"She called me the youngest seeker in a century." Kannan raised a brow as Neville's jaw fell open. "Now, just to make sure, ask me something that only that person would know."

Neville looked at Kannan, thinking carefully. "I told him that I was proud to be my parent's son. What did I say next?"

"But… you're not quite ready for everyone to know, just yet." Kannan answered.

"And what did you- he say in reply?"

"We're gonna make them proud, Neville. That's a promise." Kannan repeated his own words.

"I asked a question, before opening a painting. What did I ask?"

"Let's have a bit o' fun, shall we?" Kannan grinned.

Neville stared at him before sighing. "Oh, bugger me… Luna already knows."

"And what makes you think that?" Kannan asked, fairly sure that she did.

"Oh, this morning she was muttering about thestrals, dobbies and snowy owls." Neville replied. "Now, I know about the thestrals and the owls, but… what's a dobbie?"

"Not a what, but a who. Dobby was a house elf, caused a lot of problems during our second year, but saved our lives during the war." Hermione answered.

"Yeah, he was the one to get us out, after Luna had been kidnapped by Voldy's crew." Kannan added.

"Oh, okay. And Luna knew him?"

"Not really, that was the first and only time they met." Kannan answered. "But this is Luna, so I'm sure she knew of him, regardless."

"Okay…" Neville drawled. "So… what now?"

"Now, we get the rest of our paperwork from Merran and then go find that bus. Get out of the city, find somewhere quiet and catch our breath. Make a few plans. Places to see. Things to do." Padraig said. "Merran reckons that it could take a few weeks but warns that Australia is a heck of a lot bigger than the UK, so that estimate is erring on the low side. It could take as long as a couple of months, it's been over a year, already, tracking them is basically tracking a cold case. Well… not cold, but not fresh. All the information is a year old, smaller places might remember them, but the larger tourist friendly areas are a lost cause, too many people, too many faces. They're going to have to rely on bank records of them purchasing stuff."

"Fred always wanted to see a platypus." George tried to smile, but it slid away quickly.

"Yeah, Luna mentioned them, and something called 'a drop bear', I think?" Neville agreed.

"Alright, let's go find us a platypus and a drop bear." Pads said, waving at them with a hurry-up gesture.

The first few weeks they spent at a private magical camping resort just near Ballina, a little less than a hundred and fifty miles south of Brisbane. Long walks on the beach and lazy days spent in the sun, they lounged for the week. That's all that it could be called. Lounging.

Hermione had a massive map of Australia and each evening they would gather together and mark out the locations, that whichever set of Wilkins they were tracking had visited, according to the latest information received from Merran.

Those few weeks, no one was motivated to do pretty much anything. There were days that George didn't even get out of bed, while Pads rarely made it any further than the camping space, that was only a few yards from the surf. They'd parked the bus on it and decided that instead of putting up idividual tents, they would stay in the bus. Hermione spent a lot of time working her way through the resort's library, only to be told, by Kannan that he'd had the Potter library stored in a trunk and then Padraig asked, what had she done with the library from Grimmauld Place? Luna alternated her time between joining Hermione and wandering through the local National Park. Kannan, Bill and Neville spent most of their time playing in the sand with Teddy.

The bus was a marvellous blend of muggle technology and magic. It ran, not on fuel but on magic, a bit like the Knight Bus, but the occupants could top up its 'fuel' tank by placing a hand on the bus's frame and pulsing their magic into it. An empty 'tank' would take a hundred pulses to fill and it was recommended that it not be done by the driver, as it would leave whoever 'filled' the 'tank' quite drained if it were to be done by just one person. The inside of the bus was a single space, not unlike any other bus, behind the driver there were three rows of seats, very much like comfortable armchairs. Then it opened out in a simple living area with no windows, but there were wizard-space doorframes. Two on the passenger-side lead to a kitchen and communal bathroom. Across the rear of the buss and along the driver's-side wall there were frames that lead to private bedrooms, each with its own en-suite bathroom. Everyone had their own room, except Neville and Luna, who startled Bill and Padraig, by declaring that they were sharing, they planned to marry before returning to the UK. And of course, Teddy, who slept in the room of whoever was holding him when he fell asleep. Outside it had a large deck that expanded from a small compartment that ran half the length of the bus, giving them an outdoor space of approximately twenty-by-twenty feet. Plenty big enough for seven chairs and a baby bed.

