Chapter Sixteen: Visions and Executions

Exam time has returned to Hogwarts, Divination proves to be not so useless after all, and a lost pet is unhappily returned.


As May swung into full swing, Yoko and Arcana put their paws down on Hermione and Ron continuing to struggle with trying to find a way around Buckbeak's upcoming appeal and likely execution.

Blaise was slowly coming out of the shell he'd built around himself following his starvation and Yoko's torture over the summer, but what lay beyond it worried Yoko.

Blaise was a living, thrumming livewire of anger and growing hate and no amount of needling or wiggling from his guardian was getting the teen to talk about it.

Yoko was certain, because the case against Hagrid and Buckbeak had nothing to do with him, that the target of Blaise's emotions wasn't Dark.

That wasn't to say that they weren't because of the black direwolf, of course. Yoko, if he had been any less practiced in redirecting his emotions against those who truly deserved them, would likely be no better than his charge. He was aware, as all the Valerians and Healer Silva were, that Blaise was taking his fear, hate, and anger - built around what Dark and Desmond had done to them – and turning it on a more available target.

He just didn't know who and the fact that Blaise was locking that part of the puzzle away from Yoko worried him.

Whatever was bothering the teen, however, didn't keep him from throwing himself into his studies for their upcoming end-of-year exams, though he now refused to go down to Hagrid's for any reason beyond their Care of Magical Creatures classes.

It left Yoko torn as to whether he should wait to put additional pressure on Blaise to find out what was cracking the shell of calm that had surrounded his emotions all year or pop the festering wound before it got worse.

XX

While Blaise – and Yoko by default of struggling to figure out his charge – pulled away from Hagrid, Fallen found himself stepping forward, spending weekend afternoons with the hippogriff that was now tied up in the vegetable patch behind Hagrid's home.

"I don't understand why he won't just leave," Draco said one night, separated as they were by virtue of Draco being in bed and Fallen in the common room below. "He's got wings, doesn't he? Why doesn't he just take off and disappear?"

'Such isn't the nature of a hippogriff, Draco,' Fallen replied. 'They are highly territorial creatures and Hyer Buckbeak has held the Forbidden Forest for almost seventy years, more than two-thirds of his life. This is all he knows and, honestly, I don't blame him for being too proud to flee something he doesn't feel he's done. He defended himself from a potential threat and is being killed for it because humans believe themselves to be better.'

Draco was left to ponder the comment, but no matter the tossing and turning, he couldn't understand it.

Which led to him joining Fallen the following weekend, coinciding with a message from Hagrid to Hermione and Blaise, that the appeal was to be held on the sixth of June, two short weeks away and at the end of their exams, something Draco didn't think was a coincidence.

Especially when Fallen had, almost casually, remarked that the Minister of Magic and an executioner were going to be present for the appeal.

Fallen had eyed the teen when he'd told Fallen he wanted to join him, clearly suspicious after the conversation two nights previous.

"I need to stop seeing runes for an hour," Draco told him dismissively. "This is as good a reason as any."

Fallen shrugged and didn't question him again.

Draco knelt a bit away from the hippogriff, who had stood from its lounging position once he'd realized that Fallen wasn't alone that afternoon, and bowed his head. "Hail and well met, Hyer," Draco said, raising his eyes but not his head to meet the unnerving orange eyes of the hippogriff.

They weren't that unusual, at least not for Draco.

Fallen's eyes ranged from sunset to blood red depending on the day and his emotions of the moment, and he'd grown up beneath those eyes.

'Greetings Soul-Brother of the General,' Buckbeak replied, buckling a taloned foot, and ducking his massive head.

"Soul-Brother?" he asked, getting to his feet and approaching the creature with his hands in his pockets and head low. The shirt he wore, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, ensured that Buckbeak could see he wasn't wearing a sheath for his wand there on his wrists, though his wand was in one of his pockets, within reach though not easily so.

"It's the closest the hippogriffs, and most other magical creatures, come to understanding what you and I are to one another. What we all are to one another," Fallen explained.

Draco's lips curled. "I like it," he revealed. "It's not inaccurate. Surely closer than anything the wizards came up with."

Buckbeak clucked his tongue and it took a moment for Draco to realize that the hippogriff was amused because his orange eyes never lost their intensity.

Draco quickly becomes an observer, as Fallen and Buckbeak converse for over an hour on many topics and events that Draco was simply too young to have been around, though some of them he'd heard about and injected his own opinion on.

It was also revealed that Buckbeak was pushing ninety years old and would likely have seen another fifty or sixty of his prime years before age finally began to affect the hippogriff Hyer.

"I don't understand," Draco said, brow furrowing. "You're older than most of the laws in effect about your kind by forty-plus years. Why are you doing as the Ministry dictates? I know Fallen said hippogriffs are territorial, but surely your desire to survive should outshine that."

'Your kind, wingless warrior,' the nickname made Draco simultaneously proud and irritated because he was sure that he had only earned it because he was soul and blood bonded to the Valerian General. 'Are far more numerous than any of the magical races that existed before you. As such, your numbers assure that we cannot fight back. Regardless of age, power, claw, or fang, we must abide by the restrictions placed on us by the Children of Emrys. It is not our way to live in hiding,' the hippogriff's wings spread wide, 'as though we could. This Forest is home.'

