Disclaimer: Hermione's abandonment of Harry Potter is not a subliminal message for JK Rowling to release Harry Potter into the public domain.
Chapter One
Blaise Zabini
"Avada Kedavra," I said dispassionately. A small green ball of light leapt from my wand and struck the Muggle woman in the chest. Her body, rigid with pain only moments earlier, slumped to the table on which she was strapped with a hollow thunk.
"Aw c'mon Zabini, have a little fun would you?"
I turn my head slowly to regard Theo Nott, my Slytherin classmate up until we finished Nearly Exhausting Wizarding Tests three years earlier. We'd gotten far more Outstandings than we deserved, of course, so the whole thing was meaningless. It pissed me off, but at that point there was little else to be done. Once Dumbledore died and Potter disappeared, everything went to hell. My best friend, Tracey Davis, fled the country like so many others before her younger brother Matthew could be forced into joining the Death Eaters.
Like I had been. Oh, I had been given a choice. Without a father to protect me, it was join or die. Matt, as a half-blood, would have been given the same options, if he was lucky.
"Are we done yet?" I asked lazily, then decided to needle him a bit. "The Order could be here any moment, you know."
His eyes widened in fear a moment, then he glared. "They couldn't have detected us so fast, you bloody coward." I forced a smirk at his discomfort. The Order of the Phoenix had been a bogeyman for all the Death Eaters for the past few years. But I wasn't even sure they existed anymore; they certainly didn't have any influence at the Ministry or at Hogwarts. Sure, a number of Death Eaters had died over the past two years, but I just figured blaming the Order was just a cover for infighting. Jockeying for position was expected among Death Eaters. Nott glanced at the woman. "Honestly, how can you even pull that off in your state? I've seen you do it a dozen times and I still don't get it."
Occlumency was the only reason I could hold back my emotions, which would be pretty damn obvious if Nott wasn't an idiot. I was not advanced enough to believably fake emotions like some others, but detachment came easily enough to me after all the practice throughout Hogwarts. Either way, I was not about to cure his ignorance; he was ostensibly the leader in this group, but he knew I was smarter than him and I had always made him look good to his father back before he died, so Theo largely left me to my own devices. So I just shrugged, as usual. Yes, the Killing Curse needs the caster's hatred, but it doesn't have to be directed at the target. If you hate somebody that is present when you cast it, the proximity of that person fuels the Curse.
Luckily for me, I'm always present when I have to do it.
"Whatever," Nott said, still disbelieving, "Let's go grab Murton and Tripe and head back." Then his eyes widened in anticipation. "Oh yeah! It's our turn again!" With that, he sprinted up the out the door and up the stairs. Damien Murton and Viridian Tripe were fresh out of Hogwarts, which was a full up Death Eater training ground now. I had thought it was bad when I was there, but...I looked back at the Muggle woman. She was the mother of a Muggleborn who was killed there, and we were here to tie up loose ends. We didn't want to give them a chance to expose our world, after all. Thank Merlin old Deputy Headmistress McGonagall destroyed the Hogwarts registry before she died, otherwise we'd be chasing down every name on it.
The thundering coming from the stairwell made me sigh. I was most certainly not looking forward to getting back.
"'No, she can't be, she can't have,'" Murton mimicked with his nose pinched to give his voice a nasal quality. Tripe doubled over with laughter, but to me Murton's jocular attitude seemed a bit forced. He was trying to get used to this, I figured.
"Muggles are so stupid," Tripe said in his deep, thick voice. He reminded me heavily of Vincent Crabbe, another former classmate of mine who accidentally killed himself at the Battle of Hogwarts. How these morons got into Slytherin, Hogwarts' supposed House of cunning and ambition, I had no idea.
"C'mon, let's go already," Nott said impatiently, even though he had been laughing along with them. He had only just then pulled out the rope portkey, too, which would transport us back to our base of operations. He glanced nervously over at the windows while the rest of us took our places. I guess my comment about the Order made him more nervous than he wanted to admit. In truth, it made me a little nervous, too...not that I would show it.
