Luna smiled benignly at the room. She seemed to radiate a sort of peace and contentment that was absent from anyone else. Theodore Nott stood beside her like a grim eleven-year-old sentry, his fingers laced with hers. They hadn't parted hands since entering Malfoy Manor.

When she went to upturn her vial, though, her hand stilled. A strange expression flickered across her face.

"Are you sure, Luna?" Harry asked, a frown pulling at his mouth. Luna and Theo had been on the front lines in a very different way than Harry and his fighters. Their reports had always been gruesome and sad. Harry was certain their memories were much worse.

Luna blinked and the moment passed. Theo wrapped his arm around her shoulders, whispered something too low to overhear, and she nodded.

"Yes," she said, "Yes, I think this is rather important." She looked directly at the adults, her thin and fragile-looking shoulders held taunt and straight. "When things began to go bad, Theo and I complied with the new rules. But that option soon disappeared," Luna explained. She upturned the vial.

The memory spilled forward in a gust of smoke, solidifying into the familiar confines of the Lovegood family room. There were, however, aspects that were unfamiliar to those who had died early. The place looked brighter and neater. The books were organized and shelved, the windows gleaming and clear. The walls had been repainted and the wooden beams re-stained. Even the furniture looked somehow perkier.

Luna smiled at the various looks of surprise. "Theo is something of a handyman," she explained proudly. Beside her, Theo's lips quirked.

"Right," Sirius said, looking around slowly. "You two married, didn't you?"

Luna's eyes saddened. "A bit after you died, yes."

Sirius grinned, a touch manic. "Well. Belated congratulations, then."

Severus, however, was frowning. "Did you not then go abroad? Africa, I thought. If so..."

Luna's whole face seemed to dim, while Theo merely grew stonier. When Luna remained silent, Theo inclined his head. "That was the plan."

Amelia Bones opened her mouth but Lucius' sigh cut her off. Tiredly, he rubbed a hand over his face. "The Reformation Regulations passed, didn't they? They called you back."

Amelia frowned. "The what?"

Lucius all but scowled. "The Reformation Regulations. A pernicious, unnecessary, invasive bit of legislation the Light lords were trying to muscle through after the War. I was just leaving yet another session devoted to their debate when, well." Lucius cleared his throat. "When I was assassinated."

Remus went pale at the reminder. He reached out wordlessly for Lucius, who accepted Remus' arm around his waist with absent ease. Narcissa merely swallowed, her eyes closing for longer than the standard blink. Draco gave no appearance that he'd heard his father's words, though Blaise took his hand all the same. Severus pursed his lips briefly, looking away, with Sirius' hand on his arm.

The others gave the extended Malfoy family a moment. Then Amelia cleared her throat. "I'm sorry, but what precisely did these regulations entail?"

"All British witches and wizards were unable to leave Britain without express Ministry permission," Theo replied. "Those abroad had to return or sacrifice our citizenship. Those identified as non-combatant Dark had everything taken from them for the good of restoration. We were left entirely destitute. Our right to magic was restricted. We were outlawed from government and most other white collar jobs." Theo swallowed, but his voice remained remarkably steady. "I was fortunate, having married Luna, been a DA member, and fought for the Light in the war. Being disowned probably helped, too. But I was still branded a non-combative Dark and had to comply." Theo sneered, the first hint of anger he'd expressed since returning. "Hell, they basically used me as their poster boy."

Luna turned into his chest and whispered in his ear. The anger melted off his face, eased by her words.

Lucius nodded, drawing the room's eyes. "They were terrible, punitive things. I had been fighting them since the very end of the War. However, the public mood was so corrosive I feared drawing attention to them."

Theo smiled grimly. "You were probably right to fear. They probably would have just hung us all if the public had their vote."

Amelia flinched. "Surely—"

Whatever she was going to say, the memory intruded before she could finish. There was a scuffling sound from the floor above, a door slammed, muffled voices hissed back and forth, and then a woman's voice: "Theo!"

Percy frowned. "Is this...?"

Luna hummed. "I thought you wouldn't mind."

Percy nodded, yet there was pain in every line of his expression.

"Percy?" Arthur asked, but the door at the top of the stairs snapped open with a bang, drawing all attention.

