"It's hardly fair," Ted complained. "I'm easily the best suited for the task."

Evey was sprawled on the couch. She'd spent three hours making a thorough list of everything they should bring on their expedition, then gathering and packing it all. A simple Feather charm had rendered the three backpacks weightless, and she'd miniaturised the largest items so they would fit in the bags. They would leave as soon as Walden was awake.

"I don't disagree with that statement," she said with a half-covered yawn. "But I don't want Tony to feel like we're leaving him behind. I mean, it was his idea in the first place."

"I never said that you should leave the fledgling behind. Your husband, though…"

"Walden has been tracking down magical creatures practically since he was old enough to walk!" Evey exclaimed. "And I can turn into a werewolf, so I'm just as useful. I can sniff out the Beast."

"Walden may need to sleep. Tony said that it could take you days to find the Beast."

"So? He has his Travelling Casket™." Tony and Evey had gotten him one for his birthday. It was a high-end model, fit for camping trips. Evey had been reluctant to buy a coffin for her husband, but the purchase was undeniably practical.

Ted tried a different angle. "If you can hunt by smell, why are you taking the dog?"

Nana, who was sitting near the couch, barked happily when Ted pointed to her. Evey absent-mindedly petted her. "Because she doesn't whine all the time."

"I'm not whining," the Wolf muttered.

"You've been pestering me for three hours," Evey noted. "And you didn't lift a finger to help me pack."

"You could have just ordered the house elf to do it, no? Isn't that what he's here for?"

"Don't be silly. Caraid is over five hundred years old. He's the one who needs assistance." They had meant to hire a second house elf to give Caraid a hand, but with everything that had happened… Evey sat up on the couch. "You could take care of that while we're gone," she told Ted. "Find us a new elf."

"I thought you were against slavery," Ted said with a raised eyebrow. "And now you want two elves?"

"Of course I'm against slavery!" Evey retorted indignantly. What was he implying? She hadn't asked for a house elf; Caraid had always served the Macnairs. He must have been hired by Walden's great-great-great-great…well, by a long-dead ancestor. It wouldn't be fair to simply fire him. House elves were highly sensitive about that.

Besides…it was easy to get used to having someone take care of everything around the house, especially someone as discreet as Caraid. Evey almost never saw him, but their bed was always neatly made, meals were ready at the same time every night, and the entire house was impeccable.

"Believe me, I would pay Caraid, if he allowed it. Hell, I would force him to retire, but Walden says that it would likely kill him." Evey sighed. "This is the best solution. And…I don't know, if it's a young elf, maybe he'll agree to be paid and have vacation time and retire before he's half-dead," she went on without much optimism. This wasn't the way of house elves. Hermione had been trying to "help" them for years, but they were stubborn. They genuinely seemed to enjoy their lives as they were.

It was beyond disturbing.

"Look, you're the one who's complaining about having nothing to do," Evey said. "Do it or don't, I don't care. We'll make arrangements when we return, if you're too busy grouching."

"Fine! Where do you buy…I mean, hire those little buggers anyway?"

Uh. That was actually a good question, and Evey realised that she had no idea. "Um… Is Tony around? Maybe he knows." She hadn't seen him all day. She didn't even know if he was home or meeting with Morgana again. Five seconds later, however, the door opened.

"I was working on Greyback's future lodgings," Tony said grimly. "But it's not going well. Did you need me?"

"Where do house elves come from?" Evey instantly felt foolish for wording the question like that but…it was too late.

Tony chuckled wryly. "When a mommy house elf and a daddy house elf love each other very much…" Ted snorted with laughter.

"Ha, ha." Secretly, Evey was actually glad that Tony was joking around. It had become too rare for her taste. "No, seriously. How does one acquire an unpaid servant for life?"

"There are a few places where they breed them. Train them, too. The better-trained ones are more expensive, of course, but I doubt Walden cares about that."

Evey was staring at him, wondering if she'd heard correctly. "Did you say…breed them?"

"Well, yeah. They're not naturally prone to…doing...that. So…" Tony shrugged uncomfortably at the expression on Evey's face, as though he was only now realising how dreadful it sounded.

"Okay, that's it. I'm joining S.P.E.W.," Evey declared.

Ted guffawed loudly. "Beg your pardon?"

