Disclaimer: Still applies.

Author's Note: After having made all of you wait this long for an update -- a whole bloody year, if I want to be technical about it -- I think it would be just bad form to expect any of you to wade through an author's note before reading the chapter. So, I won't, but since I don't like putting author's notes at the end of the chapter either, I hope you'll all come back after you finish, so you can read my apology for the tremendously, unforgivably long delay. I'm really rather ashamed of myself, actually. But, I've posted now, and I expect to post again at least once before the end of the month. We shall see.

Please don't forget to review, eh?

o.o.o.o

Harry sat. Having been over every surface in Azkaban, there really was nothing else for him to do. So, even though he didn't enjoy the inactivity that much, he just sat.

He'd returned to his original cell, because the warmth of the building was still strongest there, to find it cleaner and much less oppressing than it had been when he'd left. He was settled with his back against one wall, his head tipped back and his eyes mostly closed.

Not far away, in the cell just across the hall, were three men and a woman, all barely alive but definitely not dead. He'd found them in his search of the fortress, squirreled away here and there, in the darkest cells, ones that were actually locked. It appeared they'd been deposited by the Death Eaters. Since Harry couldn't bring himself to just leave them where they were in the filth, he'd brought them along; the how of the action hadn't concerned him very much, which was fortunate, because there was no way he should have been able to lift even one of them.

In a moment he was going to get bored, and then he was going to go check on his fellow inmates. He thought, if they were awake and feeling better -- which they should be, with the soothing presence in the walls coaxing them back to health -- he'd ask them who they were. He already had a few suspicions, of course, but it was never a good idea to assume anything (which was why he'd locked the door to their new, cleaner cell). He was pretty sure, however, that he recognized at least one of the men as belonging to the Order of the Phoenix, even though that realization didn't particularly endear him to Harry.

He was still a bit miffed that the Order hadn't stopped him getting sent to Azkaban, after all.

With a sigh, Harry shook his head -- he'd already discovered how useless it was to dwell on that subject -- and shoved his hands into his empty pockets.

"Wha...?" he murmured, one of his hands closing around something that had been in that pocket. It felt rather like...

Frowning lightly, Harry removed the object and held it in front of him, both hands cupped gently around it. It was a bright red feather, at least a foot long (how had it fit in his pocket without his realizing it was there? how had it fit there at all?) and in perfect condition, despite its trip around the prison from inside his trouser pocket. It took him a moment to determine what it was, and when he did, he let out a surprised gasp.

It was the core of his wand.

The soft tingle of recognition and magic spreading down his fingers and up his arms confirmed that it was, indeed, the phoenix feather from inside his wand, the wand that had shattered against the wall during his confrontation with Voldemort. He twirled the thing gently, watching as it shimmered. There was warmth in it, more than just his own body heat could have given it, and he thought that he could hear Fawkes singing faintly, from somewhere.

It was definitely the core of his wand.

Through his delight, Harry managed to remember something, and it gave him pause. Voldemort had said the wand was a fake, and it had certainly seemed it at the time; it hadn't responded to Harry's Killing Curse, and it had--

"No," Harry murmured, understanding causing a ghost of a smile to twitch his lips upwards. The wand had responded, he remembered the sickly green light quite clearly. It was only that the spell had never actually hit Voldemort. It had flown toward the Dark Lord, just as he'd told it to, and it would have killed the monster too, except it had been intercepted-- absorbed-- by that benevolent presence now inhabiting the walls of Azkaban. The same presence, in fact, that had kept Harry from leaping at Voldemort and ripping his throat out.

"So."

Emerald green eyes darted over to a corner of the cell, where there was a little pile of splinters and wood chips. Pale, slender fingers beckoned the wood to float over, which it did. A moment, a firmly thought command, and a brief nudge at the magic in Azkaban's stone later, and the wood converged with with the Phoenix feather. Leaving Harry with a long, smooth length of wood.

A small spread across his face. "I have my wand."

The possibilities, Harry realized, were now endless. His escape was imminent -- it was only a matter of time now. Time, and a careful examination of his options.

Harry was broken out of his thoughts when he heard low, frightened voices from across the hall and realized that his fellow prisoners had woken up at last. He stood; time enough for the mysteries of his wand to clear themselves up later. At the moment, he had more pressing business. He slipped his wand into his pocket and crossed the hall.

o.o.o.o

Late afternoon sunshine filled the hospital wing when Bill opened his eyes. This time he wasn't surrounded by Weasleys, for which he was guiltily grateful; they could be so very dreadfully loud and smothering. In point of fact, there wasn't a single redhead to be seen anywhere in the wing, apart from himself.