Many nights, Kannan would wake to hear someone wandering the bus, usually it was Pads or George, but occasionally it might be Luna or Bill.

George wasn't coping well with the loss of Fred, nightmares and tears were a common. Pads wasn't a lot better, the loss of Moony nearly gutting him. Surprisingly it was Teddy that gave them both the most amount comfort. A warm weight in their arms that would babble whenever he was asked a question or would laugh whenever someone came into sight.

After two days at the resort, the Kannan was shocked to hear that Luna's father had succumbed to the injuries he'd received when the Death-Eaters destroyed the Rookery in retaliation for allowing Ron, Hermione and Harry to escape. That Luna hadn't told anyone, they weren't surprised to hear, but the fact that she hadn't told him? That hurt Kannan's heart, until Luna told him that her father had barely survived the war, he'd made his peace with his guilt over trying to hand Harry to the Death-Eaters, and had parted from his daughter, ready to be with her mother, again. Luna suffered, but not greatly, she knew that her parents were together, it gave her the chance to accept her loss.

Pads felt the loss of Moony, but having Teddy become his son, gave him a sense of continuation, there was still a piece of Moony with him. That's not to say he didn't struggle. He did, quite badly at times. Like George, there were days that he found getting out of bed just too much, then there were days that he sat in a deck chair on the sand for the whole day, sometimes with Teddy on his lap, sometimes he coached Neville through some of the work that Kingsley and Robards sent with him. But there were also days were he was bright and cheerful and very much like Sirius had been during the summer that Harry had stayed at Grimmauld Place.

George was the one to suffer the loss of his loved one the most. Given how close the twins were, that was understandable, and the disownment hadn't helped. For the first week, George cried. That was all he did. Bill, Kannan and Neville took it in turns to sit with him, they weren't prepared to let him mourn alone. Day in, and day out, someone was constantly with the shattered young man.

As the days slipped into weeks, George and Pads slowly started to have good days. Days where they would sit out with whoever was on 'Teddy duty', lounge in the sun or, if they were travelling, lounge in the bus, watching the countryside go by.

They stayed for three weeks in that first resort, before moving on down the coast. Their second stop was only a few hundred miles down the road, but they spent another few weeks there, in another magical campground, the witch at the reception office giving them a list of all the magical camps and resorts in Australia. They made their way from the north in a southerly direction, until they reached Wilson's Promontory and the magical resort there.

This was the first place that George came out of his room and stayed out for the entire day. It was also where Merran finally located and discarded a second Wilkins couple. At least now, they knew that they while were chasing the last lead, it was also the one that eventually it would lead them to Hermione's parents.

Late one evening or very early one morning, Kannan stumbled from his bed, driven by the memory of Snape's last minutes. Out in the living room of the bus, through a window, he saw a head of red hair studying the stars from a deck chair.

"Bill?" He whispered. "You want a chocolate milk?" It was late February and still way too hot in Australia, for a hot chocolate.

Bill jerked and looked over his shoulder, letting Kannan see tear tracks running down his face.

"Yeah… sure…" The older man sighed.

"Coming right up." Kannan melted the chocolate and mixed in the spices, before adding the cool milk to the mugs and grabbing a bowl of biscuits. A flick of his wand and the bowl joined the mugs on a tray, he carried it out and after a raised brow at Bill, the redhead conjured up an end table between Bill and a chair to his left.

"So…? What brings you out here, tonight?" Kannan asked.

"Just needed some space." Came the slow answer.

"Bill?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask something… without meaning to offend?"

Bill didn't answer, not in words, but he did give a jerky nod.

"What happened? You and Fleur were so in love. What happened?"

Bill didn't reply, seconds dragged into minutes and Kannan had just decided that he wasn't going to, when he sighed and began to speak.

"I don't know…" He said, brokenly. "It was good. We enjoyed our honeymoon, even though the war was all around us, it felt like we were in this little bubble. Then you four landed on our beach with a goblin and a dead house-elf. And we were suddenly right in the middle of the war and the bubble was gone." Bill sipped at his milk and sighed a few more times. "But the niffler that stole the ʛalleons was the battle at Hogwarts. Seeing the deaths. Having them happen in front of her. Oh, sure, she knew that people were dying, but they weren't killed right in front of her, were they?" He placed his mug gently on the table. "I think the reality of it was the deciding factor. The day after Fred's… I received the notice of abolition of our marriage." He huffed in annoyance. "I'm kind of glad she was part veela, it meant we couldn't do a magical bonding, just a legal one. As it was, she took almost everything I had, even the payout from the goblins. I think I had about… I don't know, maybe ʛ50 left, certainly no more."

