A/N: Piano and piano accompanyment music is very conducive to writing...

Chapter 3:

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'But Sirius, why? I don't understand...'

'Harry, the reason I am stuck like this is because I fell through the Veil. It is only through intervention that I am able to be here and a Light one. You are here because of the prophesy... you must go back. As much as I hate it, Harry, your part in this war is not over yet.'

It had been a few weeks since he had woken up here, and Harry had thought he would get to rest here for much longer. And now, now they were saying he had to leave, and they were making Sirius say it. Though to Harry's eyes, he didn't look that happy either.

'When I had gone to your funeral, I had felt your body. You were still there. That was how we knew to dig you up later. Harry, from what you have told me of all these things... these Horcruxes, and what the prophesy said...'

Harry let his head hang slightly, but his voice still held that tinge of annoyance. ' "And either must die at the hand of the other". So neither Voldemort nor I can be killed unless it's one of us that deals the finishing blow?'

'It seems that way, Harry,' said Sirius, pushing back his hair. 'You still have that mirror I gave you, right? Though I have to stay here, you can always talk to me.'

Harry felt a slight rush of guilt, remembering the broken mirror in the bottom of his trunk. Had it even survived the fire? 'I had tried talking to you, and you didn't answer, so I... ermm...'

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Sirius giving a hint of a grin. 'Harry, I hadn't been found yet. Don't worry. You can always cast a repair charm.' Harry still frowned, and shifted so he could look out the enchanted window.

'I just can't go back out there. Even if people excused Harry Potter coming back from the dead--'

'But Harry, you really don't look like the midget you were...'

'Don't call me a midget, Padfoot,' he said, crossing his arms. 'Anyone who knew me could recognize me...'

Harry knew now, he was just making excuses. He just didn't want to leave Sirius. But by the end of the afternoon, Harry stood there at the door of the house as he slipped on a cloak.

And with a last hug of Sirius, he stepped from the house and out into the Muggle street.

He turned back for one last look and was shocked to find it now labeled 'Condemned', if the sign and boarded windows meant anything. The houses all around it looked rundown as well, and it was dark due to clouds over the sun. The door was locked. He had no where to go but forward now. So putting his best foot forward, he stepped out…

And suddenly found himself sprawled out in the middle of a street, with spells going all over his head. Had it all been a dream? He felt his wings twitch slightly, regrown now, as he tried to lift his head to see what was going on. Well, he thought with a sudden bitterness, it wasn't all a dream. As a spell nearly caught his left arm, he decided the time for figuring out those issues was at the moment delayed.

He picked himself up and dodged to the right. Harry had no wand, and no means of defending himself here which made him as helpless as a Muggle at the moment. His eyes scanned the battlefield. It was a rundown Muggle street, at the end of the street focused on one house where spells were being cast out of and at. A very odd house, all covered in strips of brightest gold. But Harry saw that the crowd close to him was occupied with Deatheaters.

And one had fired a curse right at him.

Harry didn't have time to dodge, so he just threw a hand out as if by instinct, and suddenly found himself protected by a magical shield that bounced the spell away easily. The Gryffindor's heart raced; something in him had produced it, without a wand. But wandless magic was something that was supposed to only come with great training, and then only small spells.

Another spell, and another shield. He didn't have a chance if he would just be standing here; already it seemed the Deatheaters were noticing the ineffectiveness of their spells. Well, it looked like the people in the house could hold their own, so Harry decided to play distraction. Something settled on his shoulder, and looked to see what looked like Fawkes. His claws gently dug into Harry's shoulder, and he felt that same force in him from before coming now to the forefront.

He stepped forward, and as if knowing what to do all along, focused on the Deatheaters. Caught each one in his mind, and with a muttered phrase, conjured a towering, multi-headed snake that hissed and struck every character there. Harry walked up to the ghostly snake, and the fallen Deatheaters, grateful to see they were only paralyzed by the bite and not dead.

There were footsteps behind him, and he turned around to find himself looking at Professor Snape and Malfoy. It seemed they were just as surprised to see him as he was to see them. Fawkes looked at the two, and just went back to attempting to straighten out Harry's hair, picking at his bangs now and revealing his scar. And Harry's thoughts were confused. Here were the two people he thought he would curse on sight, but Fawkes clearly trusted them not to hurt him.