Draco shook his head. "But not all the Children abide by the laws of this Ministry," he argued, glancing at Fallen. "MACUSA for example, across the pond, don't consider werewolves with the same disdain that we do. And the Ministry only has influence as far as England's borders. You could find a new territory, a new home, with your flock and family even, as soon as you were past them. I think there's even a preserve somewhere in the upper area of England, where you could disappear. What's the Committee going to do, convince every hunter in every country to eradicate a race over this? They haven't done it to the dragons yet, and they do more damage in a month than you have in all your ninety years."

Buckbeak tilted his head, appearing to consider the teen's words. Before he could reply or ask for more, however, Fallen got to his paws.

"Apologies, Hyer," the General said, bowing his head in the hippogriff's direction. "But my charge's free time has come to an end."

The hippogriff tilted his head, and he must have appeared curious to Fallen, who was far better at reading the strange features than Draco was, because he told him, "The students begin their end of year trials tomorrow."

Buckbeak didn't rise as Draco did this time, remaining instead in his relaxed and reclined position beside the post he was chained to and simply bowing his head to the teen when Draco bowed – properly this time – once he was on his feet. "Thank you for speaking with me, Hyer Buckbeak," Draco told him. "It's been an honor that I wish we had more time for. There is much we could have learned from one another."

'As do I, wingless one,' Buckbeak replied. 'In our brief time, you've given me much to think of and I wish we could have continued. Good luck in your trials.'

Draco waved as he thanked him.

XX

"You stopped us there for a reason," Draco said once they were halfway up to the castle.

Fallen's lip curled. "Did I?" he asked.

Draco narrowed his eyes on his guardian, side-stepping a Hufflepuff who was looking to escape the madhouse Hogwarts became around end-of-year exams. That was the tone he used when he knew Draco already knew the answer to something and was asking simply for verification.

Verification he thought his charge didn't require and therefore didn't plan to give.

Thinking over the brief conversation he'd had with the hippogriff Hyer, he frowned.

"Did you just use me to make a point?" he asked.

Fallen's lip curled further.

"Bastard," Draco said with no heat.

"You came to the conclusion on your own, dragon," Fallen pointed out. "which made it all the more powerful when you brought it up. You're absolutely correct, your kind can learn a great deal from the more powerful creatures that wizards see as animals. Which made it a lesson worth teaching you."

Draco had nothing to say to that, and thus abruptly changed the subject.

XX

Once exams started, Hermione was thankful that Tarana and Yoko had remained firm and refused to allow her to try and further research Buckbeak's cause, certain that if she found that one piece of information, she could convince the Committee to leave the hippogriff, and Hagrid, alone.

As the student with the most exams to take in the entire school, let alone Gryffindor Tower, she was also the one with the most to study for, which left her with no time to worry about Hagrid.

"You're not a solicitor, Hermione," Tarana said firmly. "While I'm sure Hagrid appreciates all you and the boys have done for him, the fact remains that you are all still students. Students that should never have taken on that responsibility in the first place. Students that are walking into the most difficult exams of the school year."

"That's not even pointing out that you're fourteen, Hermione," Yoko added. "There's no one in the Ministry that will listen to you, despite how bright you are, because they only see your age. As admirable as your drive is, the Ministry is simply not advanced enough to understand that wisdom doesn't come solely from age and experience."

Hermione, despite their gentleness, had been near tears that night, but she was running herself ragged trying to study for the exams she still had – and she didn't think she'd be so thankful that she had dropped Divination, but oh was she – and was very grateful for their intervention now, as they were leaving their Charms exam, though she felt guilty knowing that Care of Magical Creatures was the following day.

XX

At breakfast, Draco looked over his Arithmancy book, down at Hermione who had sat near the far end of the table and was surrounded by five textbooks, only a few of which he knew she had.

"How is she taking so many classes?" he murmured to Tarana beside him.

Tarana tilted her head to look at him.

"Don't play coy, either, Your Highness," he smirked. "You said she had more classes to take and study for than the rest of us."

Tarana shook her head. 'You're a bright child,' she told him.

Draco snorted. "Secretive house cat," he sneered with affectionate heat.

"A secret makes a woman, woman, Draco," Tarana sneered in return, though her eyes glittered affectionately before she turned her attention to Harry on her other side.

"What the hell does that even mean?" he asked.

Arcana chuckled. "It's Valerian, roughly translated and losing a bit of its flow," he told the teen. "It essentially means that a woman wouldn't be a woman if she didn't have secrets."

Draco snorted and looked back down at his Arithmancy text, "Why didn't you just say that?" he muttered into the pages.

XX

Several days later, after a rushed lunch, the three Heirs stepped out of the castle, away from the stress and hustle and bustle of the exams and school.

Draco only had a handful of minutes before he needed to leave and head up to his Arithmancy class on the fourth floor, but Harry and Blaise would be headed down to Hagrid's for their Care of Magical Creatures exam.

The three Valerians saw him first, the teens talking about inconsequential things, trying to keep their minds off the stress of the upcoming exams by not talking about them or their schoolwork.

"Minister Fudge," Arcana greeted stiffly. "I admit, given the state of affairs at the Ministry at the moment, I'm surprised to see you here at Hogwarts."

"Another update?" Fallen asked.

"Ah," Fudge said, detouring away from the front door to where the teens were seated on the grass, the three Valerians spread out around them in a rough circle. "Evening Lords and Lady," he said plucking his green cap off his head and bowing.