"What did you do?"

"That was when the family had our first blow out. I went with George, stayed with him at the shop. Lee, Katie, Angelina and their quidditch mates were brilliant. During the day one of them would be with George, while I went to Hogwarts. Minerva convinced the Board that I'd given up my contract with the goblins to protect the school and if I was good enough for the goblins to pay out the remainder of my contract, instead of penalising me for it, I was good enough to work on the rebuilding of Hogwarts. I finished my last session, the day before all this…," he waved a hand towards Kannan and then the bus, "happened. I told Minerva that I'd called Charlie over to help with George, we planned to take him back to Romania, get him away from the shop, for a while. But… well, you know what happened."

"Want me to get Kingsley to toss her out of the country?" Kannan asked, only half joking.

"I already did. She'll never be able to come back to the UK, again, her father works for the French Ministry and they responded by banning me from France. No loss, there." Bill snorted. "I'm just glad we hadn't got around to children, yet. She said she wanted them, but I wanted to finish my contract with Gringotts before we did, so I was still using the contraception charms, even if she wasn't."

"Oh, man. Talk about a silver lining. You'd have never seen the sprogs, if you'd had 'em." Kannan huffed.

"Yeah…" Bill huffed. "It was a mistake, I can see that looking back, but that doesn't make it hurt less, then having mu- Molly demand we either support an abusive Ron or be cut from the family? I never thought da- Arthur would let her go that far, I never thought he'd do that." Bill whispered and tears began to slide down his cheeks. Kannan said nothing but he reached over and gripped Bill's hand, lending him whatever strength and comfort he could. "We lost everything in one go. Mu- Molly might have been a Prewett, but when she'd married Arthur, it was against her head of House's orders, he'd already set up a marriage contract and only minutes before it was to be signed, Molly and Arthur married, bonded really, Dumbledore himself officiated. It's why Muriel hates him so much. Thanks to Molly and Dumbledore, the name Prewett was dragged through the mud. It left Muriel's brother, Herbert, who was head of House and Winslow, Molly's grandfather, no choice. If they were to salvage the name, they had to cast Molly from the family. Winslow did give Gideon and Fabian permission to visit her, but her name was to never be mentioned in front of Herbert again, ever."

"Whoa…" Kannan breathed.

"Yeah… The only reason we had anything to do with Muriel was because Herbert died and his son, Milton became head of House. Milton did everything he could to be disowned, he hated his father and uncle, absolutely detested the two men. He split the family in two. Winslow and his descendants became a cadet-branch, his son, Ignatius was Molly's father and it was he that encouraged Winslow to disown Molly completely, but Winslow didn't agree until after he found out that Molly had a daughter. There hadn't been a girl born in either the Weasley or Prewett families since Muriel. While Milton retained the main Prewett title, he no longer had to tolerate or support Winslow's family, which is why the Weasley's are so poor, even though they're purebloods." Bill huffed. "I should contact Milton. Now that Molly and Arthur have both disowned Charlie, George and me, he might be able to adopt us back into the main family. The last time I talked to him, he said that if it weren't for Molly being disowned, he'd have made me his heir."

"It's up to you, Bill." Kannan told his recently acquired Uncle. "I know that Pads claimed the head of family titles for Black, Tonks and Lupin, the day after he claimed the Grimm title and adopted you guys. I think he intends to make Teddy the Lupin and Tonks head, there's little there as far as the magical world is concerned, but with Andromeda getting worse, I wouldn't be surprised to get a letter from Kingsley about the Tonks' muggle estate."

"Yeah, she'd been going down fast. Kingsley asked me to check her over, just to make sure it wasn't a curse." Bill agreed.

"Was it?"

"No, other than the calming draughts and sedatives St. Mungo's had given her, there was nothing. No charms, no hexes, no jinxes and no curses."

"It's good to know that no one is influencing her. I think that would be worse."

