Author's Note:

This is, essentially, the last chapter with only a short 'epilogue' to follow next week.

I hope you've enjoyed the second installment of the Harry Potter and the Valerians series and, again, I've finished the third story and actually began to write the following Goblet of Fire this week.

Despite this, I'll be taking another week off between the Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban to try and close the fifteen chapter gap between the total number of chapters between installments three and four.

I'd like to throw out a thanks to the many readers of the old incarnation of these stories, because I'd forgotten how much fun the plans I'd had for this series could potentially have turned out to be and, as of the next few weeks, we'll have surpassed the progress I'd made in the last incarnation.

Without you guys, I never would have come back to this story to turn it into what it has become.

So, thanks for bringing me back and thanks everyone for reading,

Harry Potter, the Valerians, and the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter Eighteen: A Few Loose Ends

The basilisk is dead, and Ginny rescued, but now it's time to tie up those pesky loose ends the year has created, including how Tarana survived Arcana brutally killing her.


If Dumbledore was surprised to see Arcana and the adolescent form of Tarana, his grim expression didn't show it.

"The Weasleys were called to the school shortly before the lot of you must have gone down to retrieve Ms. Weasley," he told them. "Minerva is in the office with them now. It has been a great deal of work on her behalf to keep them from going down into the Chamber themselves."

"Is that why it took nearly an hour for someone to arrive in the Chamber with us?" Fallen asked drily. "And none of them were the House Heads that were requested."

Dumbledore clearly had no answers for him. "I only just returned myself," he told them. "Minerva will likely have clearer answers to give you."

Fallen scoffed. "I'll be going to the infirmary. Yoko still hasn't recovered. Once you're in a state to do so, Severus, let me know if that venom sample you took and have been trying to hide amounts to anything."

Dumbledore turned sharply to the wolf. "Apologies, General. I didn't realize Yoko was still in Poppy's care. Fawkes-"

The phoenix was already winging out of the bathroom.

Fallen darted after it without another word to those still standing in Myrtle's bathroom.

Arcana stepped up beside Ron. "Given that you've just returned, Albus, I hate to ask, but Ronald and I require a quiet space with little outside access. The Bond is in place, but it hasn't latched at either end. I'd like to do something about that before it decides to do so on its own."

Dumbledore barely blinked. "Of course," he said, gesturing to the door. "Madam Pomfrey will set you up with a private room. There should be several to choose from now that the Restorative Draught is nearly done." He looked to Severus, who nodded.

"It was in its final stages when I was…distracted, this evening," Severus assured them. "I'll keep you informed of any changes between the Draught, the victims, and him."

Dumbledore nodded. "Thank you, Severus," he said, watching the potions master levitate the unconscious Lockhart out of the bathroom like it was something that happened every day, with Arcana leading a mostly protesting Ron after him.

Harry was pretty sure he would have blinked, at least a little startled, at any one of those things, and was kind of awed that Dumbledore didn't so much as twitch.

Left alone with the Headmaster and Tarana, Harry and Draco took over where Ron had been forced to leave, standing on either side of Ginny as the Headmaster led them to McGonagall's office.

Inside, Ginny flinched back, hiding behind the two Second Years, because it wasn't simply her parents in the room, the Twins and Percy had been called down as well.

"Ginny!" Molly cried her and Arthur out of their seats as soon as they registered that Dumbledore had arrived with their daughter.

If anything, however, their attention made her nerves worse and she pressed her face into Harry's back, hiding even further.

Tarana, who had still not broken contact longer than had been required to get them all up the pipe, took a step forward that put her more firmly between the Weasleys, their daughter, and her charge, but it was Dumbledore that gently urged them back to their seats.

"Why don't we let the children explain themselves, hm?" he said. "Young Ginny appears to have gone through something traumatic. Let's give her a moment to reconcile that she's in a safe place with safe people."

Draco took a step forward and Harry one back, leaving Ginny floundering for a moment, before she realized that Harry had dropped to his knees and was crying quietly into Tarana's neck, arms wrapped tight around her body.

With little choice left, she stuck close to Draco as he explained Fallen and Yoko's investigation, as he knew it, into the Chamber of Secrets, the Heir of Slytherin, and the Monster of both.

He told them of tricking Lockhart into letting them go down to visit Yoko and Hermione, and finding Hermione's last research notes, the ones that detailed how the basilisk had managed to avoid killing the people it attacked and how it was getting around the school unseen.

"I see," McGonagall said evenly. "At least, I see how you all managed to find the Chamber. I don't see how any of this translates into you ending up down there."

Draco glanced back at Harry but found no help there as Tarana buried her muzzle in his hair and was likely talking privately with him.