An older Luna with her hair swept up and clad in a long tie dye dress came rushing down the stairs. Behind her was a pair of staggering people, slumped over each other. A woman with long, stringy dark hair and a man with fiery red.

Arthur gasped, "Percy, what—?"

Percy stepped forward, taking his father's hand. "It's okay."

Arthur pulled his son closer but the memory picked up before he could say anything. A nineteen-year-old Theo came running in from a door near the back of the room. "Luna, are you hurt?" He paused as he spotted the man and woman.

"...Pansy?" Theo said after a beat, a frown tugging at his handsome face.

Abruptly, the woman jerked. She sobbed and gripped tighter to the man, who looked up, revealing the older, frightened face of Percy Weasley. There was a smudge of blood on his cheek. The woman wore a thin medical gown and nothing else.

"...What the fuck?" Sirius said, neatly summing up the feelings of the adults in the room.

In the memory, Percy, clad in a battered suit, gently hushed the woman, who quieted some. He swallowed. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know where else to go."

"Were you followed?" Theo hissed, looking around as though he expected enemies to burst in at his words. After seeing the Greengrass memory, the returned couldn't call him paranoid.

Percy shook his head, holding tighter to the woman, whose face hadn't left his shoulder. "No, no, I don't think so. They don't even know we're gone, I don't think."

Theo shook his head. "I need to check the wards. Luna?"

Luna smiled serenely. "I'm fine."

Theo nodded and apparated away with a pop. Percy looked wildly to Luna, who approached him gently.

"How can I help?" She asked, nodding to Percy and the woman.

"She's hurt, I don't know precisely how. I—" Percy stuttered, his face wrenching painfully. "She was in the Ministry, the lower levels. She was hooked up to something and, and screaming. Oh, Merlin, Luna—"

"Alright, I understand," Luna said, like she was talking to an injured animal. "Take a deep breath. You did good, getting her out of there." She turned more to the woman, not touching her, but stepping closer to where she clung to Percy.

"Hello, there," Luna greeted. "Can you tell me your name, please?"

The woman turned her face out and, yes, that was Pansy Parkinson's face. Yet something was obviously, horribly wrong. She was paper-white, her freckles standing out like dots of marker. Dark bags hung under her eyes and her lips were cracked and bleeding. Her eyes— her eyes were black. Black as though her pupils had expanded and absorbed the whole of her eyeball. The skin around them was an irritated red, with thick black veins reaching out from her eye sockets. She was crying, or at least seemed to be, but the tears weren't right. They didn't even seem to be tears. It looked like liquid gold was dripping from her eyes. It rolled halfway down her cheeks, then evaporated away.

Sirius gaped. "What the fuck!?"

"For once, Sirius Black, you have my complete agreement," Amelia replied grimly.

"Oh, my," the Luna in the memory said. The Percy in the memory looked at her in bewildered misery, his arms cradling Pansy as you would an injured bird.

"I've never seen anything like this," Percy said. "I wasn't even supposed to be where I was, not really, but the reports weren't making sense. Resource allocation and listed budget expense were contradictory, and I just—I just wanted to find out why. But it was so obvious that something was very wrong, once I was there, so I just—" His words ended there, sputtering out into lame silence.

"You did well, Percy," Luna said again, though her eyes never left Pansy. "Here, will you help me with her? I'd like to have her lie down, so I can examine—"

"No!" Pansy shrieked. She shoved away from Percy, who went flying into the wall. He landed with a crunch and did not move. In the present, Arthur flinched at the sound.

In the memory Luna jumped back, wand at the ready, but Pansy only hunched into herself. Trembling, Pansy skittered back into the far corner of the room. She twitched at random, like a possession victim. The black lines around her eyes were spreading, pushing over her twiggy limbs like thin, sickly vines.

"Pansy," Luna tried again, but Pansy shuddered violently and cringed.

"No," she moaned, shaking, clinging to herself. "No more, I won't, you can't make me, just try it. Gods, I didn't deserve this," she hissed. Then her head snapped up, revealing that her whole face was littered with the black veins. "Why don't you just leave me alone?!"

