It's just another war,
Just another family torn
(Falling from my faith today)
Just a step from the edge
Just another day in the world we live.

-"Hero" by Skillet

Stakeouts, Neville quickly discovered, were exceptionally boring. All you really did was stand around staring at the same door for hours on end (well, it felt like hours on end. It was really just an hour at a time while Harry patrolled the grounds and scoped out the wards. According to the Parselmouth, the wards around this manor were remarkably strong, too strong to break without anybody inside noticing). And it was raining. Neville had nothing against the rain, at least not on a theoretical level, but he was much less fond of it when it was drizzling onto his head for an hour and he couldn't use an umbrella because that would make it even more obvious that there was a Disillusioned human being hiding in plain sight staking out the Goyles' home. Neville found himself wishing that Daphne were a more experienced weather witch just so that she could stop the rain.

Then finally, finally the drizzle stopped. Neville heaved a sigh of relief. Maybe now… yes!

For Gregory Goyle, fourth year Slytherin, was making his way out of the house. It was about time.

Sure enough, the boy was carrying a broom and a practice Quidditch set.

Harry had been willing to bet that at least one of the Goyles would want out of the house as soon as possible, regardless of the less-than-ideal weather. After all, he'd said, if his home had been used as the setting for such an obscene ritual, he wouldn't stay there a second longer than absolutely necessary. Goyle, apparently, was the same way.

Gregory Goyle was the most useless of the lot, but he was the first lead they had. Not for the first time, Neville wished that Harry knew what wards guarded the Goyles' manor. If he had known, they could have broken through them without attracting attention and possibly finished Voldemort off. Then they could have taken his Petrified body to the Isle until the Horcruxes were gone from Harry and Mark's skulls. But Harry did not know the wards and wasn't going to risk tipping his enemy off, so kidnapping it was.

"Accio practice Snitch."

Part of Neville felt a bit guilty about Summoning a Snitch. He wasn't a Quidditch player himself, nor was this an actual game, but it still felt quite a bit like cheating. He could practically see his grandmother staring at him, hands on her hips, her eyes narrow with disapproval. Grimacing, the boy tried to shake the picture out of his head.

Goyle was flying towards him, his brutish face scrunched in concentration. The Snitch struggled in Neville's invisible grip. The boy in question abruptly realized that he was still in his ordinary form, a body that Goyle would recognize. Grimacing, he called upon the Winter Queen's gift and shifted into Alexander Chamberlain, Pollux Ophion Riddle's beefy black companion.

"Petrificus totalis."

Goyle went rigid, nearly fell off his broomstick. The Comet 260 kept flying towards Neville; he dodged it with a soft curse before using the Levitation Charm to stop the broom. A quick Disillusionment Charm later, and he was hauling the invisible Goyle's invisible broomstick past the anti-Portkey wards. Seconds later, they found themselves in a cold, dark stone room.

The Chamber of Secrets had changed in the years since Neville had first entered it. The immense statue of Salazar Slytherin was gone, transformed into a golden staircase that led even deeper into the bowels of the earth. The rodent skeletons which had cluttered the corners had vanished, swept out by Norberta two Samhains ago. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust. Before, Saysa's movements would have brushed the dust to the corners, away from her form. Yet Saysa had not lived here for a year now, and the only disturbances in the dust were a few footprints. It seemed emptier than it had once been, now that she was gone. But in many other ways, the room was the same as it had always been. Serpents still coiled round the columns; torches still burned with everlasting (if dim) fire.

All in all, the effect was exceptionally creepy.

Goyle could not move his body while under the Body-bind Curse, but his eyes had gone wide and a bit watery. Neville suspected that even if his classmate hadn't been cursed, he'd still have been rigid and immobile with fear. The Gryffindor felt a bit sorry for the Slytherin. It must be awful, witnessing the foul ritual Harry had described and then getting captured and dragged off to parts unknown by a complete stranger, a stranger who, when he dropped his Disillusionment Charm, turned out to be enormous.

Neville had originally thought that knocking Goyle out would be easier and kinder. Wouldn't it be better, he'd asked, if he didn't experience his kidnapping? But Harry had replied that the fear of waiting, not knowing what was going on, might help soften the kidnappee up and make him answer questions more readily. He could just use Legilimency, but the Parselmouth did not particularly want to invade a mind unless it was absolutely necessary. He hadn't liked invading Aberforth Dumbledore's mind when Saysa had been kidnapped last year, necessary though it had been, and anyways, having Goyle answer aloud where everyone attending the interrogation could hear him was more efficient than one boy using Legilimency to read his Housemate's mind.