Mouth a little dry, Draco continued the story, telling them of their rush to share the information with Fallen and Severus, only to be interrupted.

'Don't mention how much faith you put on Severus, Draco,' Tarana told him, causing him to glance at her sharp, blue eyes. 'Best that they don't know how close that particular professor is with the rest of you.'

Draco nodded slowly, before continuing the story and not mentioning that Severus had been the one they went to, but more implying that he was the first professor to stumble upon them telling Fallen about it.

"And Professor McGonagall had apparently told Lockhart to go down and get her but when we went to his office, he was packing up his stuff, so Severus forced him to come down with us to get Ginny."

He told them of using Harry's Parseltongue ability to open the Chamber and how Severus and Fallen had gone in to get Ginny and how the fight was 'really bad' until Arcana and Tarana arrived to help them.

"I don't understand," Arthur said, looking over at Tarana and Harry. "Have you been alive this whole time?"

"Impossible," Molly said waspishly, swatting at her husband. "You saw the state the boy was in when we got him. How are you alive again?"

Tarana raised her head from Harry's and recounted the 'lesson' she'd given those in the Chamber, about how the Valerians had been 'reborn' on this world after the destruction of their own.

"I hadn't realized how badly you were taking it, cub," she told him, more fretful than Harry had ever seen her. "And I swear to you it will never happen again."

"You're here," Harry told her, voice muffled by her fur. "And you didn't mean to-"

Tarana knew she tensed before Harry raised his head. "Did you?"

Tarana ducked her head, ears pressed back against her skull. "Not a concretely, no," she admitted. "Though I had planned an eventual sacrifice through which I planned to break Arcana of his connection to Dark."

"What?" Draco asked, as confused as the rest of them as to what that meant.

"It occurred to me around Christmas last year, when we had the conversation with you all regarding the strength of Dark's control over Arcana, that there was only one connection to him that was stronger and more sacred than that of the remains of his Kin. His love for me. Though I didn't have a particular plan in motion at the time, the thought had been planted that an attack on me, specifically, might break him of Dark's Talent."

"But you were attacked a load of times last year," Draco pointed out.

"But none of them were as vicious as the one in McGonagall's chamber in June," Tarana told him. "I had hoped that it would, if nothing else, shake Dark's control enough that Arcana might be freed in some other way, but even though we know a great deal about Dark's Talent, I've never studied it. It was still nearly completely intact at the time I met him in Surrey."

Harry pulled himself further away from her and Tarana kept her flinch well-hidden.

"You let him," he whispered. "That's why you didn't let me out. You let him kill you."

"It was my last, and least favored resort," Tarana told him, voice cracking with the force of her sorrow and guilt. "But given some of the things I had set in motion, things that had spiraled out of my control, the Collective needed its King." She took a steadying breath and closed her eyes as she admitted, "I did more than let him, I begged him for it."

Harry's breath hitched and Tarana flinched with it.

Draco took an angry step forward, fists clenched, but was brought up short by Ginny's tight grip on his robes and the Twins got there first, wrapping him in their arms and pulling Harry back and between them both.

Tarana's eyes were dark and detached when she opened them, hiding the hurt she had at Harry's retreat from her, and her voice was equally as distant as she continued. "I don't suppose any of you have ever heard of the Heartbreak, given that it has never occurred on this world, but it is essentially a poisoning of a broken or unreciprocated mate bond. When Arcana resurrected me, we no longer had the required 'ingredients', if you will, to complete the ritual and thus it needed to be modified heavily in order to work a second time. Arcana was suffering from the broken bond before he ever finished modifying and casting the ritual, and it didn't get any better once I was resurrected, as I came back with an entirely blank slate. I had none of the ties after my new birth, then I had in my old life, including the bond that was slowly killing the very King I had given my life to save, something I admit I hadn't taken into account when I planned the sacrifice in the first place.

"A Mating on Valeria is as deep and invasive as a Bonding with our charges here," she explained, still in that distant, detached way. "And like a Bonding, requires a time segregated from any that may be perceived as a threat to it, usually for a minimum period of two months."

"You were gone a lot longer than two months," Fred pointed out evenly.

Tarana nodded. "As soon as the bond was semi-stabilized, about two weeks, Arcana told me of a series of artifacts that Dark had admitted to getting off Valeria before it Fell. Artifacts that he not only had no right to own, but equally no right to use. We spent much of our segregation hunting those artifacts and had, in fact, sent many of what we'd found at that point here to Hogwarts around the Christmas holidays, where they would be safely protected by Yoko and Fallen."

Harry and Draco exchanged glances. "Our Christmas presents," they said together.

