"Blah" Talking

'Blah' Thinking

"Blah" Parseltongue/Notes/Different languages

Blah Dreams/Flashbacks/Anything and Everything else

Author's Notes: Seriously, can I write multi-chapter fics without massive time gaps between chapters? The answer: No. So, go back and reread the chapters to remember where we are and such.

Summer was not going the way Ginny thought it would. With all the chaos of last year she expected much of the same – attacks, raids, massacres, wide spread panic, that sort of thing. She expected the Order of the Phoenix to be in full swing, always coming and going.

She did not expect to be bored.

She already did all her summer assignments, even the ones Harry had assigned the D.A., and wrote long letters to Seamus and Dean's families expressing her sorrow at their loss. She hadn't heard back from them and honestly didn't think she would any time soon. If ever.

There was no news of any attacks or movement of any kind from Voldemort. She had expected chaos, had braced for a war, but was not prepared for boredom.

"Hey, Gin, you okay?" Charlie stuck his head into her room, sounding casual. Charlie and Bill had come home around the same time she came back from Hogwarts, and Bill brought along Fleur Delacour, whom he met through Gringotts. They shared a room and Ginny wasn't sure what she felt about that relationship.

"I'm fine. Just thinking, you know?" Ginny finally responded. Charlie came to sit next to her. "It's weird, I'm bored. We're in the middle of a war and I'm bored. There's something so horribly wrong about that." Ginny continued. Charlie nodded in understanding.

"Come downstairs. Hermione's teaching Fleur a logic puzzle, the twins and dad are messing with a muggle felephone or something, and Ron and Bill are making lunch. It's stir-fry." He said, trying to smile enticingly. Ginny rolled her eyes at her brother, but got up and headed downstairs anyway.

Sure enough, when Ginny reached the ground floor, Hermione was in the middle of explaining something to an interested Fleur while the twins and dad messed with something on the floor nearby. Their father was holding up rather well. He sometimes became silent and stared off into space or had to leave the room abruptly, but at least he interacted with them.

Ginny went to sit with Hermione and Fleur, while Charlie went into the kitchen, most likely to help with lunch. It was weird coming home with Hermione and it was weird seeing her interact with everybody; Ginny never realized how integrated Hermione was into the family until this summer. She knew where everything was, she got into fights with Fred and George, she helped around the house, and even helped with cooking – it was like she was already part of the family. They shared a room, which was the norm, although this summer everything Hermione owned fit into her school trunk.

"Lunch!" Charlie called. Everyone got up and walked into the kitchen and found a seat at the table. Hermione helped Ron and Charlie dish food out and Bill made a plate to take up to Molly. Lunch was delicious, if quiet.

Luna sat quietly as she looked at her ceiling. Her mother's painted smile smiled down at her. She had been staring at her ceiling for awhile, seriously contemplating something. She had painted her mother from memory shortly after the woman died, out of a want to keep her near. She had pictures, of course, but her ceiling portrait had always warmed her heart. Her mother used to be the single most important thing to her next to her father, so when the woman died Luna had wanted to keep her close somehow.

But now she was thinking of changing it, of painting over it and putting something in its place. Her mother, may she always be in her heart, was no longer the most important thing to her. She had dear friends and Ginevra. Ginevra, who made her heart race and unstuck her words; Ginevra, who never looked at her like she was weird and stood up for her; Ginevra, one of the most beautiful people she'd ever met. Luna was even drawn to the redhead's magic, which was bubbly and warm.

It wasn't just Ginevra either – Harry, Hermione, Ron, and even Eleanor were important to her. Seamus and Dean were dear to her and their deaths made her heart ache, but now they were safe from all harm.

She had to plan out how she wanted her ceiling to look and how much space everyone got. Did she want the painting to be casual or formal? Should it be a big group picture or have each person in their own corner in a frame?

Her train of thought was broken by an owl flying through the open window over her bed. She didn't recognize the owl, but apparently it didn't matter as the it just dropped an official looking piece of parchment on her side table and flew back out the window. Picking it up revealed it to be from the Finnegan family:

Dear Ms. Lovegood,

We thank you for your kind words about our son. Your tidings fell upon our grieving ears and for a time lifted us. We are going through Seamus' things and abiding by his wishes – apparently, he wrote down some requests as to where his things are to go before the Yule holidays. He wished for you to have a portion of his trust fund, which we have already discussed with Gringotts and they are taking care of all financial transactions between our families. It isn't much, but it was what he wanted. We also ask for you to tell one Ginerva Weasley and one Eleanor Gunn that the remaining portions of Seamus' trust fund has been wired as per his request.

With this, we wish to extend our wishes for you to be safe and live a long life. We have no desire for extended contact with any of you and are moving out of the country due to the current political atmosphere.