There was sweat on his brow that Blaise would bet serious money on not being because the idiot was wearing a pinstripe cloak over his outfit in near eighty-degree heat.

"In between exams, I see?" he said, averting his gaze to the three heirs. "Young Master Malfoy, Harry. How are you both? I didn't get much of a chance to speak with you at our last meeting."

"With good cause," Fallen muttered unkindly.

"Evening Minister," Draco said primly, getting to his feet and straightening his clothes. "You apparently already know Lord Potter, this is Blaise Zabini, Heir of the Ancient and Noble House of Zabini out of Italy."

Blaise and Harry got to their own feet and Blaise loosely folded his arms by his waist, eyeing the Minister like something he'd found on the bottom of his shoe.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what the Minister was doing at Hogwarts in the middle of the afternoon, when he certainly should have had somewhere else to be, on the day that Buckbeak was to be executed.

Draco needlessly pointed out the same, nodding as he said, "You're here for the execution. My father and Lord Parkinson have devoted so much time to it, you wish to see the hippogriff for yourself."

Harry blinked slowly. "You've attended the appeal then?" he asked innocently.

"Ah," Fudge said, shifting uneasily. "No, it's scheduled for two o'clock. An hour or so from now."

Blaise's lip curled and Yoko slunk closer to his charge, eyes glittering with anxious malevolence, feeding off Blaise's own, rare, anger. "The appeal's only a formality, Harry," he said, not taking cold brown eyes off the Minister. "The Ministry made its decision the moment Parkinson walked into the room."

"Ah, that's not-"

"Have you, Minister, or anyone else handling the case, spoken to any of the witnesses of Buckbeak's attack? Outside of Hagrid, obviously. Have any of you even seen the hippogriff?"

If anything, Fudge began to sweat even more beneath Blaise's rather blunt questions. Questions they both already knew the answer to.

"Of course not," the dark-skinned Heir sneered. "After all, Percival Parkinson has the money and presence to paint the thing in any light he pleases, to hide the fact that his daughter hasn't an ounce of brain in her skull to know that sneaking up on something with claws as long as her fingers is a bad idea."

"I had a shitty summer, Fudge," Yoko added, head curling around Blaise's knees and rubbing against him. "I can guarantee that if anyone had come up on my blindside and touched me, I wouldn't have stopped at drawn blood."

Draco glanced down and to his right, where Fallen was staring at Blaise and Yoko – well, Yoko – both amused by how easily the teen and his guardian had put Fudge on the backfoot.

"And this is the man responsible for our entire community?" he asked, sarcastically.

Fallen smirked.

Thankfully, for Fudge anyway, another group was walking up the path toward the castle, only to detour toward them when they caught sight of Fudge not at the castle.

"Minister," an old man muttered in greeting as he wrapped his robe over his arms to avoid walking on it. The wizard looked over the children, dismissed them, then turned to look further down the path to Hagrid's cabin.

He, at least, didn't look all that pleased to be there, which was more than the group could say for the rest of the entourage he'd brought.

A younger wizard, tall and broad, was following the elderly wizard's gaze down to Hagrid's, running his thumb over the edge of a massive axe on his belt.

Both were clearly Ministry workers because the other two wizards with them were a) familiar to Draco and b) too finely dressed to be living off a Ministry salary.

Massive and not only in height, Percival Parkinson could easily have passed as smaller kin of Hagrid's, if it wasn't obvious that his heft wasn't because of inhuman breeding, but because he didn't have any interest, or need, in exercise. He, like Harry's uncle, had multiple chins and, because of his belt, appeared to have more than one gut, even though the suit and robes he wore were tailored to hide it unless he parted them. His dull and near-lifeless brown eyes trailed over the assembled group and he ran a hand over his slicked-back black hair to make sure it was all in one place

Though, Draco thought wryly, with the amount of product in his hair, the odds of it going anywhere are very slim.

In comparison to his father, walking alongside him, however, even Percival looked ill-dressed.

Lucius Malfoy looked every inch the visiting Lord he was, a bland expression on his face as his gaze drifted over the assembled group without a crease in his custom suit or a hair out of place, despite the tepid breeze coming off the lake behind the teens.

"This is an unusual gathering," the Malfoy Lord commented quietly, a thin, insincere smile on his lips. "Hogwarts' exams must have dropped in difficulty if its students can all wander around the grounds."

Draco's fingers twitched, the only sign that his father's words meant anything to him. "As you say, Father," he said, smiling, equally as insincere as his father, at Fudge. "A pleasure as always to see you, Minister. I'm sorry I couldn't stay longer and chat with you, Lord Parkinson."

Fallen gathered his paws but didn't follow as Draco bowed and headed up toward the castle.

'I do hope, Lucius, that whatever deal you and Parkinson have struck over his lowly hippogriff, is worth the stress it is putting your son in. The thin alliance you have struck with the Zabini Heir is in serious jeopardy.'

Lucius was far too practiced after so many years of being Bonded to the 'wolf, to show that he was being spoken to as he planted his cane carefully in the grass and looked down his nose at Harry and Blaise.

"While I have you here, how goes your legal action against Desmond Zabini, Lucius?" Fallen asked, circling around Blaise to sit on his other side.

