How High the Moon

.ψ.

Chapter Twenty Three: Worth Fighting For, P.2

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Well, I've been afraid of changing
Cause I built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older, too

-'Landslide', Dixie Chicks

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Harry hunched in on himself invisibility cloak, cold December weather. Tightly clutching the precious cargo in his pocket, a recent and surprising discovery that was the only reason he had allowed Hermione to persuade him to go, Harry slipped closer the back door without a sound. If things went like they were supposed to, he'd watch for five minutes, retrieve the box, and be gone before Remus had a chance to search for him.

Weird. He didn't feel so scared shitless as he had every time he'd worn the bloody thing sneaking around Hogwarts, avoiding Filch and Snape and Mrs. Norris. No hammering heartbeat. No shallow breathing.

Course, probably came from all the practice they'd been getting lately.

Harry patted his trouser pocket instinctively. "Still there." He whispered with weary relief when he stopped behind a skeletal tree a few hundred meters from the house and slipped the objects out into the bitter night air.

The smooth silver surface of the delicate flute was only interrupted by a tiny engraving on the back. In the flickering light coming from the house, Harry could only just make out a tiny eagle with outstretched wings. It was hard to believe that this little lump of metal was the reason Ginny was dying.

Inside, he made quick work of worming his way under the wards. It wasn't easy. In fact, these were almost as strong as the ones everybody's favorite snake-headed megalomaniac put up around their first horcrux. As he crawled through the small opening that he'd pried up in the invisible wall, Harry was almost grateful to the evil git for forcing them to learn how to get past these things. He got to the key hole of the dining room just in time to watch the happy couple kiss.

Harry came as close to smiling as he had in a long time, and a brief image of Ginny shot through his head. Then he retreated to the Tonks' basement and got down to the other business at hand. Finding the box.

The box was called something else in the letter. A 'preteritus', if he remembered right. Harry thought it sounded far too much like 'Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!' to be the real name for it. That did sound like something Dumble… something he would do. Harry couldn't bring himself to think about the author of the letter, instead opting to continue searching.

It was hard going in the dark, with only the faintest lumos spell to go by. The basement was a lot bigger than the Tonks' entire house, and stuffed with a thousand years worth of rubbish. The vague description didn't help matters at all. A 'small silver box with runes around the rim and on the center of the cover' was hardly much to go by. (Not to mention that he hadn't left any instructions on what the sodding thing was for once Harry found it.) Crates, barrels, parcels, and trunks of every size, shape, and description were jumble hopelessly about the massive space. Best of all, everything was coated with a generous blanket of dust. According to the precious gold pocket watch, it only took two and a half minutes for his glasses to completely cloud over.

Blind as a mole, Harry scrubbed at the glasses with a corner of his expensive shirt. Ginny would have his neck for ruining the ensemble she'd spent so much energy shopping for … but Ginny wasn't there.

Someone else was though.

"Would you like some help, Harry?"

"Fuck!"

"Harry Potter!"

As Harry reattached his second pair of eyes to take in the figure before him, a little voice in his head found it pretty damn funny that a man who'd hung out with his dad and Sirius as teens could call him down for a little swear word. I mean, damn! To hear the way Sirius used to tell it, the only reason they'd never succeeded in burning Hogwarts to the ground was because a certain hot tempered red head had a strange fondness for hexing them into incapacitation from time to time.

"Remus?"

The figure did not answer the obvious question, only helped Harry up and said "I have what you're looking for. Come on up to the kitchen."

Harry followed dumbstruck, stopping in the door of the stairwell when he saw it sitting there in the middle of the table just like Remus had said. He could hardly think. This was it! This had to be the answer to all the questions that had been left unanswered! Harry made to grab it, greedy to know.

Remus stopped him.

"But … but why? Dammit, why did you go and get all dusty if you weren't going to give it to me?"

"Suppose it's probably for the best." The older man avoided the question. "She's not very fond of this. Says it makes me look like her father. Then I tell her it makes me look my age. I usually get a punch in the arm for my pains." Remus picked at a dangling piece of lint on his sweater vest and frowned, lost in his own world for a minute, "There was a time when Dora would have had kittens at the thought of me wearing it for our vows."

"Give me the box." Harry said coldly, regaining his composure. The precious minutes on the gold watch were ticking away, but the older man wasn't listening.

