Author's Note: Hello, all! My deep appreciation, as always, to those who are letting me know that they're reading!! Just to let you know, no matter how many reviews this chapter gets, unfortunately the next one won't go up till Monday night at the earliest. (I'll be out of town.) Meanwhile, enjoy this chapter!

Harry and Ron were back in classes on Monday morning, though Harry's hand was bandaged, and Ron's skin looked like he had a bad case of spots. They were at this point so used to ignoring other people's whispers that the rumors died down relatively quickly, for want of confirmation or denial by any of the people in the know.

Harry seemed content for a while to have destroyed both the locket and the cup. But I knew the two mystery Horcruxes were on his mind. He came to me a week after he got out of the Hospital Wing.

"Susan, I want to get a move on the two remaining Horcruxes," he said quietly one night as the flames in the Gryffindor fireplace flickered low.

I gazed at him for a moment. I couldn't really see myself in his face, no matter how hard I looked. My eyes were the same color, of course -- that was how Mrs. Weasley had guessed my background -- but I only got occasional glimpses of other similarities. Sometimes he'd smile, and I'd know the look from my mirror, but Harry didn't smile often.

"I'm worried about you," I said in reply. He frowned at this, but said nothing. "I don't want to mother you, and I know you don't have to take my advice. But it's already mid-November. The Christmas holiday will start pretty soon. I'd like for you to take a break until the new year."

Harry's face twisted into something ugly. "What, and just let the Death Eaters rampage through Britain in the meantime?"

I held out a hand. "Shh, I know. But you almost died twice already. You're in a weakened state, whether you'd like to admit it or not. Ron and Hermione are exhausted. Ginny's worried sick morning, noon, and night. Your schoolwork is suffering. There's something to be said for a rest."

"It's not about me!" Harry cried. "And as much as I wish it weren't true, it's not about my friends or my -- or Ginny, either. It's about defeating Voldemort."

I closed my eyes. "Listen. You can't destroy him until you face him. And you won't face him for a while. So can't you slow it down?"

He peered at me. "How long is 'a while'?"

I squirmed under his gaze. "Long after the Christmas holiday."

"And which of the two of us will live? Who will die?" he demanded.

I shook my head. "I won't, Harry. I wouldn't tell you even if I were sure. Because if you thought you'd win, you'd get cocky; if you thought you'd lose, you'd give up."

He smashed a fist into his other palm. "I want it OVER with."

"I know. But it won't be, not for a while. Come to me next term about the next Horcrux."

He nodded sullenly, then packed up his Potions homework and plodded off to bed. I looked at his retreating form. He was so young. It was unfair, really, that he should be burdened with all this. And I couldn't even tell him if he'd survive to tell the tale.

I thought back to the month before my departure, when my mother and Hermione were coaching me about the last days of my stay in their time.

"We'll see both of you for the last time before the final battle," Hermione says, her voice shaking a little. "When it's all over, you'll both be gone."

"Do we survive?"

Mum brushes a hand against my cheek. "We don't know, honey. That's still in all our futures."

I drop my head. "I don't want to die. I don't want Dad to die."

Mum stands and puts both her arms around my shoulders. "You won't, baby. We'll prepare you."

Aunt Mi-Mi says, "Susan, no one sees you harmed or killed. Your bodies are never recovered. It's my belief that you'll end up alive."

I tilt my face up to her. "And Dad?"

Her eyes flash with tears for an instant. "It's not inconceivable that you figure out a way to take him through time with you."

I frown. "I don't understand. Aunt Mi-Mi, you said that if I smash the Time Turner at any point, it will catapult me forward to this time, because the magic will cease to work, and I'll have to go back to the time I was meant to be in. But Dad isn't meant to be in this time, he's meant to be in yours."

"Not too many experiments have been done," says my aunt almost apologetically. "None of us can really know what will happen."

"I won't leave without Daddy!" I cry pathetically.

Mum looks me straight in the face, and on her face she has a burning stare that I've never seen before. "Susan Lily Potter, you come back to me, with or without your father. I've lived without him for seventeen years, but I can't live without you."

I swallow convulsively. "Yes, Mum."

"Now, let's get on with the lesson," she says, her voice steady, betraying nothing.

My aunt glances at her, then looks back at me. "Very well," she says. "We'll continue."

I remembered this scene now as though it had floated up from a Pensieve. I thought about why I had been so frightened, and the truth was, I had been all right with traveling back in time, as long as I had been perfectly certain of the chain of events that would occur. But faced with that final uncertainty, I balked.

Oh, I wouldn't have ducked out of the mission. I knew, had known for years, that there was no way around it. But the question of my final day in my parents' time was one that vexed me terribly, and the only way I found to settle my mind was to work even harder at memorizing everything else my mum and aunt would tell me. I didn't want any surprises.

Now, strangely enough, I was not living from day to day as one who knows the future; rather, I was treating the displacement as a foreign exchange student might. As far as the Horcruxes went, I always consulted my memories of my training. But aside from the one time way back at Bill's wedding when I remembered that I would be dosed with Veritaserum, I didn't apply much of my future knowledge in my dealings with my long-since grown relations. It was just my life, and I was living it as I chose.

I came again in my mind to the question of Neville. So far, none of my relations had questioned me about him; it was entirely possible, I thought, that the rumor mill hadn't bothered grinding as far as the Gryffindor screw-up and the weird, quiet Weasley cousin were concerned. Or it was possible that some or all of them had heard, and they were merely being polite by not asking.

Which led me to my next question: had Mum known about Neville all my life? If so, why hadn't she mentioned him to me? Had she wanted me to conduct my relationship without the thought of my mother peering at us from some point in the distant future? Had she simply wished to respect my wishes by keeping as silent as I had to this point?

Or did she truly not know about this? Had I managed to keep this huge secret from my own mother?

In either case, I was beginning to see why I hadn't seen much of Neville through the years. Whether we would continue as a couple throughout the school year or not, it would have been very strange for him to see a child version of the young woman he'd once snogged in Sprout's greenhouses. And if Mum had ever found out about us . . . well, who knows how Mum would have reacted had she seen Neville talking to me when I was fourteen or fifteen?

I let my head fall into my hands. This was getting more and more complicated by the day. On the one hand, I was measuring out how many days I had left to be alive for certain; on the other, I was really enjoying myself. And while I was chartering new, lovely territory in my time with Neville, I was also lying to myself and to him by acting as though we could go on forever.

Really, it all gave new meaning to "living on borrowed time."

As I sat in the Common Room alone, staring at the dying fire, I tried to make myself detach from this little piece of the past; I tried to view the experience dispassionately, as an observer from another time. But I couldn't do it: I loved being at school with my parents, my aunt, my uncle. I loved my classes; I loved the excitement of being included, even peripherally, in the heroes' adventures; I loved playing the part of the visiting Seer. And as for Neville --

I couldn't do it. I couldn't be an anthropologist of this era. I had to live it, participate in it fully, or I'd regret it for the rest of my life. However long that might be.

With that settled, I climbed up to my dorm room, where Mum was sleeping soundly. I smiled at her small form, despite a momentary pang of homesickness that hit me when I saw her face. Then I got into bed and fell asleep thinking of what classes I had the next day.