"At the time, we were still under segregation," Tarana said, "and we couldn't risk Dark finding out that Arcana was now free of his control, as he would begin to move the artifacts that we were hunting for, thus putting them again out of our reach."

"You're here now," Molly said. "Does that mean you've found everything you were looking for?"

"Most of them," Tarana admitted. "Many of them are hidden in places of our choosing and Arcana sent several more with someone he trusts, though he wouldn't say more than it was another Valerian."

Dumbledore leaned forward. "I admit to understanding very little of Dark's Talent, but I understand that it was extremely risky for Arcana to be in his vicinity until he had a stronger tie than the one he had by mating to you. What changed to bring you back here, putting him at risk?"

"The boys," Tarana told him. "Arcana had come by information regarding the state the school was currently in and I insisted that we return immediately to offer our assistance to Fallen and Yoko, who could likely only hold the line for so long. Arcana is still tied to the Prewitt line, even though he had never renewed his Blood-Soul Bond with it and I told him of Ron and Ginny's presence here, and we decided that, though unprecedented, the risk to our Kin and our charges was great enough to bypass the Heir Requirement."

"Not-" Molly glanced at Ginny and Tarana shook her head.

"We didn't arrive until after Ginny and the others had descended into the Chamber. We met Blaise in the Entrance Hall and he told us that Ginny had been taken and the others had gone down to retrieve her. He was very brief, by necessity, and his own knowledge, of how Ginny was connected to the events as we knew them, but we were relatively certain that she was in no condition to serve as Bonded to Arcana, even if he were willing to do so."

"Fallen and Severus had sent Ron and I back to wait for them," Draco told the room.

"We didn't have a great deal of time to explain to Ron what was going to happen to him, but given that Blaise had warned us that Fallen was alone in the Chamber, with none of his Kin to back him, it was paramount that Arcana, the healthiest of us even now, be in the Chamber when we faced off against Dark and the basilisk. We theorized that, if Dark did try and reclaim his Thrall, Arcana could throw open the half-completed bond and it might be enough to prevent the Manipulation from regaining its hold."

"Is that why my son isn't here?" Molly asked, glancing around as though Ron would pop up from somewhere.

"King Arcana requested a private space for he and Ron to cement the Bond," Dumbledore told them.

"How much do you remember of your brother's bonding?" Tarana asked.

"Enough," Molly said shortly, though Tarana wasn't sure if it was because of the pain she had caused Harry with her actions, or if it was because she was questioning her memory. "I'll take steps in my home for Arcana and Ron."

XX

Dumbledore gave Molly and Arthur several minutes to quietly converse over what would be needed to add Arcana to their home and what changes would need to be made to accommodate the bond between the two, changes that wouldn't need to have been made, Tarana realized with a detached sort of worry, if they had done the Bonding properly and gone to William instead of his youngest brother. She would hope that, at what must have been his early twenties by now, he wasn't living at home with his parents any longer.

As their parents talked, George peeled himself away from Fred and Harry to approach his sister and was now talking quietly to her, Percy hovering above and in the background.

She had relaxed enough that she had allowed him to put a hand on her shoulder, something that hadn't been missed by their mother if the choked sob had been anything to go by.

"While I understand that this is important," Dumbledore eventually interrupted. "I must ask that we bring this back to the events of our school year." He turned to Harry, Draco, and Ginny. "I have information that I am relatively sure of, that Voldemort is currently hiding in Albania. How then, is it that he was here controlling Ginny?"

Ginny tensed and George, using his grip on her shoulder, pulled her closer and into an actual embrace, which she used to half hide her face.

"I'm afraid that information I don't have to give you," Tarana admitted. "Those answers will likely need to wait until Fallen can rejoin us. Given the state of Yoko, I would not recommend pulling the two apart for some time yet."

Harry fiddled with his shirt sleeve, before stepping forward. "I don't know how much what I know is right, but…" he glanced at Ginny, who tightened her grip on her brother and burrowed her face in his chest in full. "I think I know how he did it, though I don't know how it worked."

Dumbledore gestured for him to continue.

"A month or so ago, Yoko found a diary in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom," he told them. "He spent a lot of time on it in the weeks between then and the next attack, trying to figure out who it belonged to. He wouldn't work on it when the common room was full, because he claimed that it wasn't safe." He didn't mention why he was awake and around when Yoko was working on it but continued. "Fallen mentioned a presence or something once, but he'd called it a pen pal and I never heard him mention it again, but we found out down in the Chamber it was a - Tom called it a memory - of the diary's owner from fifty years ago."