From,

The Finnegan Family

Luna sat the letter down. Dean's family hadn't responded to her letter yet, but she didn't hold it against them. Grief had a way of making time move funny.

"Luna, darling, your friend is here." Her father's voice floated up from downstairs. Luna rushed downstairs with a smile on her face. She had invited Eleanor to spend some time with her so neither of them would be too lonely.

Hopefully, this would help them both.

No matter how old you get, you need people who love you. Sirius firmly believed that, which meant that finding out his adoptive son was older than he was by several centuries didn't hurt him or make him second guess his place in Harry's mind and heart. Harry may be old, but he still needed a father. He still needed people who cared about him. Sure, he might not need a bedtime or strict rules to make him behave, but really that just made things easier for Sirius; this way he didn't need to fumble through raising a child and hoping that he didn't screw the poor kid up.

He was taken out of his thoughts by a tea pot's shrill. He turned the heat off with a flick of his wand and poured some tea into a cup to take into a sitting room. Surprisingly, Grimmauld Place was full of sunlight this summer, mostly due to the fact that Sirius had spend a lot of time taking down walls and adding more windows to the place. His mother's old room was cleared and cleaned from top to bottom, and made into an infirmary. His and Regulus' old rooms were merged into one through the take-down of a wall, which was where the Order mostly held meetings now. He had also added a window to the space, so meetings were filled with sunlight or moonlight instead of darkness. Many of the portraits were tossed into the fire along with tapestries and other various things that Sirius was glad to be rid of. Like Kreacher, who dove after his mother's portrait and burned along with the damned thing.

Remus and Harry were in the drawing room. Remus was pouring over some maps while Harry sat near a window with a book open in his lap. Sirius passed the tea to Remus, who looked up briefly to smile at him, before returning to his maps. They sat in comfortable silence; Remus looking over his maps and drinking his tea, Sirius relaxing in an armchair, and Harry staring out of a window. Eventually, the silence was broken by Harry.

"I've had children of my own; many of them, in fact." He said quietly, not looking at either of them. Remus stopped pouring over his maps and turned his full attention to Harry while Sirius just turned his head. "I think I would have handled my miscarriage a lot different if not for the memories I have of my other children. A part of me was absolutely miserable and in a lot of emotional pain, while the other half was relieved. I was so young, still a child myself; how could I have raised one myself? I was still in school and I knew a war was coming up. That was no environment for a child. Even still, I wanted her, so much. I love children, and I'm so used to being a parent that I was for a moment so excited to be having a child. And I was so heartbroken when she turned out to be a stillborn, but a part of me was also relived."

Harry wasn't crying and didn't look to be upset; he had turned away from the window to look at them. Sirius wasn't sure what to say or even how to process what Harry was saying – it just sounded so incredibly depressing and complicated. What do you say to that? 'I'm sorry that you feel this way, it must have sucked'? 'I understand the thought process and I'm sorry that you had to go through that'?

"I couldn't just stop and process what I was feeling when it happened. I hid my whole pregnancy, so I also had to hide the way I was feeling. And then you came to Hogwarts, and Wormtail was there, and everything was just tailor made for me not to deal with any of it. I could ignore it and deal with you guys and pretend that I was a normal 13 year old. Of course, then summer came and I went to the Weasley's awhile for the Quidditch World Cup – the whole family was there and Mrs. Weasley was in her element. I was more or less forced to deal with what happened, as watching her was reminding me of all the children I'd had. Of course, I dealt with it in time and it didn't hurt anymore. I wanted to tell Ron or Hermione about it, but they were just kids and it wasn't right to put this on them. I didn't have anyone to talk to." Harry said.

"Well, that's what we're here for, kiddo." Sirius responded. At least this part he knew how to deal with.

"I know; it's nice to have someone again." Harry said, smiling.

"Guess you never outgrow parents, huh?" Remus asked, sounding cautious.

"No, you don't."

If someone had told Neville there would be a day his grandmother, his Potions Professor, and Lucius Malfoy would be sitting calmly at his breakfast table drinking tea, he would have assumed that his grandmother had finally lost her sanity and needed a bed next to his parents. And yet, that was what he was getting used to seeing every morning and his grandmother was still perfectly sane. His grandmother and Professor Snape were apparently early risers and by the time they finished breakfast, Lucius Malfoy would come down to have his morning tea. By the time Neville was up and getting ready to go do his morning gardening, the three were all sitting calmly, drinking tea, and reading various reading materials. It was eerie.

