Not even the wisest elders know much about the Fae.

-Sayern nar-Hazozh,(History of the Treaty), translated circa 1952

Pacing won't do anything, Pollux," Blaise snapped. He'd almost slipped up and called Harry by his real name in front of Dudley; that added to the frustration he felt about Dumbledore's (for who else could it be? Who else had means and motive to attack them? Only a powerful wizard could have removed Harry's anti-Tracking Charms without triggering defenses, and he could think of a dozen other reasons that only Dumbledore could have been Hermione's attacker).

"Neither will standing still," the younger boy snarled back. Part of Blaise noted that Harry must be frightened of his behavior as he fought the attacker, of his rage and shrieks and lack of control, and that that fear must translate into another dose of anger, but the Seer was beyond caring. He, too, was Hermione's friend; he, too, was stretched close to the breaking point.

So instead of gritting his teeth and excusing his friend's understandable temper, he did as Harry had done and retorted, "At least this way I'm not making enough noise to rouse the bloody dead!"

"We're not that loud," Sirius growled. He too was pacing, his face pale against the darkness of the night-clad trees.

"Yes you are. What if we're attacked again, what then? We won't be able to hear it!"

"We won't be attacked again!" Harry raged, flinging up his arms. "He had a goal, and he got her."

"How do you know, eh? What if he's just doubling back and—"

"Knock it off!" yelled Neville. "Just stop it. This arguing isn't helping anything!"

All three other wizards turned to glare at him, their mouths open for another caustic one-liner, but the crack of Apparition interrupted. They spun, hands on wands, spells on lips.

Saysa and Daphne lunged forward, landing belly-first on the dirt. The top of Sirius's spell grazed Saysa's hair; the stench of burning permeated the clearing as the basilisk-turned-human batted frantically at her head. "Sorry!" Sirius yelped.

"Why isn't it going out?" Blaise demanded, rushing forward to help the new arrivals.

"It's Gubriathian Fire," Sirius explained. He aimed his wand at the affected strands of hair, slicing them off and tossing them onto the dirt. "Good thing it doesn't spread fast."

"Where is Pallas?" Daphne demanded, eyes darting around the clearing.

The males all spoke at once, their words blending together. Even Dudley chipped in.

"The knight showed up—"

"You remember the knight, don't you, the one—"

"Apparently Fire's bargain came into play—"

"The Fae are involved now—"

"There was a man on a horse with armor, and I guess he's a fairy thing—"

"—you know the one, the one with orange eyes who's been harassing her—"

"—who shows up all the time just to act mysterious—"

"—whatever the devil that is—"

"—and they took her away!"

"—and he took Pallas away on his horse—"

"—he said that only his people could help—"

"—he brought her to the Otherworld." Sirius sighed, wishing he knew more.

"—and I guess that that's a good thing, because I think Fire's bargain just saved her life." Neville shuddered at how close his friend may have just come to dying, then shuddered again when he realized that he hoped she had only come close.

"—I guess to a hospital? A fairy hospital?" Dudley looked a bit skeptical of his own conclusion.

"Quiet!" Daphne cried, cutting off the two who were still speaking. "Pollux, what's going on?"

"The knight showed up. The orange-eyed one, you know him—" Daphne nodded impatiently. "—he said that only his people could save her from the fuga spiriti curse."

"Which is what, exactly?"

"It makes it so that your body can't take in air. You asphyxiate. There's no cure."

Saysa sucked in a breath.

"None on Earth, you mean," Neville corrected, his voice querulous. "There's obviously something in the Otherworld, right?"

"It looks like it," Harry murmured. "I just…." He trailed off. Saying that he hoped the knight had made it in time would not be a productive statement. "I just hope they get her back soon," he concluded lamely.

Daphne closed her eyes, swallowed. "I've no doubt she will be," the other Slytherin assured him, responding to the unspoken words just as much as to the spoken. "All the stories say that time passes differently there. She's probably finishing up her recovery therapy right now and will be back any minute. Until then, how many owls are left?"

"You're joking," Sirius burst out.

Daphne rounded on him. "No, I am not joking. Unless you have a way of contacting the Otherworld, there is nothing we can do or say or anything that will help Pallas." The cords in her neck bulged; her fists clenched until the knuckles shone white. "All that we can do is complete our task for the night. I'm assuming that you did not send out any more owls while I was gone? No? Then we ought to continue. Besides," she added, softening just a bit, "this is the last place that the knight saw us. He'll bring her here, I have no doubt."

But she was wrong. They finished up with the owls, sending the feathery messengers off with their burdens. They stayed behind another hour, two hours, three, before conceding defeat. "We should schedule shifts," Harry suggested. His anger had mostly worn away to be replaced by worry and exhaustion.

