Angel: I wish I'd found you sooner—you would've made a fantastic Beta!

Explanations

May 1st, 1998
Post Hogwarts
—

When the escaped dragon dropped low over a lake, the five of them jumped from the Dragon's back, four landing with varying degrees of splash in the frigid water. The dragon drank its fill and took off again, possibly in search of food.

In her human form, Leili met them on the beach and, after a moment, Hermione exclaimed that which she could not remember at Gringotts. "I remember you! You were on the train! You wanted me to kiss Trevor!"

"A. that was Jo," she pointed, Jo waved. "And B. while I wouldn't have put it past her, in this case, I think she just wanted to get a reaction. You were so cute."

Ron whirled around to look at her, "I remember you, you were at the Department of Mysteries and you were the ones who stopped Harry and Cedric from meeting You-know-who!"

"Frankly, I'm surprised you remember the Department of Mysteries, Ron," Harry quipped.

Leilani plunked herself in the sand, rubbing her ankle.

"You ok, Leili?" Jo asked.

"My foot's fallen asleep, that's all."

"Been sitting funny?"

"No, its my Niffler, he's gotten dizzy." The little Niffler tattoo was flat on his back trying to snatch the stars circling over-head.

Jo laughed.

"I knew something wasn't right, wasn't normal!" Hermione was saying, "Harry was just too lucky over and over again; especially at the end of the third task, when you two showed up at the entrance to the maze and Marcus Flint attacked Mad-eye. I knew that something really bad had happened in that maze and you stopped it from happening to Harry."

"Once is chance, twice is coincidence, but three times is a conspiracy. We've been looking out for you for years," Leili admitted.

Jo jumped in before Ron's eyes could bug out of his head, "Harry, you remember the Grindylow altercation in the black lake in your fourth year? That was me."

"We were in the Chamber of Secrets with you. We tried to exorcise Riddle; it didn't really work. We also created the doe that distracted Lupin outside the shrieking shack. Talk about an exercise in fancy spell work!" Leili added. "I should have gotten points for that, it was hard!"

"Now, now, we didn't do for the points, remember?" Jo teased.

Leili waved a hand dismissively, "I know."

"So, the shoes I saw, the voices I heard in the chamber—that was you! You bought me enough time to cast a Patronus to get rid of the Dementors!" He was looking back and forth between them, all the pieces of the last 7 years that had never fit before, falling into place. He turned to Hermione and Ron, "I told you I saw something!"

"Yeah, mate, but you also thought you saw your dad across the lake." Ron said. "It's not that we didn't believe you, we just…"

"Didn't believe me," Harry finished meaningfully. Ron looked a little embarrassed. "So, everything we did, we didn't actually do? You guys did all of it?" Harry said, feeling torn between annoyance that he'd had to go through hell the last 7 years when he didn't actually have to, because they had done all the work, and relief because now people could stop thinking he was so all fired amazing.

"Well, no… not all of it," Leili said.

Five little words and Harry wanted to pound his head against the wall; they were confusing him, first they said they'd helped him through the dangerous days at school and now they were saying they hadn't.

"Most of the time, we helped with the little stuff," Leili tried to explain.

"We tried to help with the bigger stuff but you had this annoying little habit of getting yourselves in hot water in the middle of the night," Jo said pointedly. They didn't even have the decency to look sheepish.

"But if you've been helping us this whole time, why didn't you guys ever get rewarded or anything?" Ron asked.

"We didn't do it for the points, though it was nice to win the House Cup that one year. After your altercation with the troll, we decided to look after you, lest you get yourselves killed. You three are honorary 'Puffs, congratulations." Jo told them.

"Besides, we didn't want you to know. We wanted as few people to know as possible. It was the only way for us to stay safe. The students in our house didn't even know what we were up to; all they knew was that I liked to brew potions in our room, well, maybe liked is too strong a word. It was a pain when they blew up. We did actually get rewarded though, after the Tri-Wizard tournament. Dumbledore gave us awards for 'special services to the school' and a boatload of points."

Now Harry had a confession to make, "During the third task, I saw it all happen. I didn't know that they continued to help, or that they had helped before that, but I recognized them when they showed up for the DA meetings."

"Everybody recognized them by that point, mate," Ron said.

Everyone had to admit this was true.

"How did you find us?" Hermione asked, Jo grinned and whistled.

"Well, you see, you had a stow away," Leili said as a familiar Monster Book of Monsters scuttled into Jo's arms from Hermione's little beaded bag. "Hermione, meet Spike."

"He makes a wonderful guard book, though back in 3rd year, he had a tendency to wander off, so we put a tracking spell on him. That way, when he got lost we knew where to find him. We needed to know where you were going to be so that if you got into trouble we could find you. So before the wedding, Leili snuck into the Burrow and swapped books," Jo explained, stroking Spike's cover.

"That book attacked me!" Ron cried, slightly horrified.