The adults mostly ignored Neville entirely, which he was just fine with. He may not be afraid of Professor Snape anymore, but that didn't mean he particularly liked the man either. Draco was another story entirely. Draco liked Neville's garden and spent almost as much time in it as Neville did. They didn't speak much – the longest conversation they'd had this summer involved Draco thanking Neville for his hospitality – but that didn't make things weird. Neville wasn't much in the mood for talking and just having Draco around was calming to him. Neville tended to his plants, Draco sat under the oldest tree in the garden and they both just did their own thing. Neville mostly thought about the war and went over the training from Harry. He thought about school and his education. He thought about his future, constantly wondering if he was going to have one or if the war was going to kill him, too. He tried his best not to think about Dean or Seamus, because thinking about them hurt and made him so angry – they were all so young and it just wasn't fair that they could die.

He didn't even want to imagine what was going through Draco's head. He could barely handle his own thoughts, let alone think about what was going on in other people's heads.

Hermione loved the Weasleys, she really did. They were lovely people and over the years they had been so good to her. They readily accepted her into their family and never made her feel like an outsider. Mr. Weasley wasn't even put out when Ron brought Hermione home. (Of course, it was more like Ron told his dad that Hermione was coming home with them this summer and Mr. Weasley had just nodded tiredly). She was so close to this family that she felt as if she, too, had lost a brother. She may not have spent her whole childhood with Percy, but she had grown up with him and the Weasleys were her own family now. Percy had been someone who encouraged her thirst for knowledge, had helped make her first study schedule, and he just felt like family. He was her brother and it hurt to know he was dead, never mind the circumstances behind that death.

On top of that hurt was the sting of her parent's rejection and abandonment. From the time she was thirteen, she had figured that there was a big possibility to her parents not being involved in her adult life, but she never expected that they were trying to get pregnant again. She never expected them to just leave her; she thought it would be more of a process throughout her adult life – social calls dwindling, calls steadily not being returned, then finally they'd become the kind of relatives that only interact through cards on holidays. She thought she'd have more time to adjust to the idea of not having them in her life. She never thought they were so…

She never thought they'd just jump for the chance to replace her with a new baby, as though the only purpose for them trying for another child would be to replace the old model.

"Hey, you busy?" Ron asked from her door, breaking her of her increasingly dark thoughts.

"No, how are you?" She asked as he sat down on the ground next to her school trunk.

"Better than Mum, that's for sure." Ron said lightly. She wasn't sure what that said about how Ron was doing – Molly Weasley was a wreck; being "better" than her didn't necessarily mean he was well off.

Things between Ron and her were weird, sort of. The weird came from how not weird they were. He was there on the worst day of her life. He invited her into his home and family, a family that was grieving. Bill and Charlie came home, Bill bringing his girlfriend with him, and yet Hermione fit in seamlessly. She wasn't an outsider in this situation, even though logically she should be. She had seen Ron cry over Percy and he had seen her cry over her parents. Things should be different; they should be awkward around each other. But they weren't. They talked to each other, did their homework together, helped Ginny with her homework, and helped around the house. They both got to meet Fleur properly and learn how her and Bill met – Bill's boss had needed someone to translate some French and Gringotts had recommended Fleur, since she was fluent in French and, apparently, Egyptian, and knew English well enough. The rest was history. Things were effortless between them.

"How do you think Harry and Draco are doing?" Ron asked. Hermione shrugged.

"How are you doing?" Ron asked after some time had passed.

"Better than your mum." Hermione said, grinning grimly. Ron snorted. They both lapsed into silence again.

"Mum and Dad went through what Percy left behind before any of us got here." Ron said out of the blue suddenly. "The twins got a bunch of Percy's old notes. Ginny got a few letters, Bill got a journal and his books, Charlie got more notes and a bundle of letters. Dad gathered what was left of his clothes and sold them to some second-hand shops and gave me the money from it. And that's it – Percy left so little that we only got bits and pieces of things reminding us of him. Memories and old trinkets." Ron finished, sounding tired.

Hermione's eyes strayed to her trunk; she knew Ron put the boxes of stuff he grabbed from her room – her old room – and hid them away there. Was it the same as what Percy left behind – 'memories and old trinkets'? She wondered what Seamus and Dean had left behind. Percy had been young and hadn't had the time to accumulate lots of things. Seamus and Dean were younger than he was – what did they have? Dean left artwork, she knew that, but what about Seamus? Hermione was ashamed to admit that she didn't know either of them well enough to even guess what remained.

She took a breath and moved to her kneel before her trunk. What did she have left of her birth family?

The trunk opened silently and a chaotic mess met her eyes. Two shrunken boxes looking no bigger than ring boxes were among a sea of books haphazardly thrown into place. It was obvious that Hermione had not packed this trunk last; it had never been in this much disarray before.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Ron asked quietly. She hadn't realized how much her eyes were burning until she heard his voice. She couldn't speak past the sudden lump in her throat, so she nodded in answer. She pulled both boxes out and set them near her trunk in between her and Ron. A few seconds after being placed, they both expanded with near simultaneous pops.

