"I can't let you."

"Course you can," Neville squared his shoulders. "I've been practicing… and I know more defense spells than you."

Jadeite frowned at him. "But…"

"And they need you out there," Neville whispered.

"But Lestrange."

"Can't see us down here," Neville whispered, it came out a little more confidently the second time, even if he was still convincing himself. "And I'd rather stay here and help, than hide in there," he pointed to the shop Jadeite had opened. "And do nothing."

Jadeite made a face. "Don't know why you ever thought you were a bad Gryffindor." And they lifted the cloak, stepping out into the alley. They paused.

"What?"

But Jadeite shook their head, and un-clipped their sword from their hip. They unsheathed it, and held it out to Neville. "Just in case you need it," they said, and backed further away as Neville took the sword. Jadeite glanced up towards Puddifoot's roof. Lestrange was nowhere near them. They looked at the spot where Neville and Luna were under the cloak. With just two of them, it covered their feet now. Jadeite sighed and pointed to the neighboring shop with the opened door. "Get the ward down, and then get in there." They glared at where they thought Neville's head ought to be. "Don't do what Harry would do."

And they ran off, emerging into the square by casting Noble Flame at the closest golem. They dodged a red spell shot off the rooftop as they did.

Neville gulped and turned as he felt Luna move beside him. She'd pressed her forehead and left hand to the stone wall. Her wand was tapping quietly against the stones.

"How long will this take?"

"A little while," Luna whispered. "I need to know what kind of ward it is, then I can crack it." And then her voice lowered. In that deeper tone, the words of an incantation Neville couldn't make sense of left her lips. Her wand continued dancing over the stones.

Neville swallowed a sigh, looking out towards the battle, and up at the roof, and then down at Luna again. He held his wand and Jadeite's sword close, and hoped like hell Luna'd be done quickly.

~SMH~

"Your power's quite infamous you know," the Wizard told Sailor Moon as they circled each other around the dining room in Puddifoot's. "At least in some myths." He let his crystal ball project a new image on all the walls and floors and ceilings: parchment by the look of it, with characters Sailor Moon didn't recognize for the life of her.

But the picture was clear. There was Queen Serenity – with a crescent moon adorning the bodice of her dress, presenting a sword and mirror to two kneeling soldiers.

"Freely gifted to your favoured…" Another image, Usagi caught her breath, of the old Moon wand imprisoning Nehelenia in the mirror. "Used with quite a vengeance on those who sleight you." The image changed once more, to wix photo this time, of a bright explosion over an icy tundra. She recognized the blast patterns in the ice. The remains of five DD girls which had nearly been her senshi's tombs. "Capable of feats impossible for modern magic." He lingered on that last image. "That restorative ability… is it one you all share… Or is only your power?"

Sailor Moon swallowed, eyes on the Ravenclaw boy that the wizard was holding hostage. How could she free him? "It's only my power," she said.

I could free him with the tiara, she thought, flexing her free hand. She raised it a bit of the way towards her head and lowered it, clenching her fist. Why did you have to get rid of the tiara? She demanded of her Eternal transformation. That was useful!

"Is it now?" he hummed, and his crystal ball flashed again. "Then the Silence Glaive's roll here…"

Another photo, taken from much farther away than she'd been on that day. Herself carrying a baby Hotaru amid the rubble of the delta, and Neptune coming forwards to take her.

Sailor Moon swallowed. "That-that was all me." She admitted, mind spinning. Whose idea had it been to get rid of her tiara? "Actually that was an accident," she hoped a joke would make him drop his guard. "I – I mean I guess most babies are accidents, but maybe not in the same way – hehe…"

His mouth didn't even twitch.

Luna. It had definitely been Luna. She'd made all sorts of Sailor Moon's wands and brooches appear and disappear after all. She'd definitely put the tiara in whatever… black hole those came out of. It is definitely your fault, Sailor Moon decided as she watched the images all over the café change again. You could just let me keep things – I almost never lose them.

The newest image was one taken at the shrine. Sailor Moon shivered as she watched Mars and Venus, courtesy of Galaxia, disintegrate, and their sailor crystals disappear. "Do we – ah – have to cover this one?" she asked the wizard, still flexing her free hand by her side.

How did Luna summon all her gadgets?

"Oh but this was the most interesting," the wizard whispered. "Finally I had some congruity to my own magic." And when the loop of action in the wizarding image replayed, he zoomed in on the two senshi, on their sailor crystals. "Remind you of anything?"

She gulped. Stall. She needed to stall. Could she just Accio her tiara? "Er… jewellery?"

"Old magic," the Wizard whispered, "The kind that survives as myth today. There's only a few examples of it left… I believe you are familiar with some." And he unfurled his hand.

Her breath caught as he revealed Slytherin's locket – and the blue-green stone gleaming in the light from the crystal ball. "Zoisite," she whispered.

"I'd had an inkling about he and the others when I first encountered them with you," he whispered. "Most wizards call what they are myths. It wasn't until I gained access to Elysion –"

"You never," she shot back. "Helios would never let you in there."

"You mean your agent there? Of course not," the Wizard smirked. "Fortunately with cooperation, one can accomplish things not otherwise possible. In that case, I was permitted to visit whilst he was…" the image on all the walls changed to one of Helios, when he'd been imprisoned in Nehelenia's trap. "Otherwise occupied."

"Nehelenia," she murmured. Accio wasn't working. What else. How was Luna able to just conjure things. She's just like Mcgonagall.

"We got along, as you might say," the Wizard chuckled. "I digress… Zoisite, his fellows, they're Wix who have connected themselves with a suitable gem or stone, and are thereafter granted… extraordinary abilities… as seers, or elementals, or as healers. Most remarkably though is that they could remain behind, in one way or another, to advise further generations. The most powerful could even return from the dead." He laughed. "In another time I had dismissed it as merely a myth because of that," he let Zoisite's locket dangle in the air. "Until I found them… and you."

"That's different though," Sailor Moon said. What was the spell?

"How?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"It-just… I don't know." Why don't I pay more attention in class? she thought, still trying to think of the spell for conjuring things.

"It is only that," the Wizard said, "Magic such as theirs vanished across the world and into myth quite long ago. A thousand years… give or take. These four of Elysion were the last with such power, the magic that would have helped create them was lost to most of us."

"Well you know maybe Jadeite knows," Sailor Moon said. I need that tiara! The spell was the tip of her tongue. "Or Zoisite… if you let me see the locket, I could wake him."

"Nice try," the Wizard said. "No, I am more interested in how you came by that power." His mouth turned down in a frown. "Because every record says all that magic our people lost… they lost it to you," he said. "The White Moon."