So now, looking at Goyle's wide, terrified eyes, he told himself that this really was for the best. Harry knew what he was doing, after all, and it wasn't right to invade a child's mind.

He forced the thought out of his mind, made himself focus on a spell that Harry had insisted on teaching all his friends. It had taken them a long time to get the hang of it, and they still failed quite regularly, and he just knew that if they had to use it for anything but messages, it would evaporate like morning dew, but the benefits of a totally secure line of communication made up for those flaws. Besides, they would get better at this incantation with age.

"Expecto patronem."

As he spoke, he thought of things that made him happy. He remembered Harry's Tickling Charm after their first Potions class, dirt from the greenhouses getting under his nails, the thrill of his first Animagus transformation. He deliberately drove all thoughts of why Goyle was his captive from his mind, focusing instead on butterbeer and learning that Daphne was the Daughter of Frost and Professor McGonagall complimenting one of his Transfiguration essays. Admittedly, he had been more stunned than joyous when she handed back his paper with a smile and a "Well done," but the incident was a lot more pleasant in retrospect now that he knew it wasn't a cruel joke.

To his surprise, this proved to create a particularly strong Patronus. The silvery fox's shape was actually visible, its fur lighting up the Chamber for a few precious moments before it darted out through the wall. Goyle's gaze followed the beautiful creature, though of course his head could not move.

Neville decided that he might as well get started before the others arrived. Time was of the essence, after all. He cast a quick finite before Stunning his classmate. Goyle fell to the stone floor with a thud that made the clumsy Gryffindor wince. That was going to hurt tomorrow. He straightened the other boy out, checking for broken bones (fortunately absent) before casting the Leg-locker Curse. Just to be extra safe, he bound Goyle's arms to his sides before casting ennervate.

Goyle's eyes bulged. Once again, Neville told himself not to feel so guilty, but it was rather difficult when a kid his own age kept trying to flinch in terror from his kidnapper.

"We're not going to hurt you," he announced, "just ask a few questions." His voice was a rumble, deep and dark like thunder.

Goyle did not appear particularly convinced.

Neville barely suppressed a wince. Wincing would not be in character for Alexander Chamberlain. "Easy questions," he assured his prisoner. "All we want to know is where Voldemort is."

Goyle jerked at the name, tried to wiggle away on his belly. Neville let him, knowing that there was no way he could get far and that any attempts to comfort the captive would just result in more fear. At least he could say he had tried.

But even if he had been successful, Goyle's terror would have reasserted itself the moment that Harry—or, to be more precise, Pollux Ophion Riddle—Portkeyed into the Chamber of Secrets.

Goyle might not be bright, but Pollux's was a famous face. Not only was he rumored to be the Dark Lord's son (Harry had tried to make the rumors stop. Really, he had. Unfortunately, the story was too juicy for the populace to disbelieve), he had saved several pureblood girls from Lucius Malfoy and captured the traitor Wormtail, handing him over to the Aurors in the middle of Diagon Alley. That, and he was supposedly the spitting image of the young Voldemort. There was no way that Goyle would not recognize his master's supposed heir.

The boy's face lost what little color it retained. His eyes bulged even wider, giving him an unfortunate resemblance to a goldfish, before rolling back in his skull and fluttering shut. His body stopped straining against the spells keeping him captive, the muscles going completely limp. His head slammed against the floor, though he wasn't hurt. He'd only been able to lift his head about four or five inches during his sad attempt at escape.

Harry blinked, completely discombobulated by his classmate's reaction.

Neville just groaned. "Next time," he sighed, "can we just get a truth potion of some sort and have someone not intimidating do the interrogation? Like Pallas. She's not particularly scary."

"I'd love to," Harry sighed, "but the problem is we don't have a truth potion and it'd take too long to make one." He ambled towards Goyle, prodded the other Slytherin with the toe of his boot. A few drops of mud stuck to the boy's robe. "We really need to take care of that."

"Think the wolves could do it?" Neville suggested.

For the first time that day, Harry gave a genuine smile. "That's a pretty good idea. Help me remember it, will you? But for now…." He drew the yew and phoenix feather wand that was his by right of conquest.

"Wait," Neville interrupted. "Aren't we going to wait for everyone else?"

"They had things to do," Harry sighed. "You know how their parents can be, especially Hermione's. They pretty much dragged them home."