Abruptly, black sand burst from Pansy's body, smashing into walls and furniture, tearing around her like a malevolent tornado, crushing anything in its path. Percy, having hauled himself into a sitting position, just barely managed to dodge before the sand pulverized the wall he was leaning against.

"Pansy!" Percy shrieked, pulling out his wand. The sand seemed to scream at him, aggravated, and ploughed into the bookshelf just above him. Percy rose a shield charm to fend of the debris.

"I can't stop it!" Pansy wailed. Gold tears poured down her cheeks before floating away from her skin. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Just leave me be!" Pansy cried. The sand rioted around her, smashing about in terrifying, powerful waves.

"Pansy," Percy pressed, moving closer. He reached out to her, almost touching her shoulder, but Luna shoved him back. Her wand was drawn and for the first time anyone could remember, there was fear in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," Luna said. She fired right into Pansy's chest. Like a marionette with the strings cut, Pansy dropped. The sand dissipated, but before it was gone Luna used her wand to trap some of it in a jelly-like bubble.

"What—what the hell, Luna!?" Percy cried. "Is she dead?"

"Not yet," Luna said sadly, "but I don't think she has long."

Percy stood there, horror-struck, eyes flicking from Pansy to Luna. "But—what?"

"I've only seen this in books," Luna said, though from her face she could have very well been speaking to herself. "Grindlewald, he was absolutely fascinated with them. There was a horrible case, in MACUSA in the 1920s, where he experimented..."

"Luna," Percy breathed, apparently aware of what she was leading to.

Luna nodded absently, gently rolling Pansy's unconscious body over. She brushed a hand comfortingly over her hair. "Grindlewald wanted to control Obscuri and induce the state in his followers." She looked at the sample of sand she had trapped, how it swirled and swooped at itself angrily. "It would seem that the Ministry is drawing from his notes."

The memory dissolved then, leaving the returned to stand in silence. Even the Dark adults, who had largely believed that they had seen everything, felt a chill of terror race down their spines. Obscuri were one of the biggest fears in the magical community; that a person could be so harmed that their own magic would ultimately kill them as a form of protection was a nightmarish thought. Even in the Dark Lord's court those experiments of Grindlewald's had been whispered about only in the most hushed of academic circles, late at night over a glass of fire whiskey.

"What happened to her?" Remus asked at last. He could remember teaching Pansy Parkinson—thinking that she had quite a bit of potential, actually. The trembling twenty-year-old in the memory broke his heart.

Luna's young face crumpled with old misery. "She died. I tried my best but she wasn't stable. She was pushed into an Obscurial state artificially at an age where the state would have never naturally manifested. Her entire magical chemistry was, as the muggels put it, nuclear." A tear rolled over Luna's cheek. "Eventually, she melted down."

"She wanted revenge," Percy said abruptly. He rubbed at his eyes jerkily. "For herself and her husband. They were both taken, you know? Along with all the other purebloods who weren't outright slain."

"Why?" Kingsley asked, flummoxed.

Percy laughed, a painful little thing that bled into a sigh. He shook himself, straightening. "Even the most paranoid people don't like to do their own paperwork, you know? After the War, I was buried in the Ministry's books because I was one of the few paper pushers left who knew how to do them. Most of us had died for one side or another." Percy swallowed again, obviously struggling with the words.

Many of the returned exchanged looks. Percy was the most composed out of all of the younger returned; even out of the adults, perhaps only Narcissa, Severus, and Lucius had him beat. To see him tear-up, hear his voice crack and see his hands tremble, was disquieting. As a man, Percy had killed himself with nary a quiver in the voice he had projected over the entire Ministry. This, for Percy, was obviously harder than that had been.

Percy took another deep breath. "I dealt primarily with expense reports. No one had much of a head for maths, either, and I specialized in Arithmancy. According to the reports, huge amounts of money were going to the Department of Mysteries. Yet, there were no requisitions. Even the DoM has paperwork," Percy stressed. "Something was being hidden."

"Experiments," Severus concluded.

"Funded with the money taken from the Dark for reparations," Narcissa added.

"And conducted on anyone arrested. Namely, purebloods and magical creatures," Lucius finished. "All hidden in the Department of Mysteries budget, because no one would ever expect the DoM to be held accountable."