Sailor Moon huffed, the feathers of her wings ruffled indignantly. "Listen Buddy," She said, switching her sceptre to her left hand and lowered her right hand to her side so it was slightly behind her. She had recalled the spell, and was repeating it over and over in her head. She could feel the magic in her palm. "I don't know what half-baked campfire stories you got from talking to everyone whose butt I've ever kicked, but I did not steal my magic from anyone." She flew to far corner of the room so he would not see what she intended. "Now put him down… both of them," she amended. "And let us go."

"You have to most naïve ideas of how negotiation works."

"Negotiation?" she grinned. Her right hand curled round the tiara that now weighed down her palm. "Huh, I meant that as a threat. Oh well!" And, twirling the sceptre to feign an attack, she sent the tiara boomeranging to the right. "Moon Tiara MAGIC!"

The Wizard didn't get out of the way in time, but he was fast. He vanished Zoisite's locket with a twist of his hand. Her tiara whizzed right through his palm, and sliced through the back of the Ravenclaw hostage's robes. The boy dropped down onto the floor. And Sailor Moon flew down to him, raising her sceptre. "Protego Maxima!"

The bright, silvery shield filled the room, backing the wizard into the corner with the stairs. She saw several students peak out from their hiding places, smirking.

She glared at the Wizard. He loomed overhead, face still obscured by his cloak.

"You think you've got a stalemate?" he mused. "Did you forget?"

"Forget what?" she snapped.

"About the others upstairs." And he snapped his fingers.

Above, they heard the steady beat of many footsteps, as those diners who'd screamed from the upper-floor marched down to the ground floor. Sailor Moon frowned, and then gasped as the first bunch tried to walk right into her shield. She shrunk it to accommodate them as fifteen people piled down the stairs and into the corner of the room.

They all had their wands raised, and a glazed over expression that suggested the reason the fighting upstairs had stopped so suddenly.

He imperioed them…

"Attack," the Wizard ordered, and Sailor Moon gasped as all of them, as once, began hurtling spells at her shield.

She gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on the sceptre. She could outlast this. She glanced out the window again. There was still heavy fighting out in the square.

Come on you guys, she thought as she focused on maintaining her shield. I need help in here.

~SMH~

Behind Puddifoot's, Neville was torn between watching the edge of the roof for Lestrange, whom he could hear apparating every so often to dodge attacks from the senshi, and with looking out on the square, where it was clear the battle was still raging strong.

He saw a blur of white and red tumble to the ground out the other end of the alley and his heart leapt into his throat. Jadeite or Mars, he thought.

"They're alright," Luna startled him as spoke. He jumped and had to adjust the cloak around them when it slipped off his head.

Luna rose to her feet, not a thought for the dust now imprinted on her robes. She touched Neville's arm. "If we can help with this ward," Luna reminded him. "They don't have to fight much longer."

"Yeah. Yeah, okay." He turned to look at her, their foreheads brushing under the invisibility cloak. "Did you figure out what kind of ward it is?"

Luna nodded. "It's an old Druid ward," she said. "This one combines fortification with barring and trapping." She brushed the wall. "Azkaban's got a similar one, I believe. And we've seen them on enclosures and things."

"Can you break it?"

"Oh breaking it is easy," Luna assured him, their voices well masked by the sounds of the fighting close by. "That's the weakness of Druid wards, you see, you've got to anchor them with a keystone."

"A what?"

"Usually a gem. Quartz is good, though I suppose this one's too dark to anchor with a quartz." She shook her head. "Anyways, it's usually put on the outside of the structure somewhere."

Neville looked around. "But – but we would've seen it on the walls."

"Oh that wouldn't be a good place to put one." Luna said. "Usually they're hard to reach: put under a foundation, say, or between some stones."

Neville frowned. "But… but we can't get under the building."

"This one's not underneath," Luna assured him. "It's going to be much easier to get to." She pointed up. "It's in the chimney."

Neville blinked, looking between the chimney and Luna, and back. "It's on the roof."

With Lestrange…

Luna nodded. "I'll just… go up and get the stone and break –"

"Luna!" he gaped.

She blinked up at him, tilting her head to the side. "There isn't another way to do it," she said. "I'm sure Daddy would say otherwise, but he also says it's bothersome to be so practical." She smiled at Neville. "But I'll have to take the cloak with me, so you ought to go hide inside that shop there."

"I – d'you realize who's up there?" Neville gaped, feet still planted in place.

Luna nodded. "Obviously, I said I needed the cloak."

"And you're… you're not scared?"

Luna paused for a moment, and let her eyes fall on Jadeite's sword. "It's not just you and Jadeite who can be brave, you know," she said. "Sometimes you don't get the choice whether you want to be scared or not." She closed her eyes and nodded. "I need to break the keystone." She repeated quite calmly. "My friends need me to do that." And she reached out and grabbed his hands, giving him a bright-eyed, beaming smile. "And I need my friends."

Neville couldn't help smiling back. He looked up at the roof. "Okay." He said. "Let's get up there."

She tilted her head to the other side. "You don't need to go."

"Well you can't go up there alone!"

She blinked, and stared at him for a few seconds, still smiling a small, pensive smile. "But Neville… Are you ready for that?"

"Are you ready to face Lestrange?" Pluto had asked him only a half hour ago. He gulped.

He looked up at the roof's edge.

He was particularly grateful to have his parents back and lucid in that moment, as he recalled something his mother had said over New Years when he'd wondered why she and his father had joined the Order so young.

"Had to, didn't we?" she'd said. "Weren't sure it would help – was terrified out of my mind that first year or two…

"But you either do something or nothing. And nothing wasn't an option. So we tried."

Neville swallowed again, trying to ignore how dry his throat was, as he answered Luna. "No, I'm not ready." He took a deep breath. "But I can try." He pointed up. "Let's go."

Luna smiled, and squeezed his hand.

Getting up to the roof was unnervingly easy. Luna, either learned from another of her adventures in Magizoology or due simply to her own whimsical nature, was decidedly good at all manner of levitation charms. For Neville's part, he thanked all his lucky stars and especially Mcgonagall that he had continued with Charms and could now cast some simpler ones, namely the muffling charm,without a word. Between he and Luna, they alighted on the roof without even the scrape of their shoes on the shingles to alert Lestrange.

Not that she was looking: they could just see the top of her hair where she sat on the opposite edge of the roof. Neville saw, and immediately trained his shaking wand on the back of her head.

But Luna grabbed his hand. Neville turned and watched her shake her head just slightly, trying not to rustle their cloak. Luna pointed to her eyes.

It took Neville a moment to remember. Luna could see some magics – like shields.

Lestrange was shielded then. Of course she is. Neville flushed. She was crazy, not stupid.