"Hullo," murmured a low voice, and Bill turned his head to see that there was someone sitting in the chair near his bed. He recognized the man immediately, and lifted his eyebrows in surprise.

"What're you doing here?" he returned, forgetting that saying such a thing would be rude and his mother would have boxed his ears if she'd heard.

Ichabod smiled humorlessly. "Mm, not the first place you'd expect to find me, is it?"

"Yeah. Sorry." Bill turned his head back and stared at the ceiling. A moment later, he remembered something that he'd thought very important when he'd first heard it, and he muttered quietly, "Pomfrey says you saved my life."

Not surprisingly, Ichabod looked highly uncomfortable. He cleared his throat several times and glanced around the hospital wing helplessly, obviously searching for something he could use to change the subject. Finding nothing of the sort, he sighed.

"Well. I suppose," he said haltingly, and then stopped completely. His eyes, much to Bill's surprise, came up to meet the other man's as he explained, "It was the least I could do, considering I put it in danger in the first place."

Bill highly doubted that. He knew Ichabod well enough, however, to understand that saying so was pointless.

He smiled, instead. "Still, thank you. I owe you one, Ichabod."

Immediately, Ichabod relaxed, and most of the tension seeped out of the air. Not having noticed it at first, Bill was surprised by how much more easily he could breath. His smile widened, and was rewarded with a short laugh from the other man.

"Nah, I don't think so. This really just makes us even," Ichabod replied quietly. Something in his tone convinced Bill that Ichabod was not speaking of the same thing he had been a moment ago.

"Even? How d'you mean, even?" demanded Bill, with a small scowl.

Ichabod raised his eyebrows expressively, giving the redhead a pointed look. "Seventh year, the Charms N.E.W.T." He paused, giving Bill a chance to say something, and then added, "Or have you forgotten already, Mr Head Boy?"

"Oh." Bill winced, remembering the incident to which Ichabod was referring; it was not, no matter how he looked at it, one of his most shining moments. "That was an accident."

Ichabod shrugged and relaxed a little further into his chair. Perfectly calm now, he felt comfortable enough to tease his old classmate, announcing, "Maybe, but it was the only reason I passed. I should have had you interfere with all of my exams; maybe I'd have a better job."

"I thought I heard somewhere that you liked your job," snapped Bill, feeling a slight, dull warmth spread up the back of his neck. Damn -- he'd thought that only his brothers could make him blush anymore. Then again, he was a Weasley. How humiliating.

Apparently knowing exactly what had caused Bill to react as he had, Ichabod grinned smugly. "I might, except Fudge is a stinking, one-eyed baboon-headed twatface," he replied, offhandedly.

Determined not to give Ichabod the satisfaction of another sharp response, Bill merely arched one eyebrow and murmured noncommittally, "Interesting expression."

Much to his chagrin, Ichabod laughed. "Come on, you know he is.-- Besides, I got that from you."

The accusation, of course, brought to mind one of their least pleasant encounters over the seven years they'd attended Hogwarts together, just as it had been meant to. Bill grinned wolfishly and narrowed his eyes.

"You're right," he murmured, mock-thoughtfully, "Isn't that what I called you while we were on our last Hogwarts Express ride?"

Ichabod nodded and chuckled, now thoroughly immersed in nostalgia. "Right before you blacked my eye, yeah."

"You deserved it," huffed Bill, though his smile and his tone assured the other man that he wasn't truly annoyed. "You insulted my mother."

"I didn't mean to. I was just annoyed," explained Ichabod, in the tone of one who's made this same claim several times in the past with the same unsatisfactory results. For good measure, he added, "You used to be rather a prat, you know."

"Used to be?" demanded someone else, from the door way. Both men glanced over to see Charlie Weasley standing there with an amused expression on his face. "Come on, he still is."

"I think you might be right," agreed Ichabod, grinning. "Maybe I shouldn't have saved him, eh?"

"And break dear ol' Mum's heart? Get real, Hobbes," snorted Charlie, advancing into the room and settling in a chair across from Ichabod. Once he was comfortable, he went on, "Anyway, your family probably would have ended up proud of you if you'd done that."

"Yes, I must disappoint my relatives, mustn't I?"

They both chuckled darkly.

There were several minutes of mostly companionable silence, and then Bill turned to Ichabod and reminded him, "You know, you still haven't answered my question. What are you doing here, Ichabod?"

"I was hoping you'd wake up," answered Ichabod, after a moment. "I wanted to thank you."

"What for?" asked Charlie, turning to fix Ichabod with a serious expression. Despite this, he looked curious. "You saved him, remember?"