The first thing her fingers touched was a bundle of photographs. She pulled off the twine and dumped the batch on the floor. A sea of her own face greeted her – there she was having her first bath, there she was eating cake in a high chair, there she was smiling and holding up a ribbon, there she was in her first set of wizarding robes, there she was outside a Greek library, there she was on the steps of her grandparents house with an ice cream cone, and more and more pictures. It looked like every picture her parents had ever taken of her.

'It probably is every picture ever taken of me. That's why they put it in my old room. To box it up and… do whatever it was they were going to do with all my things. Lock them away, perhaps? Give them to me? Who knows?' She thought, looking at the pictures.

"What are you going to do with these?" Ron asked gently.

"I guess sort them into more organized piles and put them back into my truck, once it's cleaned out: a pile of photos of just me, a pile of me and relatives, and the rest – if there are any more than just those. I have a few pages of my scrapbook blank; you remember the one Luna and Draco got me for Christmas? I can add some of the photos to that later on." Hermione said. She reached up and wiped the last remnants of her tears away and set about making piles.

A few seconds later, Ron added his hands and went about making a pile of her with her relatives while Hermione concentrated on pictures of just her. There were no other photographs to be found, confirming that her parents had weeded out all the pictures to do with Hermione and just tossed them away. Two neat piles of pictures were soon topped off and pushed to the side. She reached back into a box.

An old handmade clay dish, made when Hermione was in primary school as a gift for her mother, came up. It was sloppily made, covered in dark green and bright pink paint. She placed it off to the side, fully intending to get rid of it. The next thing her fingers touched was some of her ribbons from spelling bees, academic triathlons, and reading contests. Those were placed on top of her clay dish; she had no need for such things.

"What are you going to do with those?" Ron asked, pointing to her newest pile of things.

"Throw them out. I have no need for ribbons from my muggle school or gifts that my mother doesn't want." She replied simply.

She pulled out a huge pile of parchment, bound together with twine like a spiral notebook. She snorted, thumbing through it.

"These are my notes from school. First year through Third. Meticulously recopied and bound together in hopes that one day I would show my parents and they'd be proud of me or impressed with how smart I was. Merlin, I was an insufferable know-it-all, wasn't I? Clinging to what I thought I knew for even a little bit of praise." Hermione said, closing the makeshift notebook and placing it beside the clay dish and ribbons.

"You're not going to keep them? You spent so much time on them though…"

"I have no need or desire to impress people anymore. I'm confident in my abilities and my worth without having someone praise me for my supposed intellect. I have you and Harry to thank for that." Hermione responded, smiling at Ron. He returned her grin, looking uncertain.

The last thing from the box was a bundle of letters. She recognized them instantly – every letter that she ever wrote to her parents over the years was here, even her Hogwarts acceptance letter. She wanted to put it in the pile to discard, just out of spite, but knew she couldn't. She placed the whole bundle near the two piles of photographs.

"This box we're throwing out." Hermione stated and picked up the pile of ribbons, notes, and hand-made clay dish and dumped them back into the box.

Ron grabbed the second box and brought it closer, opening the lid while he was at it. It was mostly some books, some receipts, and a few ink pots. The receipts were from shops in Hogsmeade, a few restaurants she and her parents had ate at in Wizarding Greece and France; things that ultimately were just reminders of a world her parents didn't want to acknowledge. The ink pots Hermione would keep, the books were mostly texts she bought when she was younger and honestly didn't need, or want, anymore.

"The books you can sell back, either to second-hand shops or Flourish and Blotts, depending on the wear and tear." Ron said. Hermione nodded and stacked her books up on the ground in a neat pile.

"I might as well do that for my old school texts, too." Hermione said as she reached back into her trunk to retrieve the rest of the hastily thrown in books. Underneath the mess, the rest of her trunk was neat and orderly. All her Gilderoy Lockhart books (of which there were nine) were put into a "sell" pile immediately. Ron snorted, no doubt remembering how much of a fool Hermione was during their second year.

"I hope none of those have heart doodles or sparkles." Ron teased her gently. Hermione laughed.

"No, just some lines underlined and questions in the margins." Hermione responded playfully.

She put her first year texts with her Lockhart books and re-found her old copy of The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and found herself scoffing at the presumptuous title. 'Right, because obviously the Dark Arts rose and fell with Voldemort alone. God, I can't believe how ignorant I was once… but I suppose I was so young, I just couldn't help it. What did I know about magic?'