Lucius readjusted his grip on his cane and his smile went cold. "Very well," he told them. "Lord," he sneered the word as though it left a foul taste on his tongue, "Zabini was ill-equipped to face myself and Master Burrows in a courtroom. There are several signatures already on parchment, including Augusta Longbottom's," the name was sneered with near equal distaste. "The Madam will be free to take custody of you, Heir Zabini, once the school year ends. Until, of course, a more suited home can be found for you."

Yoko tilted his head slightly and looked up at his charge.

The shock was subtle on Blaise's face, though the fox could sense just how much of it was there beneath his thin mask.

Harry must have seen it as well, because he stepped closer to Blaise, casually bumping his shoulder as he 'adjusted' his stance.

'Are you alright?' The Assassin asked.

"With everything else," Blaise murmured back, "I'd forgotten that Lord Malfoy was facing Desmond in court for me."

Yoko considered the 'everything else' and found that it wasn't adequate a term. 'You've dealt with Hagrid's own legal situation, Buckbeak's imminent execution, Sirius Black's hunt for Harry, the fracture of my own Kin, the distance between yourself and Draco, and your own mental situation following the summer holiday. I'd say you're allowed to have forgotten about it, sprite.'

Blaise mentally grimaced. "I've been a bit of an ass to Draco this term, Yoko, because his father wouldn't support me in a lawsuit against a half-breed and a hippogriff, even though they were facing off against another Ancient and Noble House to get me emancipated, mostly. He didn't deserve it. And he didn't use it."

'No,' Yoko agreed, without elaborating on which he was agreeing. 'He didn't.'

"Before I depart," Lucius continued, drawing Blaise back to the outside world. "I'd like to sit with the both of you to discuss the terms we've come to regarding your new rights and what level of emancipation you are being granted in the eyes of the Ministry."

Blaise, anger put back under lock and key for the moment – though both he and Yoko could feel it writhing in the back of his mind – stepped forward and bowed to Lucius. "Thank you, Lord Malfoy, for your help both now and in the past."

Lucius' lip curled slightly before he could school it into his previous bland expression.

Yoko buckled a leg and bowed to the Malfoy Lord as well. 'You have my thanks as well, Lord Malfoy. For your aid, I offer you a boon of your choice should it be within my power to aid you in return.'

Lucius inclined his head to the fox, but his attention was drawn to Percival behind him.

"All well and good," the man said, an oily smile on his lips. "But let's get this over with. I have dinner with a client in two hours."

Blaise's lip curled as he straightened, but the Parkinson Lord wasn't looking at them anymore, gesturing for Fudge to precede him up to the castle.

Harry held his breath until the five wizards were out of sight, before exhaling harshly. "Bastard," he sneered. "Guess the life of a lowly hippogriff doesn't mean much if he only slots in for an hour in his precious datebook."

Tarana tilted her head but didn't admonish the teen.

Blaise stood still; his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles were white.

"It'll turn out alright," Harry assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Buckbeak isn't dead just yet."

Blaise snorted. "Only a matter of time though, isn't it," he asked harshly, jerking his shoulder free of Harry's grip. "You think Malfoy won my freedom because he was better? He just had more money. The same way Parkinson had more money. They can just buy whatever outcome they want."

Harry clenched his empty fist as Blaise stormed back up to the castle.

Yoko paused and turned back to Harry as he followed. "Thank you," he told the brunette teen. "He isn't ready to hear it, but I believe you're right. Things will turn out just fine."

Tarana and Fallen came to sit beside Harry as the fox darted after his charge.

"I think," the teen told them, staring after Blaise's angry back, "that Yoko has more faith in that than the rest of us."

XX

It was tradition that the Valerians be locked out of the exam rooms while exams were taking place, with all communication forbidden.

It was a tradition born to prevent cheating on behalf of the Bonded student, but it was one that could only be enforced by the honor of the Valerian and the student in question. There was no way for an outside party to block, even temporarily, the Bond between the human and Valerian and no way to tap the Bond, again even in a temporary manner, to ensure that it wasn't being used. Not, of course, that any Valerian would allow such a thing in the first place.

Since he wasn't allowed to have contact with Draco anyway, however, Fallen took advantage of the separation an hour and a half into the three-hour exam, to search out Ivory.

"Shouldn't you be helping Lupin?" he asked, finding the leopard sprawled out on one of the battlements of the school's roof.

Ivory stretched and rolled onto his side to look at the red wolf as he approached. "And shouldn't you be downstairs, pretending you aren't Bonded?" he countered.

Fallen snorted. "I was going to intrude on the Headmaster and find out what happened during the appeal for the hippogriff, but if you aren't interested…."

Ivory blinked languidly at the General. "No interest from Yoko?" he asked.

"Yoko is having a different set of difficulties," Fallen admitted to the Inquisitor. "Blaise is struggling to come to terms with the impending execution."

Ivory snorted. "The odds were never in his favor," he pointed out. "We're talking about a Ministry that will treat a fellow human like a lower-class citizen because they get sick three times a month and executes a group of people who have a different diet than they do. A creature never stood a chance."

"We know that," Fallen agreed, sitting by the leopard's head and staring out over the grounds. "But I believe that Blaise put so much time and effort into this project because he saw it as a second chance to save someone like Yoko. Powerful but unable to protect themselves." He glanced down at Ivory. "I don't need to be a Mind Healer to see that the boy has blamed himself for Yoko's torture all year."