"You know," He sighed and looked out at a half moon, "she didn't even get a dress. Not usually much for that sort of thing, Dora isn't, but she talked about the dress for months: with her mother, with Myra, with Bill's wife, with any woman that would listen really. And do you know what she's wearing tonight? One of my old robes and a pair of jeans."

Harry felt a little tinge of something, but it was gone before he had a chance to care. Thirty four minutes wasted, and he only had two hours.

"I won't let you trap me, Remus. I have to go. Give me the box."

Something in those eyes flickered for a second, and Harry thought about how much they had seen. They'd watched him in school, they'd watched his dad and Sirius like brothers, and they'd watched Tonks and loved her like he loved Ginny, trying not to get too close so they wouldn't hurt her. Look how far that got either of them. Ginny was just barely alive, and Tonks was getting as fixated on her auror work as that Herman girl sometimes.

Fuck this for a game of soldiers. Harry was not going to get all mushy and let him off just because he was the last, closest thing he had left to his dad. The time for sentiment was dead. The time for action and will was all that was left.

Thirty five minutes now. The moon looked brighter.

"Remus."

"Harry." The flicker was dead. Good riddance.

"Just give me the box. I don't have time to argue."

"You need to tell me what he told you." No need to say who 'he' was. "It is my last night as head of the order, and we've got to know! It could be the secret to defeating Voldermort."

"I can't."

"By Merlin's great white beard, why not?" Remus threw his hands up in frustration, almost forgetting about the box before the intent look on Harry's face reminded him to guard his bargaining chip.

'Bargaining chip.' How Slytherin. Either Voldermort was affecting him unconsciously, or Harry had become harder and colder faster than he'd thought.

"I said I wouldn't."

So much the better.

He would need all the strength he could get the day that soulless bastard rolled around. Funny, he'd found himself using Myra's nickname for the monster more and more often.

"Don't be thick, Harry! You are only one boy." Harry stiffened. "One man, then."

"Just give me the box!"

"You need to let the order take over. What have you been doing these last months? Gallivanting off to who knows where while we are loosing members left and right trying to slow him down?" No need to explain 'him' either. "This is not some child's game."

Ravenclaw's flute burned hot in his pocket. Harry seriously doubted that even the most skill and experienced of the members could have accomplished what Hermione, Ron, and he just had. It wasn't that they had the talent or the knowledge enough to do it, though that was part. Between 'Moine's almost inhuman expertise, Ron's common sense and tactics, and his own occasional dumb luck, it seemed that fate was prodding them towards their aim. Like the three of them were meant for this from the beginning.

If he believed in fate, that was.

And he didn't.

"I'm taking care of things. That's all anyone needs to know."

Now Remus was pissed. "Harry James Potter, tell me what you are doing! We can't just sit around and wait for you to die playing hero. From what little he told me, it seems that you are our last chance! Do you have any idea how many lives you have cost, young man? How many you could save if you'd only let us help you?"

Fuck this!

Harry'd had enough!

"You're not my father!"

Neither of them dared move.

Remus stared at him with glazed shock.

"No." He said finally in a hoarse voice. "No, I'm not."

Before Harry could respond though, a roar came from the meeting that shook the cabinets and the china. Both men bolted for the door.

.ψ.

Before Harry could think, Remus was lost in the sea of fighting. Bodies swirled around in a blur. Spells clashed with sparks and bangs. The noise was deafening, one long angry rumble of violence.

An unknown death eater propelled someone out the widow and into the freezing night. Stasia Mackay sprang up out of nowhere to take the vaguely familiar boy's place.

Amycus was paired up against the smelly barkeeper of the Hog's Head. The dirty old man usually took up with Mundungus and probably just came for the free food. Bet he's regretting that now, Harry smirked grimly.

Still, he was pretty quick for someone with a beard past his knees.

As he screwed up his courage to fight, Harry was startled by several order members flying out of the cupboard behind him. Each wore a bright yellow cloak that –in Harry's slightly disoriented opinion- made them look like human bananas. Maroon emblems on the back read 'Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes'.

"Tuffty! Get back in there before I use your fur for fedoras!" Another, dumpier banana shrieked.

A very familiar banana.

A banana wearing tartan carpet slippers and toting a string shopping bag.

Harry gaped as the mad witch stormed to rescue the cat with her fire poker and the sheer force of her will. It was Mrs. Figg.