She found herself shocked into laughter when she discovered her much loved and battered copy of her first Hogwarts: A History. She ended up keeping it for purely sentimental reasons. In the end, it was the only book she kept for reasons that were not practical. All her first, second, and third year books would be sold to a second-hand shop – she doubted Flourish and Blotts would like them, considering she had written in a few of them. 'Then again, there are spells to get rid of marks on books… I guess I'll just sell these to whichever will pay more.' Her Fourth year Arithmacy and Ancient Runes texts she was keeping mostly for the amount of formulas in them, but the rest she was going to sell. And that was it. Everything she had left of her past, everything she had left of her parents. Sorted and looked over, and it only took a little over an hour.

"Ron, this – this is it. There's no more. I thought… this is me. It's not them, it's supposed to be them. They – I don't – it wasn't... It's like I died, but it's not. I don't-" Hermione wasn't sure what she was trying to say and everything in her head was tangled. She thought of Dean and Seamus and Percy and all those nameless faces she saw in her dreams.

"Hermione." And Ron was in front of her, hands on her shoulders and leaning towards her and she closed her eyes –

It wasn't fireworks. There was no feeling of fitting pieces or a click. It was just Ron's lips on hers; it wasn't even anything fancy at first, just the pressure. But it was also long nights of staying up with her as she studied, it was learning new languages together, it was falling asleep in the same bed with Harry in between them, it was a multitude of warm hand-made sweaters and chocolate, it was summers spent watching Quidditch, and it was a rush of magic and warmth. It was seething jealousy and worry, it was exasperation and relief, it was… Ron. Not perfect, not subtle, but hers.

He pulled away from her, hands slipping from her shoulders to her hands. She didn't feel any different and he didn't look any different to her. Her head was less tangled though and she felt herself smiling.

"This is how things work between us, right?" Ron asked, looking to her for sense and answers.

"Of course it is." She answered, squeezing his hands.

He had waited for this moment for years. He had anticipated and planned this moment for years. And now it was upon him and he completely froze.

Voldemort stood in the house, looking over the threads of his magic and carefully undoing them.

Aife had come with him, of course she had. She was more his mother than his classmate, more his older sister than his friend. Of course she was here. Of course.

His master was quiet, but it mattered not. Soon, he would be whole once again. Soon, he would have Diamond again. Soon.

When he killed them all, he cried. Once he was done acting like a child, he went to find Aife. She did not judge him or look at him in pity; she just took his hand and tugged him away, talking about school.

The ring was warm in his hand and he could feel the flutter of the shard of himself within it. He could remember having to kill one of his Death Eaters for finding out what this was – what was his name? Regan? It mattered not.

He remembered Aife giving him this ring. "It belongs to your family and is thus yours. Do what you want with it."

He would be whole again. And his Master would give him his Diamond and they would be together again.

He briefly remembered a moment of horror and sheer panic and thinking that he was such a fucking moron and he had to do something and something cracked inside him and… and… fog covered the rest and stole the memory from him.

It must not have been important.

The Dark Mark throbbed on his arm, dark magic swirling angrily just beneath his skin's surface. Blaise hated it, genuinely felt like ripping his arm off just to get it off, but knew that wasn't an option. He put the finishing touches on his letter to Albus Dumbledore. He was in a perfect position to pass information on to Dumbledore, if the old man accepted his proposal. Granted, it would actually be his mother passing most of the actual information, but the idea was the same. And both he and his mother wanted Dumbledore and Potter to win, so hopefully Dumbledore would accept his proposal to spy for him.

"Blaise, have you heard from Draco at all recently?" His father's voice broke him from his thoughts. He tied his letter to his owl and sent him off before turning to answer his father.

"No, but he's safe with his father and Professor Snape – they're all in hiding this summer." He answered. His father was confined to a floating chair; the man's legs were utterly useless. He used to be a Death Eater, but the fact that he couldn't move around by himself made it impossible. He stayed in the Zabini cottage, behind the wards, for his own protection. During the years that Voldemort wasn't around, Lucius Malfoy used to visit him every week without fail. Blaise knew his father missed their Lord Malfoy, but it simply wasn't safe for them to have tea anymore.

"How are your studies going?" Blaise asked after a moment. His father's chair turned back towards the doorway of the sitting room they were in. Blaise walked alongside the chair as his father started talking about his studies of the Dark Mark and any possible way to remove it. So far, absolutely nothing worked – every time the Mark was removed, and that took two rituals and quite a load of magic and power to do, the person who had the mark died. Often screaming and in a great deal of pain, for reasons unable to figure out.

He wondered, not for the first time, how Draco was doing.

Luna floated on her back, the water flowing around her and whispering softly to her. Eleanor sat quietly on the shore, lost in thought. Luna left her to her thoughts, knowing that sometimes it helped to just be alone in your own head.