"Except for me," Percy agreed.

"I never noticed," Kingsley murmured, appalled. "Not in all my time as Minister. An operation of this scope, it would have had to have begun in my term. It would have taken far longer than you're suggesting."

Something in Percy seemed to snap. "I'm not suggesting anything!" He snarled. "This is what happened! They made a monster machine out of our Ministry! Whether or not you noticed is hardly the point!"

"Mr. Wealsey!" Amelia replied sharply. "Perhaps you should calm yourself."

Percy glared, magic fairly snapping in his eyes. He held up his own vial. "Or maybe you just need a little more context," he sneered and upended it.

The memory swirled into form, sweeping the returned immediately into chaos. They were somewhere in the bowels of the Ministry, but spell damage made pinpointing the location impossible. Ministry guards in the black combat outfits of the Greengrass memory stood two to one with a triad of opposition. As the returned settled into the memory, they easily identified the three.

"Draco," Narcissa breathed, her eyes fixed on this elder image of her son. The last time she'd seen him he'd been just eighteen. He must be about twenty in this memory. His hair was longer, braided back and tied off in the middle of his shoulders. One platinum lock fell into his eyes, which glowed like quicksilver as he rose his hands and pushed out, sending the six guards flying across the hall. He raised a shield with another fluid flick of his wrist.

The young Draco shifted, aware that he was suddenly under much closer scrutiny than before. "As it turns out," he drawled imperiously, "I am a much better wizard once I lose the wand."

Lucius blinked. He must have gotten that from Great Uncle Percival...

The Greengrass sisters provided Draco cover as he defended, the three of them moving in a tight knot. In short order they cleared the hall, moving quickly down it before pausing outside a large pair of doors. The doors outside the Minister's office, Amelia noted belatedly.

Arthur frowned, confused. "Percy, I thought this was your memory?"

Percy didn't need to reply. The Draco in the memory brushed his hand over the air behind him, as though brushing away lint from an imaginary friend. Percy Weasley popped into view. He was different than the first time they'd seen him, more worn now than panicked. He gave the memory Draco a frown.

"I still don't see why you shielded me, Draco. Rather pointless, really."

Draco sneered. "Didn't want you getting damaged before you had to be," he said. Percy's frown intensified, but Draco merely turned to the Greengrass sisters. "Set a perimeter, no one in or out. I don't come by in ten minutes, get out of here."

Daphne gave him a frigid smile. "Don't die, Malfoy. The sheer amount of weeping would flood the base." She clapped him gamely on the shoulder before addressing Percy. "Whatever you two are up to, be safe with it." Astoria nodded emphatically, then both sisters turned and ran back down the hall.

When they were gone, Draco turned to Percy. "This is the fucking shittiest thing I've ever heard of, seen, or done, and Voldemort lived in my house for a bit of fourth year."

Percy grinned. "Well, you kicked him out eventually. That must have had a mitigating effect."

Draco's face went blank. "There won't be for this, you know. Ron's going to kill me, then probably the twins will have a go. You'll have successfully ended the whole Malfoy line with this bit of idiocy."

Percy sighed. "We have to shut it down, Draco. You know that."

"But this—" Draco started, for the first time in the conversation appearing obviously upset.

"—Is the only way," Percy finished. "The wards are just too strong. Theo spent days looking for weaknesses. There aren't any."

"He could still be wrong," Draco insisted, desperate now. "Please, Percy."

For those who had never seen a Malfoy beg, they quickly realized that it was not a heartening sight.

Abruptly, Percy clasped Draco's forearm, pulling him into a tight hug. They stayed like that for a moment before separating, but not losing grip of each other's arm.

"You have been a good friend to me," Percy said. "It is to my shame that I did not know you earlier."

"Percy," Draco choked.

"But you must let me go, now, and finish this," Percy said.

Draco chucked weakly. "Letting go is not in a Malfoy's nature. I've grown tired of it."

Percy said nothing for a minute. "I will see you again, you know. We all will."

Draco closed his eyes, as though he couldn't bear the sight in front of him. When he opened them again there was no emotion left on his face. "As you will it. Blessed be, Percy Ignatius Weasley." Then, without another word, he too ran back down the hallway.