"I think for talking to me all those years ago, when we were at school. I never realized how important it was to me that you didn't hate me on sight, like everyone else the Malfoys didn't approve of -- if you hadn't been friendly, I probably wouldn't have ended up where I am now."

"And where is that, exactly...?"

"Dumbledore's asked me to join the Order--"

Charlie's eyebrows rose, and he smiled widely, interrupting to say, "Again? Good."

"--and I've accepted," Ichabod finished, as if neither of them said anything.

Bill's wolfish grin was back again, as he shared a glance with his younger brother. "Even better," he announced

Which was, of course, the moment that Ichabod was truly convinced he'd made the right decision. For he was sure he didn't want to be, even my proxy, the Weasleys' enemy. Nothing good would ever come of being on the opposite side of the family of redheads.

"When?" demanded Charlie, breaking into Ichabod's train of thought. He blinked, startled and confused, and Charlie elaborated, "When are you joining?"

"Two nights from now," Ichabod answered promptly. Seeing the looks on the Weasleys' faces, he hurried to add, "It would have been tonight, but there are some Aurors that Dumbledore wants to bring in as well, and they won't be available until then."

Bill's eyebrows rose. "Aurors?"

Ichabod nodded. "Yes, a bout half a dozen, I think. Shacklebolt picked them out himself, I understand, several months ago, and has been carefully feeling them out ever since."

"I wonder what finally convinced them," mused Charlie, looking pensive.

Bill'd had the same thought, and though he knew it was improbable, he couldn't help but wonder if maybe Harry's unjust arrest had been part of it. He glanced at Ichabod, to find him smirking in a very unsettling fashion -- he altogether too much reminded Bill of the man's Malfoy cousins.

"What?" he asked sharply, his eyes narrowed at his former classmate.

"I believe that the decisions of at least half of the six are the direct result of exposure to a certain black-haired, bespectacled Dark Wizard magnet -- specifically his unfortunate arrest and subsequent incarceration," explained Ichabod, still looking unbearably smug.

As he concluded his little speech, Bill and Charlie exchanged a knowing glance and they, too, began to smirk.

"Way to go, Harry..."

o.o.o.o

Hermione Granger was never going to forgive herself, and she was never going on vacation with her parents again, either. She'd only been gone for a few weeks this time, exploring Muggle Cyprus with her parents, but when she'd returned she'd found a mountain of letters from Ron and Ginny Weasley and stack of Daily Prophets waiting to be read. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad, despite her parents' earlier insistence that she not receive magical mail during their trip, if only she'd read the letters from the Weasleys first.

But the headline on the topmost copy of the Prophet had been too interesting to pass up -- it had included both Azkaban and You-Know-Who. And, of course, Harry's name had been mentioned halfway through the first paragraph, which had her flying through the rest of the article, and then the previous seven Prophets, and within a half an hour, she'd known the worst.

Harry had been arrested for multiple crimes, including murder. Dumbledore hadn't prevented it. Harry had been sent to Azkaban. Dumbledore hadn't prevented it. Voldemort had attacked Azkaban. Dumbledore hadn't prevented it. Voldemort had killed everyone in the prison. Dumbledore hadn't prevented it.

Harry had supposedly been killed.

She hadn't prevented it.

She wasn't sure, once she'd finished going through the rest of the newspapers and all of her letters, at whom she was the maddest. For the moment it would have to be herself, for being absent. But she had a fairly firm suspicion that in a few hours, it was going to be Ron, for not having done anything.

And then, tomorrow, it was going to be Dumbledore, for not having done anything.

She was still having trouble believing that it was all true. It seemed impossible that not only had Harry been arrested by the Ministry of Magic -- for something he surely hadn't done -- but also that he was dead. Thought of a world without Harry was, as Ron had said in one of his letters, unthinkable. In fact, it was so impossible, that Hermione had gone so far as to pretend she hadn't read that bit. Or, at least, that it wasn't true. (It helped that Prophet article had also made the ludicrous statement that Harry had aligned himself with Voldemort; Hell itself would have to freeze over for that to ever happen. She wondered how anyone could believe such tripe.)

"Ridiculous," snarled Hermione, rooting through the contents of her trunk for a specific book and wishing that she had the Hogwarts library at her disposal. She needed to do some reading, and then she needed to talk to Ron and they needed to come up with a plan. Because, if she ignored the part about Harry's death (which she was definitely doing), it meant that Harry was either stuck at Azkaban by himself, or off somewhere in Voldemort's clutches.

And neither of those possibilities were going to let her get any sleep at night.