"Do you miss Ginny?" Eleanor asked out of the blue.

"Yes, but I know she's needed with her family. And I'll see her soon. This isn't nearly as confusing as it was two summers ago."

The water told her Eleanor had joined her in the pond, shifting around her as it whispered. The sun was on its way down, the bottom just touching the surface. They'd have to get out well before nightfall, as Luna didn't trust being outside at night, even with the extended wards. She wondered if her father would be joining them for dinner tonight.

"How are you, really?" Luna asked.

"I'm okay. I don't feel so… fragile anymore. Ginny really knocked some sense into me before we left. Being here also really helps, so, you know… thanks. For inviting me." Eleanor said.

"I'm glad to hear it." Luna responded before dunking under the water. The water's whispering grew louder and she could hear stories and conversations. This was why she loved bodies of water – so much socialization! The Lovegood family had long been a bloodline tied to water – it communicated to them. It often wasn't a helpful magical trait – after all the most someone got out of it was locating dropped objects from ponds or lakes – but it was an interesting one.

She broke the surface with a gasp of air. The sun was starting to set now, falling faster.

"Time to go inside." Luna stated.

Harry wasn't doing anything productive. Just sitting in front of the mirror in his new room and staring at himself. He saw why so many people say he looked like his mother: it was true. He saw why people used to say he looked like his father, that was true too. He looked like the perfect blend of them – her check bones, her nose, her eyes, his jaw, his ears, and his hair. He was shorter than either of them were at his age, but he's been shorter at almost 16 years old than this before.

'I've been almost 16 many, many times.' He thought ruefully. His 16th birthday was officially in a few minutes and for the first time in over a decade he wasn't in pain or hungry or angry. He wasn't in a cupboard under the stairs or in a room that was locked from the outside. Down the hall were two people who cared about him, were happy to have him, and loved him.

In some ways it felt like a completely new experience, but in others it felt like he was finally returning to something normal. Somewhere in the house, a clock struck midnight and chimed quietly.

"Happy birthday, Harry." He whispered to himself, getting up and intending to go to bed. A knock at the door stopped him.

"Happy birthday!" Sirius and Remus exclaimed upon him opening the door for them. Sirius had a small cake in his hands with sparkling candles on the top and Remus had what looked like a bundle of letters and a few presents. Sirius and Remus sat with him for two hours and celebrated his birthday with him. They ate cake, opened letters, and exchanged stories.

It was the last time he ever saw either of them that happy.

Neville was tired and dirty and hot. He was covered in mud and plant goo, the sun was high and bearing down on him, and he had been up for over twelve hours.

'I am never caring for another Korepellia plant ever again. I fucking hate this plant.' He thought angrily as he viciously cut yet another wandering vine from the massive green and black plant. The Korpellia plant was rather useless, little more than a magical weed, but if cared for correctly it would grow berries – they were a strange mixture between blackberries and strawberries. And they tasted heavenly.

Which made sense, since the plant they came from was from hell.

"Here." Draco suddenly appeared, with a glass of wonderful, delicious water that almost made Neville propose right there on the spot. Luckily, he restrained himself and just took the offered water.

"I don't think I've ever seen you look at a plant with such contempt before." Draco commented. Neville snorted.

"I hate Korepellias. They're evil, pure evil." Neville said, reluctantly handing the empty glass back to the other boy. Draco looked amused.

"I can see that. Our O.W.L. results came today. Well, more like your grandmother and Severus went to the Ministry to get them, but whatever. Here, have a break and read yours." Draco said holding out a piece of rolled up parchment like it was nothing. Neville took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down and unrolled the parchment.

Dear Mr. Longbottom,

The following are your Ordinary Wizarding Level scores. After which are the classes you can hope to take come September 1st. Have a safe rest of the holiday; please be sure to owl Hogwarts with the selection of courses you wish to take the upcoming year.

'Have a safe rest of the holiday' was new. Normally, O.W.L. results simply said 'have an enjoyable rest of the holiday', at least that's how his mother and father's O.W.L. results letters went.

And following the brief paragraph were his scores:

ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS

Pass Grades:

Outstanding (O)

Exceeds Expectations (E)

Acceptable (A)

Fail Grades:

Poor (P)

Dreadful (D)

Troll (T)

Neville Frank Longbottom has achieved:

Astronomy A

Arithmancy A

Care of Magical Creatures E

Charms E

Defense Against the Dark Arts E

Divination T

Herbology O

History of Magic P

Potions A

Transfiguration E

Based on your results, the classes you may continue are as follows: Astronomy (6th year), Care of Magical Creatures (6th year), Charms (6th year), Defense Against the Dark Arts (6th year), Herbology (6th year), and Transfiguration (6th year). Classes you may retake, based on your results: Potions (5th year), Arithmancy (5th year), Divination (4th year due to your score of T as opposed to a score of D or P), and History of Magic (5th year).