Ivory rolled onto his stomach and stretched his forelegs and paws before sitting up and following the General's gaze down to Hagrid's cabin. He had watched the half-giant return to in nearly forty-five minutes earlier and he wouldn't deny that he was livid that yet another creature was being put to death because of a mortal idiot.

"The kid's an idiot," he told Fallen.

Fallen side-eyed him. "Which one?" he asked wryly, the double meaning not lost on him.

Ivory smirked. "Both," he said. "But I was talkin' about the Zabini kid. There's no way that Yoko wouldn't have ended up beneath Dark's magic or one of his Thrall's 'tender mercies'. There's no realm in existence where he would have cracked let alone opened that seal. His hatred of the Kristine's exceeds anyone else I know."

"Almost an obsession," Fallen agreed easily. "But Yoko and I are having trouble explaining that concept to Blaise without explaining exactly what the bloody Urn contains. And the threat of it doesn't make much sense unless you explain what the Kristines are. And that kind of threat would terrify a lesser man, let alone a teenager."

Ivory hummed thoughtfully before turning away from the grounds and looking at the door that Fallen had come through to find him. "I disagree," he said, moving toward it and forcing Fallen to follow. "Based on my interactions with the kids, all of 'em, they're some of the strongest that I've ever met. Stronger, in some ways, even than the Marauders. I think they'd handle the reality better than you think."

XX

Dumbledore didn't appear at all surprised by Ivory and Fallen's visit to him.

"Good evening," he said grimly. "I assume you're here for confirmation?"

"I'm hopin' for a different answer," Ivory admitted, "though I know I'm not gonna get it."

"Then I'm afraid I'll be unable to answer that hope," Dumbledore sighed, getting to his feet and pacing to his office window, lacing his hands behind his back. "Despite efforts on my part to convince them otherwise, neither Fudge nor Warden Macnair will be swayed. The execution stands."

Ivory snorted derisively. "An' y'all wondered why I preferred the Congress," he asked Fallen rhetorically. "Least there you had a chance. The Ministry is operated on money. Especially old money."

"I don't disagree with you, Lord," Dumbledore assured him, half turning to face him. "It is, unfortunately, not something that will be changing while Cornelius Fudge is in office."

Ivory sneered at him. "Fudge is a mortal, Headmaster," he reminded the man darkly. "He won't hold that office forever."

"And Fang?" Fallen asked before Ivory could any more blatantly threaten the Minister of Magic. "Were we at least able to convince Percival that there's no value there?"

Dumbledore's aura lightened a bit. "In that, at least, I have good news. I managed to convince them that there was little to no monetary value in a mutt like Fang and his loyalty to Hagrid was his only grace. Loyalty that he was unlikely to transfer given his history with Hagrid."

"I suppose you aren't entirely useless after all," Fallen said, turning on his tail to lead Ivory to the door. "I find it rather unsettling that it was a trio of teenagers that were Hagrid's primary legal defense in this whole endeavor, considering your own place on the Wizengamot and the pull you must have with the Committee."

Dumbledore didn't get a chance to try and defend himself, because the door closed on Fallen's words.

XX

oOo

Crookshanks weaved between legs in a crowd-

Something shattered against a wall of living shadow and flame as two blurry shadows struck a third from opposite sides below it-

Buckbeak with his head lowered, the thick collar and chain clearly visible even amongst his gray feathers-

An axe raised high against a full moon before it swung down-

A swarming mass of hundreds of dementors cutting across the still Lake-

oOo

Blaise inhaled sharply as he came back to himself, Trelawney's hand slipping off his shoulder.

"You've been a Gifted student, Mr. Zabini," Trelawney said, coming to sit across from him, her unnervingly large eyes watching him with more focus than he's seen nearly all year. "What has the Orb shown you?"

"I-" Blaise swallowed, Yoko's worry a pulsing, living thing in the back of his mind and helping to center him. "I saw Buckbeak," he not-quite lied.

"I see," Trelawney said, the dreamy quality of her voice lost. She nodded and it was clear to Blaise that she knew he wasn't telling her the full truth. "Sometimes, Mr. Zabini," she said slowly. "What the Sight shows us isn't meant to be shared. At least, not with just anyone."

Blaise nodded and got to his feet, bracing himself carefully because the flashes of vision made his legs feel a little unsteady.

Trelawney watched him and didn't make a move to help, which Blaise was rather thankful for, because he probably would have reacted violently if she had.

Again, he wondered, just how much of her talent was real and how much was portrayed through parlour tricks.

He lifted the trapdoor and had swung his legs over to drop down when Trelawney's voice stopped him.

It still hadn't regained its dreamy quality, and it was louder and harsher even than when she'd been speaking with him moments earlier.

"Tonight," she rasped.

Blaise turned his upper body to look at her, and found she was sprawled in her armchair, arms draped over the side and head flung back, rolling from side to side.

Worried, he pulled himself back into the classroom and moved back toward her. "Are you-"

It was immediately clear that she wasn't alright, so he didn't finish asking. Her eyes had rolled almost completely back into her head, with only the bottoms of her irises were visible as they roved in her skull.

"Blaise?!" Neville called up.

"Somethings wrong with her!" Blaise cried out to Yoko, taking a step away from the professor as she continued to speak in that unnatural voice.

"The Dark Lord lies, alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers," she said.

'She's Seeing,' Arcana told him.