Luna tugged on his hand, hers, he noticed, had grown sweaty. She led him the few steps over to the chimney, where (he squinted) something was casting a dim, green glow onto the insides of the bricks.

Luna stopped just a few inches shy of the chimney and knelt, drawing her wand and beginning to move her lips, the same way she had while examining the ward around Puddifoots. So there was some other ward protecting the keystone then, and she would need to crack it to get through. Neville watched her brows furrow as she tried her best to work silently – a skill which half the sixth years were still struggling with.

This is a bad idea, Neville thought as he looked down and noticed Luna's robes had escaped the hem of the invisibility cloak. He hastily adjusted it and snapped his head back up to watch Lestrange. This is a really bad idea.

Harry could do it, Neville thought, in a voice that sounded like his grandmother's. She so enjoyed comparing them. Dad could do it.

Usagi could…

No, Neville managed to smile slightly at the thought, and then had to clamp down on a sudden, absurd urge to giggle. No, Usagi would've tripped on the shingles and blown our cover by now. And she'd have challenged Lestrange to a duel right here.

She'd get Puddifoot's free by having Lestrange destroy her own shield with some misfired spell.

She wouldn't be scared, Neville thought. For he'd seen her face Lestrange just last year, and seen her fight all manner of dark things that would've given an auror pause. Usagi could fight Lestrange. Neville was left shaking at the thought. And unlike him, Neville thought as he stared at the back of Lestrange's head, Usagi'd have a chance to win.

Why had she not escaped Puddifoot's yet? What evil was trapped inside with her? Neville pondered as he slowly reached down to the sword weighing down his robes. He closed his free right hand around the pommel of Gryffindor's sword. Jadeite's sword.

"Don't know why you ever thought you were a bad Gryffindor."

Neville shifted from foot to foot, trying to get a good grip on the sword handle with his sweaty hand. Jadeite had perhaps intended the sword to protect them, and perhaps it had enough mind of its own to make up for Neville never having held one in his life. It even felt strange in his grip.

Harry could us it when you were twelve, his Gran's voice said. He pleaded with her to shut up.

I bet Endymion could use a sword, he found himself thinking, for he'd started comparing the two of them.

Neville forced himself to look away from Lestrange then, and check on Luna. He watched her work diligently to breach the shield around the chimney. He looked away after a few minutes, and his stomach twisted as he caught Lestrange laughing at the battle down below.

He imagined what could happen: Lestrange would see them – probably before they'd freed Usagi and the others. He'd use the sword. And he would drop it, or break it, or stab himself with it.

And, if he and Luna managed not to die, Usagi would likely have to save them, and would surely realize she was wasting her time on him and…

Stop, Neville told himself. Cross that bridge if you get to it.

Maybe Luna and I aren't the best, he thought. But we're what we have.

I've got to try, he thought and repeated: I will try. And to prove it to himself, Neville squared his shoulders, tightened his grip on Jadeite's sword, and drew it quickly from its sheath.

Shiiing. He froze. And then flushed once he remembered he'd cast a muffling charm. Lestrange hadn't even twitched.

Luna was still muttering away, right hand fidgeting against her thigh as her left waved her wand.

Neville considered the sword in his hand. It was lighter than he'd assumed.

Well that's something at least.

~SMH~

"JADEITE NOBLE FLAME!" The bright tongue of red fire was met with a cheer as it merged with Mars Snake Fire and Venus Wink Chain, weaving round five golems and exploding all of them.

"Gryffindor bringing the thunder!" Venus yelled.

"Excuse you!" Jupiter boomed and with a grunt, tossed a Coconut Cyclone into one of the remaining three foes. She swung her hammer around in time to deflect the latest Crucio that Lestrange had cast from her perch – they hadn't hit anyone dead-on yet but they were annoying.

Much like these monsters…

"I bring the thunder," Jupiter said as they watched the six bits of parchment that remained of their foes dart up into the air, too high to hit. Dirt and gravel were already streaming up into the air to reform the golems.

Across the square, Neptune shouted, dodging the golem that was shooting beams of pink hearts out of its palm. That was hardly as destructive as the golem that could cast purple shields and make the street explode with its energy beams, but it was certainly one of the most powerful of the monsters.

"What charms were these made with?" Jadeite muttered.

"Beats me," Venus quipped. "Pluto and Merc can't figure it out either."

"What have you tried for destroying those parchments?"

"Tried everything," Venus answered, and lashed the Wink chain at the golem Uranus was herding towards them. "No marbles."

"No dice!" Mars corrected.

"None of us can even tear them," Venus continued. "We need Usagi." She glanced up.

Pluto had jumped into the air and shot a Dead Scream at the Golems that were still reforming overhead. As she flipped and fell towards the ground, Mercury cast an Aqua Rhapsody to intercept the curse Lestrange had just shot at Pluto. The attacks exploded together, sending a shower of freezing rain down on the already icy square.

Amid the rain, Pluto landed between Venus and Mars, and waved Uranus, Neptune, and Mercury over.

While their foes were still reforming, she cast Garnet Ball. She glanced up once at Lestrange before addressing them all.

"We need five more minutes," she told them. "We'll have Usagi's help after that. She should be able to manage these."

"Should?" Neptune whispered.

"I can't see the golems," Pluto stressed. "But the energy possessing them is the same as in the dementor Lestrange augmented months ago, and Usagi was able to defeat that."

"With Saturn," Uranus muttered. "Should we…"

"Ideally," Pluto said. "But she's not…" she sighed.

She was having trouble seeing where Hotaru was at the moment, which meant she might be around one of those hidden from her sight.

Could it be Draco? She mused and shook her head.

"It's unwise to send a patronus for her at the moment," Pluto told her friends. She looked up at the golems – all nine nearly finished reforming. "I believe Sailor Moon will still manage these on her own."

"And she'll be out in five minutes?" Mars asked. "Can you see what she's fighting in there."

"She doesn't have to," Jadeite said and looked up at Pluto with a grin. "It's Neville and Luna, right? They're behind Puddifoot's working on the ward right now.

"No," Pluto said. "They've now moved to the roof."

The group gasped. Jadeite too, followed by a long stream of curses.

"They will get that ward down," Pluto assured them all. "But I cannot see whether Lestrange will interfere with that.: She turned to Jadeite. "I have been managing the two golems that can cast shields."

"The purple one and the dark red one," Jadeite clarified.

Pluto nodded. "Stick with me as we fight these, so that you can step in quickly if I am needed on the roof."

"You can't duel her alone!" Mercury gasped.

"Someone must," Pluto said. "You must all keep these beings in check."

"But…"

Pluto shook her head. "I need to face her."

They all exchanged glances, and then Uranus nodded and clasped Pluto on the shoulder. "She's right," she said, looking at Venus who still looked as though she might object.