"The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare," Evey clarified. "Hermione founded it a few years ago, and I'm beginning to truly understand why. I wonder if she knows about…" She trailed off. She was digressing. "Anyway, my point is that we can't hire another house elf. We have to find an alternative. Caraid can't go on like this. He takes care of everything in this house. We should be ashamed. I mean, here we are, with basically nothing to do, and we allow the elf equivalent of an arthritic, blind and deaf ninety-year-old butler to do all the chores for us."

"I've been saying that since I moved in," Alice pointed out. Evey glanced toward the doorframe. She hadn't seen Alice join them.

"Well, that changes today," Evey announced. "Ted, you like cooking, right?" The Wolf nodded slowly. "From now on, you will prepare the meals. Alice…" Evey hesitated. Alice's grief was still raw. She didn't want to-

"I'll take care of the garden, and the plants in the conservatory."

Evey's eyes widened. "The garden? All of it?" The "garden" was more like a giant park.

"Got nothing else to do," Alice replied. "And I have green fingers."

"Okay, that's good. And I will clean the house, then. With Walden's help." The parts of the house that they actually used, anyway. She'd never understood why Caraid bothered to dust in the attic, for example.

"What about me?" Tony asked.

"You still need to figure out how to confine Greyback," Evey said. "That should be your main focus, as soon as we return." He nodded, a sour expression on his pale face. Evey hoped that it was due to his frustration with the cage rather than with her.

"But what are you going to do about Caraid?" Tony went on. "He won't appreciate being ousted like that. He'll take it as a personal insult."

"We're not ousting him. We're unburdening him. I mean, he can still make us tea, if he insists." Caraid made delicious biscuits. Evey pondered for a moment. "And we'll explain that we need to do the rest ourselves because we're…bored?"

Tony sniggered. "Sure, that'll work."

"Is there a meeting I wasn't invited to?" Walden asked when he took in the four of them assembled in the living room.

Evey stood, walked toward him and kissed him good morning – or good night, more accurately. She'd been incredibly tense in the past weeks, and she was afraid that it may have affected their relationship. She'd been a bit snappy lately, according to Ted. Thankfully, Walden didn't seem to hold it against her. "How long have you been up?"

"I didn't get much sleep," Evey admitted. "I was too hyped up. So I, um…well, everything is ready. We can leave after breakfast."

Walden chuckled. "Good. I hate packing. I'll go make some eggs. What do you want?"

"Just…toast," Evey said. She wasn't very hungry. She was too excited to eat or sleep.

"I could eat," Ted said.

Walden rolled his eyes, but Evey spoke up. "Mate, you just agreed to be our new chef. You should be the one making breakfast." Walden frowned in confusion. "I'll explain while we eat." She turned to Tony. "Did you tell Morgana that we were leaving for a few days? She won't get worried?"

Tony made a dismissive gesture. "It's taken care of."

Evey was having serious trouble understanding Tony's reactions. Whenever Morgana was mentioned – usually by Evey – he just clammed up. She couldn't decide if it was because she was being too nosy, or if there was something wrong with their relationship.

Or both.

In the end, as Walden and Ted had advised her, she ignored Tony's mood swings. Alice had promised that it would go away eventually. Walden thought it was because Tony was smitten and embarrassed about it, and Evey was willing to give that theory a chance.

She wished they could invite Morgana to the manor. Maybe Tony thought it was unfair that Ted, Alice and Evey were permitted to live here but his girlfriend wasn't even allowed to visit.

Oh well. They would work it out later. Right now, they had more pressing matters to attend to.

As far as Evey was concerned, the most difficult part of their little jaunt would be to come up with a correctly formulated wish. They'd discussed this several times already, but had never quite come to an agreement. As they left Glastonbury on foot and headed toward the Questing Beast's lair, they continued arguing about it.

She was afraid that wishing for Voldemort's demise without having destroyed all the Horcruxes first would be useless, and there was no point in wishing for their exact location; Harry seemed to know what he was doing, and he had insisted that they leave it to him without interfering. It was his mission, his fate, even, or so Dumbledore had implied. Evey was inclined to demand that Harry saw his task through without any incident, or to ensure his continued well-being until he did, at least. It was quite the conundrum.

"Can't we just wish for us to survive the war?" Tony wondered. "I know it sounds selfish, but with Greyback lurking about…"

Evey reflexively looked around, half-expecting the Wolf to emerge from the woods. She was being ridiculous. Greyback had no way of knowing where they were. They'd left the estate from within, so that none of the sentries outside would know they were even leaving. Disabling part of the wards inside the protected area was more complex than disabling them at the borders, but Walden had insisted. He was reluctant enough to leave at all, so Evey didn't want to give him any reason to cancel the whole thing.