"Saints above, Arri! Wait for me!" McGonagall hobbled after her as fast as she could, wearing a ridiculous yellow rain hat that also bore a triple W stamp. After the stunners two years ago, she had a weak heart and carried an ivory cane topped by a carved cat's head with golden eyes. Tonight was the first time he'd ever seen her use it for walking though. Usually it was just a tool for herding unruly students.

Fuck! What am I doing just standing here?

Harry Potter was not going to be out done by a couple of geriatrics! Not until the day Uncle Vernon shaved his mustache and skipped down Privet Drive starkers singing the national anthem at the top of his lungs!

Harry took a deep breath to calm down.

When that didn't work, he closed his eyes and tossed the cloak into the cupboard.

The next thing he knew, the fight came to him. Harry deflected a stumpy death eater's hexes without a second thought. There was no time for thinking, just for staying alive. Only the deafening roar of the fighting and an occasional glimpse of another duel out of the corner of his eye reminded Harry that he was not alone in the room.

"Gelidato!" His attacker went on the offensive.

Harry was barely able to counter with a quick "Protego!"

As soon as the curse was deflected, there was a stupendous blast directly behind Harry's head. He cast a half-hearted stunner at the other duelist and spun around to find himself face to face with a giant.

Well, more like face to kneecap.

Harry had to crane his neck back to see the leering face of the two legged wrecking ball that stood in the hole where the wall and ceiling used be. The wind howled right through Harry and the snow bit his face, but he only had eyes for up.

The giant grinned.

Three teeth missing.

This was nothing like Gwarp.

Fuck.

"Stun it! Stun it, hijo de puta!"

"I'm trying to stun it, woman!"

A red beam of light bounced off of the back of the giant's head, and he stupidly turned around. Just beyond the monstrous kneecap, Harry could make out the faces of Charlie and Myra in the swirling, bitter white.

Stella jumped up and down. "Merde! I said stun it, not nick it! What the hell do you … oh merde…"

"I was trying to stun it! Their hide is almost as bad as a dragon's. Don't you know anything about magical creatures?"

"I treat creature bites, not creatures! Joder! It's coming this way! We have to do something Charlie!"

The giant stumbled back out into the night after them. Harry had a flashback to first year of three scared kids trapped in the girl's lavatory with a mountain troll.

It gave him an idea.

Harry raced out into the blistering storm and shouted at the top of his lungs. "Charlie!"

"Harry? What are you… Ah! Stupefy! Stupefy!" More useless red beams bounced off into the white.

"Never mind that now. Just listen! Conjure up something heavy for me, and distract it. I'll do the rest." He hollered at the top of his lungs and hoped Charlie could hear him over the storm and the fight.

"Right. Hold on then!"

"Distract it?" Myra ejaculated angrily as she tried to knock it out with a soporus charm. "And how do you propose we do that, exactly?"

"Watch out Stella!" Charlie yelped as the giant came inches from smashing her skull in with an uprooted tree.

"Aiiieee! I am watching! I am watching!"

"Bugger! I just need to find a wide enough … aha! Inanimatus Conjurus!" Harry could make out the outline of a large black shape next to Charlie. "Biggest I can manage, Harry." He panted, narrowly avoiding the giant's new toy.

"A cauldron? What is he going to do with a cauldron, you ass?" They were both weaving in and out of the trees around the house now, trying to confuse their hulking attacker as much as possible. Myra, being more portly, had a slower time of it and was usually closer to making intimate friends with the giant's tree that Charlie was.

"Bollocks if I know! He said big and heavy. That's big and heavy. It was the first thing I could think of!"

"If we die because of your lack of imagination, I'm going to kill you." She said so seriously that Harry would have pissed himself under any other circumstances.

But right now Harry had a giant to deal with.

It took nearly an hour and most of their combined strength to wear the giant down. Harry had gone in thinking it would be as easy as the mountain troll. He immediately regretted thinking that. One bash on the head certainly wasn't going to knock this one out. But when they finally succeeded, everybody in a hundred kilometers felt the truth of the saying 'the bigger they come, the harder they fall.'

The fight still wore on inside, so the three of them were running as soon as the ground stopped shaking. Harry was almost to the hole in the wall –it was a lot more like the absence of the wall altogether, come to think of it- when he heard Charlie's spell.

"Oppugno!"

There was a ringing crack, and Harry turned to see a death eater being pummeled by Charlie's cauldron. The fat bellied pot had skittered over and flung itself in the way of a hex he never would have seen coming.

