Chapter 13:

Aftermath Part 1

Dumbledore

It was nearly midnight when the wards in my office alerted me to a visitor. I had been at a Ministry function, Fudge had invited me specifically and in such a way that I was hard-pressed to decline. No matter how much I would have preferred to be in bed at such late hour. That the visitor had been able to get in at all meant that either they had permission, or that they had used one of my emergency portkeys.

Portkeys were some of the most useful magical items, as well as some of the most dangerous. Portkeys were very easy to disrupt and when disrupted, the consequences for their users where often fatal. The safest way to use a portkey was to have a preplanned rout for it to follow. So that unfortunate travelers didn't run into unexpected wards or unusual magical phenomenon.

Portkeys with an end destination, but not a preplanned starting location, could and often were extremely dangerous. I would not risk them at all if it were not for the unique ability of Hogwarts to seemingly pull any teleportation to itself safely.

As Headmaster of Hogwarts, I was the only one who could set a portkey to enter Hogwarts. This proved extremely useful in the last war as Order members who got in over their heads could use their portkeys to get to safety. Something that Tom's Death Eaters and the ministry were hesitant to try.

I quarried the wards in my office to see which portkey had been used. I frowned when I received the answer. Alex had used the portkey I had given her, but my wards reported that she was not in the office.

I quickly made my excuses and left the Ministry, utilizing the floo to get back to my office.

My frown deepened when, upon entering my office, a small boy screamed and ran away to hide behind my desk. I made my way to one of the chairs in front of my desk and calmly called out.

"If you open the bottom left drawer you will find a small collection of candy." After a moment of silence, I added. "You're welcome to get yourself some if you'd like." I could hear a small gasp as the boy opened the drawer. I smiled to myself, candy was a wonderful thing. If only others would accept them when I offered. Sadly people seemed to go out of their way to refuse my offers, particular the muggle-borns, except Alex. Odd that.

"You know you're the first person to accept my offer of candy in a while." In a ponderous voice I added. "Well except for Alex that is, she always accepts my candy."

A small head peaked out from behind my desk, and a voice garbled slightly from the candy asked. "You know Alex?"

"Oh yes she's one of my favorite students, here at Hogwarts. But I do believe she's on holiday with her family at the moment." Perhaps the boy had simply got ahold of her portkey and activated it by chance. Perhaps Tom would realize the error of his ways and repent. Perhaps, unlikely but perhaps, still what was the world without hope?

"Your one of her magic teachers?" I nodded at him as he slowly came out from behind the desk, holding a bag of candy in front of him as shield. At my nod he suddenly became much more animated. "Then you know magic and you can save her and mom!"

"If you can explain what happened I can certainly try."

The boy, Dudley if my memory served my correctly, nodded eagerly. "We were at a party at the Jenson's." that explained the Darth Vader costume. Wait, the Jensen's? Surely not the Marrok's new representatives? "We'd just left when our tiers got blown up! And then we ran into a tree, but before we could do anything something tore open Mom's door and dragged her away and then Dad ran off after her." he stopped to take a breath before continuing. "Alex gave me this hanky," He held up the portkey to show me exactly what he was talking about. "And told me to say mints." Thankfully the portkey was already at its set destination so nothing happened. "I felt like I was being thrown about every which way and then I was hear and then you showed up." By the end he was gasping for breath.

I stood suddenly and went over to the fire place. After I threw a pinch of floo powder in it. "Professor McGonagall's office." I stuck my head in and saw Minnie at her desk grading papers.

"Albus, it's quite late you know." When she saw my expression she stiffened. "What's the matter?"

"Could you come to my office?" At her nod I backed away from the fire place.

"Blimey! Magic people are crazy." Dudley said. "Sticking your head in a fire place of all things." I smiled slightly.

When Minnie flooed in, I said. "Can you watch mister Drusley while I go fetch his Mother and Miss Potter? It seems they've gotten themselves into a bit of trouble."

A concerned look came over her face, but she nodded determinedly. Oh, Minnie always so brave in the face of adversity. What would I do without you? When she started blushing I realized I may have said that out loud.

Ignoring that for now I reached out to Fawkes, who had been resting on his roost, and he flew to me and landed on my out stretched arm. "I need to get to Miss Potter quickly. Can you take me to her?" Fawkes let out an affirmative caw and we were off.

DDD

I arrived in a clearing in the woods, just in time to see Mr. Drusley remove someone's head. His time in the muggle military served him well, it seems.

Mr. Drusley dropped his shovel, and turned to look at a pair of wolves. Judging by the feel of the magic surrounding them, they had to werewolves of some sort. "Alex? Are you alright where's Dudley?"