"I've been writing in it," Ginny admitted wetly, sniffling. "It was in my books from Diagon Alley and I've been writing in it all year."

"Ginny," Arthur said, quietly and with such disappointment that Tarana bristled and it wasn't even directed at her or her charge. "Haven't I taught you anything?" he asked, "What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where it keeps its brain!" he shook his head as Ginny buried herself back in George's chest. "Why didn't you show the diary to me or your mother? A suspicious object like that-"

"From what I hear, it seems like she thought you bought it for her," Tarana rumbled, putting herself between Arthur and his children.

"I didn't know it was dark," Ginny sobbed. "I didn't know the time I was losing was because of him, I swear!"

"Voldemort has been manipulating people far older and wiser than your daughter, Arthur," Tarana growled, eyes narrowed. "Even if she had handed it to you and asked you what you thought. She could have handed that diary to any number of people in this school and there would be Seventh Years that wouldn't recognize it as a dark object. Fallen dismissed it as unimportant. Don't you dare try and pin this on her when she's just as much a victim as any of those that were petrified this year."

Arthur and Molly flinched, and the panther's nostrils flared.

"Who's Tom Riddle?" Percy asked suddenly, reminding the adults that there were others in the room.

Dumbledore laced his fingers together. "This diary, I don't suppose you have it?"

Harry shook his head. "It got burnt up."

Dumbledore sighed. "It was likely a rather brilliant piece of magic, if all that you say about it is true. To be expected, of course, given that Tom Riddle was likely the most brilliant student to ever cross those doors."

"But who is he?" Percy asked again. "I mean, how is he connected to You-Know-Who?"

"One of the Dark Lord's most well-kept secrets is likely that he and Tom Riddle are the same person," Tarana told him.

Dumbledore hummed his agreement. "I taught him myself here, fifty years ago. After leaving school he disappeared. Traveled far and wide and, if I miss my guess, met Dark at some point during his travels and delved even deeper into the Dark Arts. By the time he resurfaced as Voldemort, Dark in tow, no one would have connected the creature he'd become with the clever, handsome Tom Riddle."

The Headmaster put his hands firmly on the desk and pushed himself to his feet, coming around it to urge the Weasleys out of the office.

"I'm sure Madam Pomfrey has been busy administering the Restorative Draught to the petrified victims, but she will be wanting to take a look at you, Ms. Weasley, to make sure there were no side effects from your condition this year. There will be no punishment, as we said, there have been far wiser and older witches and wizards who have been hoodwinked by Voldemort." He looked up at Molly and Arthur. "I'm sure Poppy will likewise have some answers regarding Ron and Arcana," he murmured to them.

Molly twisted her handkerchief tightly in her hands as she nodded and ushered her children out the door, Arthur doing the same to her.

She stopped before Dumbledore could close the door, abruptly turning and coming back, hugging first Draco, who was closest and was so startled he didn't seem to know what to do, but quickly stepped back and away when he was released, hands shaking at the unexpected - and unwelcome, though it only had a little to do with the fact that she was a Weasley and more to do with the fact that she was an adult - contact.

Harry was her next 'target' and the brunette had gotten so used to hugs from her that he simply closed his eyes and bore with it, though he was equally as pleased to be released, though not for the same reasons as Draco.

"Thank you," Molly told them both, heartfelt. "Thank you but if you two ever put yourselves in that kind of danger again…." She trailed off, apparently not able to find words to express herself.

Apparently overwhelmed with her own emotion, the Weasley matriarch breezed from the room.

Once the door had closed behind the Weasleys, Dumbledore turned his attention to McGonagall, who was pale and shaking in the aftermath of all that had been told, either in anger - on Harry and the Valerians' behalf for how Tarana and Arcana had apparently neglected them - or in fear for what had nearly happened over the course of the evening.

"You know, Minerva," Dumbledore told her thoughtfully. "I think all this merits a good feast. Might I ask you to and alert the kitchens?"

McGonagall appeared relieved, though Tarana wasn't surprised.

The professor had hesitated long enough in going to assist Severus that, if Tarana and Arcana hadn't gotten there first, it was highly likely that something could have gone terribly wrong and more than one student would have been lost.

She likely needed some time to compose herself.

"Of course," she said crisply, moving to her own office door. "I'll leave you to deal with the rest then?"

"Certainly," Dumbledore said pleasantly.

When she opened the door, however, Severus was standing there, apparently preparing to knock.

"Severus!" Dumbledore said, almost cheerfully. "All is well?"

"Yes, sir," Severus told him, glancing at all that remained of the room with a slight sneer on his face. "Pomfrey has finished administering the Restorative Draught. Those petrified should return to moderate health over the next couple of hours with minimal to no side effects."