A familiar tug behind the navel and disorienting tumble later, I landed on my feet in the entryway at Nott Manor. That was what he called it, anyway. I think it made him feel more important, even though it certainly lacked the graceful marble staircases and other hints of obscene wealth at what used to be Malfoy Manor. Still, it wasn't a poor or insignificant house by any stretch. The gray marble tiles on the floor, the massive burgundy rug, and crystal chandelier still lent the appearance of money, even though much of the rest of the house wasn't too special. Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass were waiting for us there, wearing very little in the way of clothing on their bodies and even less in the way of expression on their faces. Their eyes, dark with unnatural lust, were fixed on the floor in front of them.
"Ladies," Nott said, trying to make his voice deeper. I wondered if he acted like this to make it seem more real, even though neither of them ever responded. Draco Malfoy had whored Pansy out for years before the Dark Lord killed him. She was actually worth it back in her Hogwarts days: energetic and naturally lustful, even if she was a bitch to almost everyone else. After Malfoy and his father got killed off, though, she just broke, losing weight right along with her fiery passion. Draco was going to marry her, but as his star fell, so did hers. No pureblood would want her, now, so she just let anybody do what they want to her.
And there are some pretty fucked up Death Eaters.
"Greengrass," Nott said after a moment. He jerked his head toward the stairway and started up. With an emotionless glance at me, she followed without a word.
"Go on, Zab," Murton said, nudging me toward Pansy.
"Nah," I said, "I'll wait." Pansy didn't react to that, she just continued waiting with her eyes down.
"Bah, I don't see what you like about Greengrass," Murton said. "Parkinson's got better tits—"
"Bigger ones," Tripe added helpfully.
"—and a nicer ass," Murton finished as he walked over to her. He gave it a squeeze for good measure.
It was probably true; despite the weight loss, Pansy still had more in the way of feminine curves than Daphne. If I'd chosen for such things – and were not sickened by the whole situation now – I might have taken Murton up on the offer. Instead, in reply I just walked over to one wall, conjured a chair, sat down and waved them off.
"Suit yourself," Murton said with a sigh, tossing his arm around Pansy's shoulders and affixing his hand on her breast. "C'mon Tripe," he called as he started heading up the stairs. I once again thanked Merlin for Occlumency. Those two almost always went together.
I pulled out the book I'd been reading – one of the few wizarding fiction novels – and enlarged it, but I wasn't going to get anywhere with it tonight. My thoughts drifted up to Daphne, which made me think of Tracey and the Davis family again. I had wanted to go with them. I begged my mother to come with me, but she had too much invested in his position here, she said. Her so-called 'position' was well-known to me. She didn't become a widow seven-times over out of bad luck, after all. I forced the thought away at the same time I forced the bile back down my throat. Those kinds of thoughts are the only thing that can break my ability to block emotions, and I don't think that will ever change no matter how skilled I become. There are some things that are just off-limits.
It's not all her fault, though...that bloody fool Draco Malfoy brought my name to his father in his list of potential recruits, as if he knew me at all. It wasn't his fault, either, though. I had enough in my school vault to escape, but I didn't want to leave my mother. I procrastinated; I hadn't thought it could get this bad, and I paid for it dearly.
The loud pop of another portkey returning jolted me out of my ruminations. The four other Death Eaters using Nott's house as a base of operations had returned. Marcus Flint had been several years ahead of me – I can't be exact because he was the only student I knew of that actually had to repeat a year at Hogwarts. And considering the lack of intelligence in his group-mates Greg Goyle and Millicent Bulstrode, that was saying something. The fourth guy I only knew as Montague. I didn't know if he was related to Graham, who had been two years ahead of us in school; I just knew he led the other group and was a damned bastard. The other three were enormously heavy, but he was thin as a rail and ugly as sin. He didn't appreciate the irony that his name meant 'mountain' yet he was the only one in his group not built like one. If Nott didn't have control of the wards that gave him the capability to toss the guy out on his ass, I was sure he'd have tried to kill Nott at some point. There was enough tension in the air as it was.
"What's goin' on, Zabini?" Flint's ogre-like visage twisted into a cruel smile. "Kill some Muggles today?" The word came out like a curse. Montague scoffed and walked into the kitchen, while Goyle and Bulstrode stood dumbly where they landed.
"The mother begged for her daughter and for her life, and so forth and so on," I said, not bothering to sound interested.
With Montague gone it didn't really matter what I said; Flint laughed as if I'd said something hilarious. "Nice. Where's Nott?"
"Party time," I replied dispassionately.
