The young woman at the door blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Er." Remus closed his eyes briefly, attempting to stop his face from turning the same shade of crimson as Gryffindor's Quidditch robes. "I don't suppose we could pretend the last ten seconds never happened?" he asked into the darkness.

"Didn't hear a thing," said the young woman briskly, though a spark of mischief lurked deep in the brown eyes as Remus opened his own again. "I assume you need to see the lady who lives here?"

"Yes. If I can." Remus stepped inside past her. "I heard something worrying about our mutual friends, and I just wanted to check—"

A shriek cut him off, as a little girl of about two, with the same brown bushy hair as the woman, hurtled through the doorway from the back of the house. Chasing her with a gleeful squeal, as fast as his legs could carry him—

Remus reached out to the wall for balance as Harry Potter, very much alive, scrambled to a halt, staring at him. "Mooey?" the little boy said tentatively, then broke into one of his enormous grins. "Mooey!"

Dropping to one knee, Remus braced himself for the full-speed hug which was Harry's usual method of greeting his favorite adults. His mind was spinning.

Is it not true, then? Are they all right? I can't imagine how Harry could be alive if Voldemort really had attacked them…

"Ah, so that's what I heard," said another new voice, though this one Remus could put a name to with ease. He looked up and smiled.

"Aletha," he said, getting to his feet and settling Harry on his hip, nodding in agreement as the little boy babbled something at him in rapid-fire toddler. "How are you?"

"To be honest? I've been better." Aletha stepped into the front room of her home, her face set in lines of worry. "I was about to send you a messenger, but I assume since you're here, you've already heard."

"Some jumbled story about the Potters and Voldemort all being dead. But of course that can't be…" Remus trailed off as Aletha sank down into one of the armchairs, her eyes for one instant filled with overwhelming sorrow. "My God. No."

"I'm afraid so." Aletha motioned for him to take another chair, as the brown-haired woman took a seat on the sofa, the girl climbing up to her lap. "It's complicated. Maybe I'd better start at the beginning. Oh, and before I forget." She motioned to the woman. "This is GG. We were friends before I went away to Hogwarts, and I looked her up again recently. The little one is her sister, Neenie."

"Remus Lupin." Remus nodded to woman and girl. "Moony to certain of my friends, and to our human Bludger here." He swung Harry through the air, eliciting a happy yell, and settled him on his lap. "And are you…"

"Not magical, no." GG shook her head. "But Neenie is, which seems to make me eligible for a guest pass to the secret clubhouse at least." She shrugged one shoulder, dismissing this. "Not important now. Letha. Talk."

"Bossy as ever, I see." Aletha traded a smile with her friend, then returned her attention to Remus. "The rest of what you heard is true," she said bluntly. "James and Lily are both dead, and Voldemort is gone. I'd love to assume dead for him as well, but given how much we'd learned about his ventures into Dark magic…"

"That's not guaranteed. I understand." Remus nodded grimly, then looked down at the child on his lap, who had found a loose thread in Remus's jeans and was tugging at it. "But how did Harry survive? What happened?"

"No one knows." Aletha raised her hand to her own forehead. "The only mark on him is here. I've treated it as best I could, but it's probably going to scar."

Gently Remus brushed back Harry's fringe to reveal a fresh cut across the center of his forehead, shaped like a bolt of lightning. "Strange," he murmured, letting the hair spring back into its characteristic messiness. "So Harry lived, when everyone else died…" He looked up, meeting Aletha's eyes. "How?" he asked, tightening his hold on the boy. "How could Voldemort get at them, with the Fidelius Charm in effect? Is Sirius—"

"Sirius is fine." Aletha folded her hands across her knee, keeping her gaze level on Remus. "He's the one who brought Harry here. He's out there right now, looking for someone. But to explain that, I need to tell you something that is going to make you angry."

"More than this night already has?" Remus exhaled sharply. "What the hell. Go for it."

"Months ago, I began to have these strange, recurring dreams." Aletha lifted her eyes to the ceiling, her face abstracted. "Overwhelming sorrow and loneliness, exhaustion like I could barely take my next step, the knowledge that I had to keep going. And over all of it, throughout all those emotions, this strong, strong sensation that I needed to know the truth. That someone, someone close to me, was keeping a secret, and if I let them go on keeping it, all of this would come true."

GG was listening intently from the couch, Neenie snuggled close to her sister, one thumb in her mouth. Harry had moved on from the loose thread on Remus's jeans to attempting to reach into his pockets. Remus drew his wand, conjured a hand-sized circle of silvery metal, and handed it to the boy, who immediately started gnawing on it.