Neville was actually rather shocked by his results – he knew that being trained by Harry and worked to exhaustion on more than one occasion actually did help all his scores. He was positive that without Harry he would have gotten worse than an A on his Arithmancy and Potions exams, never mind how much the training improved his understanding of Charms, Defense, and Transfiguration. However, no matter how much knowledge he got from listening to Harry and Draco, he was destined to fail History of Magic – he just didn't have it in him to memorize dates and names. He knew, vaguely, the order of things that happened throughout history and that was good enough for him.

"I got eight OWLS, one of which is an O." Neville said, still staring at the letter.

"Here, trade?" He and Draco traded results.

ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS

Pass Grades:

Outstanding (O)

Exceeds Expectations (E)

Acceptable (A)

Fail Grades:

Poor (P)

Dreadful (D)

Troll (T)

Draco Lucius Malfoy has achieved:

Ancient Runes O

Astronomy O

Arithmancy P

Care of Magical Creatures A

Charms O

Defense Against the Dark Arts O

Herbology A

History of Magic O

Potions O

Transfiguration E

Overall, both of them had done rather well – Draco only got one more OWL than he did, even if he had more O's than Neville. But that was to be expected, just like him beating Draco in Herbology and Arithmacy was expected. Draco was so bad when it came to Arithmacy it was actually hilarious; the whole subject just confused him and he had little patience for it. And Neville had a sneaking suspicion that Draco may have been paying more attention that he thought whenever he and Luna started talking plants – it was the only way the Malfoy Heir could have possibly passed Herbology.

"Shut up." Draco muttered, no doubt seeing the smug look Neville could feel on his face. Neville laughed, turning back to the damn Korepellia plant. He wished he could see Hermione's reaction at her O.W.L results; she'd probably be frantic.

Fred sat at the kitchen table, looking over the latest plans he and George had come up with. Professor Dumbledore had asked them if they could make anything that would be of use for the Order and the two brothers had jumped at a chance to invent something with vigor. The plans he was looking over were plans to allow for mass apparition of muggles. Apparition circles weren't new things, they were actually really old and had been used once upon a time to transport armies from place to place chucks at a time. But, no one had ever made an apparition circle for the purpose of transporting muggles.

It made sense, apparition with muggle passengers was tricky and dangerous – it was possible, but the chances of getting splinched rose. With Death Eaters attacking muggles and wizards alike, it would make things easier if the Order had a few other devices that could be used to get the muggles to safety, not just a portkey.

'And making portkeys without authorization is illegal, technically. Having a device that works as an apparition circle, but for muggles, would be easier to work with.'

Fred and George understood why something like this would be needed. It was just a matter of figuring out how to do it without killing all the muggles in the process. The last attempt to do anything like this was in 1498 and while the circle worked, all the muggles arrived in pieces. Needless to say, Fred and George were being extra careful with how they went about this project of theirs, since it could end so catastrophically bad.

Fred was brought out of his examination of the very important plans by the sound of the fireplace in the other room roaring to life and spitting someone out. And within seconds, Albus Dumbledore was in the doorway.

"I have young Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger's O.W.L. Results. Could you go get them?" He asked, getting right to the point. Fred nodded before getting up to go get them – with the new wards apparition was only possible if you were leaving the Burrow. The two were in the room Hermione and Ginny were sharing, Ginny nowhere to be found.

"Your O.W.L results are here." Fred said. Hermione was out the door before he was fully finished with his sentence and Ron followed at a calmer rate.

"Think you did well?" Fred asked more of to just have something to say. Ron shrugged from next to him and Fred shut up. It seemed so hard to talk to Ron now-a-days – if he wasn't with Harry or Hermione, if he was just by himself, he tended towards silence. And it was odd trying to start a conversation; what would they talk about? Quidditch? Fred loved Ron, he was his little brother, but the simple fact was that they didn't have much in common – the longest conversations they had now had to do with the war.

'After the war, I'll know what to say and how to say it. We'll find things to talk about, like before Voldemort rose and Harry became more… well, Harry. After the war, things will be easier.' Fred thought, watching from the doorway as Professor Dumbledore handed letters to Ron and Hermione. Hermione looked caught between nervous excitement and bewilderment while Ron looked tired and amused by Hermione.

"I got eleven O.! Five of which were Outstandings!" Hermione squealed, flinging her arms around Ron, who caught her around the waist in a hug.

"That's great. I got eight, myself, one Outstanding." Ron said in response. Hermione pulled away, looking back to her results with a more critical eye.