I could be dead.

Harry gulped and managed to gruff out a low "Thanks, Charlie" before he and the other man were separated.

Just as the two of them were lost in the whirl of bodies, he heard someone shout something about a hellcat. Suddenly Moody was roaring into the fray with the ease of someone fifty years his junior. Harry had no idea how the man could move like that at his age, or how anyone at any age could move like that with a wooden leg. People weren't kidding when they said he was good.

Really good.

There were only a handful of others in the room on par with the mad, jinx-happy conspiracy theorist, and Harry was becoming painfully aware that he was not one of them.

He had already lost the feeling in one foot to his opponent's numbing hex. It dragged behind him like dead weight. Harry was fighting with everything he had not to be hit head on with one of this guy's nasty freezing curses, and just barely hanging on.

"Frigisus!"

"Incendio!" The two spells met with a hiss and curling steam. Harry had learned early in the fight that he could counter this wizard's freezing spells with some of Hermione's heat charms.

"Frezarir!"

"Inflammoso!" Golden spikes of fire shot out of his wand to meet the attack. Myra had taught him that one one night while they were waiting for his potion.

Suddenly, Harry heard a laugh that set his blood broiling hotter than any fire Myra or Hermione had ever dreamed up.

Bellatrix Lestrange.

Sirius's murderer.

Harry was so consumed with thoughts of revenge that he almost forgot about his present fight.

"Glacialis!"

Lightning fast, Harry knew it was time for a change of tactics. He wanted to find Bellatrix, and to do that he would have to catch this git off guard.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

As soon as the death eater was down, Harry knocked him on the conk and put him out. No need to risk non-verbal spells. Then he was off, searching through the mad chaos of the fight. He had to avenge Sirius. From time to time he noticed a face he recognized, but never stopped. Besides, it looked like most people were holding their own, if not better.

Kingsley was sure of himself, every blow was steady and measured. He almost dared the dark hoods to attack, almost welcomed the challenge. If it had been anyone else but Kingsley the inviting stance would have been cocky, but one look at him fighting and you knew there was no bluster behind his silent threat. Harry was in awe, or at least as in awe as you could be just after trying not to get your appendages frozen solid.

Bresa Mackay rushed past him, reloading a handgun and looking like an executioner.

What the hell is a witch doing with a gun? Harry wondered.

"Rictusempra!" Harry heard Mr. Weasley holler somewhere over his shoulder.

Through the haze of one of Kingsley's efficient fog screens, Harry caught a quick glimpse of the manically laughing death eater who'd been hit with the spell. The black shape was struggling away from a familiar group, trying to breathe through the laughing charm.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were clustered together with some other middle aged witches and wizards, fighting from inside what could only be described as a pink, translucent rubber ball. Spells deflected off of it with smoke and sizzling, but the little battalion inside was doing quite a bit of damage without the burden of having to watch their backs.

It was a good thing too. If those low level charms and jinxes were the best they could dish out, they would have been in real trouble without the protection.

In his rush to find Bellatrix, Harry failed to notice the impossible shadows slithering from the corners. It was Myra's scream that first warned him.

The short witch hung suspended on her tiptoes before a terrifying dementor as others pored into the room from the night. Every muscle in her body was taught as a wire. He could see the veins in her neck twitching and shuddering underneath the skin. Her spine was screwed back to an impossible curve, and she screamed as if every nerve ending was being ripped out of her cell by cell and ground in a blender. Her eyes were completely rolled into the back of her head.

It was the most horrible sound Harry had ever heard.

"Myra!" Tonks managed to knock out her opponent and clumsily kept trying for a patronus.

The room grew dark suddenly, as Myra's frenzied screams got louder. They throbbed through Harry's skull and he wondered if bones could shatter from sounds like that. It was getting worse and worse. He could barely stand and hold his wand. Then Harry realized that Myra wasn't the only one screaming in his head.

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl…stand aside now…"
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead –"

Harry fell to his knees. He could barely make out the dementor through the clammy mist around his brain.

No! I'm not going to die! I've got too much left to finish! Fuck, everyone is depending on me! Happy thoughts, Harry… Happy thoughts… A thin wisp of silver sputtered from his wand.

Happy thoughts, damn it! Fuck, I sound like bloody Peter Pan… Flying… Sirius alive… Another burst of silver appeared, but the room was getting darker. He could barely make out the clashing spells of other duels.