"Be careful," Neptune added, touching Pluto's arm.

"I will," Pluto said, and they all glanced around as, outside the shield, the nine reformed golems landed heavily on the cobblestones.

Venus looked at all of them, and then her eyes snapped to Pluto. "Fine," she nodded. And turned round to face the nearest golem. "Then don't waste your shield." Her whip lit up as the others turned to face the next round of attacks. "Ready…GO!"

~SMH~

Neville had begun to wonder if it had all been for naught – Luna had been muttering for what felt like ages – when everything changed at once – in the time it took him to blink.

It changed, when the invisible barrier protecting the chimney suddenly flickered with light: becoming visible as a series of shifting, multi-colored circles forming a dome over the chimney.

In the same moment, Neville saw Lestrange stiffen across the roof.

And Luna stood, not even looking at the Death Eater, for she was wholly focused on her work. She stretched out her wand, to tap the now visible barrier, and the tip of it slipped past the hem of the invisibility cloak.

"Finite," she whispered as Lestrange turned around.

Neville saw the ward vanish from the Chimney at the same moment he saw Lestrange notice the same. The death eater whipped her wand forwards.

"Crucio."

"Luna!"

Everything seemed to slow as the red spell raced towards them.

Neville swung Jadeite's sword up and stepped towards Luna. The cloak slipped from their shoulders as he pushed her back, he and the sword stepping into the spell's path.

It struck. Jadeite's sword whined and quivered as the jolt from the unforgivable raced through it and up Neville's arm. It set him off balance and he stumbled on the slanted roof, knocking into Luna who tripped, fell, and rolled, slipping over the edge of the roof with a yelp.

Neville didn't have time to see if she'd caught herself or cast a cushioning charm. Not with the cloak in a useless silvery pile at his feet. His gangly, undisguised form was clear in Lestrange's sights.

"Crucio."

This curse clipped the edge of the sword, knocking Neville onto his bottom and causing his grip on the sword to falter. Jadeite's sword clattered onto the shingles as Neville sat, a meter from the edge, staring up at Lestrange.

She stood on the roof peak, glaring. Her wand was glowing green.

He ought have tried to scramble over the edge after Luna, but was caught by Lestrange's gaze like a rabbit caught in the sites of a hunter.

Lestrange smirked and whispered: "Avada Kedavra."

Neville stared at the cold green light as it shot towards his chest. Feeling that it was unfortunate that he had not, in his usual clumsiness, fallen over the roof's edge too.

He felt the chill radiating off the approaching curse, his vision narrowing as it came within inches of his chest. Everything beyond the green spell blurred. The air before him began to shimmer.

And then the spell, a hairsbreadth from him, bent. Its course curved as something redirected it back to its castor.

Lestrange gasped, frantically jerking her wand towards her chest. A chunk of the roof tore free of its supports and collided with her killing curse. Both exploded, and Lestrange apparated away as they did.

She appeared again, right atop the chimney, as the shimmer faded from the air. And before she'd even had time to train her wand on Neville, a new spell – a magenta sphere of pure energy – appeared overhead. It raced downwards, tearing across the peak of the roof, barreling towards Lestrange.

Dead Scream...

Bellatrix saw this in time to apparate again, and Neville watched the attack strike the empty top of the chimney, exploding and sending brick and mortar skyward.

In the wake of it, Sailor Pluto landed on the roof in front of him.

"Alright?" She asked, scanning around the roof.

"Y-yes - L-luna!"

"Is fine." she nodded to the remains of the chimney; the glowing green light inside was now even more prominent. "Get tha-"

"Avada Kedavra!"

Neville gaped as the Senshi of time lifted her garnet rod, with only a glance at the direction Lestrange had cast from. A magenta bubble formed around them and the killing curse hissed as it struck that shield, fizzling out as a mess of green smoke.

"Get everyone inside Puddifoot's free," Pluto told him again. "I will handle her." And she turned, her face colder than Neville had ever seen it. Her hard eyes found Lestrange in barely a moment (half hidden on the other side of the roof's peak). Pluto let her shield fall as she swung the Garnet Rod down to cast another Dead Scream.

This, Lestrange countered with a Bombarda. Both attacks burst with a deafening roar over the center of the roof, forcing Neville to shield his face with his arms.

When he glanced up, Pluto had gone from his side. She was running straight towards the cloud of smoke left in the wake of the explosion. He watched her Garnet Orb flash and the smoke part, revealing Lestrange with her wand lit up red.

His heart in his throat, and his arms beginning to shake, Neville watched Pluto countered Lestrange next spell by summoning a brick that had been blown off the chimney. When the red spell hit that, Lestrange had to apparate again to avoid the resultant shrapnel.
Pluto was lifting her garnet orb off the top of her staff when Lestrange reappeared behind the senshi.

"Look out!" Neville shouted, just as Pluto whispered something, and a familiar magenta sphere blossomed from the Garnet orb. Several feet across, it formed a barrier through which Lestrange could not apparate. Pluto had trapped them together inside Garnet Ball.

Neville gaped as she then lowered her now orb-less staff, holding it two handed like some pole arm. She spun it to deflect Lestrange's next spell, and used it like a wand to cast a counter-spell of her own.

How can she do that? he thought as he watched the duel, forgetting the keystone blocking Puddifoot's exits, forgetting Luna who was somewhere on the ground below. Neville even forgot Usagi and the others trapped inside the sealed building as he watched red, black, and purple spell-fire being volleyed back and forth within Pluto's Garnet Ball. No green lights. Lestrange, perhaps, did not have the necessary time to cast it – too busy keeping Pluto's staff from snapping her wand.

A red spell from Lestrange then slammed into the top of Garnet Ball and the whole sphere flickered.

That snapped Neville back to his senses. Pluto could surely not maintain that barrier and her duel for very long.

Neville hastened to his feet, got his wand into his left hand and then spun round until he found Jadeite's sword on the shingles a meter or so away. He stumbled over the torn up roof to get it, taking note of how the sealing spell on Puddifoots now sealed the new gaps in the roofing.

He needed to fix that. The key to the ward was in the chimney. He ran to that, climbing up what remained of the bricks and heaving himself over the charred ones at the top. He looked down into the green-lit chimney shaft.

The source of the light – a glowing opal – sat a foot or so below him, tucked into a small gap worn into the mortar. The green ward spanned out from it: seeping into the mortar of the chimney and out into the walls. He could see, far below, the hearth in the kitchen blocked off by the spell.

"Accio Keystone," he whispered. He got a small pop and a face full of soot for the effort.

Neville gulped, sparing a glance over the roof at Lestrange and Pluto. Spell-fire continued to volley back and forth within the Garnet Ball, which flickered each time a strong spell struck it. Lestrange had also grabbed the Garnet Rod in hand, and She and Pluto were currently fighting for control of it.