"I'll take first," Sirius volunteered. "That way—oh, Merlin."

"What?"

"Who's going to tell her parents?"

"Her parents?" Dudley parroted.

Harry blanched. He imaged the Grangers waiting up for Hermione, slowly growing more and more afraid as the hours passed with no sign from their daughter. The rest of his friends had snuck out of their homes in an effort to keep their secrets from their wizarding relatives. Hermione's Muggle parents knew a bit more, though obviously not everything. They thought that their daughter was just involved in a semi-underground newsletter that addressed relevant political issues and fought for Muggle-born rights. They had no idea quite how dangerous their child's 'job' really was.

No one was looking forward to telling them.

Harry sighed. Ah, the burdens of leadership…. "You lot go home. I'll do it."

"Weren't you going to check in with Remus, then?" Sirius demanded.

Harry winced. He'd forgotten that his guardian, like Hermione's parents, knew what he was doing that night. "He's probably still in the cage, I think. He said something about tighter security and was worried about the Aurors actually doing their jobs tonight."

"I could check," Sirius suggested.

"The last thing we need is another visible connection between us and the werewolves," Daphne informed him. "Stay here and keep watch." A pause. "Pollux, did you want someone to go with you?"

"No, no. I can do this." He didn't want to, but he could. He would.

"I will sleep here," Saysa decided. "Sirius, could you awaken me when you grow tired?"

"Yeah."

The serpent-woman closed her eyes. Her form melted, limbs melding together, nose flattening, body growing longer and thicker. Soon a sixty-plus-foot basilisk was lying in the clearing, slithering so that she encompassed Sirius and the others in her coils.

"Wicked," muttered Dudley. Saysa hissed her thanks.

Harry didn't translate. Dudley already knew, he supposed; besides, he didn't have the energy. All he wanted to do was go home, curl up in a little ball, and cry for a friend who hadn't come back. He spun on his heel, vanished into the ether with a crack.

The Parselmouth approached the Grangers' home slowly, his feet heavy. He didn't even bother hiding himself as he changed back to his regular form. Normally, the very thought of transforming in plain sight (and yes, past midnight in a peaceful suburb where no one knew him or would believe their eyes even if they did see counted as 'in plain sight,' at least in Harry's mind) would have sent him into palpitations, but the exhaustion of the long day had caught up with him. He simply couldn't bring himself to care.

A pale, slender hand lifted to the door of a modest, pleasant house with flowerboxes in the windows. Before the hand made contact, though, the door swung open. Jean Granger stood there, dressed in a fluffy blue bathrobe, her hair just as wild as her daughter's. "Where's Hermione?" she demanded without preamble.

Harry flinched. "You know how we work on that political newspaper in our spare time?"

David Granger, clad in the same kind of bathrobe as his wife, ground out, "Where is she?"

Harry looked down. "We were sending out the owls when someone hit Hermione with a curse. A nasty one."

The color drained from David's face. He staggered backwards, nearly knocking his wife off her feet.

Warm wetness stung behind Harry's eyes. He blinked rapidly. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry!"

"Where is she?" Jean cried. She pushed her husband aside to get right in Harry's face. The boy couldn't help but look up, see the redness of her eyes. Lack of sleep, perhaps, or maybe she had already wept for her daughter.

"But she's getting care," he blurted. "Someone came, someone we know, he took her to his people—"

"What?" Jean squawked.

Ooh, that had come out wrong. Harry blanched. "That's not—I didn't mean—we know him. He has a better chance of healing her than anyone else."

"What. Do. You. Mean!?"

No, this was really not going well. Sweat beaded at Harry's temple. "I mean he's going to fix her." I hope. "He's going to—he's going to fix her. I just know it. He just hasn't gotten her back to us yet, that's all."

"Take us to her," David demanded. His hands grabbed Harry's slender shoulders. They were shaking. Any second and he could start shaking Harry too, worrying him like a dog with its prey.

Harry could have cursed if he weren't so tired. "I—"

"What," Jean breathed, "is that?"

Relieved by the reprieve, Harry turned. And beamed.

The knight and his horse were diving through the skies to meet them, but that was not the only source of Harry's joy. A second, smaller rider clung to the horse's back.

Gregory Goyle cowered against the wall. Blood dripped from his nose. His breath came in short gasps. Even that hurt, the breath scratching his raw throat, drying him out further.

His mother balanced on the balls of her feet, eyes wide, but she did not go to him. Whenever she leaned forward just a little more, those bulging eyes would travel to the center of the room. Then she would give a little shiver and lean back again.