"Not Harry! Please … have mercy … have mercy …"
"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"
"Please – I'll do anything –"

Rotting hands grasped for him.

No no no! Happy thought … Ron! Hermione! Ginny! Their faces glowed like fire in the cold of his head.

The glittering stag erupted from the end of his wand just in time and Harry heard a gun go off.

.ψ.

For every Order member still standing, there were two other groaning bodies sprawled somewhere over hell's half acre.

A tiny, frumpy girl cradled a man Mr. Weasley had pointed out to him once, an unspeakable named Mr. Croaker. Her eyes looked very small on her face without her thick glasses. Harry couldn't tell if she was mourning or praying.

Hagrid stared blankly out into the swirling snow while Mrs. Weasley fussed with the wound on his forehead. Usually Hagrid would have just shrugged it off and told her not to worry with one of his big childish grins, but the dementors had really gotten to him.

He wasn't the only one pale and shaking from the fucking things. The lucky one's who'd gotten away without injuries still looked about as close to sicking as he probably did. Nearly everyone in the shattered wreck of a room looked like they'd been through the heavy scrub cycle in Aunt Petunia's dishwasher. Mrs. Tonks broke into her cooking supplies and was hobbling around the room on one good leg, passing out chocolate like it was … well, like it was candy.

Most weren't so lucky.

Wheezy little Elphias Doge was struggling to breathe as Herman muttered an incantation over his open chest wound.

Hestia checked a still woman for signs of a pulse, then shook her head sadly and closed the woman's eyes. Harry recognized her faintly. Doris Crockford, the witch at the Leaky Cauldron who'd come back to shake his hand three times.

Numbness started to wash over him in frozen waves.

He wondered if she had children.

Mrs. Figg sobbed over the mangled remains of what might have been Mr. Tufty. Harry couldn't be sure. He couldn't really tell all her cats apart when their fur was still intact, much less now.

Near the cold break in the walls, snow fell on a face Harry had passed in the halls at school. A tall boy, Fred and George's age. His intestines spewed out of his mouth.

Harry tried very hard not to sick.

Well, he tried.

Vern Sherwyn lay lifeless in behind a broken chair in a pool of blood. He'd played chaser on Harry's team after meetings just that summer. Harry could almost hear the bloke's dorky laughter as he pushed up his thick rimmed glasses and urged the rest of their makeshift team on for one more go.

He would never laugh like that again. His glasses were snapped in two. Deep, slicing wounds covered him from head to toe.

Sectumsempra.

Snape.

Harry bit back the urge to growl, knowing he had to avoid notice until he could locate his cloak. The charm Hermione had cast on him wasn't the most predictable one in the world, but it changed his appearance just enough to curtail most unwanted attention. Best to be careful though. Remus was probably looking for him.

The numbness, in his foot and in his head, stayed put long after the fighting was over. He didn't think about what had just happened. He didn't think about anything. Harry was on auto-pilot. Returning to the others to report was his only objective, so he simply excavated his cloak as quickly as he could and continued to experience brain flat-line.

They look like a bunch of bruised bananas. Sodding yellow cloaks.

Funny, what popped into your head at a time like this.

Maybe when the war was over and people started to write it into the history books, he could get them to name it 'The Battle of the Fruit'.

If he managed to survive, that was. Harry stifled a little urge to snort. What a motivation to win the war. He really needed to get back and get some kip before they set out tomorrow. All he had to do was get past whoever was in the kitchen and through the apparating ward.

He hadn't counted on the kitchen being occupied by these particular whoever's.

After nearly an hour of bloodshed and chaos, you would think that nothing could have shocked him. You'd think, but you'd be dead wrong. Harry felt like he'd stepped into one of those late-night foreign telly programs Dudley used to watch … wadou call'em? The Twilight Zone. Yeah, He had definitely walked right into the Twilight Zone.

"Found it." A grizzled voice emerged from the Tonks' pantry, followed by a grizzled man with a large bottle of something very obviously alcoholic. Harry had always thought that it was impossible for Moody ever get any more grizzled. He was wrong. Even the claw-footed wooden leg had not survived unscathed. Moody's mismatched eyes were the biggest clue to the identity of the hobbling mass of boils, burns, and bandages that spoke with his ever-suspicious voice. All in red and white, Alastor Moody looked like some insane parody of a candy cane.

Harry bit back a manic desire to giggle.