"Yeah…" Bill nodded. "You mentioned the Black title…"

"Oh, he wants that for you." Kannan huffed a laugh as Bill spat out a mouthful of milk and spluttered until he caught his breath. "Yeah… see Pads, he hated the family, right? But he still respected them… or… what they could have been. He always said, if it weren't for the light-or-dark issue, the red hair and their stupidity, you were the epitome of everything a Black should have been and weren't. Strong, skilled, smart and attractive. And with the Weasley family disowning you, that brings your Black blood to the forefront." Kannan hummed. "Actually, with both the Weasley and Prewett families disowning you, you really only have Black blood, both Molly and Arthur's mothers were Blacks. If you really want the Prewett title don't let Pads stop you, though, he can give the Black title to Charlie just as easily."

"You could always do a blood claim-and-purge, if you wanted to lose the physical characteristics of the Weasley's and the Prewett's." Padraig's voice joined them from the bus's door.

The two seated men both turned, one to his left and one to his right, their heads almost touching as they leant around the sides of their chairs.

"Hey, Pads." Kannan waved a hand over his head. "Gonna join us?"

"Yeah, sure, why not?" The older wizard grinned.

"You said a what-and-what, now?" Kannan asked as Padraig settled into a third deck chair.

"A blood claim-and-purge." Padraig replied. "I don't know the exact process, I started to look into it, got as far as finding out, it's permanent, before letting it go. But I do know that during the ritual you claim the blood connections you want and deny those you don't want. There's no going back, though, like I said, it's permanent. And you can only do it once in a lifetime."

"How would that alter the Grimm Family, though?" Bill asked.

"It depends on what you claim. I adopted you, I didn't blood adopt you. If you were to claim Grimm blood, in addition to the adoption, magic would make you completely and utterly my brother. The ritual only works on what you claim, if you claim a bloodline, it will incorporate that into your blood, if you don't, it won't affect the legality of a non-blood adoption, because the ritual only works on your blood. The downside? Unless there's an adoption, you have to have a degree of a bloodline to be able to claim it, and if there's a current head of House, they have to consent to the claim."

"Hmm…" Bill hummed quietly. "So… how… what would an introduction to someone, be like?"

"In what way?" Pads tilted his head, not understanding the question.

"Alright, say I was to do this ritual? Claim Black and Prewett blood but left out Grimm. How would I introduce myself?"

"Oh, okay. Um… As just a member of each family? William of Houses Black, Prewett and Grimm. As an heir to… Prewett, let's say. William, heir Prewett of Houses Black and Grimm. As a head of House? Depends. Black is an ancient and noble house, Prewett is a noble house, Grimm is simply a house. If you were head of House Black? William, Lord Black, of Houses Prewett and Grimm. Or for Prewett it would be William, Master of Prewett, of Houses Black and Grimm. For head of House Grimm, it would be William Head of House Grimm, of Houses Black and Prewett." Padraig answered. "But think about carefully, you can't do it a second time, one shot is all you get."

"So, make it a good one, huh?" Bill gave them a weak smile.

"Pretty much." Pads nodded.

"But without talking to the Master of Prewett… is that how I say it, Pads?" Kannan paused in what he was saying to ask, pleased when Padraig nodded again. "Great. So, without talking to the Master of Prewett, you're making a call without all the information. That's not good. I'm not saying take his offer, I'm saying find out what he wants, before you rule it out."

"Right." Bill huffed and thought about it for a few minutes. "Uh… could be a problem with me claiming Prewett blood. Molly was disowned from the family, remember?"

"But if the Master of Prewett, as the head of his House, adopts you as a member of his House, that overturns the need for Prewett blood." Padraig replied.

"Alright." Bill nodded. "I'll need to write to the Master of House Prewett and broach the subject. Depending on what he says, I may need to return to England for a bit."

"Bill, we're not Molly. You're an adult and have been for some time, if you want to return to England, just say, we'll see that you get there." Pads reminded the curse-breaker.

"Molly." Kannan suddenly sat up straight. "Bill, does she have access to your vaults? To George's or Charlie's?"

"No." Bill shook his head. "George and Fred only ever had the shop vault, they were able to deny her access, claiming that they needed to be able to account for every κnut that went in or out of the shop, even their own personal funds had to be receipted. I did make him open a new vault before we came with you, only this one? It's restricted, George is the only person who can access it. Charlie's vault is in Romania or it was, I'm not sure if he'll move it to New Zealand or not, and he told her that the Gringotts branch he used, wasn't like the big international branches, to get ʛalleons out you had to present a key, in person. Which was true, but if he'd given her a key, she'd have been able to use it in Diagon, he just didn't tell her that."