He looked away, catching sight of Venus' orange attack and Jupiter's green on the ground. The golems did not appear to be tiring as they lobbed matching colored attacks right back.

They need Usagi, he thought, returning his gaze to the keystone in the two-story high chimney shaft.

Neville gulped, reaching back and stowing his wand, then adjusting his right hand and the sword so they might provide him more support. With a firm grip on the sword hilt, he leaned forwards, wrinkling his nose as his shoulder caught the aide of the chimney shaft and knocked more soot into his face. He stretched out his left arm, whining as he strained downwards. The keystone was farther in that he had thought. He leaned further in, digging the toes of his shoes into the cracks between the bricks. Neville let go of the sword, bracing his right hand on the wall. He closed his eyes, still straining. His fingertips ghosted across the hot surface of the opal keystone...

And then he got the keystone in his grip, scrambling to right himself as he reappeared atop the broken chimney top and held the opal up. "Got it!"

He panted. Lestrange and Pluto still dueled back and forth. The battle with the golems still raged below. Auror spells still flew in the death eater swarmed streets around Zonko's.

The opal was still glowing, its powerful ward still in place.

Neville spotted Jadeite's sword still resting across the corner of the chimney and picked it up, slipping down until his feet hit the shingles. He placed the opal at his feet and reached into his left pocket, drawing his own cherry wand and training it on the keystone.

"Reducto."

With a high-pitched whine, the opal shattered. A bit of it scraped Neville's cheek and hand as he tried to shield his face.

On the ground, Neptune saw reflected in the Aqua Mirror. She shouted to Uranus to cover her and, knocking a golem aside with the butt of her trident, she trained the three prongs on Puddifoot's shop-front. "Liquesco."

The charm struck Puddifoot's dead-on, liquefying the stone and mortar front wall in an instant.

Everything: the deliquesced front wall, several floorboards, a painting, and two story's worth of windows, doors, lamps, and even several chairs all came down in a great, rumbling crash that shook the street and startled everyone a block around.

Everyone, including the Wizard in White, whose concentration and control over his Imperius curse broke as light flooded the interior of Puddifoot's. All the students, witches and wizards whom he'd cursed to attack Sailor Moon's shield came back to their senses. Some fainted. Many screamed. The vast majority of them ran towards the gaping escape in the front of the building.

"Yes!" Sailor Moon cheered, "Everyone go on!" she shouted to those students she'd been protecting. With one fluid spin of her scepter, she vanished her Protego and shifted from defending to attacking. Those students who'd huddled behind her charged for the exit as she advanced on the Wizard, who'd floated up closer to the ceiling, hands now flexing out before him as he struggled to summon his crystal ball.

"I've been wanting to do this for far too long." Sailor Moon grinned as her crescent symbol, and her scepter lit up bright white. "Starlight Honeymoon Therapy – HEY!"

The wizard, crystal ball finally in hand, became a swirl of ash that promptly dashed round the side of the building. Sailor Moon tracked that with narrowed eyes as it swirled out the corner of the café and away, disappearing into the blue sky outside.

That was when she laid eyes on the golems, all nine that her senshi had corralled into a loose group, kept together by the combined efforts of Venus whip, Uranus wind, and rings of Mars, and Jadeite's fire.

"Sailor Moon – Help!" Venus shouted.

She was already running out to them, the wizard forgotten. She took to the air with one pump of her wings and twirled her scepter on this new target.

"Starlight Honeymoon Therapy KISS!"

Her attack beamed down on the golems from above. Their earthen bodies crumbled quickly, revealing the nine cursed pieces of parchment that had controlled them before these too crumbled, morphing into something new: nine glowing pink shards that appeared sharp under the harsh sunlight.

Like that dementor, Sailor Moon thought as she recalled what had happened to the last of Lestrange's super-powered creations. "Stay back!" Sailor Moon shouted to her scouts. Already, like the last, these shards were turning black: their form warping, growing, and merging into a shapeless mess of dark energy. This energy dashed up towards the sky, over Sailor Moon's head, just as the energy from the dementor had many months ago. It streamed towards the forbidden forest, seeking an escape.

Sailor Moon flew up after it, hand waving over the brooch on her chest as its contents began to glow.

Her normal power had not been enough the first time. She would try something stronger now.

"SILVER CRYSTAL POWER"

On the ground, the senshi, Jadeite, and all those Puddifoot's customers had to shield their eyes as the beam of silver light engulfed the dark energy. It shrieked as if in pain as it was consumed, turning a pure, glittering white.

It worked. Sailor Moon grinned, relaxing her shoulders as she hovered in the air, waiting to see this purified energy disperse into the air as she'd seen so many times before.

But this magic did no such thing. Rather, it became brighter as it concentrated more closely together. And as though she had never purified it, the energy shrieked again, and darted past Sailor Moon, clipping her wing as it rushed back towards Puddifoot's.

In the square, Everyone gasped as they saw the sparkling energy streaked towards a target, as fast as lightning, too quickly for Sailor Moon to fly back. It had trained itself on the two combatants still dueling on Puddifoots' roof.

"PLUTO!" Uranus shouted.

The purified energy struck Garnet Ball, shattering it with a shockwave that knocked the watchers on the ground off their feet and stunned the two duelists within. Pluto gasped as her shield was broken, falling back as her uniform flickered and faded into burgundy robes. She landed hard on the roof as Setsuna.

And all the purified energy rushed into Bellatrix Lestrange's chest. The death eater screamed, back arcing as the energy filled her, forming a white aura around her body. Her eyes went wide as saucers.

Pluto gaped, pushing herself to her knees as Lestrange's screams transformed into manic laughter.

"MERLIN!" the Death Eater shrieked. "What is this?!" She looked at both her hands and her wand, all coated in the energy, and giggled "This is how it returns to me!"

Lestrange saw Sailors Moon and Uranus alight on the roof and flung her left hand out towards them. A blast of magic knocked them back. "Not so fast!" She then rounded on Setsuna, whose hand had summoned her staff. "Expelliarmus!"

Setsuna gasped as the staff was wrenched from her grip by an extra powerful spell, it rolled away from her. The Garnet Orb was nowhere near either, stuck in the gutter out of her reach.

And Lestrange, laughing, was advancing on her. "Not so confident now," the Death Eater mocked.

Two of the senshi's attacks, a Deep Submerge and a Coconut Cyclone barreled towards Lestrange from behind. She whipped her wand down.

The gutter suddenly cracked as it broke away from the roof. The metal unfolded and, glowing, deflected Neptune's attack and absorbed Jupiter's. Lestrange grinned, bringing her wand back upwards and pointing it at Setsuna's chest as she continued to scramble backwards. "Avada Kedavra!"