Alex? There is no way that even the most virulent of Tier-Wechslers could have forced a change in the short time since young mister Drusley had made it to my office and unless Miss Potter had managed to become an animagus without me noticing, she must have gotten her hands on a hexan-wolf talisman.

I frowned severely at that, to have a dark artifact like that affecting her mind at all, let alone at such a young age. "Fawkes if you will." He let out a fierce cry and flew so fast that most would have mistaken it for teleportation.

Fawkes cry rendered the pair of wolves unable to move, cementing my assumption that they were hexan-wolves. He quickly disabled Miss Potter and the other wolf, removing their talismans, before singing the two of them to sleep. Fawkes song would help to clear the dark magic from their bodies.

That done I turned my attention to Mr. Dursley, who had been similarly stunned by Fawkes cry. "Mr. Drusley are you ok?"

He shook his head to clear it, while he was doing that I made my way over to the other bodies. "Who are you?! What are you doing?" Before I could respond he started running at me. "You get away from my wife!"

I made it to the bodies, one of which was Mrs. Durley. She thankfully seemed to be breathing, the other two, men, were not so fortunate. As Mr. Dursley came near I spoke. "I assure you I have only the best of intentions towards your wife." When he didn't respond I continued. "She seems to be injured, if you let me I may be able to help."

He looked unconvinced. "I am the Headmaster at your nieces school, I implore you let me help." At his hesitant nod I got to work, casting diagnostic charms on Mrs. Drusley. A concussion, multiple broken bones and various cut and abrasions. Nothing fatal, but I would need Madam Pomfrey to insure she made a complete recovery.

I was no healer, but I did know more than my fair share of medical spells, as I set about applying aid I started talking to Mr. Dursley. "I know what happened up until you started after your wife, but could you please tell me what happened after that?"

"And how do you know that?" He asked, gripping his shovel tightly.

"Your son Dudley filled me in. He's safe in my office at Hogwarts," Before he could voice the question I knew was coming I continued. "Before your niece came home for the holidays I gave her a teleportation device to use in an emergency. Such as another Red Court attack, like the one that happened in the summer."

"She used it to send Dudley away?" Mr. Dursley asked, suspicious. Of me, or of Alex?

I forced a light chuckle. "I admit when I gave her the portkey I had expected her to use it herself. But to use it to save her cousin is certainly before coming to help her family is most brave." For her to do so spoke well of her, but for her to put herself in such danger, when help was so close, was worrying. No child should have to make such decisions.

Alex was a child of destiny, she was chosen of fate. Her future was going to be difficult, dangerous in ways that most could not understand. But that did not mean she should have to deal with such things just yet. She was under my protection, more importantly she was a child. It was the preview of adults to insure the health and happiness of children. If it was the last thing I did I would insure she had as happy a childhood as possible.

Still unsure but willing to humor me Mr. Dursley finally answered my earlier question. "After these things took my wife I chased after them. I caught up to them, two of them started hounding me. Then Alex showed up, she distracted them long enough for me to kill them."

I finished with Mrs. Drusley and stood facing him. "Mr. Dursley I…"

Mr. Dursley glared at me. "I. Killed. Them."

I stared at him a moment, he was lying. More than that he knew I knew he was lying. I nodded slowly to him. "Fare enough, though if you think Alex has been, traumatized by this. Please know that I will ensure that she receives the best care possible."

He held my gaze for a long moment, before nodding carefully. "Good, now I believe the only question is what to do with this young lady." I gestured to the young women laying by Miss Potter.

I repressed a small grimace when the small group in the woods made themselves known. "She's coming with us." I calmly turned around. To see two large wolves flanking a Tier-Wechsler in half form and a well-dressed blond haired women in a pantsuit. All of their eyes were glowing a fierce yellow, each of them looked as if they had been through a fight.

"R-Rachel?" Mr. Dursley stuttered.

Rachel Jensen gave him a calming smile, the effect was ruined by her glowing eyes. "Hello Vernon, how are you?" Her eyes never left mine. He never responded, apparently the nights events were finally too much and he decided to keep quiet. "These trespassers attacked my home, they attacked our guests while in our territory. I want to know why."

I could argue with her, technically as a member of an Ancient and Noble House was attacked I could involve Ministry, but Miss Potter and her Aunt needed medical attention and they needed it soon. That and I didn't trust the Ministry to handle this correctly. Werewolves were involved, and the Ministry was never clear thinking when it came to werewolves. The last thing we needed was a war with The Marrok.

So I nodded to her. "If you would be willing to share what you learn about tonight I would be most appreciative."

The Alpha of the White cliffs pack nodded her head. "I will owl you the details."

With her agreement secured I quickly gathered Miss Potter's things and had Fawkes take the four of us to the Hospital wing at Hogwarts.

888

Alex

I lay in my bed in the Ravenclaw dormitories, trying not to think.