"Damn!" He punctuated this by punching his hand. "I forgot about that, you lucky bastards. When will they give us our turn, anyway?"
"No clue," I lied. Thanks to the supposed efforts of the Order, the Death Eaters and their 'prizes' both died in approximately equal portions, so our reward was actually fairly regular. But these guys were too stupid to realize Bulstrode was meant to be theirs. Her father and Goyle's father had gotten themselves killed, so this was their punishment, while Flint was too stupid to trust with anything important. Montague, on the other hand...I had heard that he failed a direct mission from Voldemort and got tortured to near insanity. He actually saw that as a point of pride, even though the only respect he received was from junior Death Eaters who were terrified of him.
"Whatever," Flint said, "I'm going to eat. C'mon you fat arses." He punched the other two on their arms and drug them into the kitchen after Montague.
I shook my head, pushing them out of my mind for the moment and trying to return to reading. I read the same passage five times before I shrunk my book back down and leaned forward to put my head in my hands to return to my thoughts. When I sat and tried to figure out where it all went wrong, it always went like this. My first thought was to blame others, then I blamed myself, then I blamed life in general. But I could never figure out what the hell to do about any of it. I could try and find the Order, but I'm liable to get myself killed trying that. I might as well attack the other Death Eaters directly; that's be less painful than getting caught deserting and tortured.
Just like Draco.
That damned fool bragged all throughout school about his father and the Dark Lord, and he tried to run. Granted, I threw up every meal I ever had when they made me kill my first Muggle girl, a teenager my age who had begged me for her life. And that was just some random Muggle that I didn't know. So I doubt if I could have killed Looney Lovegood myself, like they tried getting him to do. Still, he was the fool for putting himself in that position.
A creak on the stairwell drew my attention. There, dressed in the same clothing and looking for all the world like nothing had happened, stood Daphne. She gestured for me to follow, so I did. I wasn't sure what I would have felt about this if I wasn't blocking my emotions. She never put any effort into being sexy, but she didn't really have to, in my opinion. She was just...graceful in a way that few girls were. Women, I corrected myself. She reminded me of my—I mean, of Draco's mum. I had to fight the bile down again. Draco's mother had survived the destruction of the Malfoy family and took her maiden name. Despite her fall, she was every inch the graceful, aristocratic, effortlessly sensual Lady she had been. Of course, the fact that Daphne wasn't doing it consciously only made it worse, because she wasn't doing it for me.
She led us into the furthest guest room at the end of the hall, decorated rather depressingly in dark green. That didn't really narrow it down, though, because every guest room I've seen in this house was the same way. This one was the largest and the nicest, though, with a four-poster, queen-size bed and an attached bathroom and walk-in closet. The room was a bit larger than Theo's, actually, though his had a nicer bathroom.
As soon as the door shut behind me, I turned only to find Daphne throwing herself into my arms.
"Daph," I murmured, holding her tight as her entire body shook. She didn't make a sound, though. I held her like that for some minutes, pity threatening to break through my mental barriers. Here was a girl who volunteered herself for this – volunteered for this hell – just to save her sister from the same fate. She had convinced her parents to send Astoria to Beauxbatons to finish school, where she would live with some relatives during the summer. She had completed her NEWTs, and last I heard was dating some rich Greek wizard she'd met there and they were traveling all around the world. Exactly the kind of thing Daphne deserved.
"Please," Daphne said, wrenching me back to the present. Her face was still hidden against my chest.
"You know I can't," I replied.
"It's not for you," she countered.
"I know," I countered back, playing the same game we always played when it was our turn, except this game had absolutely nothing to do with fun. We tried before, a couple years ago. It ended up making her feel worse immediately afterward, so I never accepted again. Thanks to the Memory Charms, though, she didn't remember either night, so she kept asking. She was occasionally allowed to retain memories from Ministry parties where she wasn't lent out to some ancient wizard for a vote, but other than that, all she ever remembered was serving food and drink at various Death Eater and Ministry functions. Not that they were terribly different, these days. I didn't have the heart to try and explain what happened between us over and over again. "I'm sorry."
