"It's a little anticlimactic," Hermione said. "I think the quality of the entertainment has dropped considerably over the last year."

"Well, they can't be boring and try the same thing every year," Ron said, getting into the spirit of things.

"They didn't even try to bomb the train," I said in mock disappointment. "Hopefully they'll have something more exciting next year."

We were in the train station after an uneventful trip back from Hogwarts. The train had left early, and our classmates were being apparated out by their parents from this side of the station. Trusted aurors were apparating the muggleborn to their homes, with phone calls confirming receipt of the children moments after they had left.

I'd expressed my concerns about a poly juiced Death eater being substituted, so we were doing it this way. I'd have asked about setting up a Thief's Lament, but that was apparently incredibly expensive, and the goblins weren't willing to let the Ministry apparate people in and out of their bank willy nilly.

Also, it would have made it difficult for me to get inside the Ministry if I absolutely needed to.

"There's still time," I said. "If they really wanted to, and weren't worried about turning everyone against them, they could simply do something horrible, like cursing all the seats to rot our asses off."

"That's why you let Ron sit down first?" Hermione asked, surprised.

"Hey!" Ron said.

"Maybe you'll learn to let ladies sit first," I said calmly.

"Maybe I will if I see one," he said irritably. "Instead of a nundu in a skirt."

The banter was light hearted on the surface, but I could see that everyone was actually nervous. We'd spent the last eight hours waiting for an attack, and there was still a chance that the Death eaters were waiting for the pure blood kids to get off the train. That was why the Ministry had decided to have the kids leave in batches that were equal in number.

I was being left for last because it was thought that I'd be able to spot things; also, if the death eaters were to attack, it'd likely be on my behalf and would likely happen when the train was empty.

"Everyone is almost gone," I said. "They'll be coming for Hermione first, then Harry, then Ron."

Moments later Tonks showed up for Hermione. She changed her hair color and grinned at us. Her ability was rare enough that it would have been difficult for the Death Eaters to replicate on short notice.

Moody was there for Harry.

"Code word is Pigtail," he said. Unlike Tonks, he needed to have a code word to prove his identity.

That left me alone in the cabin with Ron.

He didn't look at me, instead looking straight forward. He was silent for a long moment before he finally spoke.

"Thanks," he said.

"For what?"

Now I was the one not looking at him. I was scanning the area for any signs of Death eater incursions. The area outside had cleared of parents and children rapidly, as though everyone was afraid of an incipient attack.

"Scabbers," he said. "That was... all kinds of wrong. I still have nightmares about it."

I shrugged. "It was an accident. One of your brothers noticed the rat when we were doing... something else."

We'd kept our involvement with Black as quiet as we could. The news about him being a free man would make the press soon enough, and the people who made the news were going to frame it in a way to make the Ministry look the best.

"Still," he said. Looking at his hands, he said, "I heard you told the twins not to make fun of me."

"He was in their bed too," I said. "Which is gross considering that rats like to pee everywhere."

I'd wondered if that was why the twins had given Pettigrew to their brother in the first place. He'd have been a white elephant of a pet.

"Scabbers wasn't that bad," Ron said. He winced. "I still have trouble thinking of him as a grown man."

"Well, you don't have to worry about him now," I said.

He winced.

"Did you?"

I didn't have to ask what he meant. I'd been questioned about it for two days by Moody, along with all of my closest lieutenants. He'd wondered if I'd ordered it done, like I was some kind of miniature mob boss.

"I was with the Minister for Magic when it happened," I said. "Apparently someone exploded his eyeballs, then when he turned into a rat to run, they turned him into a teacup and then smashed him. I've seen the pictures of what was left when they turned him back."

He stared at me.

"Who'd do something like that?"

"Someone who didn't want him speaking about what he knew," I said. "The eyeballs were a message, I think."

"A message to who?" Ron looked a little green at the gills.

"The muggles have a saying about snitches that I doubt you'd understand."

"They play Quidditch?" he asked.

"No," I said firmly. The last thing I needed was for Ron to be badgering his father about muggle Quidditch. Getting some of the muggleborn to learn to play Rugby might help with learning to use physical violence when needed.

Not that I'd been doing a bad job of teaching them that so far.

Tonks appeared at the door.

"Are you ready, Ron?"

Her nose turned into the snout of a pig, and Ron shuddered.

"Be careful this summer," he said, as he rose to his feet. "Harry says you've been the one keeping him alive, and even if you are mental, I appreciate that."

A moment later he was gone.

Moody appeared in the doorway.

I'd have been just as happy with Snape, but no one wanted to risk the idea that Snape might be forced to either take me to his master and give up his position, or declare for our side and be lost as a double agent.