The last few days I had been doing my best imitation of a perfectly normal, if slightly traumatized, school girl. If I was being perfectly honest I wasn't that much worse off than I was pretending to be, but Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey were each offering to contact a Mind Healer and before they left, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon encouraged me to accept.

I couldn't risk anyone getting a look inside my head, no matter how helpful it might have been. If they got a look at what was in my head the best case scenario ended with me being taken to the wizarding equivalent of a mental hospital the worst ended with me being mind wiped. No, no matter how helpful a Mind healer might have been I couldn't risk it.

I sighed and rolled over.

When Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had been saying goodbye, I thought I had managed to fool them. Aunt Petunia hadn't bought it, Uncle Vernon had taken Dudley away so she could talk to me.

After sending Dudley away she leaned toward me. "What you went through was bad, but I want you to know we still love you. What you had to do was hard and it's something that will stay with you for the rest of your life." She gave me hug. "These people here, they want to help you. Let them."

I gave her my best reassuring smile. "Of course Aunt Petunia."

She sighed and shook her head. "If you want to come back, at any time you're welcome to. I made Dumbledore promise to arrange transportation."

They left shortly after that.

I repositioned myself to get more comfortable. It wasn't like I was trying to deceive them, it's just that I didn't want them to worry. Killing those men, was horrible and it did affect me, but I was dealing with it.

I really was.

I closed the curtains on my bed and tried to get some sleep, the calming potion wasn't working as well as it had been. So I wasn't getting enough sleep, and I wanted to be well rested when Pansy and Hermione got here. The Express was coming in today, a little sleep and I would be able to deal with being around people I was sure of it.

888

Hermione

Alex wasn't on the Express, but I wasn't that worried. I'm sure she was perfectly fine.

"She's fine." Pansy said. "If something had happened to her there would be a ten page article on it in the Prophet."

"I know she's fine." I retorted.

"Really?" Pansy reached over and placed her hand on my knee, only then did I notice that it had been wiggling. I forced it to stop.

"Ok maybe I'm a little worried." I admitted. "We had planned to ride the express together, remember."

Pansy arched her brow, smiling slightly. "Yes, I do remember being there for that discussion."

I blushed, "Right, sorry. It's just this isn't like her. Is it? Alex always shows up if she says she's going to."

"I'm sure she's fine Ganger. She probably had to get to Hogwarts early, maybe her Family had to go out of town and wouldn't be back before the break ended. Or something." Pansy sighed. "Look we'll get to Hogwarts and you'll see."

I nodded and tried to lose myself in 'Most Potent Potions'.

The rest of the trip seemed to take forever, but eventually we made it to Hogwarts. Alex was waiting for us in the entrance hall. As soon as I saw her I drew her into a hug.

"How ya'll doing." Alex asked. Ya'll? I let go and noticed how tense she looked.

"I'm fine," I turned to look at Pansy, expecting her to say something, but she just stood there frowning while she stared at Alex. I shook my head before turning to look at Alex. "Why weren't you on the Express?"

"Oh, no reason. Something came up and I needed to get to Hogwarts early." Alex smiled, and started walking towards the Great hall. "I don't know about the two of you but I'm starved."

As she was walking in one of the other students bumped into her, the Hufflepuff, Perks I think, apologized before continuing on. I wouldn't have thought anything about it except that Alex spun before freezing for a long moment and moving towards the Ravenclaw table.

"I think you may be right." Pansy said.

I looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"I think something happened to her." Pansy said. "Something bad."

"You know she doesn't like people bumping into her and she's always been jumpy." I said, defending Alex. "She was just startled."

Pansy arched her brow. "She's never almost attacked another student."

"Alex wouldn't…"

"You might not have noticed but she drew her wand. The only reason were not short one Hufflepuff is because she stopped herself at the last moment." Pansy sounded serious.

"What should we do?" I asked, I didn't have much practice with friends and none of my research on the subject mentioned what to do for something like this.

Pansy shrugged. "Make sure she doesn't do something that she'll regret."

"If that doesn't work?"

"She made us talk after the mirror, if we need to we'll make her talk about what ever this is."

I nodded and we made our way over to sit by Alex.

888

Pansy

Worry-concern-sadness. I looked up to see Hermione coming towards me.

"Alex wasn't in Defense today." She said, as she set her bag down at my library table. I frowned, it had been a week since classed had started back up and we had been seeing less and less of Alex. The little we did see of her was not reassuring, her movement were alternatively glacial or jerky fast. She was jumping at shadows and I didn't mean that figuratively. Shad had literally jumped a good two feet in the air when Filch's cat had passed by, and it was still light out.

