A wizard's body was an extraordinary thing. It could be slammed, crushed, and ripped apart by magic, and a brother pulling too hard on your hair, and repaired.

It still bloody hurt.

Ron lay in a miserably painful way with stone steps in his back and Neville crushing him further into them as if his body were trying to take a souvenir home via lodged into his spine.

The eight of them all sat up with now familiar groans of pain, Ron had to remove Nevilles leg from his face to do so, and found themselves in a room only four people in history had once visited.

Harry had landed in front of the mirror once more, and had that look on his face like he was about to scream nonsense and run off into some dangerous adventure. Thankfully he wouldn't get very far in here, but Ron still hauled himself up to go over and check. "What's on your mind?"

"I'm wondering if we should nick the stone while we're in here," Harry was tapping his pocket and studying his reflection. "This should be the last of it, but still, that immortal drink that won't curse us would make me feel better about, when we get back."

Ron didn't even bother to deny a greedy grin of his own as he considered the prospects, all of that gold so his mum and dad would never have to worry again, shoving a few fat galleons in Percy's face. He might even come sniveling back home if he heard they'd all made something of themselves-

"Don't even think of it!" Hermione gasped, appearing in the mirror behind them like a scolding angel on their shoulders.

Harry gave a furtive look to Sirius, clearly his godfathers reckless mortality was still a thorn in his best mate's side. Ron couldn't blame the guy, he wouldn't want to be locked up in that old house after all this freedom when they got back and might go off pulling more crazy stunts and wrestling a werewolf.

"We're still in the past!" Hermione shrieked, grabbing Harry's shoulder and tugging to make him turn away and see her. "Haven't I warned you about time magic before! What if you pull it out and something's gone terribly wrong when we get it back!"

Harry hesitated, clearly unconvinced, and Ron agreed, "you worry to much. There's nobody here for it to hurt," his heart still felt like a crushed rabbit his mom couldn't magic back to life no matter how Ginny cried that day in the garden. He'd go mental if he never got another moment with any of his family, he had to get back to them, and all of this couldn't be for nothing!

"We don't know what we're affecting as we go through all this," she, as usual, had the book clamped tight in her hand. "Please Harry," she beseeched him, "listen to me, this is to dangerous to mess with."

Ron's blood boiled. He felt dismissed, invisible to her as usual, his thoughts never good enough to be heard by her unless he barbed her enough she had to snap back. "Hermione, you're not the boss of us! It was destroyed last time so Voldemort wouldn't come back, but he is! Harry nearly died to get the ruddy thing once, why shouldn't he get something more than a pat on the back and a bloody House Cup out of it!"

Her dark brown eyes snapped to him now, fury on her lips-

"Guys!"

Harry looked fondly exasperated between the two of them, already shaking his head. "I thought you said you were going to stop with the constant bickering?" He even laughed.

"I, I was, that is to say, we were-" Hermione went pink and began babbling.

Ron rolled his eyes, unimpressed. "I was agreeing with you!"

"Well it didn't work anyways," Harry sighed, gesturing to the mirror. The two blinked as he gave them a smile that wasn't nearly as guilty as it should be.

"You-" Hermione yelped in fright.

"Damn," Ron sighed.

"Can't control my heart's desire," he still sounded as forlorn as the last time he'd stood in front of it, even though his eyes could now flicker to Sirius and to them with a hopeful grin.

Ron gave Hermione a level look and tried to step in front of him then, confident this stupid stone was his heart's desire right now, the key to going back to his family and being worth something other than just having made all of them vanish into thin air.

Perhaps the Mirror wasn't working at all though, because all he saw was Hermione's tender look of understanding in the reflection. He whirled around with a scowl to see she'd quickly replaced it with a scorned look of her own for being so quickly dismissed. "You worry to much," he scowled before snatching the book away to get on with it.

Neville sat on the steps where Ron had dumped him watching the trio in their natural state like another day in the common room. Not so unusual was the black fire blocking the door and Sirius Black, Professor Lupin, and the Auror Tonks huddled up close and having an uneasy conversation. He heard Dumebldore's name whispered a lot and Sirius Black kept giving pointed looks towards the book and the passage they'd just left with a suspicious scowl Neville was quite relieved wasn't being directed at him.

Malfoy was standing at the top of the stairs, surveying everything below him down his nose as usual. Neville sighed and wondered how pitiful a life it must be to find it easier to hate people you were trapped in a dire situation with than try to at least survive with them.

Harry felt all eyes on him, studying him as he confronted Quirrell in the book. The naked rage on Sirius's face hearing his dad's final moments being described as a coward had Harry instantly at his side, reassuring him, "I know Sirius, I knew it was a lie," just as Hermione shouted the line herself.

