Harry's heart lunged to his throat as he thought about the possibility of being trapped in the little cave with the huge dog sniffing him out. His palms prickled as sweat coated them. He couldn't let the dog get Gemma and Aminah. He wiped his palms on his knees.

Gemma's wand clattered on the earth next to her as she draped Nio around his neck and lifted his hands so that they were resting on hers while she signed.

"Breathe. It'll be okay. I don't think we have to fear that dog…" Gemma consoled and then continued when Harry shook his head in response. "I don't care what they say. He has such sad eyes. He could have attacked us, but he hasn't. He is near. He could have hurt us, but he hasn't. Do you _ me?"

He tried to make the sign he didn't understand, pulling his eyebrows together into a question and she fingerspelled it into his hand, "T-R-U-S-T," repeated the sign, and then corrected Harry as he moved his hands through the sign.

He nodded.

"Good. Let's see what happens. I trust the dog more than I trust that A-U-R-O-R. We wait here. Tell Aminah, tell Nio," she said, her signs composed and heartening. He wondered how such a small person could inspire so much confidence.

I should be the one reassuring her, he thought, berating himself for being afraid. He turned to Aminah and told her what Gemma had said, then repeated the conversation for Nio.

"So we just wait here?" Aminah said, slumping against Harry. "I want to know what's happening with my Abu!"

"Gemma says that we should wait. Besel is coming to find us. We just have to hang tight for a little longer, Aminah," Harry put his arm around her in an attempt to comfort her. Clumsy though it was, it seemed to help. Gemma huddled close on his other side, lifting her wand so that it poked up on the cloak a little whenever Harry spoke to Aminah or Nio. He realized that she must be using it like a torch to read the slips of paper, but it wasn't bright enough for him to notice it, even though it was close to his face. He sighed heavily, hoping that it didn't shine out from under the cloak.

Harry tried to calm his ragged breath so that he could hear the sounds of the cavern over it and strained to hear signs of activity. His stomach rumbled and Gemma must have felt it because she asked him, "What?" He put a hand on his stomach in response and she laid her head on his shoulder.

"Why do you think the dog was wet?" Harry asked Gemma and she shrugged in response and then signed under his hand, "he was smelly? Wanted a bath? S-E-W-E-R?"

Harry shrugged.

"What did Gemma say?" Aminah asked.

"That maybe he was stinky from being in the sewer and wanted a bath…"

"Isn't he a wixen? Can't he just Scourgify himself?"

"I imagine he doesn't have a wand… what with escaping from Azkaban and all," Harry said.

"True. Do you think they'll send my Abu there?" Aminah said, her arm linked through Harry's trembling.

"Healer Jordan said that she'd share her memories of what that bloke McCarthy said. I can share mine, too. And Septima… can squibs share memories? We all were there when he was confessing his crimes. If the Aurors would only listen to us!" Harry squeezed his hand into a fist in frustration.

They were quiet after that. It seemed like they had been waiting for an eternity. Every once in a while one of them would shift to relieve limbs that had fallen asleep. Harry transferred Nio to the spot by his belly button and he was certain the snake was asleep because he didn't move at all. Harry's eyes were heavy and in the cozy warmth under the cloak, his head kept lolling and jerking as he tried to stay awake.

Then suddenly the cavern outside their cave erupted in noise. A dog was growling and yelping, shouts and spell explosions were echoing off the cavern walls, and light blazed, screaming across Harry's field of vision, minute though it was. The three of them were stiff and alert, but quiet. Aminah and Harry were straining to hear what was happening and Harry could feel that Gemma had moved forward, her head straining against the cloak, trying to see out the small cave entrance.

He touched Gemma's shoulder and when she turned toward him, he signed, "what do you see?" worried that it was too dark for her to read the slips of paper.

She signed "dog, man" into his hand and turned back to watch the action unfolding in the larger cavern. Harry told Aminah.