"Guess this answers the question as to whether she's the real deal or not," Blaise could hear Ron comment wryly, though his voice was shaking.

Trelawney continued her prediction as though none of them had spoken, no longer aware of where she was or who she spoke with. "His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight, the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid. The power of the Phantom Ones' will be freed and with it the origin of Valeria's Fall. The Lord Dark will rise greater and more terrifying than he ever was…. Tonight…."

Blaise was shaking and the fear was quickly being eaten away by an unnatural rage.

"Yoko," Arcana barked sharply below him. "Control yourself!"

The rage fled as quickly as it had sprung upon the Gryffindor, locked away behind his guardian's iron walls.

'Sorry, sprite,' Yoko said with little cheer.

Trelawney's head dropped forward onto her chest with a soft, grunting sound and she blinked at the table several times before she became aware of Blaise still standing by the trapdoor.

"So sorry, dear boy," she said smiling drunkenly at him. "The heat of the day must have caused me to drift off for a moment…." She frowned at him. "Is there anything wrong, dear?"

Blaise quickly shook his head. "No," he said just as quickly, turning away from her. "Nothing."

XX

"Well," Ron said, once Blaise had descended the ladder and joined them on the ground. "I guess she had to be right about something at some point, otherwise Dumbledore wouldn't keep her around."

"It wasn't the only thing predicted," Blaise said as soon as they were far enough away from the trapdoor up to Trelawney's classroom, leading them all into a run. "I saw something in the crystal ball."

He swung around the corner, a touch too fast, and narrowly missed Trelawney's next exam taker as they sprinted past him, obviously late, and explained the broken vision he'd seen in the crystal ball before Trelawney's touch had snapped him out of it.

Arcana glanced at Yoko. "Find Fallen and Tarana. I want them at the Astronomy Tower immediately."

Yoko didn't bother to question the King, swerving sharply to take a shortcut to the fourth floor, where Harry and Draco were both taking their exams, though on opposite sides of the castle.

"Why the Astronomy Tower?" Neville asked breathlessly.

"Because this is going to get worse before it gets better," Arcana told them seriously, loping easily at their sides. "And it's going to be hard enough keeping you lot out of this, let alone anyone else in Gryffindor Tower. The Astronomy Tower won't have an exam going on right now."

Blaise glanced worriedly down at the tiger but swung a right instead of left to take them to the Astronomy Tower instead of its Gryffindor counterpart.

XX

Yoko lunged to the side, skid down two stairs, and twisted to come back up, where Fallen, Draco, and Hermione had stopped when the silver blur had burst past them, forcing several other students to go around them.

"What's the rush?" Draco asked, frowning at him.

'Blaise Saw something in his Divination class shortly before Trelawney dictated a prophecy. A prophecy that Arcana seems set to take seriously.' Yoko told Fallen, barely breathing hard despite his sprint through the corridors.

Fallen frowned. 'I thought she hasn't shown an ounce of talent all year,' he said, tilting his head.

Yoko shook his head. 'It sounded like a legit prophecy,' he glanced grimly at Fallen and allowed a flash of the rage still coursing through his veins to flicker in his green eyes. 'She mentioned the Kristavis.'

Fallen's eyes froze over and he glanced at Draco beside him, then Hermione a step above them. 'Arcana thinks we can figure out the prophecy and Blaise's vision before it becomes reality.' He stated, before shaking his head. 'The odds of that are astronomical. It's been Seen and Prophesized.'

"Regardless," Yoko said, turning back down the stairs to continue his search for Tarana. "We're going to try."

Idiot fox. Fallen sneered in his head. The children are involved, there was never a doubt.

The wolf snorted sharply, a derisive and short-tempered sound. "Come," he said, stepping up past Hermione. "We're going to the Astronomy Tower."

"What was that about?" Hermione asked, glancing worriedly back where Yoko had disappeared around the corner already.

"We'll speak of it when we get there," Fallen said grimly.

"There goes the last of our quiet," Draco drawled, rolling his shoulder despite him not carrying his bag on it.

Fallen smirked. "What quiet?" he asked.

XX

Arcana's awareness that Trelawney was a true Seer was a surprise, but the surprises kept coming when Tarana barely waited for Yoko to finish telling her that she'd slipped into a prophetic trance before she was picking up her pace and demanding to know what she'd said.

Yoko repeated it as best he could, with his rage still beating a staccato beat around the inside of his skull, repeating the phrase 'phantom ones' over and over in his head, nearly obliterating the rest of it.

Yoko's broken retelling was immediately and obviously insufficient, because Tarana took off with a snarl, leaving a confused Harry behind with the fox.

Glancing down at the Assassin, Harry hefted his bag over his head instead of his shoulder, and they took off after the Queen.

XX

The teens had little input to give to the argument that followed between the Valerians, as they struggled to decipher Trelawney's prophecy and fit Blaise's broken vision pieces into it, and were thus forced to listen for the following three hours as things got progressively more tense the less sense the prophecy made and the less Blaise's visions fit.

"Stop," Blaise snapped, getting sharply to his feet and stalking toward the circle of Valerians. "This isn't getting you anywhere." He pointed toward where the sun was sinking lower and lower into the sky. "Buckbeak is set to die in less than two hours and I've spent far too much of my free time not to go down and at least try and console my friend. You lot can stay here and argue about some broken pieces of nonsense I saw in a crystal ball, or you can come with me."