She nodded as if expecting that answer, then, after one final shudder where I knew she was fighting the effects of the lust potion, she slipped away into the bathroom such that I wouldn't see her face. I wouldn't look anyway. I laid on the bed, legs dangling off, wondering if she and I would have tried to make it work if this hadn't happened. I might have had the guts to ask Tracey out, I guess, but that seemed like a lifetime ago, now. I can't imagine being with her now, even if she would have wanted me. I can't imagine the life she would have led if she hadn't left. For that matter, I can't imagine the life I would have led if I had, either. I would still be the same stupid kid, wouldn't I?
It's ironic that I was too stupid to see what I might have had until I didn't deserve to have it. I stopped exchanging letters with her two years ago.
The door to the bathroom opened to reveal a perfectly poised Daphne, once again looking exactly as she did when we arrived. No, not exactly, I corrected myself – she was still more relaxed around me, and the potion was wearing off. "Have you heard from Stori?" Her voice was almost normal when she asked.
I shook my head. "Not since the last letter I told you about." She had said she'd be in Greece for a while, visiting with his family and tracking down distant cousins of the Greengrasses.
She nodded, then got a faraway look in her eyes. "She must still be traveling."
"She's happy, I'm sure," I said.
The corners of her lips turned up ever so slightly at that. "I hope so."
Once again the horror of her situation threatened to overwhelm me. Daphne had had a very public spat with her sister in order to get her to move away. Astoria had very conveniently stumbled upon her then-boyfriend, some complete berk of a Ravenclaw in her year, in bed with Daphne three summers ago. With some firewhiskey in his system courtesy of myself, he awoke and didn't even realize he was set up. Astoria barely even looked at him before whipping his clothes at him and laying into Daphne.
A rumbling boom shook the house slightly, freezing us in place. "What was that?" Her voice betrayed her fear, making my own that much worse.
"Bloody Tripe, probably," I said, though I didn't really believe it. Not even he could make noise like that.
Another boom, this one louder than the first, made my teeth chatter. I shot off the bed and dashed to the door, throwing it open. Stepping out into the corridor, I glanced both ways but saw nothing amiss. Murton crashed out into the hall shortly after, pulling his shirt on. "What the hell—?"
A third boom, even louder than the others, actually threw me off balance. Daphne stumbled into me just as a loud crash pierced the air, followed by cries of alarm from the four others downstairs. When I heard them start frantically shouting spells, I ducked back in the room. "Daphne, try to—"
"Anti-apparition ward's up," she cut me off. "Not ours." She didn't sound panicked, she merely sat on the bed.
"What about—"
"No portkey either," she said, anticipating the question, "we're supposed to be picked up tonight."
Shit. "Wands out?"
Daphne shook her head and scoffed. "You know I don't have my wand anymore." I cursed myself for forgetting. "And besides, you think I care enough about 'our side' to fight for it? No, if that's the Order I've heard about, they won't kill me if I don't lift a wand. If it's something else...well..." She shrugged. She was just going to let them kill her.
I didn't reply – the fact was, I was probably dead either way. Every instinct told me to flee, but...wasn't this the opportunity I was just hoping for? If I covered up the Mark, would they hesitate long enough to listen? I know our former Head of Slytherin House and Potions Professor had supposedly been killed for feeding information to the Order, so maybe I had a chance. It got quiet, and my nerves threatened to break. What was happening? Montague and Flint would have fought to the death, and Goyle and Bulstrode likely would have joined them. So they're probably all dead. What about Murton and Tripe? Did they find Nott?
Then a more frightening thought struck me: what if I missed my chance?
Stepping lightly as I could manage, I opened the door slightly to peek out, only to have it slammed into my face. My vision blacked for a moment as I reeled back, and before I knew it I was sitting on the floor in front of the bed, almost touching Daphne's leg. I regained my senses in time to freeze in horror at the sight in front of me.
It was a demon.
That was the only way to describe the man that entered. His tattered black robes were splashed gratuitously with blood, which still dripped to the floor at his feet. His haggard face, lips drawn up into a snarl, was framed with messy black hair and coarse, uneven black beard. What frightened me most, however, were the eyes. They were glowing green – Killing Curse green – behind familiar round wire-frame spectacles.
"Potter," I breathed, only just realizing that blood dripped down my own face from my nose. It and my forehead throbbed with barely recognized pain, but it was buried underneath the fear of this man. This was Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived? I had heard that he'd changed, but I still saw him in my mind as the short, skinny Gryffindor that annoyed Malfoy to no end. But no, this was terrifying. Potter's right arm, held out so his wand pointed directly at my face, was shaking, but not with fear...it was with rage. Palpable, suffocating, terrifying rage, far worse than any time I'd ever been in the presence of the Dark Lord.