"It is selfish," Evey said chidingly. "What's the point of us surviving if Harry dies, and with him all hope of ever destroying...You-Know-Who for good?" She had to constantly remind herself not to call him Voldemort out loud. She'd never used the word out of defiance, but rather out of habit, and it was difficult to discard a ten-year-old habit. "That means we'd have to spend our entire lives looking over our shoulders and surviving. Is that what you want?"

Tony mumbled something indistinguishable.

"I think you had the right idea, V," Walden said after a minute. "Wishing for Harry to succeed. Seems the safest course."

"Yeah, but it feels wrong, somehow," she said. "I think we'd be asking too much, and it might backfire on us. We'd be messing with the present, and by doing so we might start a series of completely unpredictable events in the future that could make things even worse. The butterfly effect, or something like that. You know what I mean?" It made a lot more sense in her head than spoken aloud. To her relief, Walden and Tony both nodded.

"But then what? Any wish would have some incidence on the future, wouldn't it?" Tony noted.

"Yes, I know," Evey said wistfully.

They were all silent for a long time. Nana alternated between running after squirrels and docilely walking at Evey's side. She seemed happy to be out of the estate, chasing exotic squirrels for once.

"Shouldn't we ask the Beast to tell us where Greyback is?" Tony offered eventually.

"Pointless," Walden said. "By the time we get there, he might be gone, and it would all have been for nothing. And besides, even if we could see through the Fidelius thanks to the Beast, I bet Greyback's place has as many protective charms as ours. And even if he was there and we could reach him, what would we do? The cage isn't ready. And we can't ask the Beast to kill Greyback, either," he added with a pointed look in Evey's direction.

Tony ruffled his hair in annoyance. "You know what? I wish I'd never mentioned the damned Beast," he said with a bitter twist of his mouth. "We're not getting anywhere."

"Wait," Walden said. "We can't wish for Greyback's death, but we could wish to know how to break Evey's connection to him, couldn't we?"

Evey snorted. "Yeah, and it'll tell you that you must kill him. Or me."

"Fair enough. Then we ask it how to kill him without killing you," Walden went on.

"But we can't make this about me, Wal. There's a war going on! Dumbledore decided to send three kids on a secret mission to save the world, for some reason. It's our mission to help them however we can."

Walden kicked a pebble in defeat. "Aye, I guess you're right." Evey had a feeling that getting rid of Greyback's omnipresent shadow over their lives was more important to her husband than saving the world.

It was certainly selfish, but also annoyingly adorable.

"We are overthinking this," Tony said. "Let's focus on finding the Beast, okay? When we do, at least we'll have a proper incentive to come up with something quickly. We shouldn't be worrying about it beforehand. It'll ruin our little trip."

"My wish is that…" Evey began promptly.

Over the past week, they had finally decided on a wish: to remove the Taboo on Voldemort's name. It seemed the most sensible thing to do. The Death Eaters had not advertised the Taboo, as expected, and the few members of the Order who knew had to keep a low profile, since they were being watched. As far as they knew, Harry had no idea that uttering the name of his mortal enemy might lead to his capture – and ultimately his death. Disabling the Taboo would also hopefully save many Muggle-born witches and wizards, now that they were being hunted by the Voldemort-controlled Ministry.

It would also free Greyback's werewolves from having to hunt down innocent people.

Evey had pointed out that Voldemort could simply place another Taboo when he realised that the first one wasn't working anymore, but Walden had explained that, on the one hand, it would likely take him a while to figure it out, and on the other hand, it was a complicated curse that required a lot of time and energy. They had to hope that Voldemort would be too busy to notice and wouldn't be bothered to cast the curse a second time if he did notice.

"Now, now, do not be so hasty, little one," the Questing Beast chided her. "Firstly, which one of you will receive my foretelling?"

Walden groaned in frustration. Bloody hell.

Tracking down the Questing Beast had only taken them a few hours, thanks to Evey's werewolf alter ego, but reaching its lair had been another matter.

There was no map; Merlin had left…clues to find the cave, but it had not been as easy as Walden had anticipated. The bloody pirate would have loved it. It was practically a treasure hunt.