"Yeah. I already figured that out from the barking and shouting," Aminah groaned while holding on tight to his arm. Harry fished Nio out from his shirt while whispering apologies to the sleepy snake and asked him what was going on.

"The four-leg-beast that smells like a two-leg-beast is wrestling with the two-leg-beast who was hiding," Nio informed Harry.

Harry wasn't sure who he should root for… and hoped they'd both leave so that the four of them could return to the Center, have some supper, and go to bed.

"There aren't other people down here?" Harry asked. It seemed impossible that just the dog and the Auror were making so much noise.

"Ah, yes. Others have arrived through the tunnels. I couldn't see them, but you must have heard them," Nio nudged Harry's hand toward the earth and he placed it on the ground so that the snake could slither under the cloak and investigate.

"Don't let them see you!" Harry hissed as the snake made pebbles cascade down the sloped entrance to the cave.

"What's going on?" Aminah asked and Harry told her what he knew.

The growling, yelping, and shouting were getting more intense and Harry thought that they must be moving closer to their hiding spot. Gemma jumped back, pressing into him and Aminah and they fell against the wall as the scuffling made dust erupt and stones fall into the cave.

"Nio! Where are you?" Harry called out, thrusting his fingers under the edge of the cloak, hoping that Little Friend was coming back from the cave entrance before he was spotted.

There were bursts of light that made Gemma flinch and Harry close his eyes tight and then a whimpering yelp that trailed through the cavern as the dog ran, toenails scrabbling across gravel and rock.

Out in the corridor, voices were raised. "Bloody hell! That was Sirius Black! Go after him! He can't escape! Where are the students? Harry! Gemma! Aminah! Are you down here?"

The Auror who had been hiding seemed to be arguing with another Auror… a voice that Harry recognized… the Robards bloke. And Besel was down here… and Harry was pretty sure one of the other voices was Ms. Midgeon's… though it was hard to tell the voices apart as they were all yelling over each other.

Aminah made as if to move and Harry pulled her back, hissing, "Where are you going?"

"Besel's out there. And Ms. Midgeon. Come on. Let's go," Aminah said, pulling her arm from his grasp.

"But also those Aurors. What if they keep on doing what they were doing? Not listening to us? Trying to silence us?"

"But Besel's here," Aminah said.

"But they didn't even listen to Healer Jordan," Harry said.

"But she's black, right?"

"What's that got to do with it?" Harry asked, perplexed.

"Oh. Come on, Harry. You're not that blind," Aminah said.

"Hey," Harry protested.

"Well, yeah. I suppose it would be better if Godric came… or someone else… I don't know who they'd listen to, actually," Aminah said, sitting back down.

Gemma turned back to Harry and took up his hands to sign.

"The A-U-R-O-R-S are gone. Just Besel and Ms. Midgeon. Let's go," she said.

Harry listened intently to the noises out in the cavern and could hear running footsteps fading as they raced away from them. He guessed that the Aurors were chasing the dog and breathed out a shaky sigh.

"What is it?" Aminah asked.

Harry told Aminah and started getting to his feet. He ended the privacy spell and started pulling the invisibility cloak off of them. Harry nudged Gemma to get her attention and she turned toward him.

"Do you see Little Friend?"

"Yes," she nodded under his hand, and then she was stooping down and placing the wriggling snake in his hands.

"Nio," Harry said, breathing more easily. "You're okay."

"Don't worry about me, Big Friend. I know how to stay hidden from leg-walkers and their chaos sticks. The angry ones are gone and it is just the ones who smell like your Center and they are worried," Nio said as he curled around Harry's wrist.

Harry put his folded cane in the hand with Nio and accepted Gemma's offer of her elbow. He offered his elbow to Aminah and the four of them climbed up the sloping entrance to the little cave, stooping low so as not to hit their heads.

"Gemma! Harry! Aminah!" Besel cried, her levitating chair stirring up dust and pebbles as she approached them. Behind her, Harry heard the crunching of Ms. Midgeon's crutches. "Oh, I'm so glad we've found you. Are you all okay?"