"What just happened?" Arthur demanded. His gut had gone cold. "Percy, what just happened?"

The returned Percy closed his eyes, mirroring the slumped posture the Percy in the memory had taken once Draco left. "The wards at the Ministry are very strong, Dad. Voldemort only broke in because he had a man on the inside. I was that man, in this case. Had been for months by the time of this memory." Percy swallowed. "But we didn't just want to break in or out, now. My cover was blown in the last mission, we had no other people inside, and more and more people were being taken. Even Hogwarts, children, were not safe. The greatest gift of the Wizarding World," Percy said softly.

"The wards had to be brought down. We had to shut off the machine," Draco added, the first thing he'd said since Percy revealed himself in the memory. His eyes were utterly vacant. Narcissa moved to pull him close, but Blaise tucked Draco against his side before she could take a step.

"And those wards," Theo explained, "Are very old and layered with magic. More importantly, they are built on blood." At some of the blank looks from the Light adults, Theo elaborated. "Back in the day, whole hordes of magicals on the pyre or the chopping block swore their blood—their power—to the Ministry. Or, well, the medieval equivalent."

Amelia frowned. "No wizards or witches actually died like that—"

Percy cut her off. "We don't have time for a history lesson. The short of it is, the wards needed a wiling sacrifice to break. I served the purpose."

Dead silence. Tears trailed down Arthur's terrified face. Ron sighed. The twins stared on solemnly while Bill balled his fists in rage. Charlie glared at the floor. Draco shifted uncomfortably, pain flickering across his face.

In the memory, Percy looked up from his silent contemplation and promptly kicked in the Minister's office doors. The crack made the assembly jerk. Percy took it in stride, scanning the room. There was no one there. Percy chuckled darkly. With confident steps, he settled himself behind the desk. He kicked up his feet on the table. Lying back in the chair, he produced a small box from his trouser pocket, a pocket watch from his vest, and a photo from his shirt pocket, over his heart. All of these he set on his lap. In the photo, a happy collection of twenty or so young people in black tie laughed with each other.

"Cho and I's wedding," the returned Percy explained. "A shotgun at Black Lake. It was the only way I could see around having Molly take over everything. I regretted that she, Ginny, and Hermione had gone on a sudden trip that weekend, but now it seems like a blessing."

In the memory Percy smiled at the photo. Then he drew his wand. "Sonorous," he whispered. He kept one eye on the photo and one on the clock, left hand resting lightly on the box's lid.

"Dear Ministry officials, aurors, and associated workers," Percy began, his voice strong and sure, rumbling through the whole building. "By now, I hope evacuation has begun. If not, this is your signal to do so. If you begin this moment, you will have a comfortable allotment of time to complete procedure. No one will be harmed."

Percy took a deep breath. "For those of you unaware, the Ministry has committed crimes against magic. The list is extensive and I have no time to do it justice. If your curiosity is piqued, the evidence is currently in Goblin hands. As the charges do include offences against the Goblin Kingdom, good luck shutting them up," Percy laughed.

He pressed his lips into a thin line. "Five minutes. I don't hear the alarms. This will end badly for all of us if you don't follow procedure. Come on, Hemsworth, you're not head of security just because you're pretty. You know I'm not playing."

Percy waited a beat. A high wail filled the memory and Percy smiled. "Thank you, Hemsworth." Percy paused again. He cleared his throat. "To those of you who are confused, who are terrified, who are horrified at what I am implying, you have my apologies and my best wishes. Blessed be, you who know not what has been done. There are sweeter winds to come." His voice took on a nastier edge. "But to you who know what has been wrought, who stood by placidly or contributed earnestly…" Percy grinned, bloodthirsty and wrathful. "May three times what you've wrought be wrought on you."

Cancelling the Sonorous, Percy took the photo in his hand, kissed it quickly, and glanced one last time at the clock. He nodded to himself and took the box in hand. "One last piece of work to keep the stubborn busy," Percy murmured, unlatching the box. From within flew a mass of the terrible black sand that had burst from Pansy. It shrieked, smashing into furniture and growing more terrible and violent with every minute. Then, finally, it smashed through the open doors and into the hall. Screams broke out, accompanied by a symphony of destructive noise.