"The Dark Mark," he ground out through clenched teeth. "Its corruption...its...stench...pervades this place." His eyes fixated on my arm, and my blood ran cold despite the fact that I knew the Mark was covered. "And it is not gone yet."
"Wait," Daphne's voice pleaded, and I could finally exhale during that moment of distraction.
With his attention split, I'd recovered enough to actually speak. "Please, don't hurt Daphne."
"Daphne?" He repeated, confusion plain in his voice. "NO!" Potter roared, but not at her. He grasped his head and stumbled back, eyes closed, and once again I felt the terror increase, though part of it came from me. He was clearly unhinged. My hand inched ever so slightly toward my wand, and like lightning his own and Killing Curse green eyes were aimed at me once again. The eyes were the more frightening of the two. "Pull your wand. Come on, PULL IT, DAMN YOU!"
My hand moved slowly as far away from it as possible. At that point, picking it up was the last thing I was going to do. Was he actually going to spare me if I didn't? Merlin, I hoped so. "Please," I repeated, "she's not marked. She's not here by choice."
"Blaise," she hissed, and Potter's eyes snapped to her. I could see her shrink back out of the corner of my eye.
When no curses flew, I took this as a positive sign. So I continued. "She did it to save her sister, Pott—Harry. Take her with you, please! Have the Order hide her—"
Potter laughed then, and it was a gravelly laughter completely devoid of mirth. "The Order, you say? The Order is dead, Death Eater."
My confusion was strong enough to push away some of the terror. "But all of those dead—"
"One hundred and twenty-two Death Eaters and seventy-nine sympathizers," Potter said, his glare flickering to Daphne when he said the latter, "all dead by my hand."
She gasped, and as far as I knew that was the first time in recent memory that she'd displayed any emotion in front of anyone besides me. "But...you're—"
"Some of them tried to talk to me, tried to save themselves, but they all drew their wands in the end." He glared at me while he said this, and once again breathing felt like I had Goyle sitting on my chest. "But you are the only one who asked to save someone else." Suddenly he roared again, gripping his blood-slicked hair so tightly that his knuckles whitened.
Potter was just as insane as the Dark Lord, I could see that, but the latter's controlled fury was predictable. I shivered with fear at the intensity of it, no matter how much I tried to fight the sensation.
"Blaise didn't want to take the Mark," Daphne blurted.
The deranged Boy-Who-Lived leaned up against the wall and panted, one hand on his chest, gripping some sort of medallion underneath his clothing. "It's too late for that," he ground out.
"No!" Daphne cried, trying to protest over his screams. "No, please! I tried telling you before—"
"No," Potter ground out, "the Dark Mark...He Knows you. Albus Dumbledore trusted a Death Eater that claimed to be reformed, and he died because of it."
My hopes of survival came crashing down, and I slumped back against the bed. "You won't kill Daphne?" My voice sounded hoarse, defeated.
"She might pull a wand on me, like the other," Potter said, his voice almost eager.
"You killed Pansy?" Daphne's voice was little more than a whisper.
"I killed seven Death Eaters and a sympathizer," he growled, anger appearing to rise again.
"She won't!" I said quickly. "She won't fight. She just wants to see her sister...can you take her?"
Thankfully my distraction worked, because now he looked confused. "Take her?"
She shuddered at the double meaning, so I quickly continued. "Take her away from here. Somewhere safe."
He laughed the same mirthless laugh. "Safe? There is nowhere safe for anyone against that bastard." Then he smiled a terrifying smile. "And I've made sure there is nowhere safe for anyone with him, either."
He was talking like he was going to kill me, but he hadn't yet. Why? Was there still a chance? He stared at me, and when his eyes flickered, I realized he was waiting for me to pull my wand. "I won't pull it on you, Harry. I never wanted this."
"If you had died fighting him, you wouldn't have killed the people you've killed," he said, his voice surprisingly clear. "And you might have lived, if you'd left."
I closed my eyes. He was right. Someone else would have killed them, but my own hands would be clean.
"You can't!" Daphne pleaded again. "He can spy for you, he knows Occlumency!"