They'd met all sorts of magical creatures on the way, among those a griffin, a sphinx who didn't speak English, a manticore, and even a fucking wendigo, of all things. There weren't supposed to be wendigos in the wilds of Great Britain, or any of those creatures, really. And then there'd been that annoying singing faun that had followed them the whole time. There were traps everywhere, magical or not. If not for their regenerative abilities and enhanced reflexes, they could have been badly hurt, or worse. And the path itself had been hazardous: they'd had to climb a rocky, treacherous, almost vertical slope; wade through putrid marshes filled with poisonous plants and venomous lizards and, nearing the end of their journey, they'd had to dive off a waterfall. It seemed that they'd strode into another dimension after leaving Avalon behind; these places didn't exist in Great Britain, that was certain. In any case, it had taken them eight days to reach the reeking cave where the Beast dwelled. A good thing that Evey had thought to bring his portable coffin.

Yes, a bloody coffin. They couldn't have designed a plain, rectangular box for vampires to rest in when they were outside, could they? How fucking amusing.

Oh well. At least it was comfortable. Not that it made much difference to Walden, since he slept literally like the dead.

"I will," Tony said as he took a step forward. He'd volunteered to receive the foretelling, oddly enough. Well, Walden was glad that he had. He wouldn't have wanted to know his own future, or Evey's.

The Beast cleared its throat. It wasn't at all what Walden had expected. When Newt Scamander had published the first acceptable sketch of the Beast, decades ago, it had looked like an albino hedgehog; in Merlin's writings on the subject, it had been a mighty stag "made of light". Walden had therefore assumed that it took on a different form every time it died and was reborn, but Evey said that she saw an alpaca, and Tony claimed that it looked like an aardvark. Walden saw a mallard. The only thing they could all agree on was that the creature was a pure, brilliant white.

"Bleak will be the years ahead, Ancient One," the duck declared solemnly. It had a crisp Londoner accent, which would have been comical if they weren't so damned tired. Well, at least Walden was. It was almost dawn, he could feel it. They ought to wrap this up quickly. He didn't want to sleep in the coffin again.

"You will be loved by many," the Questing Beast went on, "but you will never return the feeling, not until your one true love is made available to you, centuries from now. In the meantime, you shall be miserable, and lonely no matter the company you keep. Your many accomplishments will never fulfil the void within you. You will oft long for death, and it shall ever remain out of your reach. Oh, quite dreadful shall be the years to come, Woeful One."

"Well, aren't you a little ray of sunshine," Tony said with a twisted smile.

Evey looked like she was about to cry, but she shook her head firmly. For all they knew, the Beast was just spewing nonsense. "Of course," the mallard added, almost as an afterthought, "that is provided that you survive the Turning Point. Nothing is less certain, but even I cannot predict the outcome of an event such as this."

The Turning Point? They all frowned at each other in confusion. Evey's curiosity took over the conversation. "What's the Turning Point?"

The Beast cocked his head slightly. "Is it your wish to know this?"

"No, no, no!" Evey said quickly. "Our wish is–"

"Now then," the Questing Beast interrupted her, "I'm afraid that you must be punished for bringing four instead of three."

Walden's jaw dropped. It had to be kidding.

"But…she's a dog!" Tony exclaimed, indicating Nana. "The manual says we must bring only three people, it makes no mention of domestic animals!"

"Consider carefully," the mallard went on, Tony's complaints unheeded, "for if you do not wish for all to live, I will smite one of my own choosing, and then whoever remains may wish to their heart's content."

"You want us to use our wish to save ourselves?" Evey said indignantly. "That's not fair!"

"Damn right it's not," Tony snapped. "Do you have any idea what we went through to get here, you ugly bastard? And now you're telling us that we came all that way for nothing? That you gave me the most depressing foretelling in history for nothing?"

They continued to argue for a few minutes, to the Beast's clear disinterest. It made no reply, and was beginning to look bored. If a mallard could be said to look bored.

"You may squabble for as long as you see fit, but it will have no impact on my judgement," it said eventually.

"Piss off!" Evey screamed in sheer frustration.

"V, just do it," Walden said tiredly. "Wish for us to live. It's pointless arguing with it."

She did, though with bad grace.

"As you wish," the duck replied with a slight bow of its feathered head. "Now one of the remaining two must kill me," it went on conversationally.

Walden didn't hesitate. He unstrapped his weapon. The manual claimed that the Beast could not be killed with magic, so they'd had to improvise. He wasn't fond of guns, so he had brought his bow instead. He swiftly nocked an arrow and let it fly toward its target. It found the duck's throat, and with much gurgling and gasping, the Questing Beast died.

"We'll meet again, you twat," Tony promised before the Beast vanished.