Setsuna was far enough back to launch out of the way, unable to apparate without her staff or her wand. She hit the crumbling side of the chimney with a grunt and racked her hair out of her face to glare at Lestrange as the Death Eater, still coated in the white aura, continued, step by step, to approach her.

Three more senshi attacks – red, blue, and yellow lit up the sky as they arced down towards Lestrange. But these too, the Death Eater blocked with a disconcerting wave of her hand, creating a barrier that the attacks could not pass.

"That ought to hold them back," Lestrange giggled. "Now…"

That energy had the silver crystal's power in it, Pluto thought as she stared down the green tip of Lestrange's wand and shifted so that she sat straight against the chimney, chin held high. There were not, it would seem, many other options open to her. Her staff and garnet orb lay several meters away, too far for her to get to.

The Senshi would, of course get past Lestrange's hastily crafted barrier. Of course they would.

But not, Setsuna guessed, in time.

At least Hotaru is back at the castle, Setsuna thought as Lestrange, grin twisting the lines on her face, began her spell.

"Avada Ke-"

"STOP!"

For a moment, one could see the same, shocked look on Setsuna and Lestrange's faces, as they realized there had still been one person with them on the rooftop. One who had curled up on the chimney's other side, out of sight, until now.

Lestrange began to turn towards the shout as the shing of metal split across the air between her and Setsuna. Jadeite's sword came between them from the left in an over-balanced swing executed by an unpracticed hand, the wielder, at best, hoping to crush Lestrange's wand or knock it from her hand.

As the sword swung in towards Lestrange's wand hand, the Death Eater jerked it upwards and turned, as if to apparate.

But the sword, swung with too much weight behind it, struck before she could. And it sliced, with an unobstructed squelch, right into Lestrange's gut. Neville's swing was only jarred to a halt by the blade cracking against the underside of Lestrange's ribs.

"Ava-da-Ke-dav-v-v-ra." Lestrange choked. But no spell shot out of her wand. Neville and Setsuna watched the green glow fade from it, as the powerful aura that had filled her dimmed. Neville was close enough to watch the light recede from her eyes.

The body fell away from the sword, the second Lestrange it had killed. The shield that had been cast to block the senshi fell as the body did. And all the senshi and Jadeite had alighted on the rooftop in time to see what remained of Lestrange thud onto the torn-up shingles.

"SETSUNA!" Uranus and Neptune shouted, running up to her whilst Setsuna grabbed hold of the ruined chimney and pulled herself to her feet.

"NEVILLE!" Jadeite and Sailor Moon dashed towards him.

But Neville held up his left hand to stop them. He looked round, blinking, and settled his gaze on Jadeite. He limped the few steps between them.

"Uhh…" Neville stammered. "Thanks." And he handed them their blade.

The glistening… red blade.

"You," Jadeite gaped as they took hold of the hilt, slipping the sword from Neville's hand. "You really…"

"Uhh…" Neville clenched his hand, which was warm and slippery. His brows furrowed as he looked down at it – "I, uhhh" – at the viscous red running down his fingers and onto his palm.

"You killed Lestrange…"

Neville began to answer them, but heaved. He threw up on his shoes.

~SMH~

The Hogsmeade trip ended quite quickly after that, with all the death eaters and their allies having disappeared at the same time that the ward blocking Puddifoots had gone down. Bones suspected portkeys. And thus, while the aurors and Hogsmeade's residents set about cleaning the soot, blood, and debris from the spellfire off the streets, it was a weary, jittery mass of students who shuffled back to the carriages bracketed by their chaperones.

"Maybe," Mcgonagall grumbled to Setsuna as they watched the students pile into the carriages. "This will put some sense into the Board." She sighed. "Or God willing, convince the kids to opt out of the next trip."

"I… believe it will convince the students," Setsuna said, mulling over the feeling she was getting from the future. She'd have to go to the Time Doors to be sure. "The Board doesn't feel inclined to change their stance."

Minerva grunted, sharp eyes zeroing in on a particularly frazzled group of fifth and sixth years. "Did Longbottom really make it over to you?" She asked. "I say – he looks pale as death."

Setsuna's pause had given it away, and she became the first to tell the tale to anyone. She had to tell it three times – Minerva'd been so gob smacked as to disbelieve her. She'd stared so long at Setsuna that her glasses had nearly fallen off her nose.

Neville himself was not up to telling – thankfully, he was spared the ordeal. Luna, despite not seeing the conclusion of the battle, seemed to already know. And Ginny and Mina took it upon themselves to tell a curious Ron and Hermione.

Harry's cloak had survived somehow – they'd found it, and Luna, behind a crate in the back alley. Save some bruises and a bloody nose, Luna was fine.

Neville was not fine, not at all, and thus Ginny and Luna offered to escort him up to bed, assuring him that the others would tell them all the details of their debrief the next day. Usagi assured him too, and he'd managed to smile at her, the effort of doing so was even more than the effort it took to make his feet climb the stairs to his dorm.

"I hope he'll be alright," Usagi worried to her senshi as they walked along to Setsuna's rooms for a much-needed meeting. She wrapped her arms around herself. "Maybe I should…"

"Not crowd him," Michiru advised, turning around from where she was walking between Setsuna and Haruka and looking back kindly on Usagi. "He has Ginny and Luna, and quite a lot going on in his head at the moment. Why don't you let your friends take care of Neville… and you can speak with him when the meeting's over."

Usagi bit her lip. "But… but what if he's asleep."

"Then you can meet him for breakfast," Michiru replied.

When they filed into Setsuna's sitting room, it was already occupied. The four first years were all sitting together on the larger of the black couches, watching Hotaru, who was pacing back and forth in front of it passing her glaive between her hands. Hotaru whirled around as soon as Setsuna pushed open her chamber door, nostrils flared. They all braced for the explosion.

"I HAD TO FIND OUT FROM SNAPE!"

~SMH~

The manor was dark. Not one of her underlings had been summoned there since the afternoon. And it was too late for the one, twitchy house-elf she kept to be lurking. Its curfew was 11 after all. And it followed her strict order to remain under the loose floorboard on the second floor between 11 and 6. It could sleep if it wanted.

To his mind, and in his own culture, that would have been far too strict an order. It wasn't as if house elves were rebellious in any way. They had evolved as Wix partners, not their slaves.

These Brits saw things so oddly.

Then again, they also had quite a bit more in terms of permitted magic than his society did, quite a few more resources available about darker magicks too – the sort he had needed to prove his theories, to do his experiments.

And considering she had proved it possible to create something more than the sorry excuses for horcruxes other's found acceptable, then why should he care how she chose to treat her house elf?

And he did appreciate its scarcity now. He always did his best work in silence.