Potter smiled, and once again I felt terror. He tapped his temple. "He can see through my eyes, if he wishes, just as I can see through his. I need no spy. He could be watching right now."
That's it, then. "Daphne," I said, trying to halt her hyperventilating. "Daphne, he won't kill you." I got to my knees and looked at my wand.
"Blaise, don't..."
"Find your sister," I continued, slowly reaching my arm out, eyes fixed on Harry.
"No..."
"And if you see Tracey—" My voice faltered at that, and Daphne took advantage.
"No!" She threw herself against my side, pinning my wand arm against my body. "Please, stop," she begged, "it doesn't have to be like this."
"You heard him yourself," I said, my voice threatening to crack. "The Dark Lord could be watching, and even if I went back he could pull this entire conversation out of my mind. His Legilimency is too strong. This is the best way."
"No, you can still fight..." Her despondent voice, coupled with her tears, threatened to break me. If she felt this strongly about me, strong enough to cry...no, there's no sense in thinking about it now.
"I am going to fight," I said. "I'm going to fight Harry. If I beat him, then he has no chance against the Dark Lord anyway."
"That is acceptable," Potter said without emotion.
Daphne still didn't let it go, though. "But—"
"The Dark Lord would not make it quick, Daphne," I cut her off, suppressing a shudder at the thought. "You know this. Please let go."
"No," she said petulantly. She had apparently run out of arguments, and had resorted to stubbornness.
"If you see Tracey...tell her...I'm sorry. I should have gone with her."
"Tell her yourself," she countered. "Don't do this, Blaise. Don't."
I stood and pried her arms off of me – she wasn't very strong after her hospitality at the hands of the Death Eaters – and made her sit on the bed again. I glanced at Potter; his eyes were latched on us, but his expression remained unreadable. Turning back to Daphne and holding her wrists with one hand, I reached down slowly. She struggled feebly, chanting her denial.
Just as my fingers brushed against the polished alder wood, she wrenched one hand out. "No!"
I was faster, though. "Petrificus Totalus!" Her arms snapped to her sides and her legs shot out into a rigid position, and she fell onto the bed seemingly in slow motion, tears trailing down her frozen face. "I'm sorry about you most of all, Daphne. I'm sorry I couldn't save you." A tear trickled down my face. I couldn't stop it. "I wish—" I shook my head. It wouldn't do any good to wish now. "Don't provoke him, Daphne. Please, just get out of here; get away from all this. Do it for Stori, she'll forgive you. I just hope—" I trailed off again. I wanted her to forgive me, too, but I can't possibly ask that of her...not after all this. "I'm sorry."
I stood and tried to wipe my face clean of tears and blood, ignoring the throbbing from my nose and forehead. Then I turned to Potter. Tear tracks leading down to his filthy beard were the only indication that he felt anything at all. I nodded my thanks to him, then took a few steps to the side to make sure Daphne wouldn't get hurt. This man had me at his mercy, and based on what little I've seen, I have no chance to win. Do I even want to? Voldemort would pull this memory from me and torture me to death anyway. I could try to run, but—
"He is watching now," Potter said, stopping my thoughts and my heart. "I can feel his curiosity at what you will do. He wants to see what I will do as well." He smiled again. "Dumbledore is gone, Voldemort. There will be no quarter for those you have Marked, even when they renounce you. And renounce you they will. You are a coward, Tom Marvolo Riddle, and I will kill you."
The sharp burning on my arm forced me to recover from my shock at hearing the Dark Lord's real name. I ignored the summons. There was only one thing left to do. I couldn't speak. I'd said everything I wanted to say. So I just began to raise my wand, gathering up all the hatred I had for myself and the Dark Lord—no, Tom Riddle, I corrected myself – for his lies that destroyed so many families. Including the man in front of me. The tragedy that I was about to try to kill the man I should have fought beside was not lost on me. I knew I didn't deserve it, but I would try to live anyway.
"Av—" My wand hadn't even gotten up to his feet before a line of heat struck across my neck. Damn, he's fast! I felt a cascade of warmth down my body before I lost feeling. Then I felt cold. Then, mere moments after the silent Cutter hit, I felt nothing.
A/N:
Despair, I warned you! In case anybody missed it, this is nearly four years after the prologue.
Review!