Author's Note: Now we're getting back into the swing of the Horcrux hunt. You've all got some action-packed chapters in store for you!!

My regular reviewers know this already, but I'll mention it here for the rest of you: I do respond to every review, so if you have any questions about anything that has happened or will happen, I'll do my best to answer, though I won't give the game away completely! I've said it a hundred times, but THANK YOU to my regular reviewers!! And here's to one of those, Sweettarts: Tonks' little moment of clumsiness in here is for you.

Charlie was buried in the Weasley family plot and given a hero's farewell. Many people showed up despite the danger of a Death Eater attack at the funeral itself, including Neville and his grandmother, whom I approached at the end of the service.

"Hi," I said, throwing my arms around his neck. I refrained from kissing him, leaving it up to him as to what he would tell his grandmother.

"Hi," he replied, and kissed me on the cheek, to my surprise. Then he turned to his grandmother. "Gran, this is Susan Hopkins; she's a cousin of the Weasleys."

"Very pleased to meet you, ma'am," I said, and extended my hand.

She examined me for a split second, then shook my hand. "Hopkins? I don't know that name."

"My father is a Squib," I explained, "and my mother is a Muggle."

"And are you mixed up with Potter's crowd?" she asked shrewdly.

I drew myself up a little. "Absolutely."

At that, she grinned. "Splendid. So you're the little witch who's put Neville into such a tizzy."

Neville blushed furiously, but I merely said, "Goodness, ma'am, I hope so."

"I like you," she pronounced. "Do come over any time you please, and I'll show you terribly embarrassing photographs of Neville when he was a little boy."

I smiled too. "I'd love that, ma'am."

"Wonderful. Neville, come along, we must be getting home. Miss Hopkins, the pleasure was mine."

I waved good-bye. They Disapparated, and I stood looking at the spot they'd been for a minute or so before Hermione came over to fetch me.

"Are you . . . are you dating Neville?" she asked curiously.

I looked at her quickly. It was the first anyone had mentioned it, and I didn't know quite what to say, but I didn't want to taint the truth by lying. "Yes."

She grinned. "I knew it! How long?"

"Since a little after Halloween."

"That long?" Hermione was clearly knocked off her perch by this response. "Goodness, that's nearly two months that you've been keeping it secret!"

"I wasn't intentionally keeping it secret," I said defensively. "No one asked. Besides, you're one to talk."

She blushed and smiled, and that was the end of that conversation.

Back at the house, Tonks pulled me aside and asked to see my Time Turner. I acquiesced, and we snuck off to Ginny's room, where I was staying for the holiday, so I could show it to her.

I was careful when I lifted it out of my trunk not to jostle it too much: I didn't want to suddenly be shuttled an extra year back in time. I handed it over to Tonks, who gave a low whistle as she examined it.

"This is a rare one," she said approvingly. "The hour-backs are most common, and day-backs almost as much so. But a year-back . . . I think I saw one once round the neck of an Unspeakable. I never saw her again, so she's probably years away now. However did you get your hands on it?"

"Aunt Mi-Mi requested one for research purposes. She's on the Committee on Experimental Charms. She'd had one before, so it wasn't hard to get them to agree."

"Ahh," Tonks said. "They won't be chuffed when they find it's gone AWOL."

"We're going to say that I didn't realize what it was, that I was just playing with it. After all, you don't learn about them at Hogwarts."

"No, you certainly don't," agreed Tonks. "And for good reason. Time travel is not an ideal solution to most problems."

"It has its uses," I said carefully, and Tonks smiled at me.

"It does. Now let me give this back to you before I break it myself. I'm terribly clumsy, you know."

And no sooner had she handed it back to me than she caught the toe of her trainer on my school trunk and went flying. Thankfully, the Time Turner was safely cradled against my chest, and I kept it from being jostled or broken.

"I think I shouldn't even be in the same room as that thing," Tonks joked, but I privately thought she was completely right. I put the Time Turner back in my trunk, nestled securely between layers of school robes. It was my ticket home, and I couldn't let anything happen to it.

We took the Hogwarts Express back to Scotland after the new year began. Molly sobbed as the train pulled away, and it looked like it was all Ron and Ginny could do not to jump back off the train to stay with her.

Second term started, and slowly life began to approach something like normality. My seventeenth birthday passed unnoticed on January 10th; I had told everyone that my birthday was in June, so that no one would become suspicious when I did not apply for an Apparition license. I couldn't very well have gone to the Ministry and asked to take the exam when they had no record of a Susan Hopkins ever having been born. Privately, I opened the birthday card my mother had given me to take with me last summer, which read, "My dearest Susan, you are the best and brightest star any mother could ever wish for. I love you more than you can know. Come home safely. Love, Mum."

Shortly after my uncelebrated birthday, Harry came to me again.

"Tell me about the next Horcrux," he insisted, and I knew I couldn't put him off any longer.

"All right. The next is Rowena Ravenclaw's, it's her lorgnette."

"'Lorgnette'?"

"It's like an old-fashioned magnifying glass. It's just a piece of glass in a silver frame with sapphires laid into the handle. She used it to help her read."

"Where is it?" he asked anxiously.

I sighed. "It's embedded into a lakebottom in the Lake District. And that's a problem."

He shuddered. "Are there . . . Inferi there?"

"Oh, no, no," I replied. "But the lorgnette is embedded in there very tightly, and it's a delicate old piece. If you try to remove it by force, it will shatter."

"But that's a good thing," he said, confused. "If it shatters, it'll be destroyed."

I shook my head. "If it shatters, it's just a broken Horcrux . . . still a Horcrux. You need for it to be intact to destroy it."

"Well, that is a problem." Harry flopped down on the couch beside me. "Could we encase it in some sort of Shield Spell?"