"Code word is Golden Morning," he said.

We'd been asked to come up with our own code words, things that wouldn't mean anything to anyone else. It wouldn't make a difference if Moody was mind controlled, but the entire auror corps had been through master stranger protocols in the two weeks previously.

They'd all been obliviated as to when or if they'd been tested, with groups of them taken at random times for other things to confuse everyone. It didn't stop anyone from controlling them on the last day, but it was the best we could do.

They'd had eyes on each other throughout the day, until the apparition began, and they were taking care to go in pairs.

I nodded.

Our trunks had already been taken care of before we'd left.

All that was left was to let him take my arm. I offered him my left arm, even as I had my wand gripped tightly in my pocket.

"You won't need that, girlie," he said, glancing down at my hand.

"I might," I said. "It depends on whether you've gone and hidden the real Moody somewhere while you are here to take me to your master."

He scowled and shook his head.

"Or maybe the Ministry has decided that I'm a political liability, and they've sent you to put me in an unmarked grave somewhere in France."

"That what you did to Skeeter?" he asked.

"I didn't kill her," I said automatically. "Although it's possible that I've annoyed you to the point that you wouldn't mind arranging a little accident in transport."

He stared at me for a moment, then nodded approvingly.

"If all the kids were as vigilant as you, we'd..."

"Be run by twelve year olds?" I asked. "Give it time."

With luck, Hermione would be ready by the time I was ready to explore the world. I'd never even gotten to see America, outside of Protectorate bases and combat zones, much less the rest of the world. There were places here that had been destroyed in my homeworld, some of them before I was even born.

"Let's go," he said. "Before the Death Eaters realize we're the only ones on the train.

He held out his hand and I took it. A moment later, it felt like we were being pulled through a tube.

We were standing on a muggle street; it seemed utterly unremarkable. I didn't detect anyone lying in wait for us.

Moody handed me a paper. I did not take it, instead staring up at him. While he wasn't wearing gloves, the possibility that he might be somehow protected from whatever curse was on the paper didn't slip my mind.

"Read it and remember," he said. He opened the paper, which had an address in Dumbledore's handwriting.

He tapped his walking stick, and the moment he did, I staggered a little as I felt an entire old building's collection of insects suddenly come within my range. This had to be the fidelius charm; I was less impressed by the way the buildings seemed to be moving and more concerned with how it seemed to bypass my magic.

"You brought Harry here?" I asked. "I thought you were taking him to his family's place."

"He's gotta stay there a few weeks, but Dumbledore's starting him on occlumency training with you. It's a fool's effort."

"Oh? Because he's too young?"

"Because you'll teach him better than Snape will," Moody said. "Snape's got a grudge against the boy. It's not as bad as it might have been; if you hadn't been worrying him bald for the last two years he'd have had a lot more time to focus on the boy."

"He's not going bald!" I protested.

"Figure of speech," he said. "And how would you know? You're short even compared to your classmates."

"Makes me a smaller target," I said. "And I'm a seer. I don't need to actually see the tops of people's heads."

My bugs did, but he didn't need to know that. Besides, my dad in my original life had been balding. I knew balding. Snape hadn't reached that point, despite the damage potion fumes likely did to his hair.

The buildings had finished moving apart.

"Not impressed, eh?"

"You had me in one of these in the Ministry," I said. "I've see it before."

He looked at me sharply. "I didn't think you noticed."

"Oh, I noticed," I said.

He nodded, looked around once and headed for the steps. He didn't look behind for me to follow, presumably trusting in my own survival instincts to keep me from walking out into the muggle city alone.

He gestured with his wand to open the door. I watched his wand movements carefully. Presumably I'd have the opportunity to see it done several more times before I tried it again myself. After all, if I was to need to sleep out into the muggle wilderness, I 'd need to be able to get back in.

I didn't have a time turner with me; Moody's eye made that too dangerous. I wouldn't want to be carrying one around Dumbledore either; the man seemed too alert now to think I could avoid thinking about it.

"This place is unplottable," Moody said. "The Black family put every protection they could think of on this place, and then Dumbledore added some more."

"This is Sirius Black's place?" I asked.

He nodded.

"He was happy to lend his place," he said.

"After the Ministry and Dumbledore basically threw him into Azkaban? If I was him, I'd have told you all to suck on lemons."

"You'd have been at the bottom of our bed in the middle of the night," Moody said. "Staring at us until you murdered us."

"That's just a boggart," I said, shrugging.

"You'd let us think that," Moody said. "Fortunately, Black was more than willing to help us, especially since Harry's his godson."

Ah.