That done, Percy took up his wand again. He was muttering something, a chant, but too low to be heard. His wand changed shape, becoming a long, glinting dagger.

"Look away," the returned Percy called abruptly. But the others were riveted as though stuck watching a broom crash. Percy reached for his father again, who looked on in frozen anguish. "Dad, please."

But the Percy in memory's eyes were already filling with the frightening metallic light of ritual magic. With a final word there was none of their original colour left at all. Possessed with raw magic and lethal intent, he rose up the dagger and drew it across his throat.

Arthur shrieked, reaching for the memory of his third child, his cautious, clever Percival. He would have gone to his knees if Bill and Charlie hadn't grabbed him, propping him up and hushing him.

The memory dispersed in a violent burst; the smoke almost angry-looking. Before anyone had a chance to say anything—in shock, horror, or support—little Astoria Greengrass upended her bottle.

The scene shook, the two smokes intermingling. Again the scene settled at the Ministry, but now in an entirely different set of halls. Astoria, beautiful and too young, came charging down the hall. She clutched a bleeding child in a medical gown to her chest. As she rounded a corner, a black swarm of Ministry personal came after her.

"No more," Arthur moaned miserably, "Oh, Gods."

"I'm so sorry," Astoria said, her dark eyes full of sympathy. She scanned the room. "But you must see the end."

The Astoria in the memory whipped around, casting a shield over the child as she fired back. She was skilled very much beyond her years, but she was young herself and the Ministry combatants were many. Astoria gasped as a particularly strong hex knocked her onto her back. The combatants rushed forward, wands raised—but then stopped cold. They seemed to be blocked as though they'd run into a wall. The explanation came when the angle shifted and Draco could just be seen behind them, bleeding from the head with both hands thrown up.

Outside the memory, Draco flinched. "This will be messy."

Lucius frowned at his son, mouth open in question, but the answer became terribly clear. When they realized Draco was behind them, the combatants tried to rush him but found themselves equally trapped on that end. Their spells hit Draco's shield like sparks against concrete. A few tried to apparate, but that also fizzled out.

"Draco," Narcissa said, voice wavering. Draco just shook his head.

"I'm sorry," he offered lamely. In the memory, Draco brought his hands together with a smack. The ensuing sound would haunt the retuned in their sleep—an awful, wet crackle; like crunching a hundred beetles underfoot. Caught between Draco's shields as they slammed into each other, the combatants appeared to collapse into slices, like specimens on a glass slide. When Draco dropped his hands, the remains, for they could not be called bodies, fell to the floor in a soup of white, red, and brown.

The Draco in the memory wasted no time. Placing his hands palms down, he appeared to float over the viscera. He did not glance down. Once clear of the mess, he dropped his hands and stepped onto clean carpet, kneeling by Astoria. "Can you walk?" He asked sharply, pressing two fingers to the child's neck.

Astoria coughed. "She's fine and so am I," she snapped with a glare. She did accept Draco's hand up, though. "Percy, where is he?"

Draco's face shuttered. "You felt the wards go?"

Astoria nodded. "Daphne left to inform the others. They'll be here shortly."

Draco nodded once. "Luna should have prepared them. Daphne will be their signal."

Astoria frowned. "What?"

"Percy is dead," Draco said shortly. "Sacrificed himself to take down the wards. That horrible noise we heard? It's a reinforced shard of an Obscurial. The witch it belongs to is also dead. It should give us enough time for reinforcements to get here." He looked at Astoria's stunned face. "This is not truly a breakout mission. We are clearing the Ministry. Burn it and salt it, Astoria."

As Draco finished, numerous cracks split the air, heralding the arrival of the rest of the Resistance. Daphne appeared first, followed by Dean and Seamus. Then the twins, all four of them kitted in the same specialized combat wear as Daphne and Draco. Then Blaise arrived, coming to rest a hand on Draco's shoulder. Oliver and Marcus, Charlie and Fleur Delacour, and a handful of individuals the adult returned didn't recognize joined them.