"That is wonderful news," Dumbledore said, beaming brightly. "And Gilderoy?"

Severus' expression twisted into something that, on anyone else, Tarana would have labeled glee. "There appeared to be a reaction with the spell he attempted to cast with Weasley's broken wand. It backfired in its compromised state and he appears to have no memory remaining. He doesn't know his name, that he's a wizard, or that he's been a professor here for the last several months."

Draco snorted. "Poetic justice if I've ever seen it," he muttered with amusement.

Dumbledore, though he must have heard him, graciously said nothing regarding Draco's obvious distaste for a professor under his employ, but thanked Severus.

The Potions professor tilted his head in a bow, of sorts, and swept down the hallway, allowing McGonagall to leave as well.

Only once the door was closed, did Draco and Harry drift back toward one another.

Tarana didn't miss how her former-future charge kept the blond between the two of them.

"Earlier this year," Dumbledore began sternly, "I seem to remember telling you, Harry, that if you or Ron broke any more school rules, I would need to expel you."

Tarana rumbled quietly behind and to Harry's left, but she quickly cut it off as she realized that, not only did she not have all the relevant information, she really had no one to blame for that but herself.

Harry was rather viciously satisfied with it, though he immediately felt bad about it.

Draco opened his mouth to protest, but Dumbledore raised a hand to prevent him from interrupting.

"If nothing else," Dumbledore continued, unaware of the thoughts and emotions going through the two boys before him. "This just goes to show that the best of us must sometimes admit we're wrong."

His blue eyes twinkled over Draco's shoulder and locked with the narrow and vicious blue ones of the Queen behind them.

"You both, as well as Ron and Severus, will be receiving Special Awards for Services to the School and," he hummed thoughtfully. "I believe a hundred and fifty points apiece to Gryffindor, should suffice."

Harry and Draco exchanged wide grins; it was more than they'd gotten for protecting the Stone combined the year before.

"I certainly hope this doesn't become a habit," Tarana drawled behind them. "I don't know if my heart can take this year after year."

Dumbledore's eyes glittered. "Now, I believe you boys should head down to the infirmary and have Madam Pomfrey take a look at you. By then, I imagine the feast should be in full swing."

"Thank you, Professor," Harry mumbled, before turning and following Draco out the door.

Tarana paused in the doorway to look back at Dumbledore. 'Do not think this changes things, Albus,' she told him. 'I thank you for watching over my charge, but don't mistake that for being unaware that you probably knew quite a bit more about this Chamber than you've let on. Particularly if you knew Riddle when he was at school here. I find it difficult to believe that he hadn't already opened it once before.'

"He had indeed," Dumbledore told her. "And things went much the same then as they did now, I'm afraid, though someone did die at that time. We were fortunate that Harry and his friends were around to help Fallen get to Ginny before the same occurred."

Tarana's eyes narrowed. 'I'm sure it is,' she murmured, before turning to follow her former-future charge and his friend.

XX

When Tarana caught up with Harry and Draco, they had apparently run into Lucius.

The Malfoy Lord was clearly surprised to see her, despite her altered appearance, though he hid it well.

"Your Highness," he murmured, a sneer beneath his words. "You are looking remarkably well, given the alternative I had heard about you."

"The rumors were, unfortunately, not exaggerated," Tarana told him, sitting a little ways behind the two Second Years. "I didn't mean to intrude on any business you had with your son."

"It was not Draco that I called to speak with," Lucius told her. "I was just informing them both that I had only been told of Draco's involvement upon my arrival."

Draco twitched and Harry got the impression that his friend wasn't going to be getting the same congratulations that Ron would be when he got home.

Draco glanced back at the panther, then at the cowering House Elf behind his father, and gave the creature a nasty smirk.

"Tarana, this is Dobby. He's one of my Uncle Nathaniel's House Elves," he introduced.

"Draco," Harry hissed, elbowing him in the side.

Tarana narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but before she could ask what the introduction was for, Lucius swept his long robes over his arm and prepared to move on.

"Father, if you weren't here because I-" Draco grimaced. "What are you doing here?"

Lucius' eyes were cold as they stared at his son, and Harry wasn't sure if it was normal for Draco to ask such questions or not, because it was a lot of attention.

When he finally did speak, however, there was no sign of the distaste in his voice that was written in the set of his shoulders. "I am here to offer a formal apology to the Headmaster," he told them. "And to assure him that we had no plans to formally oust him from Hogwarts."

Harry mumbled a barely quiet enough 'yet'.

Rather than berate the brunette, however, Lucius did give Draco a pointed look.