So they'd used Harry as leverage for Black. It was probably why he was coming here first instead of later in the summer. Presumably Sirius had been bright enough to demand time right away instead of giving away the Fidelius and getting nothing for it.

The long hallway we were walking through was lit by gas lamps. The patient was absolutely filthy with bugs; there were enough here that I could have created an immediate swarm in any room in the house. I felt immediately comfortable.

"Mudblood!"

A filthy cover slid off a painting. I looked at a picture of an irate old woman; her face was irate and she stared at me as though I was the worst thing that had ever entered the house.

"Charming picture," I said as the woman screamed epithets at me.

"I've heard of you, unnatural thing!" she said. "Little bitch, think you're better than real people!"

How much had the painting heard, here where Dumbledore's people were making plans. Was it in communication with other, racist pictures in other places?

Wizards had a bad tendency to ignore paintings and house elves, which was a cultural blind spot I fully intended to take advantage of one day.

Was it possible to transfigure a painting into another painting? It I could make one painting look like another, then I could use a loyal painting as a spy.

"It's stuck to the wall; nothing works to get it off," he said. "Hates the muggleborn. Everybody hates having her here, but the old biddy just won't shut up."

"Trying to replace real people with your filth! Mudbloods should never have been taught magic. They should have been left to wallow in the muggle filth they came from!"

I stared up at her.

"In my day, they'd have dealt with you on the first day you came to Hogwarts."

"Quiet you old hag!" Moody shouted, whacking his cane against the frame of the picture.

The old woman shrieked.

"Blood traitor!" she said. "Every one of you should be burned alive for what you are doing here. The girl should be first."

"Why don't you go ahead?" I asked quietly. "I'd like to talk to her for a bit."

"I doubt you'll be able to reason with her," he said. He stared at me for a moment, then smirked. "But have at it."

He walked forward, and the moment I thought he was out of earshot, I turned to the woman and looked up at her.

I reached up to touch the canvas.

"What are you doing?" she shrieked. "Don't get your filthy mudblood hands on my nice clean canvas."

"I haven't killed a painting before," I said. I purposefully channeled Luna's voice as I spoke. It tended to be disconcerting when she said something unexpected, and I needed to get a true reaction from her. "Would you scream if I set your canvas on fire?"

"W...what?"

"I could try paint thinner. I might be able to melt half of you while leaving the other half to scream," I said. "It'd be an interesting experiment."

"You wouldn't."

"I'm a filthy mudblood," I said. "The muggles have been experimenting with ways to murder each other creatively for a long time. Why would you expect me to have any pity for a pureblood. You aren't even that, though... you're less than a mudblood, because you aren't even human."

She spluttered.

"Frankly, even a house elf is better than you. They're alive, after all, and they can do magic, and you... you can't do anything, can you. You can sit and scream, and maybe that's all I need you to do."

She was shaking, and her face was red.

"I am from a line of blood as pure as..."

"You aren't even related to them, not really. You're just paint and canvas, and you know where the things that paint is made from...the ground. So who's the mudblood?"

She screamed at me, her face red. She was almost incoherent.

"BE QUIET!" I said. "Or I'll just stick another piece of wall over your painting with a sticking charm, leaving you alone in the dark forever. How long do you think it would take for you to go mad?"

"They'll never allow it!" she said, her face turning pale.

"None of them like you much," I said. "They wouldn't care if I burned you for kindling. The easiest thing would be to cut out the wall you are in, put it on the fire and then replace the wall."

She didn't have anything to say to that.

"I want you to know who I am," I said. "Because I'm not going to spend the next three months listening to you insult me and my friends."

"You're bluffing," she said.

I pulled out my knife and I stabbed her in the area where her chest would have been. I stabbed the canvas several other times as well.

She shrieked as though she was dying. Interestingly enough, she did bleed red paint.

Pulling herself away into the corner of the frame, she stared at me as though I was mad. She was pale and shaking.

"I don't have to bluff," I said. "If I destroyed you, there's no court in the land that would convict me. You aren't a person, and that means that I can do anything I want to you, and nobody will say a damn thing. It's ironic, considering that's what your people have been wanting for my kind."

I waited for her to slip out of frame. She didn't, though.

"If I cut out your eyes, would you be blind?" I asked.

That was too much for her, and she crouched in the corner of the frame. I nodded in satisfaction; if she'd had another painting to run to, that was something we all needed to know, because she sounded like the kind of painting who would turn on us in a minute.

"If you keep making a nusiance of yourself, we'll have to have another talk. I might have to get angry. I suspect you wouldn't like me if I get angry. Or worse, I might get creative."

With that, I headed for the kitchen, when I saw several faces staring out into the hall.

I whistled jauntily as I went.