Giggle! Fuck, he really must have taken one too many shots to the head.

If visions of gigantic hex-hurling sweeties weren't enough, there was the little matter of the other person in the room.

Professor McGonagall lolled in a kitchen chair, limp as a rag doll and drunk as a skunk. She had Moody's hip flask in her hand and was draining it like she was dying of thirst.

Maybe he was hallucinating, or had post-whatsit-sock-thingy. Myra had told him about it one night while they waited for that awful headache potion, said it was 'induced by instances of severe emotional trauma', whatever that was supposed to mean. He bet it could make you see things. Probably hear things too. After all, fighting for your life isn't your garden-variety kind of 'trauma'. No, this gave a whole new definition to the word 'trauma'.

They had all just seen a gruesome battle. Though it was difficult to think that this person and the head mistress were one and the same, he couldn't grudge her an effort to get the carnage out of her head … however disturbing he might personally find it.

It wasn't what they looked like that had Harry's guts churning, really. It was the conversation.

"Quite the interruption of our plans, wasn't it?" Mad-eye inquired, glassy around the edges.

"Wasn't much to interrupt yet. That," his former head of house rolled her head back and forth woozily, slurring her speak like she had a mouth full of mush, "was quite possibly the worst shag I've ever had."

Moody chuckled. "Language. Never thought I'd be the one to say it to you."

Harry was about ready to fall over dead. Had he just heard Professor McGonagall use the word…

No. It must have been something that sounded like it.

Fag?

Yes, that would work.

'The worst fag I've ever had.'

That was what he'd heard.

He had to confess, it was a little hard to picture prim and proper Professor McGonagall as a chain smoker, but the alternative was painfully disturbing.

Unfortunately for Harry, the truth often hurts.

"What, death eaters breaking down the bedroom door didn't put you in the mood?" Moody grinned a creepy, crooked grin, made all the more creepy and crooked by the fact that his lip was roughly the size of a quaffle and quickly turning green.

McGonagall raise a singed eyebrow archly. "In a word? No."

Fuck, he had heard her right after all. Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck! Why couldn't Moody just move away from the door? He only had twelve minutes left!

"Why not? Kinda like old times, living on the edge, not knowing which, ahem … 'shag' might be our last…" The nutter chortled again, like hearing McGonagall say the word 'shag' was the most hilarious thing on earth. Funnily enough, under any other circumstances it probably would be. Harry was definitely in another reality. He didn't care how piss drunk Moody was or wasn't. The man was never, never so, so … un-Moody like, and as for the rest …

Harry wasn't going to touch what their 'old times' entailed with a mental ten foot pole, not for all the gold in Gringots.

"Did you ever consider, Alastor," McGonagall took another heavy swig from the bottle Mad-Eye prodded at her and eyed up the room fuzzily, "that I gave up 'the good old days', as you would so ironically title them, because I no longer wished to incur such lovely beauty marks?" She pointed to a magnificent purple bruise blossoming around an eye that was nearly swollen shut. "Or perhaps that –for some strange reason- I grew weary of watching those I loved cut down in the prime of life?"

"You look like a well set up witch." Was all Mad-Eye mumbled, ignoring the rest of what she'd said and passing her the larger bottle of booze. "Cheers, Hellcat."

Hellcat? What the fuck?

It was all just too surreal. Not only did he have the whole sodding 'Chosen One' mess to deal with –not to mention the slight problem of saving the world-, in the past weeks he'd uncovered a horcrux, extracted said horcrux from the clutches of a variety of unsavory creatures and/or dark enchantments –including, of all of Voldermort's cute and fuzzy army, a couple of living-dead zombie-thingies-, and watched his girlfriend of a few precious months nearly die from poison. In the past two hours he'd fought with perhaps the closest thing he had to a father, made a choice that could change the fate of the world, and watched dozens of people slaughtered.

Oh no.

That wasn't enough for the powers that be.

Someone up there was determined to drive Harry James sodding Potter mad before his little shoot-out with Voldermort ever rolled around.

Now he was trapped in a room with Professor McGonagall's evil, piss-drunk twin and the mad candy cane from hell, both of whom –after imbibing two large bottles of the powerful smelling stuff- started eyeing each other up and down with the same longing stare that Bill Weasley gave a particularly rare piece of meat.

This could not be happening. He must have lost his marbles. This was just a bad episode of the Twilight Zone.