Draco simply shrugged, not looking very apologetic for Harry's lack of 'manners'.

"Then," Draco glanced slyly over his shoulder before looking down at Dobby. "What's going to be done about Dobby trying to kill Harry all year?"

Harry groaned.

Tarana rumbled quietly and Dobby squeaked, trying to tuck himself further behind his master.

"What?" she asked dangerously.

Lucius himself went very still and Draco realized that even Lucius hadn't known of all that his uncle had done over the last few months.

Dobby was shivering when Lucius looked down at him.

"Explain yourself, Elf," the Lord snapped sharply.

Dobby whined, but the command obviously overrode whatever one Nathaniel had given him to keep him quiet because the story came out like a rush of water after being dammed up too long.

Lucius was silent as Dobby told them about stopping Harry's mail over the summer, going of his own free will to try and convince Harry to remain at the Dursleys, stopping him at the platform at King's Cross, and rigging the Bludger to send Harry home prematurely.

"Master-Wolf-General made sure Dobby stopped," he cried. "Dobby promises that was all!"

"You attacked a Lord of the Sacred Twenty-Eight?" Lucius murmured, dangerously quiet.

Dobby whimpered, pulling at his ears.

After a long, promising look at the House Elf at his feet, Lucius looked up at Harry and bowed slightly at the waist. "Apologies, Lord Potter, from the House of Malfoy, on behalf of my brother and his servant. Amends will be made immediately on your behalf, to rectify the slight we have caused you."

Harry thought it was weird for a wizard so much older than him, to be bowing at all and was thankful when Lucius straightened, pulling off one of his gloves as he did so.

"Dobby," he said, handing the article of clothing down to the Elf. "You are hereby free of any and all tie and connection to the Malfoy family." Dobby whimpered as he took the glove from his now-former master. "Make no mistake, however, that though I may not be Bonded to him, I will send Fallen after you if I ever hear that you've breathed a word of anything you know."

The Lord glanced at Tarana, lips slowly peeling back from her fangs, as though fighting to remember that Harry wasn't currently her charge and thus, she didn't yet have the right for retribution.

"Go," he ordered, waving dismissively at the Elf.

Dobby didn't look like he knew what to feel about being freed from his master's house but disappeared with a crack.

Without another word, Lucius swept past the trio and continued to his business with Dumbledore.

XX

"What does that mean?" Harry asked Draco, still mostly ignoring Tarana, as they continued down toward the infirmary.

"What Dobby did to you, as a Lord of the Twenty-Eight, is considered inexcusable and reparations need to be made to manage the slight or risk a feud or war between families," Draco recited. "Right now, my family is indebted to yours until we pay you back for the slight and you can call on that debt at pretty much any time." He shrugged, sheepishly. "Honestly, I'm still learning that part of my role as Heir, Father wanted to make sure I wouldn't cause one before I knew how to fix one. Fallen might know more, but I'm fairly sure that dissolving Dobby's bond to us doesn't fulfill the debt to your family."

"What's going to happen to Dobby?" Harry asked.

Draco shrugged. "Don't know," he admitted, though he didn't much appear to care either.

"House Elves draw nourishment from the bond between themselves and their family, in the same way that you would from eating or drinking. Though it will take a while, years potentially, Dobby is very likely going to waste away. This dismissal is a stain for him and it's unlikely that another family will take him on because of it."

Harry frowned. "He was only doing what he was told," he pointed out.

Draco squinted at him with a scowl. "Are you feeling bad for the ruddy Elf?! He tried to kill you!"

Harry hunched his shoulders up around his ears and flushed but didn't say another word.

Tarana sighed and flexed her claws wishing she'd been just a little faster.

XX

Pomfrey was rather overwhelmed when the boys got to the infirmary, and as such, she gave them a swift once over and deemed them well enough to go to the feast within a few minutes.

It didn't give them a lot of time to ask about their friends there, but they figured they'd see them at the feast at some point, or in the Tower when it was over.

The feast, however, was unlike anything even the Valerians, who had been in and out of Hogwarts for centuries, could remember.

It lasted well into the night and was attended by student and staff alike, many of whom were dressed in their pajamas.

Harry and Draco weren't sure what time it was when Hermione came running into the Great Hall with Fallen and Blaise on either side of her.

Nestled firmly in Blaise's arms, was a very much conscious Yoko.

While all of Gryffindor was happy to see them both, the focus was quite heavily on Yoko, many of them having already gotten over Tarana's return by then.

Hermione tearfully hugged the panther Queen, babbling the whole while of what she'd missed, while the rest of the House welcomed Yoko back.

