George and Thea had their heads together most of the rest of the evening, and the others let them, figuring that they were just getting to know each other. Instead, they were coming up with a plan. "You're sure you can do this?" George asked her.

"As sure as I can be." She bit her lip. "Look, about what you said yesterday...about wanting to get to know me better? If circumstances were different...I'd like that, too."

"Well, that's the thing," said George. "After this is all over, things will be different. Then...you and me?"

Thea smiled at him. "It's a date." They were just leaning towards each other as the others started coming in, having smelled the food-seeing as part of what George and Thea had been doing was preparing dinner. They all sat down to eat, but Thea and George just waited.

It only took a moment before the others fell asleep where they were sitting, and the two of them got up. "Are you sure about this?" Thea asked him.

"You asked me that before. Yes, I'm sure. Besides, you have the hard job," said George.

"They're not going to be happy when they wake up."

"Thea, just go already, before the potion wears off," George told her, a little exasperated.

"Thank you for trusting me." And she leaned in and kissed him briefly on the lips, before grabbing her bag and heading out the door.

A few minutes later, the others started to wake up. Hermione looked around and saw that the only one up was George. "George, what's going on?"

"Thea's gone," Jax said with a groan. "Why? I thought we had decided that she was safest here."

"All of you decided...without regarding Thea's feelings on the matter," said George. "Didn't you listen to her yesterday? She didn't come to us for protection-she came to us for help. Well, I helped her."

"Yeah, you helped her run right back to the Elite," Jax scoffed.

Harry shook his head at Jax, before turning back to George. "What does she have planned?"

"She's trying to figure out how the Elite is planning to reverse death and how to stop them. She can't do that hidden away here," said George. "That rune makes it easy for them to track her, meaning that they would have come here for all of us. If we lost and given that we don't fully know what we're up against that's a pretty safe bet, we wouldn't be able to help her."

"Well, how does she know that's what the Elite is after?" Ron asked. "I mean, yeah, Liam and the Unspeakables were working on it, but wouldn't it be logical that the Elite has some endgame in mind that we don't know about?"

Hermione looked over at Ron, impressed. "You're right."

"See I'm right some of the time," said Ron.

"She thinks they're trying to bring You Know Who back," George said quietly. "And I think she's right."

"Why didn't she tell us any of this?" Harry asked.

"We didn't exactly give her the opportunity," said Hermione. "We were so focused on how we were going to keep her safe that we forgot how capable she is."

"Does she have a plan as far as getting into contact with us?" Harry asked.

"I think I can answer that," Jax spoke up. "When we were at Hogwarts we had a way of communicating with each other." He started rummaging around for a bit of parchment. Ginny found some in a drawer, along with a quill and ink and handed them to him. Jax scribbled a quick note and addressed it to Harry, before saying a quick incantation. The note vanished and reappeared in front of Harry, but Jax shook his head. "Ron, try to open it."

Ron shrugged and reached for the note before he could really grasp it, it blew up in his face in a tiny explosion.

"That is clever," said Hermione. "I take it that Thea wrote that spell herself?"

Jax nodded. "She did."

"So what are we supposed to do in the meantime?" Ron asked.

"Oh," said George, reaching into his pocket for a bit of parchment. "She gave me this." He handed it to Jax.

Jax looked a little puzzled but opened it. "Did you read this?" He asked quietly.

George shook his head. "No, but she told me the gist of it."

Jax sighed and handed the letter to Harry. "She wants us to go on the record-or rather, you and Ron."

Harry read through the letter and nodded. "We have a lot of work to do."