"And yours?" Kannan asked.

"I removed all access to my vault, when the abolition came through. That's when I found out that Molly had been dipping her wand into the vault regularly. And I've made sure that after Pads adopted us, we changed the names on all our vaults, even the shop vault, so Arthur can't get Gareth to pull the 'head of House needs access' crap."

"Which reminds me. The shop? Might wanna think about getting George to change the name. The Weasley's, especially Molly and Percy, might try and claim a percentage for use of the name."

"Already done." George flopped down onto a chair opposite them. "Instead of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes it's now called Wee Wizarding Wheezes. It was something… Fred… thought of before we left Hogwarts. He was worried that Molly with cut us out, even back then, so he came up with the idea. It was automatic. The moment our names… or my name… changed, so did the shop's and all the marketing stuff. Lee and Ange knew before Charlie got there. Cost a crap load to have Gringotts' identifications department link our identities to change everywhere, and then have the shop documents alter if our names altered. Cost nearly as much to have the printers work that into our packaging. Within one minute of the… disownment, Weasley had been removed from all items that were in any way connected to Fred, me and the shop."

"Whoa…" Bill gasped. "That must have cost a ʛalleon or two."

George snickered, and weren't the other three men pleased to hear it. "Someone gave us a sackful of gold and rejected any attempt we made to pay him back." He nudged Kannan's foot with his own. "We were in profit, his money laid aside, before we'd even left Hogwarts. I don't think Molly ever knew that over the next year, we'd taken time away from the shop to go to the Ministry and sit our NEWTs."

"How did you go?" Bill asked curious, it wasn't something that they'd talked about before.

"Pretty good. We applied for extenuating circumstances extension, before the toad got back to the Ministry, so we were able to add in some OWLs and take our NEWTs, all spread out over the next twelve months. All-in-all we had to sit both WEA exams and ICW exams."

"ICW?" Bill asked.

"Well, yeah. The British Ministry and hence their WEA, don't recognise Muggle Studies and Magical Theory as NEWT subjects."

Bill blinked in surprise. "You did Muggle Studies as a NEWT? What the heck does that involve?"

"Like I said, the British WEA doesn't recognise it, but the ICW does. At NEWT level their exam consists of a five-day test. You're provided cash, a credit card and an examiner to follow you, and you have to survive in the muggle world, without magic, barring an emergency, for those five days. You're assessed on how much trouble you have handling money, using transport, getting accommodation and buying things, you have to buy food, one change of clothes, toiletries, a book and a gift. In our case Fred and I added driving a car, riding a motorcycle and going to the movies for extra credit."

"Movies were extra credit?" Kannan laughed.

"Yup." George grinned. "We asked and were told we could bring someone extra along for the movie bit. So, Fred brought me along for his movie, we saw McHale's Navy, about the crew of a military submarine. And I brought Fred along for my movie and we saw an Austen Powers movie, it was a spy comedy. I let the examiner choose, and we laughed ourselves almost sick."

"Wow…" Kannan sat back shook his head. "Movies are part of exams, who'd have thought it?"

"And the rest of your exams?" Pads asked.

"We passed everything, some better than others, but we both got ten NEWTs." George smirked.

"But… but… but you have to have done the OWLs for a subject before you do the NEWTs." Bill spluttered.

"Yeah… and that's we why applied for extenuating circumstances. We said that our parents' finances were limited and as a result they had denied us the chance to take all the classes we wanted and that we'd left home and school, so now had the chance to make our own choices. We took six months to do the rest of the OWLs we wanted, and we took our last NEWT the week before Hogwarts let out the next year. Running the shop and studying was exhausting. Much more than just being at school, the only saving grace we had was, we already had the extension in place."

"You've got ten NEWTs? Really?" Bill couldn't get his head around it. "Why? What made you do it?"

"Molly and Arthur." George answered. "We weren't going to give them the satisfaction of calling us dropouts. We might have left Hogwarts, but we'd sat our first NEWT before the students did and we had a schedule of dates for all our other exams, too."

"Whoa…" Bill shook his head.

"Planning Billy, planning." George's look said he was chuffed with himself. "We might have had to mix them up a bit, but we got the quaffle through the hoop."

"Fred and George… ten NEWTs… I…" Bill was still stunned.

"Okay, enough of NEWTs and school. It's light enough, who's up for a swim?" Pads stood.