The face of the Thing was blank, expressionless, as it watched the boy twitch and tremble. "You brought the wrong blood," it hissed, ruby eyes narrowed to slits.

"N-n-no," the Slytherin half-moaned, half-pleaded.

"Yes," the Thing (his master, his lord, the one to whom his parents had both sworn allegiance everlasting) hissed, drawing out the s at the end like the serpents it so admired.

It. He. Voldemort, the Dark Lord. Not just his parents' master, but his as well.

"I—Mark Potter," Gregory gasped out. He couldn't breathe, it hurt to breathe, why why why? His parents hadn't mentioned that the Dark Lord liked to torture his servants. They'd been full of the glories of his crusade, about the beautiful pureblood future toward which he was leading them. But his lord and master had shot a curse at Gregory, a young teenager, just for presenting him with the blood he'd desired! Where were the beauty and glory in that?

"Yes," Voldemort agreed, "the blood of Mark Potter." The pale, spider-like hand tightened around the borrowed wand he was using. Gregory would later learn that the Dark Lord's real wand had gone missing and was presumed destroyed, as the safe house where the wand had been kept was in smithereens, but at the moment, all he registered was that his father's wand had been turned against him. Dad's wand had tortured him.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be. He wasn't an enemy, he was a good servant, a loyal son. He was on the Dark Lord's side. He was good!

"But Mark Potter is not the Boy-Who-Lived."

Gregory heard his mother gasp, but then another Cruciatus Curse hit him in the back. He screamed, screamed screamed screamed screamed; his back was breaking, his blood afire, everything hurt hurt HURT!

"Mark Potter is naught but a mediocre child, a decoy who has fooled even the great Albus Dumbledore." (But if he fooled Dumbledore, why d'you expect me to know any better? Everyone knows how smart he is, and you never told me. You never told me! I didn't know!) "His brother is the true Boy-Who-Lived. Harry Potter."

Goyle's blood went cold. Harry was nice to him. They weren't friends, they didn't seek each other out or anything, but he read better than Binns and Harry had sometimes helped him with his homework and he'd brought him to the Hospital Wing that one time. He'd been glad that Harry wasn't his lord's enemy, because that would mean that Harry would die and he didn't want that to happen.

"You live with this boy," Voldemort snarled. "You share his dormitory. You have for years! And yet you could not acquire any blood from him? Crucio!"

Pain blotted out the world.

The Grangers sprinted forward so quickly that they left a breeze in their wake. Harry blinked after them, momentarily stunned that mere mortals could move so fast, before his senses returned. The boy followed, reaching the horse's side just as it slowed to a halt.

Jean and David were babbling, their questions overlapping into incoherency, but Harry caught the gist of them. Where were you? Are you all right? Who is this? How can we thank him? What happened? Do you need Tylenol, Aspirin, anything? Do you need to lie down? And repeated again and again: Are you all right?

Harry fought down a brief surge of jealousy. Remus was wonderful, but what he would have given for parents like this as a kid. Would Lily and James be like this if they were still alive? It seemed most probable, if Remus and Sirius's stories were any indication.

The knight swung himself off the horse, helped Hermione dismount. The normally talkative girl hadn't said anything, which really should have been Harry's (and the Grangers') first clue. But he was too relieved by his friend's return (especially at such a convenient time) to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Hermione's parents, though, were a bit more observant.

"Hermione? What's going on?"

This is not she.

The Muggles started. They had never heard the knight's not-voice rising like blood and thought into their minds. Their skulls had never been filled with words that were more than half concept instead of sound. Not to mention that the message itself was rather strange, as that was clearly Hermione standing there ever so quietly.

Except there was something wrong with the eyes; admittedly, it was dark even with the streetlamps, but Hermione's eyes were somehow wrong. Harry couldn't put his finger on the source of the wrongness, just that it was there, and once he noticed it, he couldn't put it out of his mind.

Those eyes were the correct color and shape and size, but they weren't Hermione's. They weren't even human.

"Where is my daughter?" David demanded, his voice taut with strain.

She lives, the knight assured them, and shall return soon, but she may only recover in my homeland. No mortal can cure the fuga spiriti, but my kind is not mortal. The orange eyes seemed to glow with the same inhuman force as not-Hermione. Yet she will not be ready to return until the Spider has called the children back into his web.

"What the hell does that mean?" Jean looked ready to jump on the knight and strangle him, armor and all.

She is recuperating from an attack and cannot return to this plane until school begins, hence this changeling so that the Spider might not notice anything amiss.

"Take us to her."