The Wizard-in-White made his way into the dark study, and with a wave of his hand, lit up the lamps that lined the walls. They highlighted all the books that had been added to these shelves the past few months. She was peculiarly particular about always having them and her desk in order.

He stood over that desk: empty but for the crystal ball of his perched on the corner. He set his left hand on it as he reached out with his right and rapped his knuckles on the middle of the desk thrice.

It lurked. Creases appeared in the wood, forming a rectangle, and then this flipped over, revealing the two items that had been concealed on the underside.

The locket looked especially alive under the candlelight, Due in part to how often she had polished it. He wondered if he would ever quite break her of the amorous infatuation she had with Tom Riddle. He had never understood it.

Why attach one's self to a man who only wished to rise alone?

She was coming around to his way now though, that they must all rise together against the muggleborns. That they needed too in order to stand up against the greater enemy – to reclaim the magic that ought to be theirs.

Elysion. Earth's magic. Their birthright. Legends that should have still lived.

She'd declared it all a farce at first. Called them fairytales, even with the Moon Queen foiled her plans right under their noses.

But Bella had been coming around of late, and (he smirked) she would surely trust him in full now that her wish would be fulfilled.

To be as he was.

"I told you. You didn't have to do anything more," He whispered as he looked to the item beside Slytherin's locket – the knife with the opal pommel and her coat of arms engraved on the hilt.

His wand-tip traced across the Toujours Pur, gleaming on the blade.

"All you needed was one, and all you had to do was wait." He chuckled. "Patience." he tapped his wand on the knife, her favorite heirloom. He whispered the spell he'd once urged his dear brother to cast over his crystal ball upon his death, before the dead fool had known what it was, at least."

As the words filled the silent room, the candles all around flickered. The knife glowed pink, then black. Ash began to rise out of the blade.

And as a faint giggling began to echo off the bookshelves, he turned his attention to the locket.

"I almost didn't get what I needed for you," he murmured, glancing at the Crystal Ball again. There was the battle from the afternoon, the end of which he had watched from inside the Three Broomsticks, just inside the front window.

It wasn't as if the staff had stuck round to notice.

In his crystal ball, he watched that accursed crystal's light filled the air, turning dark magic back to light magic which was restored, promptly, to Bella, curiously augmenting her power.

As the memory played out, he went over the knowledge the crystal ball's divining abilities had gifted him: the nature of that magic, the source, the will... there was so much to study.

He had learned enough, over the course of the evening, for this. He closed his eyes, concentrating on replicating that magic only she could do.

"Sir Zoisite," he whispered to the locket. "You once rejected the Moon's dominion, I'm told." He waved his wand in a pattern over the horcrux. "I do look forward to meeting you." And then, once he'd determined a suitable incantation, he began once more began to mutter.

After a short while, the Zoisite stone in the locket began to glow.

~SMH~

"Saverio Slytherin," His friend gently rested the sword on each of his shoulders. "I dub thee Sir. Zoisite, may you serve honorably and well."

He looked up at the beaming prince with a smile of his own and then past him, at his father in the front row, wearing their house colors on the elaborate dress robes that were only brought out for the most prestigious occasions.

His father, was beaming too. And he felt an odd ticklish feeling in his gut at the sight.His father had not smiled so at him since he'd come home with Lady Helga's adopted mudblood on his arm.

"You may rise," the prince's voice said and as he did, the scene around him faded...
into another scene, another place: no bright sun in the background here, only the warm light from the hearth that lent a cheer to the otherwise gloomy stone chambers.

"It is marvelous!" Salazar boomed, "You're like your grandfather himself at Merlin's right hand. Merlin - you could surpass him."

"It's not much more than a formality," he murmured, running his hand along the carved scales of the snake that twined round one of the room's many columns. "Not much magic involved."

"Not much," his father chuckled, pouring himself a glass of wine. "Well then what's the point of that little keystone if you've got none of the old magic to show for it." He took a long sip of his wine and sighed, relaxing in the high-backed armchair. "Saverio," he said. "Elysion keeps it's secrets close but not from family. Surely you could tell me what's special about that stone."

He sighed. "It's connected to my soul," he confided. "It's not a horcrux," he hastened to add, for his father had long warned against the perversions of Le Fay's magicks. "It's different... it's just conntected to mine, see, and I guess I will be able to do some new magic with it.

"Like the prince's?" his father asked.

"Y-yes."

"What kind," he inquired. "You've always had a sharp mind, as we all know considering Godric's damned hat nearly robbed my house of my own son."

"It was an accident," he sighed. "I told you, it said I was delightfully curious, and I agreed."

His father waved his hand. "All past now." he stroked his beard. "Though if you need help mastering Elysion's powers perhaps that old hat could be used to tell us what those might be hmm?" He poured another wine and this, he offered to Saverio, smiling as he had at the ceremony. "You'll be something great," he said. "Perhaps some... master of tongues, or weapons. Or wandless levitation – I've heard some in the old kingdom can do that. Some can fly. Perhaps you'll even wield fire, hmm?" He chuckled. "I would wish to see Godric's face then."

"Why must you always try to one-up him?"

"Politics," Salazar said with a dismissive wave. "It takes a lot to convince a man he was wrong and be it at Quidditch or dueling, or chess, there's little ways I can still impress that on Godric," He swished his wine glass thoughtfully. "And with enough such smaller victories on my part, I believe Godric may be swayed to believe I have been right about other... more political things."

"And if he doesn't?" he whispered, hand clutching the column a bit tighter. "If he doesn't, you'll leave?"

His father paused.

"Are the rumors true then?"

He watched Salazar shake his head, and rise, he set his wine down and walked to him. His father clapped him on the shoulder."Saverio," he said. "You have made me happy today. The fruits of your unfortunate consortship with that common-blooded leech have paid off. I see now how you have won the trust of the Earth's Prince as Osric and as Cyrus have done. I could only be happier if you could convince Endymion to select a knight with better blood in him that Olin,"

"Olin's blood adopted," he insisted for the upteenth time. "He's as pure as Lady Hufflepuff."

"No, Helga is a fool for tainting her line – if he's as pureblooded as her then, likewise, she is as mudblooded as her son." He shook his head. "You have ceased your consortship now that you've earned a knighthood in any case. And so long as I do not have to welcome Olin as a son, I care not what you think of him." Then his grey eyes turned hard and cold. "But my understanding of mudbloods is correct, my son. They come from muggles. They carry all their superstitions and religions and diseases and untraditional ideas with them. They do not abide by our ways. They corrupt what is pure in our magic. Worse – they will share it – for what does a statute mean to them? And then where will you be?" He sighed. "Your sisters never had any trouble with this concept."

He clenched his fists. "They're not all bad."