"With that in mind, I noticed right away when Sirius started acting oddly." Aletha smiled one-sidedly. "Not that he doesn't always, but you know what I mean. I'd find him staring at walls and muttering to himself, or stabbing his quill through a piece of parchment like he did when he was trying to work up the courage to ask me out the first time. After a while, I decided enough was enough." Her smile broadened. "I stole his wand and threatened to drop it down the drain unless he told me what was going on."

"I wish I could have seen that." Remus smiled briefly at the thought of his friend's indignation, then sobered. "So? What was it?"

"The Fidelius Charm. And whether they should add, as he put it, another level of protection." Aletha closed her eyes briefly. "They changed Secret-Keepers, Remus. It was never Sirius at all. And the person it was, is now missing. There was no sign of a struggle, no trace that he was lured out. He's simply gone. And James and Lily are dead."

"Peter." The name emerged without conscious thought on Remus's part. "It's been him all along, hasn't it? The spy within the Order, the one we could never find? And now…" Rage and grief warred for place within his chest, making his breath come short, his hands close into fists, his teeth clench tight—

"Mooey?" asked a little voice from his lap, and Remus forced himself to relax, smiling down at Harry, who was looking at him with concern.

"It's all right, Harry," he said, stroking his fingers through the perpetually messy hair. "It'll be all right now." He looked back up at Aletha. "So that's where Sirius is. Looking for Peter. And after that's done, I assume he'll come back here and settle down with you? Take over raising Harry, now that we're done with the war?"

"Well, that's where another of the complications comes in." Aletha pleated a fold of her robes between her fingers. "You see, we're not exactly supposed to have Harry right now…"

A short time earlier

"Beg your pardon, but what did you say?" Sirius stared at Hagrid in disbelief, tightening his grip on Harry. "You're supposed to take him where?"

"To his aunt an' uncle. Lily's sister an' her husband." Hagrid glanced at the ruins of the Potters' cottage, then resolutely away. "Dumbledore said that'd be the safes' place fer him."

"You're joking." Sirius shook his head. "You have to be joking. They're Muggles, Hagrid, and not the nice kind either! They hate magic, they're terrified of it, the last thing in the world they'd want is a little wizard dumped on their doorstep! Not to mention, Harry's never met them in his life!" He looked down at the green-eyed miracle in his arms and felt a surge of frantic protectiveness rise in his chest. "What could possibly make Dumbledore think that would be a good idea?"

"He said yeh might ask that." Hagrid fumbled in first one pocket, then another. "Hang on a tick, got it here somewhere…ah, right." Extracting a scroll, he passed it over to Sirius. "Here yeh go."

Shifting Harry into a one-armed hold, Sirius unrolled the scroll and began to read the few short paragraphs in Dumbledore's familiar, narrow handwriting.

My friend—

Hagrid is acting on my orders. I ask you not to interfere. The happenings of tonight have invoked an ancient, powerful magic which will offer Harry great protection in the time to come. However, in order to take advantage of that protection, he must live under the same roof as those related closely to him by blood.

For the time being, please let Harry go to his aunt and uncle, where we can be certain that any attempts on his life by Death Eaters will be blocked by this protective magic. Once things have become more settled, if you still wish to claim his custody, I will assist you in doing so. Thank you for your understanding.

APWBD

Sirius swore under his breath (a habit he'd picked up since Harry had begun repeating every new word he could make out) and shoved the scroll into his pocket. "All right, I suppose that makes sense," he said reluctantly, looking back up at Hagrid. "Just give me a minute with him, would you? To say goodbye?"

"Fine by me." Hagrid looked up and down the street. "Wonder where'd be best ter call the Knight Bus from 'round here."

"The Knight Bus?" Sirius stifled a disbelieving laugh. "You're going to take him wherever you're going on the Knight Bus?"

"Got a list o' stops here." Hagrid patted another pocket. "Roundabout route'll be the safest. Unpredictable, like."

"Well, if it's unpredictable you want, why not be in control of it yourself?" Sirius nodded towards his motorbike, parked at the curb. "You can still stop off at all those same places. Walk around with him a little while, take care of whatever he needs, then head out again."

"You sure 'bout this, Sirius?" Hagrid seemed drawn towards the bike, but kept his feet firmly in place. "I wouldn' want ter wreck it, I know how much it means to yeh…"

"Harry means more." Sirius bounced his godson once in his arms, and got a subdued little giggle in return. "Go and have a look at it, make sure you know where everything is. I'll get to saying those goodbyes."