"Potter?" came Malfoy's voice, a semblance of calm but a poor one. Snape looked just as shocked, for once dropping that blank mask.

Harry found himself wondering what he must have seemed like to them, suddenly coming back from the dead, as Fawkes carried him away in flame. But that was the last thing he thought before finding himself falling asleep amongst the warm fire.

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The man had been a symbol for young children in the wizarding world, and for older people alike. A wizard who managed to be as much a nondescript pillar of neutrality as Harry Potter was a supposed pillar of light. He was a constant fixture of the magical world, and people knew that and respected him, even if not from conscious thought. Even certain Dark Lords.

Ollivander had come upstairs from his small quarters under the shop, with a slight stretch and scratch to the side. The occasional wince crossed his features with the creak of ancient bones protesting the small flight of stairs. Not that he didn't know what it was caused from. When one's magic was tied to so many crumbling artifacts, hmmm... perhaps he should have thought of preserving charms.

Indeed, he was considering the possibility when the soft voice of a bird called him from his thoughts, and brought him into the shop proper from the passage behind he had been passing through. There sat Fawkes on the counter, perched delicately on the register, seeming glad to finally get his attention. "My old friend, how are you doing?" The bird had been his friend for many a year through Dumbledore and was always amiable company. However, he had heard Fawkes had all but disappeared after Dumbledore's death.

A slight groan made his silver eyes look down, and even old Mr Ollivander looked surprised by what he saw there. He knocked back the flyaway end of his nightcap and glanced at the phoenix. "Now really, wouldn't he have been more comfortable in the upper bedroom?" He grinned as the bird gave an almost trilling mutter, before picking up the lad by the shoulders and easily hauling him back the way Ollivander had come but up the stairs.

The old man watched the tail of the bird disappear before moving back to what he had been doing: going to the kitchen to make some tea. Though now it seemed he would have to make something more substantial. Yes, extra appendages like Mr Potter's would require extra energy. He was sure some people would find him strange in his thinking, treating everything as though it was simply some teenage growth spurt. But in his many years, Ollivander had seen a great many things, and been witness and associate to far stranger.

He felt the gentle pressure of the bird's weight settle on his shoulder, and absently raised a hand up to ruffle the chest plumage. "You know, you're lucky I keep my curtains drawn. You are far too noticeable for your own good, Fakes. Rather like our young man sleeping upstairs." It had always seemed to him, that whenever he had seen Harry through his shop windows for his yearly trip to Diagon Alley, the young man, however he tried to be unobtrusive, let out a kind of aura that just attracted eyes. Even Ollivander would admit to himself being caught under that mysterious spell when Mr Potter had walked into his shop.

Yes, a very curious boy indeed. One meant for great things.

"I am assuming that you have your own reasons for bringing him to me? Is the care he would receive from the Order not enough?"

And once more, the phoenix seemed to exhibit a feature of snorting as though from amusement. Really, Ollivander thought as he went to put some swiftthistle in the hot brew, the bird had spent far too long in a building of teenagers. Seemed to be picking up on their habits; he already had the uncanny twinkling eyes from Dumbledore down to a fine art.

He soon found the bird leaving and coming back with several rolled-up Prophet papers that hadn't yet been opened. "Yes, I know I haven't opened them, but lately I have no use for the thing, and was cancelling my subscription... do you know what a difficult problem it would be to do so?" But since Fawkes wouldn't let up, and breakfast was cooking itself, he began to unroll them. The news first was the aftermath of Dumbledore's death, the kind of eulogies that most famous wizards got from the press. But just when he was starting to get mildly bored with the newest information on Deatheater attacks, there came a page to make his untamed eyebrows rise slightly.

So, Mr Potter had died? Hm, and been mysteriously exhumed... no successful recovery of body and friends in upset... "Well, Fawkes, this does make a few problems doesn't it?" And he wasn't speaking of the two of them now hiding a supposed stolen and reanimated body. No, with Dumbledore gone, he had his doubts for the subtle power struggle that would take place in the Order, but assumed Mr Potter would keep it clean. And Moody was far too aggressive and hardheaded.

He could not teach the boy the subtleties of the war this time, and everything that went with it.

"Fawkes, if you would be so kind as to retrieve his things from where they are being held," he said, not a question but no order either. The bird Flamed away, and the man heard the slight creaks of the bed above his head which most likely meant a waking body.