Not unexpected, Blaise was forced to suffer the gathering, because he refused to put the fox down so it was almost an hour before he managed to find a spot beside Draco to ask, "How's he handling her return?"

Draco glanced tiredly over the table at Harry, who was maintaining several other students between himself and his former-future guardian.

Quietly, he shared with Blaise what Tarana had revealed in McGonagall's office, that she'd asked Arcana to kill her at the Dursleys'.

"He's not taking that part well," he whispered. "Was even worse when she told us that they were pretty much off on a second honeymoon while we were trying to put him back together again."

Blaise glanced at the panther. "I can't blame him," he said quietly, before running a hand down Yoko's back. "After coming pretty close to losing Yoko, though, I'm pretty sure that he'll get over it fast."

Tarana tilted her head in their direction, though she didn't take her eyes off Lee Johnson.

'Thank you, Blaise,' she murmured. 'Your positivity gives me a great deal of hope going forward.'

Watching her former-future charge out of the corner of her eye, Tarana wasn't sure who could tell that she was regretting having made that choice, despite that it was tactically sound, given what it had cost her in Harry's trust and faith in her.

Her eyes trailed away from Harry and toward the wolf, hovering around Blaise, or more specifically, Yoko, and eyeing anyone that came too close to his lover.

She didn't imagine that Fallen's reaction to that choice was going to be much better. They had been out of contact entirely for over eight months, well past the two-month grace period for new mates.

Once Tarana had finally made her rounds of the Gryffindors, and shaken Hermione, she finally made it to Yoko's side herself.

"Tarana," the fox breathed, stretching his muzzle as far as Blaise's arms would allow.

Tarana helped by planting both her front paws on the bench beside the dark-skinned Gryffindor and lowering her head, rubbing their cheeks together.

"I missed you as well, my friend," she murmured thickly to him. "I'm so sorry to have put you through what I did."

"You came back," Yoko said simply. "The rest can all be dealt with later."

Tarana purred roughly and rubbed her other cheek against the fox, Yoko pressing back against her and scenting her in turn.

Harry watched them from a little ways down the table, remembering that Yoko had admitted over the summer that Tarana was his best friend before she was his Queen.

He quickly averted his eyes as the two separated and Tarana dropped back down to the ground. When he looked back up the two seemed to be deep in a private conversation, Tarana's eyes glittering happily.

XX

Though it took a day or two, the school did eventually get back to 'normal' and the last of the exams were taken.

Over those days, Harry avoided Tarana often, until Yoko cornered him behind his curtain one night.

'Harry,' the fox murmured.

"Yoko," Harry said, looking the fox over quickly for any sign of the injury that had come close to killing the Assassin as nothing else had. "Are you alright?"

Yoko rolled his eyes. 'I'm far more durable than you humans are, so I wish you would all stop asking me that.'

Harry shrugged. "I wish you could see what we saw when we went to see you in the infirmary. It was bad."

'I'm sure it was,' he admitted. 'But I didn't come here to be fawned over. You're avoiding Tarana.'

Harry looked away and shrugged.

'Harry, I, better than any of the others, understand what you're feeling. But you're focusing on the wrong thing right now.'

"That she left us?" Harry scowled, crossing his arms.

'That she's here.' Yoko countered. 'Her and Arcana could have disappeared anywhere in the world. Fallen and I assumed he was dead, or close to it, and we all believed that Tarana was still dead. They had no reason to return to us and yet they did.'

Harry pressed his lips stubbornly together.

'Do you hate her?'

Harry shrugged. "A little," he admitted. "She promised she was going to be here, be with me. 'Every step of the way,' she told me."

'Do you feel like she wasn't with you?' Yoko asked.

"Of course she wasn't," Harry scowled. "She was with Arcana."

'Arcana who she risked to return here on a possibility,' Yoko pointed out. 'Arcana who she hasn't seen in ten years.'

Harry jutted his jaw out stubbornly and Yoko sighed.

'There were times I didn't feel as though she ever left me,' Yoko admitted. 'Sometimes I would hear her in my head, telling me that I was being 'stupid' or 'unreasonable'. Once she even warned me that I was doing something particularly reckless and it wasn't going to do me any favors.'

Harry looked down at his comforter. "She yelled at me a lot," he whispered. "I used to pretend to hear her wish me goodnight. I had less nightmares those nights."

Yoko tilted his head. 'See, she was still here. Every step of the way. There are those of our loved ones that we don't get the opportunity to see again,' he reminded him. 'And there may one day come a time when we really, honestly might need to say goodbye to her. Are you willing to risk staying mad at her and ignoring her, if that day happens to be tomorrow?'

Harry's lip trembled. "No," he whispered, remembering those first few nights without her.