As Hagrid hurried towards the bike, Sirius seated himself on the pavement, looking down at the top of Harry's head as his godson nuzzled into his robes. "This won't be much fun for you, Greeneyes," he said softly. "But it's only for a little while, I promise. Padfoot just has to go stop the bad man who let your daddy and mummy get hurt, and take down enough of the others that you can be safe. Then I'll come and get you, and take you home with me. Pretty soon you won't even remember those nasty mean Muggles, not as anything other than a bad dream…"

He shivered suddenly as his own bad dreams crashed over him, the ones he'd tried desperately for most of a year to ignore, or explain away as fear and worry and stress. Darkness and cold, loneliness, grief, an endless loop of sorrow and pain—all the stupidest things he'd ever done, the choices that had snatched his life away from him, running through his mind without ceasing, impossible to escape or evade—

Azkaban. I keep dreaming of Azkaban. And this feeling, like the whisper of a warning. Watch out, stupid, don't make the same mistake I did, or this could happen to you…

He looked down at Harry, dozing against his shoulder, back at the ruins of the cottage, then over at Hagrid, investigating the various levers and switches on the motorbike.

I've seen this before. This moment. This time. It's there, in the dreams, in Azkaban. Does that mean it's already too late? Have I botched it up beyond saving? Or—

His arms tightened protectively around his godson, and Sirius had his answer. Shifting Harry's position and drawing his wand, he began to outline a shape in the air, concentrating on what he needed.

This might be the most important piece of magic he'd ever do.

"Here you go, Hagrid." Sirius passed across what he was holding. "I've done a little charm on him for you, to keep him calm and comfortable. He'll probably fall asleep at some point. Just let him be, all right?"

"No problem." Hagrid cradled his burden in the crook of one great arm. "Thanks fer the loan, Sirius, I'll bring it back ter yeh when I'm done. At Headquarters still?"

"Yeah, there's a spot out back where you can leave it. I'll pick it up there later." Sirius stroked one gleaming handlebar fondly. "Take care, Hagrid."

"Same ter you." Hagrid straddled the bike and hit the starter, engaging the flying gear once the motor was running smoothly. "Give my best ter Letha!" he called as he ascended sharply, headed for the cover of the clouds.

"Oh, I will," Sirius murmured, shifting his cloak a little to one side. "I will."

When the outline of Hagrid and the motorbike had vanished into the overcast night sky, Sirius let out a long breath and leaned back on his heel. "How about that," he said, pulling back his cloak to reveal a sleepily blinking Harry, held against his side with a long strip of cloth. "Worked like a charm. All right, there, Greeneyes?"

Harry babbled an answer in which the only distinguishable words were "Pa-fuh" and "Leeta", making Sirius grin. "Kid knows a good idea when he hears it," he said, untying and Vanishing the cloth, then tossing Harry once in the air, earning a shriek of delight. "Come on, then. Next stop, Letha's place."

"So he just showed up on your doorstep with Harry?" Remus set the little boy on the floor, as his squirming was becoming distracting. "That must have been a shock."

"Oh, better than that." Aletha nodded over her shoulder. "He Apparated straight into the kitchen. Which I have told him a thousand times not to do," she added, scowling. "It disrupts half the wards I've put up on this place, not to mention he scared little Neenie almost out of her wits when he appeared out of nowhere."

Remus grimaced. "I hope you can forgive him," he said to GG, who had moved her sister to the sofa beside her, as the little girl seemed on the verge of falling asleep. "He does usually have a few manners, but everything that's happened tonight seems to have put them on hold."

"Don't worry about it." GG got up with care, stroking Neenie's hair as she curled into a ball on the couch cushions, then crossed the room to lean against the doorframe and watch Harry as he pattered back and forth, babbling to himself about something unintelligible to mere grownups. "I wasn't very polite either, last year when my world fell apart. Just an ordinary summer Sunday, taking my sister for an airing in the park, but when I got home, my house had this strange green smoke thing hovering over it."

"Your parents?" Remus hazarded, and sighed when she nodded. "I'm so sorry. We did our best to stop the Death Eaters, track them down, discourage them as best we could…"

"But you couldn't be everywhere. I understand." GG smiled a little as Harry ran up to her, holding out the metallic circle Remus had given him. "Yes, it's very shiny, isn't it? No wonder you like it. I was more disturbed that the people who'd come to clean things up seemed to think the best way to help me was to mess about with my memories," she continued, Harry darting past her to run towards the back room Remus knew Aletha used for her music. "If one of them hadn't noticed that Neenie's crying was making the wall clock run backwards, I'd probably think my mum and dad had died in a car crash or a gas explosion." A tiny smile touched her lips as she turned her head away. "Not that knowing the truth does me any good, since—"

She broke off, her eyes widening. Without a word, she bolted down the hallway, the same direction Harry had gone.