The Valerians glanced at one another, before coming to the same conclusion.

They may not be able to make much more sense out of the prophecy beyond the mention of the 'phantom ones' – and part of their problem was they couldn't agree on who the Dark Lord's 'servant' was or wasn't – but they could take steps to ensure their charges weren't totally caught in the crossfire.

"If you're going," Hermione said stubbornly, crossing her arms, "so am I."

Yoko growled quietly.

"If even one of you is leaving this castle," Arcana said evenly, "you're all going."

"And we make a couple of stops before we leave," Tarana added, looking over her shoulder at Harry.

XX

Tarana's 'stops' began in Gryffindor Tower and ended in Remus' office.

Tarana sent Ivory on an errand before beckoning Harry forward.

Harry hesitated for a moment, before laying the item Tarana had told him to retrieve before the Defense professor.

Remus stared down at the folded piece of parchment on his desk with bated breath. "He's-"

"Inherited it," Tarana told him.

Remus placed a slightly shaking wand tip to the map and murmured the words etched into his own heart under his breath.

Harry ignored the twist in his stomach that Remus knew about the map, reminding himself that of course he'd known about it.

He'd helped to make it.

Remus looked up at the Queen. "I don't understand."

"I have reason to believe that Ebony's warning is about to culminate," Tarana told him. "I want you to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious that we might have known around the time of the last war. Given your part in that thing's creation, I felt you would be best suited to the task. Few would know it better."

Remus' grip tightened on his wand and his expression darkened. "It shall be done."

All eyes turned to the door when it creaked open and Ivory slipped through, a familiar silver ball of fabric carefully tucked in his mouth.

XX

Considering the teens were ever-growing, only two of them fit beneath Harry's, once again, returned Invisibility Cloak – in this case, Harry and Blaise because they were, supposedly, the most likely to be targeted by either Sirius Black or Dark – and the rest of them were hidden beneath a double layer of Fallen's Disillusionment Charm and Tarana's Notice-Me-Not Spell.

For all the Valerians' precautions and nerves, however, nothing happened on the trek from the castle to Hagrid's cabin.

Even before they entered, as they waited for Fallen and Tarana to banish their spells, they could see the post in the garden and the hippogriff still tied to it, blinking regally at the Valerians as though it wasn't an hour away from its own death.

Hagrid's hands were shaking when he opened the door, and his welcoming smile was tinged with sadness and didn't reach his red-lined eyes.

Even though he'd known the appeal was a formality at best, and having been able to guess the outcome when both Lords and an executioner had arrived at the appeal, it was apparently just truly sinking in that Hagrid was going to be forced to give up the Forest's Hyer, one of the oldest in England, up to the Ministry's slaughter.

"I thought abou' bringin' 'im t' the flock one more time," he admitted as the others looked out his window at the chained Hyer and he made tea. "Decided it would only get more people hurt."

"A wise choice," Fallen agreed. "The flock likely would have risen to prevent even you from retaking him if you'd returned him. Regardless of his feelings on the matter."

The teens turned sharply when Hagrid dropped his milk jug with a crash.

"Let me," Hermione murmured, quickly moving forward to finish what Hagrid had begun.

The rest of the teens quickly settled around Hagrid's table, with Blaise and Draco being forced to stand because there weren't enough chairs.

"Oh!" Hermione cried suddenly, accompanied by a familiar screeching noise.

With the reflexes of any chaser, Hermione slapped her hand over the jug's opening, preventing the, obviously upset, inhabitant from fleeing as she carried it over to the table.

After months of listening to the same, terrified shrieks, Ron was already reaching for the jar containing his rat.

"Scabbers!" he breathed, snatching the squirming rodent by its middle as it tried to flee.

"How did he end up all the way down here?" Blaise wondered, leaning over Harry to get a better look at the rat.

The return of Scabbers drew the children's attention so thoroughly that they didn't notice the Valerians coming to attention.

They'd given up a week earlier, when the lab results for Crookshanks' blood came back as a, predicted, cross between a long-haired domestic feline and a kneazle. With Scabbers supposedly dead, they had no further leads as to who Ebony's traitor could be.

'Can a rat fake its death?' Yoko asked, slinking away from the table, watching the rat warily.

'No,' Tarana said evenly, growling quietly.

The sound of her threat caused Scabbers to squeal and struggle anew.

"Hush now," Ron cooed at him. "There're no cats to hurt you here," he glanced up at Hermione, flushing. "Er…sorry."

Hermione smiled weakly at him.

"He looks worse than ever," Draco commented, wrinkling his nose.

And he wasn't wrong.

Though it was hard to get a good look at him, with him wriggling and writhing in Ron's hands, Scabbers did look thinner than ever with large tufts of fur missing revealing large bald spots.

"Evening, Minister," Arcana greeted, causing everyone - including the rat, which made nothing better - inside the cabin to freeze.

Due in part to the fact that the Valerians were simply too large for all of them, the Gryffindors, and Hagrid to all fit in the cabin, and in part to the Valerians' sudden paranoia, Fallen and Arcana had remained outside, ostensibly to sit with Buckbeak in the hippogriff's last few hours.

As quietly as they could, Harry and Blaise quickly flung the Invisibility Cloak over their heads and shoulders, Hagrid urging them toward his back door.

Fallen was waiting when it opened and the slimy feeling of his Disillusionment Charm slipping down their spines made them all shudder.