"They are," his father interrupted. "Olin is young yet, but mark my word he'll take on those maligned practices of his kind in time." He sipped his wine. "All of them turning in our families, watching them burn, all to collect on their fortunes, properties…" he tisked. "They are all bad."

"Why!" he shouted back. "They're magic as we are, what makes them bad!"

For once his father paused and shook his head. "Some things have no clear answer, my son." He returned to his chair and to his drink. "Sometimes we must simply accept what is known if we are to survive." he sipped his wine. "Is Endymion choosing a leader?"

"I presume so,"

"Well put a good word in his ear for you or for Jadeite or Nephrite." He chuckled. "Merlin forbid the boy chose Kunzite – that would be a shocking affront – Helga's mudblood ordering you about."

"Yes father," he sighed.

He needed to convince him. Mudbloods weren't all bad. Muggles perhaps were, But mud-muggleborns couldn't be.

Olin was good.

Olin was beautiful.

He scoured their library, scoured the French archive. And then the fledgling collection at Durmstrang. He paid half his weigh in gold for two hours in what was preserved down in Alexandria.

Muggles could be good. Mud-muggleborns could be good. Olin was good. Olin was smart. Olin was as magic as he was.

But his father had evidence. Had stories. Had a fear of them that he could not understand.

What made many muggles… and muggleborns, bad?

His quest distracted him from even his Prince and the tensions in Elysion brewing over dark magic. His quest led him far from his father's castle and far from Elysion's pearl-and-gold facade.

He scoured the Earth, finding after a time, a seer who had taken up residence at Castelobruxo. He requested an audience with the man – lauded as the best.

Perhaps if he could find his father an answer, he could appeal to Gryffindor and Ravenclaw to restore his position at the castle.

"What you wish to know, the seer said. "Is an age old question." He was a diminutive fellow. Thin. He spoke softly. "I am not sure that I should answer."

He bristled. "Is there something you can tell me or no?"

The man smirked. His eyes – red and purple irises – held Saverio's for a long moment. "Is there something you wish to know?"

A strange question. He felt an answer drift to the front of his mind under the man's sharp gaze.
Yes: he wished for his father to be right. He wished for Gryffindor to be right. He wished for peace. He wished for Olin to be his.He wished for everyone to be right.

He looked away and quashed the thought. "Don't legilimize me."

"Forgive me," the seer said. "Tis a side-effect of my power – hard to turn off." He reached out and grabbed his hand, turning it palm up, examining the lines.

"What's this?"

"I must determine your fortitude," he said. "Only those fitting can handle the information I must impart to thee. Not even the Elysion elite can bear such truths."

"Tell me," he begged.

"These do suggest you are strong. Very well." And the seer grabbed his hand in a vice tight grip: fingernails digging in. His oddly colored eyes held Saverio's."

"Your father speaks truth. Your mentor speaks truth. Your lover is good." Saverio stared at him breathless as he gestured with his free hand, to the skylight over his room. "Tis not the muggles or their children or their grandchildren corrupting magic," the seer said. "Tell me – have you wondered why Elysion only had the ability to bless four knights with its power?"

He frowned. No... no he hadn't."Why?"

"Magic is weakening," the seer said. "Very few are strong enough to bear the old magic as you do. Magic is fading. It is spreading out – diluted year after year in each and every child born with our gifts, each less magic than the last." he breathed. His breath smelt of garlic. "Everyone can feel it, muggles too, they feel the loss of power, of divinity, of rightness. And everyone finds someone to blame."

He stared entranced as the seer carried on, feeling the sense in it all. "Just look around you: the English are blaming the French. The pious are blaming the sinners. Some pious are blaming each other." The seer's red and purple eyes flashed. "Wizards like your father blame the muggles." The seer released his hand.

"And it isn't their fault, certainly not. Our magic's being stolen, and all of us are cursed blind to the truth."

"Cursed by whom!?"

"The thief herself of course," The seer lowered his voice to a rasping whisper. "Tis the Moon Queen. She steals our magic. Her agents roam amongst us and amongst muggles. She's even now after the last bit of the old magic." The seer nodded. "Your prince's shiny crystal."

His breath hitched. Endymion! "No!"

"Yes," the seer re-clasped their hands. "She seeks Elysion's destruction."

"Then I need to stop it!" Zoisite said. "Elysion is my duty. My prince..."

"Is in danger of being lost as well," the seer confided. "You will need more power to see clearly, more power to rescue he and your friends." He muttered something. And something appeared between their clasped hands. He saw as the seer pulled away – a compass.

"Follow the needle," he said. "Survive the trials meant to stop you." He doused his candles. "The Moon Queen buried our most powerful magician there long ago. We are what survived." The seer gestured to him. "And you may be strong enough to survive the journey there, and to regain their power."

He clenched his hand around the compass. Regaining lost magic…

His father might smile at him once more.

The compass needle pointed north, generally. It wobbled far less than a compass ought… all the way until he got very far north.

And then the needle began to point east.

Then southeast.

He knew when he was there because the compass began to spin. And he took in the vast expanse of snow and re-did the warming charm on his face.

He could teach his father. He could bring Hogwarts founders back together. He could be with Olin.

He could save Endymion. He could save magic.

"You are a brave and noble soul," a woman greeted him when he arrived. He was startled to recognize her, one of Elysion's nobles – Beryl!. "You will help me then?"

"Yes."

"Good." She was dressed oddly, in purple robes too exposed to be comfortable in this frigid climate. Their purple color seemed to be magic of its own.

"Come with me," she grabbed his hand. "I will show you Metalia."

"Metalia?"

"The goddess who grants us magic," Beryl answered. "Whom the Moon trapped here."

He shivered as they moved further into the underground cave, down winding stairs towards a bright, pulsing, purple and red light.

"Fear not," the voice whispered to him. "You who have come here are wise to heed me."

"I-I don't wish to heed. I need help."

"I will help you."

Suddenly he was looking upon the fiery being, whose red eyes met his and held his gaze. He felt as though the floor vanished beneath him as he was struck by the being's power... its truth.

"Zoisite," Metalia whispered. "You shall bring the others to me. I need them, as I need you. To regain the Earth for your kind."

"Yes Master."

He shot up in bed, shouting as he threw back the covers and clutched his hands to his head.

What... what?

He panted, pushing away the dream as he pushed back his sweat-soaked blond hair. The details were blurring even now, and his gut twisted with the duel desires to grab back the visions in their full clarity and also to shun even the faintest memories of them.

What was that? he thought as he panted, beginning to shiver in his bed.

The mattress beside him shifted as his lover stirred and then rose. A warm hand settled on his sweat-soaked back.

"Rigel?"

~I Solemnly Swear I Am Up To No Good~