Remus started to his feet as Aletha did likewise. Three running strides brought him to the doorway GG had passed through, five more carried him down the corridor and through the squeezed-air feeling of a Zoned Silencer—

He was just in time to see a whisk of black and white cloth, a rush of bushy brown hair, a pair of frightened green eyes, before the tiny cluster of three people vanished with the loud crack of a disrupted Disapparition.

Aletha, behind him, swore comprehensively, drawing her wand and whisking it around herself to dispel the Silencing Spell. "I am going to murder Sirius Black," she finished, tapping her wand three times against the nearest wall and cursing again at the diagram of lines which appeared. "Why he couldn't just use the front door like a normal human being—though I shouldn't talk, I know what unscheduled Apparitions do to my wards, and like a fool I didn't bother to fix them up, I thought we had more time—"

"Wait." Remus held up his hand, stopping Aletha from coming further into the music room. Something was tickling at the edge of his senses, a feeling or impression he couldn't quite name. "The Death Eater, the one who was just here. Did you recognize him?"

"He was masked, of course I…" Aletha trailed off, frowning. "Now that you mention it, he did seem familiar. One of the high-rankers, do you think? The ones who'd know where their Master was headed tonight, and might have checked in to see how it was going?"

"And found out it didn't go as planned. Or heard about it in passing, the way I did, and decided to see if he couldn't capitalize on it." Remus inhaled slowly, his sense of half-conscious recognition growing stronger. "Do you know any spells to check for contaminants? Foreign objects, things that don't belong?"

"Only about half a dozen," said Aletha dryly. "But I see what you're getting at. Give me a moment, here…"

Several graceful wand-waves later, with a jab towards herself, Remus, and one back in the direction of the front room, Aletha finished her pattern with a broad swirl and twist. On the floor, several thin gleams of silver light erupted. Remus knelt and picked up one of the longest, a shudder of combined fear and hope making his breath come short.

"Malfoy," he said, holding out the strand of pale-blond hair for Aletha to see. "Lucius Malfoy. He's one of the manor-house lot, isn't he? Lives in Wiltshire?"

"Is it? I thought…" Aletha frowned, rubbing her left elbow as she muttered to herself, then nodded. "No, that's right. Wiltshire. Malfoy Manor, it's called," she added with a momentary grin. "Full marks for creativity."

"Creative or not, that's where he'll have gone." Remus got to his feet, his mind filled with a diamond clarity. "And that's where I'm going. Not you," he cut off Aletha's protest ruthlessly. "Someone has to stay with little Neenie, and she's never met me before. She'll be terrified if she wakes up and I'm the only person around. Not to mention, if Sirius comes back and I'm here alone, without you or Harry…"

"Point taken." Aletha stepped into the room, gesturing to the fireplace. "I can put in a firecall to Headquarters and see if someone can head out there to back you up."

"One of the Longbottoms would be best. Both, if they're free." Remus made sure his wand was loose in its arm holster. "Will I break anything else if I Disapparate from here?"

"No worse than already happened." Aletha drew her own wand. "But I'll be fixing them up as soon as I make that firecall, so please use the alley when you get back."

"When." Remus nodded briskly. "I'll shoot for when."

"Oh!" Aletha's exclamation halted him as he was about to turn in place. "I just remembered!" Opening the piano bench, she pulled out a long, shimmering fall of silvery fabric and thrust it into Remus's arms. "Take this with you. It might help."

"It most certainly will." Remus shifted the cloth until he found an edge, then swung it over his shoulders, pulling it into place around himself. "But what's it doing here?"

"Dumbledore dropped it off, the last time he came by. Said James had left it with him, in case it was needed." Aletha was already kneeling beside the fireplace, preparing to light the flames. "Hurry, go. There's no time to waste."

"See you soon." Remus closed his eyes for a moment, moving his fingers in the same motions he would use to produce a basic scale on his violin, a calming exercise he'd learned from his mother to help him control the power he'd inherited from his father.

Near Malfoy Manor. Secret. Safe. Holding to these thoughts, he Disapparated, letting his unspoken desires propel him to his destination.

He had a great many questions to ask, and only one person could provide the necessary answers.