'I'm not saying you have to forgive her, Harry,' Yoko assured him. 'Just because I'm happy she's here, doesn't mean that I don't hate her a little for having left us like this in the first place. But I'm not going to let that hate prevent me from loving her now that she's here, either. Do you understand?'

Harry nodded. "I think so," he whispered.

Yoko leaned forward to nudge Harry's chin with his muzzle and winked when Blaise's voice trailed up from the stairs leading down into the common room.

Harry chuckled weakly as the fox darted off the bed and slipped off somewhere to temporarily hide away from Blaise's sudden and horrible case of mother-henning.

XX

It was almost a week after they took their last exam, that Arcana and Ron returned to join the rest of the populace.

By that time, Harry had slowly managed to bring himself to touch and be near Tarana, though there was sometimes tension between the two.

He had spent a couple of nights curled up on the couch with her and days laying his head on her stomach, basking in the sun by the Lake.

Those days were becoming more and more frequent.

It was a good thing that Harry and Tarana were talking again because Ron wasn't taking to the Bond with Arcana well.

Every brush of the tiger against his own mind, every emotion that wasn't his own, seemed to make the preteen twitch.

He often sat down beside one of the Heirs and hissed about this or that and demanding to know if it was 'normal'.

Draco, in particular, snickered more than he was helpful.

XX

As Tarana had predicted, Fallen didn't take the news that she had been gone so long because, as Draco had neatly put it days ago, she and Arcana were on their second honeymoon.

Logically and tactically, he knew that having the two of them recovering artifacts that may or may not help them against Dark and whatever new Thrall he throws at them next was the right move, but it didn't explain why they hadn't at least sent some sort of word that she was alive and Arcana wasn't dying.

It was two days before he would even talk to her again, but eventually, he got over it enough to inform her of the memory Riddle had attempted to alter, with little success, in Neville's mind.

"I don't suppose there's any way you can pull it apart?" he asked her, the two of them sitting at either corner of the brunette's bed, the preteen in question sitting between them at the foot of it.

Tarana shook her head. "I doubt it," she told him. "My Talent doesn't really allow me to change the memories of the person I walk with. I can temporarily overwrite one, but I can't change it."

Neville frowned.

Fallen had come to him pretty much as soon as Tarana had returned to the castle and told him to think about whether he wanted to remove the poorly adjusted memory or not and he had taken almost a week to work up the courage to find out what, exactly, Riddle had wanted to keep Neville from remembering Ginny doing.

"Have you tried your Eye?" Arcana asked from the doorway.

"Yoko was in no condition to help me at the time," Fallen told him. "He's still in no condition for that."

Tarana glanced at her hicari.

Yoko was getting stronger by the day and there wasn't going to be much at Hogwarts now that would try and attack Fallen while he pulled the memory apart or while he recovered.

"We're here now," Arcana told his General.

Fallen was clearly biting his tongue on a retort.

"Will it hurt?" Neville asked them.

"No more than getting it put in did if I do it right," Fallen admitted.

"Okay," Neville said. "What do I do?"

"Lie down," Fallen told him. "We might be here a while."

XX

'A while' was an understatement.

Fallen's Third Eye glowed for a near consistent three and a half hours as he painstakingly unstitched the memory.

He was surprised when he surfaced for a brief break, to find that he was still feeling better than normal, and so he simply dove back into unweaving the memory from Neville's real memory.

Another two hours passed before he pulled himself out and allowed his Eye to go dark.

Neville slowly sat up.

"How do you feel?" Tarana asked.

"Fine," Neville said, sounding surprised. He frowned. "She was sending the basilisk away, I think. I only saw its tail."

"You were very lucky," Fallen pointed out. "You could have been a victim yourself."

Neville shuddered. "Thanks, Fallen," he said, before flushing and darting into the bathroom.

Arcana smirked.

"I feel far better than I should, given how many hours I just had the Eye opened for," Fallen admitted.

The three Valerians in the room exchanged glances.

"You uh, you had a little help," Yoko admitted slowly.

"Help?" Fallen asked.

Tarana hummed. "Every fire in the castle is currently out." She informed him.

"And around the same time, you started to glow," Arcana added.

"I'm pretty sure that Hogwarts reached out to help you help Neville," Yoko finished. "Like when it gave Horus the ability to speak."

As though on cue, the falcon in question cried that he was hungry.

The Valerians ignored him.

"What does that mean?" Neville asked from the doorway.

Yoko shrugged. "Honestly? I have no idea. I just read the magic and postulate accordingly."

Fallen glanced at Tarana, mouthing the word 'postulate' to her.

The panther shrugged, amused.