"Yeah, we're okay," Harry said while Aminah asked over him, "Is my dad all right? What have they done with him?" Harry could feel Gemma signing, though he couldn't understand the signs.

"Let's head back to the Center and I'll fill you in on what's going on with your dad, Aminah," Besel said as she turned around. "Here I brought your staff, we found it in the room you were in before you were pulled into the trap."

Harry felt a pang of envy as he heard Aminah shake out her staff to full size and sweep it over the dirt-covered floor in front of her.

"Are the other residents okay?" Harry asked.

"Well, you know about Petro, correct? No one else was injured and Petro is recovering," Ms. Midgeon said.

"Let's go. We can apparate you to the base of the stairs, but then we have to go through the Egress. The wards are up again, so we can't apparate into the Center," Besel said.

Harry swayed a little thinking about apparating.

"Harry, Gemma, I've got buckets for you," Besel said, the metal of the pail squeaking slightly as they swung on the handles and clanked together.

Resigned, Harry reached out for his and Gemma helped him find the handle.

"I'll take Harry and Gemma, can you take Aminah?" Besel asked Ms. Midgeon.

"Yes, certainly," Ms. Midgeon said. "Harry and Gemma, try your three-part breathing before you apparate… do three full breaths before you go and see if that helps."

Harry was skeptical and his first breath was half-hearted, but as a stillness settled around him, he decided to try more earnestly. He stood quietly and pulled a big breath into his lungs, feeling it expand into his belly, his heart, and his chest; he held it at the top and then let it go slowly, pushing all the air out in a three-part sequence from top to bottom. Three times he did it and then he reached out for Gemma's hand and Besel's and felt the twist of apparition while sucking in a fourth breath.

He didn't fall when they landed. The damp air of the tunnel was staler near the staircase to the Center than it had been in the larger cavern. He felt a little nauseated, but didn't spew. It seemed to work for Gemma, too.

"Oh, that worked!" Harry said as Aminah and Ms. Midgeon popped into the space next to them.

"I'm glad. When you go through apparition training, you'll learn other methods as well… that's the easiest," Ms. Midgeon said as she collected the buckets from them and handed them to Besel.

"Thanks, Agatha. I hadn't heard that before. That's really helpful," Besel said. "Okay, we're at the foot of the steps."

Aminah drew in a shaky breath making Harry wonder what they'd find when they reached the Center.

Harry's legs ached as they climbed the long narrow staircase and by the time they reached the top, his legs were shaking. He steadied himself with a hand on the moss-covered wall while Besel opened the Egress into the Center. The fresh air that washed over them was a welcome relief to the dank sulfur of the tunnels and Harry gulped in several lungfuls until he felt a little lightheaded.

"We're going straight to the infirmary," Besel stated, the calming sounds of the reception area echoing around them. "And we have some nutrition potions ready for you."

"But what about my dad," Aminah protested.

"Yes, Healer Jordan will tell you what's going on with him as soon as we've had a chance to make sure you are all okay," Besel reassured.

"They didn't take her, too?" Harry asked.

"No, she, Septima, and Peter are here," Ms. Midgeon said. "Everyone is okay, and we're going to make sure that the Aurors have the full story about Mr. Khan. You all have been through so much already."

"Harry! Gemma! Aminah! You're all okay!" Mei's gravely voice rang through the reception area almost obscuring the sound of their levitating chair as they rushed toward them.

"Mei! We did it. We sent the null vessel back!" Harry was excited to tell them. "And you're all right?"

"Yeah, just that I wasn't sure if I'd actually done you all a favor when I saw those Aurors hauling Aminah's dad off to the ministry. I'm really sorry Aminah. Healer Jordan told me that he was actually protecting us from the null zone. I thought they'd help you. And what was he doing here anyway? I thought that it was that Black bloke that everyone thought was attacking the Center."

"Mei? What do you mean?" Aminah asked.

"Mei came through a water Egress and helped us get the null vessel from the bottom of a deep pool," Harry said in a rush.