'Around the house,' Fallen instructed them, slipping into the cabin in their place as Hagrid rushed to put the new milk jug and sugar on the table, and the extra, sixth, mug into his already overcrowded sink under Yoko's own instruction. 'Keep as quiet as you can and don't go far.'

The group kept a hand on one another, so as not to get lost, as they crept quietly around the house.

At the front, Tarana had joined Arcana on the front stoop, their bulk essentially blocking the Headmaster and his entourage of Ministry officials and Lord Parkinson.

"What are you all doing down here?" Parkinson sneered, eyeing the Crown with contempt.

Tarana's lip curled and she gave him a distasteful once over. "The concept is likely very foreign to you, Lord Parkinson, so I'll use small words." Draco inhaled sharply. "Though I don't count you among them, my Kin do have friends among wizards."

Parkinson's lip curled and the glance he flicked at Hagrid in the doorway said a great deal about what he thought of their friendship with something like Hagrid.

Arcana didn't so much as give Parkinson the time of day, clearly a greater insult than the words Tarana had tossed in his direction.

"I suppose it's that time already, Albus?" Arcana asked, shifting his weight and curling his tail around his paws.

Not even the Minister, who was unaware of Fallen and Ivory's trip to the Headmaster, appeared surprised that the Valerians had heard of Buckbeak's time of execution.

Dumbledore bowed his head gravely. "So it would seem," he said sadly.

Arcana tilted his head, where Yoko and Fallen flanked the massive half-giant. Neither looked prepared to move aside for the executioner to enter Hagrid's hut and Yoko bared his fangs.

The older wizard, still nameless to the Valerians and students alike, took a steadying breath and reached slowly up his sleeve, likely where he kept his wand, and the executioner slipped a hand around the handle of his axe.

Before it could come to what the students were sure to be blood, Hagrid took a step back, granting the group entry to his home if they were brave enough to step past the Valerians.

"Thank y' all fer the visit," he said, sounding honestly grateful. "An' the support, but 'm sure yeh got bett'r, more importan', things ter do up at the castle."

Fallen tilted his head without taking his eyes off the Minister, who, like any sane creature, swallowed nervously. "Are you sure?" he asked the half-giant above him.

It said more that he hadn't shrugged the hand on his flesh off than any words spoken, that he found Hagrid and his opinion a great deal more pressing than any number of Ministry officials or edicts put before him.

"I'll be alright," Hagrid assured them, voice catching on the half-truth.

Yoko turned and pressed himself against Hagrid's leg. "We'll be by in the morning," he told him.

"No," Tarana rebuked evenly, tilting her head and eyeing the executioner. "We'll be back in an hour when we're sure that our charges haven't caused any additional chaos with the end of their exams. I will warn you now, if there is any additional harm to Hyer Buckbeak, beyond the stroke that ends his life, my ak-esh and I will be paying you both a far from civil visit."

There was a subtle tremble in Fudge at the threat, but Tarana was no longer paying him any mind and Arcana was getting to his paws.

The panther turned and, rearing, braced her front paws on Hagrid's shoulders so the two of them were eye-to-eye. "If you feel the need to watch, my friend, I will not naysay you. I will, however, take care of the remains of the Forest Hyer when we return. That act should not fall on you."

Clearly moved by the support of the Valerians, Hagrid watched as the Crown and Collective tensely traded places with the Minister and his entourage.

There were tears in his eyes when he closed the doors on the Assassin and General circling their Crown, all eyes on those inside as long they could keep them there.

Fudge couldn't hide his nerves as the door closed on four, predatory gazes.

XX

Up at the castle, Remus had moved to his lower coffee table so Ivory could assist him in keeping an eye on the Map while he graded the final exams of his sixth years.

Ivory had gotten bored with it after the first half-hour, however, and Remus was keeping less than half an eye on it on his own when Severus entered after a sharp knock to announce his presence, not bothering to wait for Remus' allowance.

He and Ivory exchanged sneers instead of greetings before Severus dropped a rolled-up parchment on Remus' essay-of-the-moment, smearing the red ink and placing the goblet in his other hand down with far more care.

"Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get results from a sample as old as the one you brought me, Lupin? If I was any less skilled there would have been nothing for me to work with at all."

Ivory snorted. "Mustnt've been that hard then," he shot back.

"Ivory," Remus reprimanded sharply before looking back up at Severus. "Could you get anything from it?" he asked, a touch desperately.

Severus sneered. "I am a master of my craft, Lupin. They came back probably human."

Remus didn't look surprised but looked over at Ivory in the corner, who was already scrambling to his paws.

"This doesn't surprise either one of you," Severus noted, irritated. "Why waste my time with it? What now?"

Remus had swept aside the remains of his essays, sending them scattering across the floor with little care, so he could spread the Marauder's Map out to its fullest.

Severus may not have recognized the map itself, but he clearly recognized the name on the title and his expression froze over.

"Where are you, you flea-bitten weasel?" Ivory growled, braced on the low table with his forepaws so he could see more of the map.

"Here!" Remus cried, stabbing the map with a finger.

Ivory's gaze snapped to the area around Hagrid's cabin, where the Valerians and Gryffindors were making their way quickly up to the castle.

Severus tapped another section of the map, coming up from the edges of the Forbidden Forest and moving swiftly toward the group.

Sirius Black and Ebony the Shade.