Finally, Harry popped into place. The returned adults couldn't help a gasp. Like many of the others, Harry too wore a battle suit, but with a beaten leather jacket thrown over. His hair was longer, tied low at his nape, and he wore different glasses. Yet, these were minor details. What really drew attention was the shear malice that radiated off him with his every step, a prowl that spoke inherently of violence. The other fighters looked lethal. But none looked so instinctually frightening as Harry.

"Draco," Harry greeted, face barely changing expression. They clasped arms.

Draco swallowed. "You've been briefed?"

Harry closed his eyes and nodded, letting their arms fall apart.

"Neville and Ron?" Draco asked softly.

If anything, Harry's face grew even colder. "With Bill and Fenrir. The wolves should be in the atrium as we speak. You know our direction?"

Draco nodded. "Percy briefed me."

"We'll run point, then." Not a command, not a question, merely a statement of fact. Harry turned to the rest of the rebels. "Rescue anyone you can, kill anyone who interferes, and with lost cases, be humane. Don't try to be a hero. If you're done, get out. There are few enough of us as it is. In all situations, trust your judgement." Harry glanced around quickly, taking in the grim faces of his cohort. "I need not remind you, Percy died for this opportunity. Do not waste it."

A resounding wave of agreement went through the crowd. Draco and Harry dashed off in the midst of it.

The flutter of images that followed were, frankly, disgusting beyond description. The rebels seemed to run across living examples of every horrific experiment dated from the work of ancient necromancers to Grindelwald. The effect was a montage of terror, pain, and distress that could turn the sanest person mad. By the time the memory ended, with an exhausted Astoria falling sobbing into Daphne's arms, the witnessing returned felt like they had been sucker-punched.

"Well," Narcissa said after the silence had stretched uncomfortably long. "I would now like to propose we break for the evening. We may continue the next day. I feel at this moment that viewing any more would do more harm than good.

Lucius nodded. "I concur. Theodore, could you close the spell?"

With a glance to Harry, who nodded, Theo inclined his head to Lucius and canceled the spell. Slowly, everyone began to drift apart, leaving in small groups or alone to decompress.

Draco was speaking softly to his parents when Ron walked up behind him. The rest of the Weasley family was gathered around Ron.

"Draco?" Ron asked gently. Draco jerked. When he turned, however, he looked perfectly composed.

"Yes?" Draco replied, hesitant. Reviewing the memories, especially this memory, had screwed him up a little more than he had expected.

As if sensing this, Ron didn't bother anymore with words. He merely pulled Draco into a tight hug. "I never blamed you," he murmured in Draco's ear. "None of us ever did."

"It was my choice," Percy confirmed. "You, Luna, Theo—none of you were responsible."

The twins nodded. "If we knew you felt that way—" Fred started.

"We would have put an end to it right quick," George finished.

"There was nothing you could have done," Bill agreed.

Charlie nodded. "Percy was dead set on it," he said with a wink.

Arthur flicked Charlie behind the ear. "That was an awful joke. No wonder the twins have no tact." With a gusty sigh, he gave a tremulous smile to Draco.

"You are obviously quite close to at least two of my sons," Arthur said. "I do wish I had known you earlier. However, even from just these memories, I know that none of this was your fault."

As Draco and Ron parted, Draco looked physically more exhausted than ever before. As though summoned by Draco's distress, Blaise appeared and took his hand.

"Thank you," Draco said after a moment. A relieved smile broke over his face.

Ron smiled back. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah, I guess you will," Draco replied, rubbing at his eyes. His smile turned dreadful. "After all, not enough of us died to leave it there."

Hello, lovelies! I have just started Uni, so that's why this took some time. Your support is what kept me going. Now, I'm thinking I'm going to devote perhaps two more chapters to memories before moving on, so please tell what memories you'd like to see! They don't all have to be sad, either. For the sake of brevity, let's say each returned can only give a memory once, so that takes Rita, Daphne, Luna, Percy, and Astoria off the list. Otherwise, suggest away. Edited 8/20/2022.

Anyway, please tell me what you think! Your reviews are what gibe me power to update! As always, I'm happy to answer anything.

Yours truly,

BlackRoseGirl666

Ps: Can you count the Fantastic Beasts references? I'm still in emotional pain from that movie and I saw it in December. #WhereIsTheRealPercivalGraves?!