"Come through here. We can all get caught up after we've had a chance to look you over," Besel said patiently from the doorway into Healer Jordan's office.

As they squeezed through the doorway and walked through Healer Jordan's office to the infirmary, Harry continued to fill Aminah and Gemma in on what had happened. Gemma snatched the bits of paper that appeared by his lips as he spoke with huffs of impatience as she tried to keep up with the rushed conversation.

Harry tried to slow down as he told Aminah about her father's efforts to protect the Center from the traps that Bill McCarthy had forced him to set.

"Wait! He resisted the Imperius curse?" Ms. Midgeon said, turning around to face them. "I'd like to meet him."

"Me, too," moaned Aminah.

When they crossed the threshold into the infirmary, all conversation was halted as they were each taken to separate camp beds and tended to. Harry could tell right away that the room had been expanded to treat more people at once because of the echoes and noises.

Healer Jordan was talking to Aminah, telling her about what happened to her father while running diagnostics on her, but Harry couldn't hear much of what she said because Ms. Midgeon had guided him to a distant camp bed and was running diagnostics on him.

"Oh, what's this?" Ms. Midgeon exclaimed.

"What is it?" Harry asked, alarmed at her tone of voice.

"You've got two heartbeats," Ms. Midgeon said, shaking her wand as if it were misbehaving.

"Oh, that's Nio," Harry explained and he fished the sleeping snake from his resting place by his belly button.

"Oi! A snake!" Ms. Midgeon cried out. "In your shirt!"

"It's okay. He's a friend," Harry said, too tired to explain everything. Harry transferred the limp snake to the pillow on the camp bed.

Once Ms. Midgeon had cast a bathing spell and transfigured his tattered clothes into clean pajamas, and he laid down on the camp bed, nuzzling Nio's sleek form with his cheek.

The only thing keeping Harry awake was his gnawing hunger and Ms. Midgeon didn't have to tell him twice to swallow the warm nutrition potion she pressed into his palm; she put an arm around his back to help him sit up so he could drink it. He swallowed it down eagerly and licked all the stray drops from the lip of the potion bottle.

Even though he had been counting on hearing what had happened after the Aurors had taken Mr. Khan from the tunnels, Harry couldn't focus on the low conversations muttered throughout the room. Ms. Midgeon pulled a blanket over him and the noises of the room became the rhythmic waves of dreams until they faded away to nothing.

oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo

The first thing Harry noticed when he woke up was that he wasn't in his four-poster bed in the Montmorency room and that he was wearing a snake necklace.

"Nio!" Harry said as he ran his fingers over the silky scales of his friend.

"It's about time you awakened, Sthei!" the snake grumbled. "There isn't a gnat in this cave, let alone a fat worm."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I should have made sure you had some tasty bugs last night before I fell asleep," Harry lamented.

"Well, let's go find some now," Nio urged.

Harry sat up slowly. It seemed like the messages from his brain to his limbs were traveling at a slug's pace and it took him a while to untangle the blanket from his legs. The cold tile beneath his feet helped him wake up a little more and he listened to the room, trying to understand the layout. He reached out along the camp bed thinking that his cane might be on a nearby table, but found only air.

"What are you searching for?" Nio asked.

"My cane," Harry said.

"Ah, yes. The seeing stick; it is under the bed, beneath where your feet were," Nio said as he stuck his neck out looking around their space.

Harry got down on his hands and knees and felt under the camp bed until he found the cane.

"Is anyone else in this room?" Harry asked.

"Yes, the small leg-walker who gestures with her hands is still sleeping and the one you healed last night, he is by the door."

Harry turned his head from right to left trying to see light, but he couldn't detect any.

"Is it night time?" Harry asked.

"The sun rises, but just. It is very early morning. Just a hint of light from the gardens beyond," Nio said.

"Is the garden this way?" Harry asked, sweeping his cane in front of him and moving to the head of his camp bed.

"Yes, I'll guide you around the sleeping things… what do you call them?" Nio offered.