"Yeah, well, he does that. He attacked a Dementor a few years back."

"I remember that!" Harry said suddenly. "We saw him biting a Dementor's robe back in our 3rd year! Angelina said you were weird."

"Fred and George said you were brilliant, but scary…" Ron recalled and a dumb, pleased grin spread across Leili's face.

"He said that?" she asked, her voice taking on a dreamy tone.

"Focus, Leili, you can snog him later."

Ron looked at Leili in absolute horror as he thought Jo had meant him.

"Back to how you found us…?" Hermione prompted.

"Snatchers had been spotted in the area, combine that with the knowledge that if it can go wrong it will, and it is going to happen around you three, we took a few days off from work to check up on you. Combine all that with the tracking spell on Spike and we knew pretty much exactly where you were."

"We followed you for about half a day before you found yourselves in hot water and, well, you know the rest." Jo shrugged and Harry looked at her, astonished.

How many times had they saved his life? He was starting to suspect more times than they were willing to tell him.

"And then Luna came to us when you three idiots decided to rob the most secure bank in the gods damned world. We were already in Diagon Alley so finding you was just a matter of following my nose. Bears have excellent tracking abilities, you know. We get you away from the Snatchers but then you just had to go and get yourselves caught. We save you in Malfoy Manor and then you have to go and rob freaking Gringotts! Can you please, for more than five minutes, just stay saved?!"

"What was going on between you and Draco?" Harry asked.

The irritation drained out of her as Jo admitted, "Y'know, for once, I don't have a good answer to that. He looked scared."

Draco was scared; he'd been scared since his fourth year. His dad had returned to side of the Dark Lord and in the summer before his sixth year, Draco himself had been inducted into the death squad. He'd accepted it at first, but he knew he was being used to punish his dad and he knew he wouldn't be able to finish the mission given to him, though he had to try, otherwise his parents were dead.

"I'm sorry we didn't get to you in time to stop Bellatrix from torturing you, Hermione. But at least you got the cup, though you did lose the sword…" Jo apologized.

"You lost the sword?" the boys said together.

"Griphook took it from me," Hermione explained. "Speaking of Gringotts, you're animagi, you're registered, right?"

Leili snorted, "McGonagall would have killed us if we didn't."

"Then you could get into real trouble for helping us break in!"

Before the girls could respond, Harry's scar began to burn, his head felt like it was being cleaved in two with a butter knife. He watched as a semi circle fearfully told Voldemort that Harry and his friends had stolen a small gold cup from the Lestrange's vault. His fury was great, his fear even greater now that others knew of his secret. With a scream he brought the Elder wand down with a flash a green light. Griphook keeled over sideways, dead. More thoughts and images that weren't his own flashed through Harry's head. With a gasp, Harry pulled himself upright.

"He knows," his voice sounded strangely low after Voldemort's screams. "He knows and he's going to check on the others, and the last one," he was already on his feet, "is at Hogwarts. I knew it. I knew it!"

Jo and Leili looked at him in confusion, Ron and Hermione with concern.

"We need to get going," said Harry firmly. He had been hoping to sleep, looking forward to getting into the new tent, but that was impossible now, "Can you imagine what he's going to do once he realizes the ring and the locket are gone? What if he moves the Hogwarts Horcrux, decides it isn't safe enough?"

"But how are we going to get in?"

"Hi, sorry, what's a Horcrux?" Leili interrupted, the trio seemed to have forgotten that she and Jo were still there.

"We don't have time to explain!"

"Give us the cliff-notes version," Jo said.

"The what?"

"The one minute version, super simple: what is it, what does it do, why is it important?" Jo explained.

"Horcruxes, they hold a piece of his soul, if we find them and destroy them, then we can kill him."

"And one's at Hogwarts, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Get to Hogsmeade, we'll get you into the castle." Jo took Leilani's hand and turned on the spot, Apparating to Hogsmeade just inside the Hog's Head.

"Well, is it done?" Aberforth asked as Leilani hurried upstairs to the bedroom she shared with Jo. She needed to get dressed and she needed to call Fred.

"They're safe, for now. They'll be coming here in a minute though."

Aberforth grunted and jabbed his thumb at the kitchen, "Dinner for the kids."

"You cooked?" Jo asked. Aberforth never cooked if he could help it, it wasn't that he was lazy or entitled; he just couldn't cook worth beans. He'd managed to survive on his own cooking but when the girls began to work for him they took over the making of most meals.

Aberforth grunted again, "House elf named 'Kreacher' came by looking for 'Master Harry' with a bleedin' feast. Go on then, Ariana's waitin'."

After realizing she couldn't call Fred—A. She'd left her phone behind, B. Fred didn't have a phone she could call—she scribbled out a quick note and sent Artemis out. She slid down the rickety looking bannister and helped Jo carry the trays to Ariana's portrait, disappearing behind it to deliver food to the waiting students in the Room of Requirement.