"Oh dear… I got an A in Divination. How in the… I just took it as a joke, expecting to get a P or something…"Hermione said dazedly.

"Well, it would appear then that you do actually have some talent in that field. That's interesting isn't it?" Professor Dumbledore said, sounding cheery. Hermione nodded dumbly while Ron looked bemused – there was obviously a story here Fred did not know. Ron grabbed Hermione's results from her, looking over them.

"You got an A in History of Magic, same as me. Now that's just strange, how in the world did that happen?" Ron asked. Hermione looked sheepish as she answered.

"I guess it's taking a bit longer than I thought to remember just how separate Wizarding Britain is from Muggle Britain. I remember a lot of questions seemed to be obvious to me that I didn't stop to think about the answer – I probably got those wrong because I gave what happened in the muggle world and not the magical one. Thus, the Acceptable." Hermione said, shrugging.

Fred wondered when she had mellowed out and how he had missed that fact. Professor Dumbledore walked out, signaling Fred to follow.

"Is your brother home?"

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, no need to call me 'sir', young Mr. Weasley. You're not a student of mine anymore, neither of you. You might as well call me Albus or Dumbledore, whichever you're more comfortable with." Albus said, twinkle in his eye and grin on his lips. Fred nodded dumbly. "I need your assistance, if you please." Professor Dumbledore continued.

"I'll go get George." Fred said, turning to go get his brother.

A tiara glinting in the sunlight. Soft and fragile and strong and bright.

A city with no one in it, birds singing, the world turning, but no one walking the streets. Or sitting in the houses. Just lines and lines of nothing and steel and concrete.

Hogwarts stood tall and imposing, closed and dark. Gates bound shut and no light shown from it. It looked cold, alone, and above all else, dead. His chest ached and he felt like crying and screaming. This was wrong, this was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrongwrongwrong.

A crumbling and cracked stone archway stood alone. There were no walls around it and no roof; it was exposed and the tattered black curtain swayed in the wind as clouds rolled by. Whispers and singing and bells sounded and it was beautiful, beautiful, twisted and wrong and there was something so, so wrong and right and wonderful and dreadful about it.

Harry woke with a gasp. Sometimes, he really wished his visions would come at intervals or at least normally. It was aggravating going months at a time with nothing and then suddenly getting bombarded with visions in his sleep.

Seeing Hogwarts like that… the wartime wards were obviously up, the whole thing shut up. But for it to be shut up like that must mean there were no students inside. It was part of the wards – if the students were inside, the lights would be on at least. Was it a vision of abandonment? Would the war get so bad that he shut Hogwarts up, refusing to allow Voldemort to destroy it? And if that's what it was showing him, how the hell did he get Albus to go along with it? Do they lose? If Death Eaters got into the school and killed all the students… Hogwarts could shut itself up, he knew it would. No one would be able to get in it if that happened; the last thousand years have made the wards around Hogwarts somewhat sentient and she was nothing if not protective of the children in her halls. If the wards were breached – and with students inside it was a hell of a lot easier to have them breached – and students killed or tortured… Hogwarts would close itself. He knew she would. Or was it a metaphor? Sometimes his visions weren't literal, like the one he had about Tonks' loyalties. If that was the case, it could mean a thousand different things.

And that archway, he knew exactly what that was: the Veil that the Ministry of Magic in London was built around. Sometime before King Arthur died, that thing had appeared. Harry had been… indisposed at the time that it had appeared, so even he was just working off of reports and second-hand information. There hadn't been much information on it – just that if you touched it the thing ate you. Of course, that was before they put the curtain over it, back when it was just an archway – it was easier to accidentally bump into it or back into it and if you did that… you were gone. He hadn't seen it with his current set of eyes, but he wondered what it would look like. Would it show more of a Dark Arts taint or a Magicks of Heaven taint? He was able to see it perfectly fine in his vision…

'That's not quite right, there was something off about it in my vision – it looked distorted sometimes… mostly when I was looking at it straight on. Is that how it would look to me now or was it just part of the vision?' Harry wondered, fingers plucking at his bed sheets. So many unknowns.

"Hey, time to get up, breakfast is just about ready." Remus poked his head into Harry's room after knocking. Harry blinked before nodding.

"You're going to be one of the first students on the express; Sirius and I are going to be part of the team of Order members and Aurors to watch it. We'll meet you at Hogwarts, okay?" Remus said, hurrying off to most likely make one last chance to ensure he and Sirius had back all their teaching supplies.

Apparently, since Remus took over for Umbridge halfway through the year, he could teach Defense again this year. And since Sirius was also going to be there, that meant that technically there were two Defense instructors this year – it might be enough to contend with the curse on the position.

Time would tell.