I tried to talk to her after that but she turned the corner and seemingly disappeared. I would have thought she had just used a secret passage or disillusioned herself but I couldn't even feel her emotions. I was attuned to her now, I could feel her and Hermione from almost the other side of Hogwarts. Unless one of us was in the Room, but lately she had been disappearing from my senses as well as my sight.

"I think it's time we get to the bottom of this." Hermione said. I nodded in agreement. "So, how do find her? I tried a point me charm earlier but it just kept spinning. So I tried the Room, but she wasn't there either, and I can't think were else she would be that would interfere with the tracking spell."

"The Headmasters office?" I asked, but I didn't think so. The Professors had been watching Alex as well and she had gone out of her way to avoid them in response. Dashing out of the classrooms as soon as class ended and not answering in class unless the Professor specifically called on her.

Hermione shrugged. "Maybe? Do you think we should try it?"

I shook my head. "Not unless we can't find her, bringing the Professors is a last resort."

Do so was easier said than done. According to Hermione, Alex wasn't there when she went to bed or when she woke up but her bed was definitely being used and she disappeared right after class ended. It took me three days to finally corner her, well to get her alone at least.

We were in a rarely traveled section of Hogwarts, not that that was saying anything. Hogwarts was huge and we only used a small portion of it for classes such.

I had skipped all my classes today to follow Alex around well all of them except potions, I wasn't feeling suicidal after all. Anyway, after I finished with Potions, I started following her. I was disillusioned for most of the time but she seemed to figure out that someone was following her, because she started making her way to the less used sections, and when I turned the corner to another empty hallway I thought I had lost her. Again.

I dropped my invisibility charm, and sighed in disgust. "Damn it, Alex you're not making this easy." I nearly jumped when I suddenly felt her emotions behind me. I turned around to see her leaning against the wall.

"Making what easy?" Alex asked smiling. I fought a wince, her smile was painfully fake and her emotions were nearly screaming at me. They were raging so hard I couldn't get a clear read on what she was feeling. The one thing that I could feel clearly through that maelstrom of emotion was exhaustion. She felt like she was going to drop any moment, but aside from her fake smile she looked perfectly put together.

"We need to talk." Was she using cosmetic charms?

"About what?" Alex asked, fake smile still in place.

I didn't bother holding back a growl when she said that. "You know damn well what I'm talking about Potter."

"I'm afraid I don't know Parkinson. Why don't you figure it out then come get me when you do." She said, and tried to walk away.

I say tried, because as soon as she pushed off the wall she started falling forward. I jumped forward to catch her. I knew Alex was on edge, had been on edge for the last week at least. So when I went to catch her I was ready.

I hadn't even touched her when she pivoted on her heel, and throwing her whole body behind it, thrust her arm up knife in hand. The way she was aiming the knife would have pierced the bottom of my jaw and severed the carotid artery.

The wound, while not instantly fatal given the relatively small size of her knife, would have caused me to bleed out in seconds. Even with magical healing and my enhanced constitution I would be dead well before anyone could help me.

I caught her hand an inch before the knife would have pierced my neck. I held her a moment and saw it in her eyes when she realized what she had almost done. Paranoid-anger gave way to fear and disgust, self-disgust, before she broke down sobbing. I caught her as she fell and, keeping a comfortable hold on her, slowly sat on the floor.

"Why don't you come out Granger?" Hermione dropped her spell and suddenly became visible, looking at us in horror. Alex started crying harder.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, so sorry." I kept holding her, I nodded towards Hermione and after a moment she set up a silencing spell, before joining us on the floor.

We sat there for a long time, just holding her, murmuring assurances and Alex apologizing. After a long while she calmed down and finally told us what happened.

Hermione and I listened in horrified silence as she described killing the two hexan-wolves. How she wanted to taste that mad man's blood, how she woke up nearly night drenched in sweat with a copper taste on her tongue.

"…And every time I try and relax I see his eyes accusing me. 'You killed Dave bitch I'm going to kill you.' And for a spilt moment I actually think he's there and I'm going to have to kill him again." She fell silent before apologizing again. "I'm really sorry, about…"

"Trying to stab me?" I finished dryly. I fought a laugh at Hermione's gasp of disapproval, and did smile at Alex's blush. "It's ok. I kind of thought you'd try that. So I was ready for it."

"I killed two people and you get me in a position where you think I might try to stab you, on purpose?" Alex asked looking incredulous. "Are you crazy?!"

"Well I thought you'd try and punch me, that's why I had Granger following me so she could stun you after you tried." Besides the day she was fast enough to get on past me was the day I gave up on beating Mother.

Alex suddenly sat up, she had been laying on the two of us, and pulled us into a tight hug. Her emotions still had a ragged edge but they were calmer, and I could clearly feel her gratitude-love-acceptance. "That you, thank you so much."

I returned her hug. "What are friends for?"