Lucius Malfoy yanked himself out of the darkness of Apparition within the safety of his son's nursery, shaking loose the grasp of the strange woman who had leapt onto him at the last second. "Are you mad?" he demanded, shifting the weight of Harry Potter to his left arm so that he could draw his wand. "Don't you know what you could have—"

He broke off with an undignified yelp as one slender hand dug its fingernails into his wrist. The other closed around the shaft of his wand, twisting it away from his loosened grasp, and the woman darted across the nursery, planting her back against the wall beside Draco's cot. The boy was standing up inside, staring wide-eyed at these strange people who had invaded his space.

"Put him down," the woman snapped, bending one of her knees and grasping the wand between her hands. "Right this second, or I'll break it in half, I swear I will."

"Very well." Lucius bent slowly to set the child in his arms on the floor. "And who might you be, that you're so concerned for this boy?"

"None of your business." The woman shifted her attention, smiling down at the child. "Harry," she called softly. "Come here, love."

Harry glanced dubiously up at Lucius before loping across the room to the woman's side. She shifted her position to tuck him between herself and the corner of the cot, then returned her gaze to Lucius. "You want this back, don't you?" she asked, indicating the wand in her hands.

"As would any wizard," said Lucius coldly. And her lack of knowledge about the most basic of magical principles, as well as her readiness to disrupt so delicate a process as Apparition, tells me what she must be. A Muggle, touching me, entering my house, standing in close proximity to my son—

Still, she has spirit. And no one knows that either she or little Harry is here. He allowed himself a brief smile under his mask for the success of his plan. I had thought my dreams over these past months mere paranoia, for surely a Mudblood, a blood-traitor, and their infant child would be no match for the Dark Lord in all his power. And yet, when I chose to act on the promptings of those dreams and check on my Master's progress tonight, such things I was privileged to hear, and to see.

Such as my wife's cousin Sirius tricking that oaf Hagrid into carrying off a charmed doll in the shape of his godson, and then Apparating away with the actual child in tow.

His smile broadened. It took time to trace the Apparition, yes, and still more time to work my way through the wards on his destination without alerting anyone, but what a rich prize it has won for me…

"I want your word on something, then," the woman was saying now, her eyes still fixed on Lucius's masked face. "If I give this back to you, you won't use it against us. Not me, not Harry, and not whoever this is." Her gaze tracked towards Draco. "How about it?"

"That is my son, and I will thank you not to insinuate I would harm him." Lucius pulled off his mask, so that the woman could see the full extent of his displeasure at such a ridiculous idea. "So that is your price for returning my wand? My promise that it will not be used against you?"

"That's the size of it." The woman nodded once. "What's it going to be?"

"It would seem I have no choice." Lucius allowed a note of brittle disdain to creep into his voice, though inwardly he was smiling more broadly than ever. "Very well, you have my word."

The woman gave Lucius one more long and searching look, then flipped his wand across the room to land at his feet, bending to scoop Harry into her arms in the same motion. Draco, watching from his cot, puckered up his face and began to wail, a noise Lucius knew from experience would rapidly grade out of irritating into infuriating.

"Deal with that, if you're so worried about him," he ordered, nodding towards his son as he went to one knee and picked up his wand. "I will return shortly."

"Fine by me." The woman shifted Harry to sit on her right hip and hooked her left arm around Draco, hoisting him out of the cot. "Goodness me, real tears," she crooned to him, bouncing him in place. "Surely it's not as bad as all that, is it now…"

Stepping into the hallway, Lucius closed the door of the nursery and added a basic Locking Charm, beginning to smile. "So I have gained two prizes on the day, rather than one," he said softly. "Harry Potter—the agent of my Master's downfall, and doubtless also the key to bringing him back to power—and a woman with some skill at tending children. Which will be useful, given that two of them now reside in this household."

And while I have given my word not to use wanded spells against her, I made no such promise with regards to other aspects of magic. He chuckled to himself. I seem to recall that I have a flask of a certain useful brew stored away under the drawing room floor. The Imprimatus Potion, which destroys the capability for human-level thought, and implants instead a touching devotion to the first person the victim sees after the potion has finished its work…

Whistling under his breath, Lucius strode away down the corridor.

Some good might yet be salvaged from the wreckage of this night.

(A/N: What is it with me, coming up with plots and then not writing them for seven years? I mean, I know seven's a magical number, but maybe I could try bringing it down to months instead…

Ah well, I'm writing it now, which is what matters. Please let me know what you think, and I'll keep providing more as quickly as I can!)