Sirius threw an arm over Harry's shoulder all the same, to ease his own pounding heart at the countless threads of thought running a race in his mind. Where was Dumbledore? How had Harry gotten out of there with the stone in his pocket? Could he actively die from a heart attack while trapped in here listening to that two-faced slime attack his godson? The boy was braced against him, he could feel those eyes boring into the side of his head, his nose scrunched up like Lily's used to when she was expecting the worst of bad news when Faux arrived in the dead of night.

All he wanted to do was pull Harry closer, keep him tucked under his arm safe forever as his breath shook loose, tears burned his face without shame again as he heard the pain of trying to keep Quirrell off with his bare hands making him pass out.

Hermione was breathing as if she had a stitch in her side, Ron was looking ghastly as they exchanged a panicked look before he told Harry roughly, "you're barmy mate. How'd you manage not to make this sound as nutty as it was?"

"I learned to be a fairly decent liar at the Dursleys," Harry said with a reluctant smile. Telling stories to himself in his cupboard all day had the occasional good.

Neville was sitting with his mouth flopped open while Tonks and Lupin were looking on at him with newfound respect he quickly flushed and looked away from. His mother's protection had saved him, he hadn't done anything anybody else wouldn't have done.

His eyes landed back on Sirius as his nerves jittered inside, like a rogue bludger crashing around in him. Sirius didn't know yet he'd done the act of killing, but he would in a matter of paragraphs now as Hermione stuttered and trembled but kept dutifully reading. They were so close to getting back home.

Yet as the Headmaster made the comment of Quirrell's death being granted by Voldemort vacating his body with no care, Sirius still only had a disgruntled look at the room around them, and turned to Harry with weary concern. Harry stood searching every weary line of his godfather's face for anything else, disgust, horror, even fear, but there was none to be found.

"Did the thing properly," Sirius was now muttering to himself, "like that key passage wasn't just perfect, Merlin I hope I'm going round the bend rather than this being all his ruddy idea for you somehow."

It seemed a bit crazy to Harry's ears, who'd never really cared much about all that after he knew everything was safe. He found himself smiling now as his godfather's hold tightened on him once more and he said more audibly and just for him, "Merlin I can't say how proud of you I am stopping Voldemort getting that, he'd be even more unstoppable than he already is. You, however, are still not off the hook for that stunt you pulled with Moony," he concluded in an exhausted sigh. He would never be as cruel as his parents or Dumebldore himself and ground Harry into not leaving the lone residence of demise he currently resided in. Prongs should be here, he'd have the perfect punishment at hand, Sirius was always best at the execution.

Harry listened to all of those old questions he'd once asked Dumbledore with a much lighter feeling than he would have had moments ago, but Sirius's arm still comfortingly around him and his own Godfather's troubles clearly elsewhere kept Harry's anger at a boiling simmer, for now, even as he still mentally ragged on this vivid memory being spelled out. Where had this wise, talkative, gentle bearded wizard gone? What had Harry done so wrong in the years since he was being outright ignored and avoided by the man who had once explained to him in as vivid a detail as he could what had happened to him that first year.

He still didn't know why Voldemort had gone after his parents. He'd seen the man come back in the flesh while his own parents had to sacrifice their only moments with him again just to tell of this. How long was he going to kept being treated like a child by everyone as his people fell around him?

As they reached the last of his questions he looked from Sirius to Remus with that old headache back in place, wondering. He'd defended his father relentlessly to Snape's old taunts, Snape's old grudge against this day with complete faith the bitter old man had no clue what he was talking about.

Now he knew better. His dad did strut about that castle. What else had Snape been right about?

He swallowed his questions as he glowered at Malfoy and looked uneasily at Hermione, and Neville. He still didn't particularly want anyone else's opinion on his parents right now, but he felt comfortable in the knowledge as he squeezed Sirius's wrist and got a flashing smile he'd get his answer when they got back. He could wait until this summer to get the whole story.

The book finally began hitting its last pages as it all wound down, their first old victory with the Cup, Harry grudgingly pushing away the same bitter thoughts he had every year since of yet another question wise old Dumebldore wouldn't answer of why he had to keep going back to the Dursleys.

He even swallowed down a laugh and a wince all at once, causing a strange flicker of concern on Sirius's face for what that was as he gratefully kept to himself he could gloss over certain details of what had happened to his second year when Sirius inevitably asked. Hermione took a breath of relief as she read the final sentence, and they all braced themselves to head home.

HPHPHPHP

I really had such a blast with this! They're so much fun to write, but so much easier and less stressful than whole reading the books fics because you can pick just the scenes you want from the chapter to focus on! I'd honestly recommend trying this way to anybody who's ever wanted to throw their hat but never thought they could finish, this is the longest fic I've done by far! Even if you started one and didn't finish in the first style, also me! I'd love to see other locations and groups being thrown directly into the book, and I can't wait for the second one to start!