"Probably not," I admitted. "It's going to be impervious to most spells. The best you could do would be to enchant the surrounding rocks, and then you'd be hard-pressed not to damage the lorgnette."

"So what do you suggest?" he asked, surprising me. In general, Harry wasn't one to ask for help from people other than Ron and Hermione.

"Well . . . I think your best bet is to destroy it while it's still embedded in there."

He frowned. "I thought you said --"

"No, listen. Instead of removing it and trying to work on it from Hogwarts, I think you should just destroy it on-site."

"How are we supposed to do that?"

"Let's brainstorm a way to destroy it, and then you can bring whatever you need to the lake when you go."

Harry stared into the middle distance for a while, then said, "Right, let's meet in the library right after supper. We can talk about it then."

I nodded. It was late on a Sunday morning, and I surprisingly had very little homework to do, as I'd been very conscientious about using my free periods. I'd arranged to have lunch with Neville, so I went to the Great Hall after parting from Harry.

I got there first and saved him a seat. "Hello, love," he said when he came in. "Sorry I'm late; I was wrestling with my Charms homework."

"Not at all," I said, and we ate our meal contentedly. It was amazing how calm he made me. I could put all the thoughts of Horcruxes and Voldemort out of my mind when I was with Neville.

After lunch we went to visit Leonora. Our study of wand trees had ended when last term had, but Professor Sprout was keeping the trees for future classes. They'd been relegated to the rarely used Greenhouse Four, where students were normally not allowed without supervision, but Neville had gotten special permission from Sprout to visit our little rowan tree.

"Leonora, I've missed you," I announced, slinging one arm around one of her sturdier branches.

"As have I," Neville said, plopping down at the tree's roots.

We stayed like that for a while; I sensed there was something Neville wanted to tell me, and I wanted to give him the opportunity to speak.

Finally, at length, he spoke. "Susan, I was talking to Professor Sprout about what I might do after graduation."

Oh. That. My heart pounded painfully, and my fingers began to tingle. Was it time already to have this conversation?

"There are a few Herbologists in the Isles and on the Continent who would take me on as an apprentice. That's what I've always wanted. But . . . ."

I looked down at him. "But?"

"But I'm in love with you," he said simply. "And I'm not chuffed about the idea of being so far away from you. So I thought I could get something temporary in Hogsmeade, come onto the grounds and study with Sprout a few days a week when she has time, and wait till you graduate to move anywhere. We could work out where we wanted to go. We wouldn't have to flat together, of course -- I imagine your parents might have something to say about that idea -- but we could at least be in the same part of the country, if nothing else." He let out a huge breath. "So. What are you thinking?"

Oh sweet Merlin, he was planning to put his entire life on hold -- and I wouldn't even be around. I felt as if the whole world was closing in around me. "Neville, I --"

"Is it too much?" he asked anxiously. "I thought maybe it might be, but I have to start making plans --"

"No, it's not that," I assured him. "I just feel awful."

He stood to face me. "Awful? Whyever should you?"

I glanced down at the hollow in his neck and saw my necklace resting in the groove there. What had I been thinking, to make him believe I'd be able to make a life with him in a couple of years? "Neville, I don't think I'll be at Hogwarts after this year."

He reeled back and grasped a low-hanging limb of Leonora for support. "What? Why?"

"I really miss my parents and my school chums," I said desperately. It wasn't a lie, it wasn't, and yet it felt so much like one I could've wept.

"Oh. Oh, of course. So you'll go back to America at the end of the year?" His voice was strained and almost too friendly.

"Neville, I'm so sorry," I choked out.

"No, no, not at all. I just assumed -- but -- right. No, you're perfectly right. You should be with your parents if you can."

"So what are you going to do?" I said, too eagerly, too quickly.

"Do? Oh, you mean after graduation? Oh, I haven't the foggiest. I hadn't got much past the Hogsmeade idea. I've always wanted to work in Ireland."

Ireland. That was where Neville lived in my day and age. "Ireland," I breathed. "I've heard the most wonderful things about Ireland."

He looked at me shrewdly. "You'd live there?"

Now I had to backpedal again. "I -- I don't know. I don't know what I want to do when I graduate."

"Susan, please," he said, nearing me again and taking my hands. "I need to know what you're thinking. Am I completely off-base here? When you leave at year's end, is that it for us?"

"I don't want it to be," I whispered. "But I'm afraid it will be."

"Why? Do you think I'll meet some gorgeous Irish lass and fall for her instead? 'Cause I promise you, that's not going to happen."

I shivered. Once again, Neville's words had the ring of a premonition, and I hated the idea of him waiting for someone who would never come. "No, I just think long-distance relationships are difficult."

"Not too difficult," he countered. "We can always owl one another."

"Sure," I said in frustration, "that works for a while. But before long, we'll lose the reference points that make our worlds similar, and it'll be harder to talk to each other. Then we'll get desperate just to be touched. And then we'll get angry at each other for no reason -- you'll be angry I'm still in school, I'll be angry that you're not anymore. We'll forget what each other's voices sound like. We'll forget what it feels like to kiss each other. And then it'll all go to hell."

There was a long silence. I couldn't quite look at Neville, but from the corner of my eye I saw him go pale and clench his fists. Finally he said, "Well, if that's how you feel about it, I'm going to have to go make other plans. Excuse me."

He shot me one look, then left without saying good-bye or kissing me.

I spent the rest of the afternoon balled up at Leonora's roots, bawling. Nothing in my life to this point had prepared me for this pain and guilt, and I was tempted to go back to my dorm and smash my Time Turner, ending my stint in this time. At least then I'd never again have to see Neville look at me with hurt in his brown eyes.