"I'm too old for this," he said, but with a small grin on his pale features as he gathered breakfast and tea on a tray; he had not had company in many years.

Hm, would the previously dead body need food?

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Anyone in the household would have noticed how often Remus and Hermione had been spending time with one another in the study of the old building. Ever since Remus had come back, the two had been researching and looking through countless books. Finally, as the semester was so close, Molly had finally asked them during dinner one night what they were doing.

Remus had looked up after stealing a glance at Hermione, and answered in his usual soft-spoken way, "We are looking up the books here on Horcruxes. We figured, we would take up where Harry left off."

Though it hurt to mention Harry's name and conjure the memories he had made with him over the years, it immediately halted the questioning they had seen coming. Truth was, they already knew where one was... or at least, the most likely place to look.

Hermione had mentioned the initials Harry had told her were on the note in the locket earlier that day, and it had immediately caught James' attention. He had her come over near where he was sitting, by the old Black family tree, and pointed to a name next to the burnt-out hole that was Sirius.

"Regulus Aufero Black"

They had now retired to the upper, unused bedrooms where the former Blacks had slept, which hadn't been completely gone through yet. James could still remember flying over and playing pranks on old Regulus during the summer before they'd leave for his house. "Never thought knowing Padfoot's brother would amount to something useful," he said, going over to a bureau and beginning to dig through drawers.

When he heard the door shut, and the Silencing charm go up, he sighed, and the tired eyes of Remus Lupin turned to look at Harry's friend. The cleverest witch of the current age, and one he knew was not a girl to sit on such finds without learning more. In fact, he was surprised she had waited these last few days to begin asking what she had heard about on that night.

"Where do you want me to begin, Hermione?" he asked as he leaned against the bureau in a manner reminiscent of when he taught Defense those years ago.

"How did this happen?" she asked after a time, sending a cleaning spell to the bed but still creating a cloud of fine dust when she sat down. The man's eyes looked around the room as he sighed. Starting anywhere would be difficult; might as well start with this question.

"It had been in the last few years of war there, even before we had received Harry. It had been an experiment between Remus and me that we had been working on through school for a hypothesis paper in Advanced Charms. Sirius, unfortunately for him, had promised to help Wormtail with the different paper."

It had been their secret. That the hypothetical switching of souls from bodies could happen. A wizard's soul was directly tied to his magic, so if you left a little piece behind in your body, you could always find your way back.

"But we had gone farther from the hypothetical," he said, thinking back then and feeling a flow of memories like he hadn't had since that pivotal third year of Harry's. "It was for a mission for the Order, that we originally switched bodies. I had come down with a bad flu, and Lily wouldn't let me go. So, Remus took my place, and I completed it in his body."

Hermione by now was looking at him with wide eyes. The implications of the magic were hideously complicated in her mind, and dangerous. "But wouldn't something like that be illegal?"

"We never found anything deeming it such," he said. "Besides, we learned it was dead useful. When Lily and I were having to be careful of even going out for groceries, marked as we were, Remus Lupin seemed the kind of person who blended into a crowd. Lily knew of course, what we were doing, after she caught us one night." A small laugh escaped the man despite himself; he remembered the walloping they had gotten from her, and the lecture which had left them wondering if she had somehow been related to McGonagall.

"This was just after Harry had been born, and I had gotten back from a mission, and forgetting I was Moony just came into our house."

Hermione looked at him, and let him rest a little. She wasn't sure if that had answered more questions than it had made her think of new ones. She was about to continue when a knock came on the door, and Ron stepped in. "I was just wondering, if I could help you two out. I mean, now that I know what you've been doing." He had promised to help Harry, and now he felt he was shirking that promise.

James became Remus and said, "Yes, Ron, we could use your help." He gave a smile to the redhead who immediately gained that determined look from back in the Shrieking Shack. Just like Sirius and himself, he would have done anything for Harry. He gave a look to Hermione though, over Ron's shoulder as she explained what they had found; they would hold the rest of this conversation some other time.

A/N: I notice the chapters are shorter, but I really don't want 20-page chapters. I enjoy taking stories in on the computer in satisfying bites, not choking through 10,000+ words. Maybe it's just me. )

Ah, as you know, this will be slash if there is any romance. Who do you want paired up? Hm?