"Oh," Neville said.

Harry tapped his wand against Goyle's brow. "Ennervate."

Goyle blinked blearily, caught sight of Pollux's unamused face. His eyes closed again, face going slack.

"He fainted again?" Harry muttered, disgusted.

Neville shrugged. "Should I do something or…?"

"No," his friend sighed, "I've got it." He poked the comatose schoolboy once again, repeating his spell a bit more forcefully than before.

This time, Goyle didn't faint. He squeezed his eyes shut very tightly and made a warbling whimpering sound, but he didn't faint.

Neville scooted over to a corner and tried not to feel like an absolute cad.

From Harry's expression, he could tell that the other Animagus would like nothing more than to join him. Harry might be angry with Goyle, but it was hard to hold onto that anger when he was cowering and bound and miserable at another's feet. Heaving yet another sigh, Harry said, "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just going to ask a few questions, do you understand?"

No answer.

A hint of frustration leaked into Harry's voice. "I said that I have questions and that you are going to answer them. Do you understand?"

"Yeah." Goyle was higher-pitched than normal, his voice quavering and cracking, but at least he was responding to external stimuli.

"Okay. Just answer me right away and it'll be over soon," Harry assured him. "What happened after Volde—" Goyle flinched so violently that his interrogator changed mid-word. "—You-Know-Who came back?"

"I got sent out of the room 'cause he was gonna call the Death Eaters," Goyle blurted. "I dunno what else, I swear!"

Harry groaned. Goyle shuddered. Harry looked like he wanted to groan again but quickly thought better of it. "All right. Do you know where he is now?"

"I don't!" Goyle finally opened up his eyes, fixed them wide and pleading on his captor. "I swear I don't, I don't know!"

"But he's not at your house anymore?" Harry interrupted.

Goyle nodded frantically, babbling his assurances that Voldemort had left for a more suitable headquarters, that he was gone gone gone, that he'd been gone for hours. Harry Stunned him.

The Gryffindor and the Slytherin stared at their classmate's prone form. They glanced up, met each other's gazes. Harry's eyes were full of anguish; for once, he looked his age, though he still wore Pollux's form. Neville said nothing. He didn't need to. He, too, felt absolutely filthy.

"…I have to Obliviate him."

"What?" Neville squawked. "Why on earth—"

"Voldemort's a Legilimens," Harry pointed out, "and he doesn't share my scruples about reading children's minds. Not that Goyle has much of a mind to read, but if Voldemort get ahold of this memory, he'll know we're after him and he'll know that Goyle was in contact with us, even if it was involuntary. What do you think will happen then?"

Neville blanched at the very thought. "Oh."

"I don't like it either," Harry sighed, "but it's safest for all of us, Goyle included, if he thinks he fell off his broom and got knocked unconscious."

They did just that. Harry removed the memory; Neville planted the practice Snitch and the broomstick before walloping Goyle's temple. The head wound would keep him from wondering about his lost memory.

Then Neville went home and took a very long shower, scrubbing himself until his skin was raw and red. When necessity forced him out, he still didn't feel clean.

He had the feeling that Harry had done the exact same thing.

But whether or not he had, Neville couldn't tell. Harry would have showered as himself. When the prophesied five met up again that night for a brief conference, he wore Pollux's face. Even if Harry had scrubbed his skin away, Pollux wouldn't show it. The group conversed for a few minutes before Remus Lupin stuck his head into the cottage they had appropriated for their talk. "Everyone's here," he said. "It's time."

"Thanks, Moony," Harry said.

One year ago, the werewolves of Britain had pledged themselves to Pollux Ophion Riddle, Moon Lord, whose efforts had returned the Chalice of the Moon to its rightful owners and whose future efforts, they hoped, might one day end or at least minimize discrimination against their kind. Mostly, this dedication involved practicing military maneuvers, writing articles for the VV under various pseudonyms, and collecting information from their Auror guards. Neville had heard rumors that a few enterprising young wolves were trying to set up a smuggling ring to supply what they called The Resistance, but he had no idea if that was actually true or not.

Tonight was the first time since Remus's appointment as Beta of Britain that the werewolves had gathered to hear a speech.

Pollux wasted no words. "Last night, I had a magical vision. The how and why of it would take too long to explain, but it was a true vision that demanded an immediate reaction. Alexander and I staked out the place I had seen and captured a witness. Upon interrogating him, we learned that this problem could not be dealt with right away." The youth sucked in a deep breath, exhaled. Inhaling again, he announced, "Last night, the House of Goyle used an obscure necromantic ritual to restore Voldemort to life."