I cannot. Rest assured, though, that your daughter is safe, for she is ours. The knight's not-voice deepened into a growl on the last word. His eyes burned with orange fire, a flame that sparked in the changeling's gaze as well.

The Grangers did not seem particularly assured by that.

"Take us to her," Jean repeated.

The orange eyes softened. I cannot. I am sorry.

Fast and fluid as the wind, the knight leapt onto his horse. The beast didn't so much as twitch despite the sudden increase in weight. The changeling can tell you of your daughter's progress. For now, she merely sleeps. The changeling shall tell you when that changes.

"Don't you dare—" Jean began, lunging for the horse's stirrups. The horse danced away.

I am sorry.

The horse reared, its silhouette stark against the orange glow of the streetlamps. The muscles of its hind legs bunched, then it leapt into the air, hooves pounding against a path invisible and intangible to mortals. Jean lunged at it again, as did her husband. His hands grasped at the horse's tail, but the fine hairs flowed through his fingers like water or the breeze.

It was gone. Perhaps the darkness had swallowed it. Perhaps it had vanished from the plane, bearing its rider to their homeland. Harry didn't know, didn't care. If the steed and its frustratingly cryptic rider weren't in the Otherworld now, they would be soon.

But without the knight to provide a focus for their anger, the Grangers had to find another scapegoat. As one, they rounded on Harry. The boy stepped back involuntarily, bracing himself against the much-deserved onslaught.

The changeling, perhaps just following (its? Her?) programming, perhaps consciously choosing to save his bacon, asked, "Would you like more news of the Messenger?"

The sound of Hermione's voice stole the wind from David and Jean's sails. "Is that what you call her?"

"Yes," the changeling replied. "Among other things. Maiden of Air, Maker of the Wards, Heiress of Salazar Slytherin."

Jean's eye twitched. Harry gulped. He really was not looking forward to explaining just why Hermione had so many titles among other dimensional beings. Or maybe he'd get lucky and the changeling would tell them what they needed to know without freaking them out so badly that they withdrew Hermione from Hogwarts, snapped her wand, and fled to Australia under assumed names. Either was possible.

"And how is she doing?"

"She sleeps," was the simple response. "She will be well."

"And you can't take us to her either?" The question was directed at the changeling, but Jean's eyes flickered towards Harry. The boy held up his hands, head shaking wildly. No, he could not at all bring them to the Otherworld.

At least he had good news. He could go back to the others and tell them what was going on, tell them about the changeling and Hermione's diagnosis. Babbling that as his excuse, the boy fled before the Grangers could recover enough to rip him a new one.

It was easy to enchant a trio of parchment planes to fly into his friends' houses, into their bedroom windows. The parchments bore a short message explaining everything, including the Grangers' ire and that they should perhaps expect some angry communications from the two Muggles. Then he popped back to the forest, but Sirius, Dudley, and Saysa were gone. He'd expected Dudley to have left—Sirius wouldn't let him stay up too much longer—but the other two surprised him. Wand at the ready, he cast a few spells. Fear tightened his throat, for what if Dumbledore had come back? But his spells revealed nothing, so he activated his Portkey to transport to Founder's Isle. Sure enough, Saysa's vast bulk greeted him, her scales shimmering faintly in the moonlight.

"Do you know of the changeling?" the basilisk asked.

"Yes. I was there when the knight brought it to Hermione's parents. They're with it now."

Saysa shifted. She'd met Hermione's parents, was fond of them both. "Are they all right?"

"Not really, but that's to be expected." Harry sighed. "I think that the changeling will help, though, because she can give them information about Hermione's status. I've told the other three, so they know about the changeling too. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to go visiting the Grangers just for news."

"What of the ambassadors?"

"What?"

"The ambassadors," Saysa repeated. "We originally planned to meet during the springtime, your spring break, but should we still do so without a complete group?"

Harry groaned. His head ached, his limbs weighed him down. He just wanted to sleep. "I don't know. I just don't know." He rubbed at his temples.

"We can discuss it tomorrow when the others are here," Saysa murmured. Her head nuzzled Harry's chest, her scales surprisingly soft and warm. "Now go rest, Harry. There is nothing more you can do."

Confession time: I have too much going on in this book to fit the meeting with the ambassadors in. That'll just have to wait. *sighs* It's a pacing thing.

Another confession: I really didn't intend to be this late, or late at all. It was supposed to be up on the 2nd, and I'm really sorry that it wasn't. The next chapter, though WILL be up on August 23. I don't have any more travels messing my writing schedule up, so it'll actually be on time this time.

Three cheers for Daphne, who stayed sane and rational when everyone else was freaking out. Hip hip hooray!

Thank you guys for putting up with me. You're great!

-Antares