But sane or not, if either of them dropped the word 'shag' one more time, Harry was going to throw down the cloak and ask to be taken to their leader.

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Authoress's Notes: A fag refers to a cigarette, not a homosexual. I don't like name calling, and think anyone who does it ought to be forced to scrape rat puke from Snape's dirty cauldrons with my used toe file from here until doomsday. While my personal convictions discourage homosexuality, I have many wonderful friends who are gay. They are lovely people and I adore them. Please DO NOT take Harry's inner monologue out of context, or flame me for using the word fag. I will repeat this again for clarity's sake: He is talking about a CIGARETTE, not a sexual orientation.

On the adjacent note of personal convictions, I felt I needed to clarify a few points about this and other chapters to come. The religious beliefs and moral values that my characters hold to do not necessarily reflect my own. Just because Stella is rather agnostic at best and Harry has a bit of a potty-mouth (gotta love puns!) does not mean that I as a person support those views or actions. They are FICTIONAL CHARACTERS, for criminey's sake!

Actually, my faith in God is a very real and important part of my life and something I wouldn't trade for all the non-existent galleons in Gringots. I am always hesitant to infuse too much of my own conviction into a character unless they have a personality that seems to call for it. For instance, I can't really picture 'angry Harry' going to church on Sunday and singing hymns about the faithfulness of God at this point in his life. Can you? None of my characters are very like me at all, save a few details here and there, because I do not (unlike some authors) think it very creative to 'create a character' who is basically just you minus all the things that you hate about yourself (mary-sues, blech).

I hate to bore ya'll with this silly little disclaimer, but it is the same deal as the fag joke. If I don't disclaim-er it, someone is bound to flame me and go on a moral rampage.

The Lily/Voldy dialogue that Harry hears when the dementor is near is the property of JKR, specifically Prisoner of Azkaban, chapter twelve. I'm not making any money off this story, so I'm hoping she won't mind. May the literary gods smite me down where I stand if I have besmirched the selection too badly.

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Karniverous- so, you like the were-rats? Thank you, you are so sweet. To thank you for being a darling and reviewing, I dub thee Karniverous Pineapple, keeper of the were-rats! Ahhhhh-ooooo! Which one do you want as your pet?

So, you want to know about the mistake? Ah, what fun would the story be if I didn't keep a few suspenseful elements (pouts) I think you may have to wait a chapter or two on that one, but don't quote me. You never know, I may find a way to get it in sooner if I have some brilliant stroke of genius one of these afternoons. The death eater? He's dead now, but I can't tell you more than that until next chapter.

Random- thanks again. You always make my day with your kind reviews.

HarryPotterMagic- Ah, the nameless DE bloke. I can't tell you much more about him than what I already mentioned to Karniverous, but I will confirm that yes, he was in Ginny's year. The two of them knew each other. As for the potions lab, you are a smart, smart girl. You picked up on another clue. Yes, Charlie injured his left hand in the past. He used to be left handed, actually, but had to learn to be right handed after the injury. Yes, the were-rats are so ugly even their mothers wouldn't want them. Nasty ittle oinkers, but Stella really doesn't think much better of ANY animal, so she kinda just tolerates them the way she tolerates Mo's pets. I agree. They should definitely stay in the cages… and out of the way of Charlie and Stella's love life! Dumb rats.

WaterInAPuddle- Hello there. Nice to meet you! Welcome to the reviewing family! Want a were-rat? (Neville's trying to sell them off so he doesn't have to work next door to them anymore.) A fellow Fitzgerald fan? I'm quite fond of that particular song myself. Thank you for not regretting reading, lol. I haven't heard that Mile's Davis song though. I'll have to look into it.

Yes, I'm positive this beast is just littered with grammatical errors. The unfortunate side effect of having no beta and no spare time. I barely get these chapters out and self checked once or twice before the deadlines I set for myself without adding another person to the equation. I may go back at the end and post an edited version. Ah, clueless Charlie. I agree, sometimes the clueless characters are the most fun. Charlie has such a cute, bumbling personality in my head. He's just adorable. Irritating as all getup, but very cluelessly adorable. So, you are also interested in Mo? I hope that if there are enough people who really push for it, I can find the inspiration to finish a secondary story to this one about her and her special someone. Actually, it's also very much a murder mystery. But that's still in the works. Very hush hush, you see. Thank you, I'll do my best by all of you to keep the quality high!