The resultant uproar was predictable: people leapt to their feet; they shouted and wailed and asked questions; they shook their heads in denial or lowered their heads into their hands. Pollux tolerated the disruption for about thirty seconds before barking out, "Enough!"

No response. Pollux grit his teeth.

Moony howled. It was an eerie, unnatural sound, a wolf's voice from a human throat. Many of the werewolves fell silent. The ones that didn't were cowed into submission when Harry snapped, "All of you, ENOUGH!"

The werewolves sank into their chairs.

"As I said, Voldemort has returned. He is no longer residing at the Goyles' house, and our source couldn't tell us where he is now. However, this is not the time to panic. His strongest supporters rot in Azkaban. Others rot in their graves. He hasn't had time to build up his strength. Magically and physically, he needs to recover from coming back to life. Militarily, his forces are disorganized and confused, lacking an immediate strategy and afraid of the future. Numerically, he lacks Inferi, Imperius victims, and the nonhuman allies he won over in the last war. He's weak. If we handle the situation properly, we can destroy him before he gets any stronger."

Harry smiled, fierce and furious, a wolf himself. "And that's what we're going to do."

"How?" a woman called.

"Over the next several days, the non-werewolves among us will scout out different Death Eater homes. We'll plot the ward structures, search for weaknesses, and—this is the most important part—find out where Voldemort is. Then, when the full moon comes and no one will notice your absence, Remus and I will lead the best werewolf fighters to Voldemort's hiding place. The house-elves will have drugged the resident Death Eaters, so it will be easy to create anti-Disapparition and anti-Apparition wards to trap Voldemort without reinforcements. Perhaps, if we're lucky, he'll have eaten the drugged food himself. Then we surround and capture him."

"Why not go for the kill?" the same woman demanded. "Merlin knows he doesn't deserve to live."

Harry grimaced, lips thinning to a fine line. "I know Voldemort's crimes better than anyone else. No one wants him dead more than I do. But he didn't die when his Killing Curse rebounded on him thirteen years ago. Instead, he became a disembodied spirit that could possess animals and even humans. Those of you who've read Mark Potter's autobiography will remember that one of Hogwarts's Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, Quirinius Quirrel, hosted Voldemort for months under Dumbledore's very nose.

"My point is that killing him won't put him out of commission. It would certainly inconvenience him—the last few years of peace prove that—but that's all it will be: a setback. He would just start plotting to come back to life again. But if we capture him, subject him to the Draught of Living Death or Petrification, he'll be completely helpless until we find out how to kill him."

Or, more precisely, how to destroy the Horcruxes in Mark and Harry's scars without killing them.

The werewolves understood. Well, they understood the parts that Harry had explained to them.

The meeting broke up fairly quickly after that. Most of the wolves Portkeyed home. A few remained behind, mostly men and women in the prime of life who were volunteering for raid duty. Watching them gave Harry a burst of pride. Not that long ago, none of these werewolves would have volunteered to go after Voldemort. They wouldn't have gone near him even if the Dark Lord were outnumbered a hundred to one, bound, gagged, and Petrified. But now they would go willingly to fight their worst nightmare. Whether that was for loyalty towards him or confidence born of destroying their curse, Harry didn't know. Nor did he much care—courage was courage, and his werewolves had courage to spare.

With them at his side, there was no way the raid could fail.

*cringes* Uh... hi, guys. This is... not December. Yeah.

I'm sorry. I truly had intended to post this on the due date, but then I got walloped by holiday business and schoolwork and applications for grad school and working on my senior project even though my project adviser is incompetent and no help at all and also I have senioritis and writer's block. It's a nasty, nasty combination of unpleasantness. Still, it's no excuse for being three months overdue, and I am so, so sorry that I kept you waiting so long.

I can't give another due date. I still have all the things listed above (except holiday business) and am very tired, so if I gave a due date I'd just end up missing it again, and I don't want to do that. All I can say is that I will NOT abandon this story, even though updates will probably be very infrequent until summer comes and I can breathe again. *sighs* I don't it, but my life offline has to take priority over fanfiction. I hope you guys understand.

On another note, despite my writer's block for HP, I've got a lot of story ideas for BBC's Merlin bouncing around in my head. There's a poll in my profile about which of those I should write. If you're a Merlin fan, please stop by and vote.

-Antares