"Beds?"

"But you also call the dirt where you grow plants beds, but you don't sleep there…" Nio questioned.

"It's too early for this…" Harry protested, yawning. His cane tapped against the door and Nio told him where to find the handle. Cool morning air wisped into to the room over Harry's bare feet. He slid through the door hoping that Gemma and Peter wouldn't be disturbed by the opened door.

Harry winced a bit as he walked over the paving stones finding small sharp pebbles with his feet, but then he found the moss-covered path and relished the spongy texture and cool leaves.

One of the rickety wire chairs rocked across the courtyard and Harry turned his nose toward the noise.

"Hello?" he asked.

"It's early for a garden stroll, Harry," Professor Lupin greeted him, his shoes crunching on the gravel.

"Nio was hungry," Harry said, touching his hand to the coiled snake around his neck.

"Oh, this is the little guide snake that everyone is talking about," Professor Lupin said, stopping a few paces ahead of Harry.

"It's early for you, too, isn't it, sir?" Harry asked, curious about why the Professor was up, but not wanting to be rude.

"Ah, yes. I couldn't sleep." As he said this, the professor scrubbed his hand over his face, distorting his words.

"Did they catch… the dog?" Harry asked, stepping over to the keyhole planter in the Center of the courtyard and feeling the stone border to make sure the seat was clear before he sat down. He folded his cane and set it on the ledge next to him, then started digging his fingers into the soft dirt. Nio hissed impatiently and Harry lifted him off his neck to transfer him gently to the garden bed.

Professor Lupin let out a long sigh as he settled on the wall next to Harry, disturbing a fragrant herb plant (sage?) as he sat.

Harry pushed his fingers back into the dirt, rooting around for a delectable insect for Nio. A large bug buzzed from one of the plants Harry disturbed to fly above their heads.

"Aw, sorry, Nio, that big one got away," Harry whispered to Nio.

"You're a parselmouth?" Professor Lupin asked. "I thought that was an inherited er… talent."

Harry shrugged. He was sick of talking about his ability to talk to snakes. Something recoiled away from his fingers and he pounced on it, easing its elastic body out of the soil and holding it out to Nio, who hummed appreciatively as he gulped it down.

"Oh, yes, more of those!" Nio requested, as Harry returned to the dirt and rooted around for more earthworms.

"Er, no. They didn't catch the dog," Professor Lupin said, sighing heavily. "That's why I couldn't sleep, actually. The thought of Sirius Black getting so close to you… again."

"Gemma said he had a chance to hurt me, but didn't take it. That he looked sad," Harry said.

"Really? But there were Aurors down there…" Professor Lupin said.

"Yeah. Those gits," Harry's shoulders sagged. "Got the wrong man, didn't they? Didn't even listen to Healer Jordan. Aminah said it's because Healer Jordan's, er, you know, black. And her father, too."

"Ah, well, that could be. I've experienced that kind of prejudice first hand… as have you recently, I imagine. People thinking they know what you can or cannot do or what kind of person you are based on superficial characteristics."

"Yeah," Harry rested his elbows on his knees while Nio was occupied by another large worm.

"Death by a thousand pin-pricks…"

"They are pricks," Harry said, and then felt his face heat up.

"So true! So true," Professor Lupin guffawed and thumped him heartily on the back, making Harry cry out in surprise and straighten up.

"Sorry, I keep doing that… surprising you," Professor Lupin said, pulling back.

"No, it's not that… I just thought of something. I think I just figured out why the dog was wet."

oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo

Author's note: Thank you so much for reading this story as well as reviewing, favoriting, and following it. It makes my day every time I get a notification. Thank you. I am still writing it even though it has been taking me longer to write chapters. I'm a middle school teacher with my own school-aged children trying to create a safe learning environment for my students... it is taking a lot of my energy right now. I still think about this story every day, though, and I'm committing to finishing it and starting its sequel. Please bear with me. I hope you and yours are safe during this pandemic.