Right, so first of all, I am so sorry for not updating in ages - school was extremely busy, I was working on projects left and right, and when I actually had time, I was too lazy to post anything :P But, anyways, apologies aside, I do hope everyone's holiday season is awesome so far (isn't it crazy how close we are to 2012? :O) and that everyone enjoys this chapter!

The QAS: I completely understand, as you've probably noticed from my rant in the above note :D Thanks for the compliments, and I understand about Rose being a bit OOC - but we all have our weaknesses sometimes, I bet, so let's just forgive her just this once :D Also, thanks for the comments about Rachel and Megara, I'll try to remember that so I can explain in later chapters :D Anyways, overall, happy holidays!

JGS39: Yep, they are! That's actually what the story's about, mostly :D Thanks for the review, and happy holidays!

Godly Help

When Teddy Lupin had seen the tunnel appear, he hadn't thought twice and had plunged inside, closely followed by Scorpius. It appeared that the two of them were the only ones who could see the tunnel, for some obscure reason, luckily for them.

Now, Teddy wasn't so sure. The tunnel led up to a dead end, where the rest of the passageway was in a sort of well at least five or six feet from their current spot. The young man turned to his cousin. "Are you sure we should - ?"

The Malfoys would have his hide if he managed to kill off their only heir, that was for sure. And Teddy really wasn't in the mood to have three angry Malfoy women and two very pissed-off Malfoy men on his back; he shivered at the prospect. Malfoys were, in general, very good at holding grudges and making non-hollow threats.

Scorpius nodded. "Why don't you use a Cushioning Charm?"

A Cushioning Charm! Teddy hit the side of his head, cursing his own stupidity. How was he to become an Auror when his eleven-year-old cousin could think quicker in perilous situations than him? "Okay. Why don't you go first? I'll cast it on you."

Taking a deep breath, Scorpius tucked his wand into robes' pocket and jumped. "Don't forget!" he shouted, free-falling.

"Arresto Momentum!" Teddy pointed his wand at the young Malfoy's slender frame and then smiled, satisfied. "Great."

Scorpius had landed safely on his bottom and gave Teddy a thumbs-up. "It's actually wicked, Teddy, if you think about it," he remarked, grinning. "I should jump into wells more often."

"Call me when you're out of the loony bin," Teddy muttered, before jumping himself. Caught in the momentum, he didn't notice that his wand had slid from his fingers until it'd been too late. His leg twisted in the wrong direction under his entire body's weight. "Fuck!"

"Indeed," Scorpius agreed soberly, though the boy was panicking inwardly. Grimacing at the sight of Teddy's twisted leg and the memory of the sickening crunch that had accompanied the break, he said, "Can you heal it?"

Teddy grimaced, catching the wand Scorpius tossed him. "Ferula," he said feebly. Scorpius caught the wooden rod and bandages he conjured with the spell, awaiting his cousin's instructions.

"Straighten my leg," Teddy ordered weakly, "with the wooden rod. Then you can tie the bandages to it." He leaned back, his eyes half-closed. "Don't mind me if I cry out. It's supposed to hurt mildly. Binding bones is no small business."

"Mm," Scorpius murmured, taking hold of the wooden rod. He kneeled beside his cousin, about to set Teddy's twisted leg, when the smell of a strong perfume wafted through his nostrils. He looked at Teddy with his eyebrows raised. He wasn't aware that Teddy was, possibly, a cross-dresser. "Is that your - ?"

Teddy shook his head vehemently. "I thought it was you," he said, chuckling darkly. "So it's - ?"

"Me," said a female voice, making both of them jump. Scorpius turned, his grey eyes surveying the room. Were they imagining things?

No, they were not. Scorpius nearly jumped again when his eyes found the visitor: a beautiful woman with long, lush chocolate brown hair and eyes that shifted from green to grey to brown to gold and blue; she wore a fashionable set of dress robes Astoria would have worn. The woman smiled at both him and Teddy, making the cousins blush to the roots of their hair in unison.

"Hello, my legacies," she said in a voice like a breeze, mesmerizing Scorpius so that he didn't even try to make sense of the words that accompanied her brilliant voice. The eleven-year-old boy thought that he could listen to her voice for days at an end. As she drifted closer, he caught sight of the fan she held, similar to the ones that the Chinese witches that he had once seen at the Ministry carried. From it, Scorpius could smell his mother's perfume and new quills and a box of freshly sharpened pencils; he also distinguished the smell of the fires in the Gryffindor common room and green apples.

It seemed that the same thing was happening to Teddy. Blinking several times, Scorpius noticed that the Metamorphagus' hair colour was changing rapidly, along with his facial features, which blurred together to the blond boy. "Who are you?"

The woman laughed; the sound was so wonderful that it made Scorpius and Teddy laugh along with her. "I am your great-great-great grandmother," she said breezily. "There is more to it, of course, but I cannot tell you. Athena's orders."

The infatuated boy and man finally realised that something peculiar was up. Scorpius asked, "Athena? Like the goddess?"

"I'm probably mad," the woman said vaguely. She waved a hand dismissively and gestured to Teddy's bad leg. "Boys, we should focus on the prioritizing task, which is fixing Theodore's leg."

"Of course," the man and the boy chimed in unison, completely unaffected by the vague statement that the woman might be, in fact, mad.

Instead of brandishing a wand as Scorpius would have expected, the woman simply laid her hand on Teddy's injury. "I am not as good as Asclepius, of course," she confided to the cousins, "but I am talented, you must admit."

"Yes, of course," Teddy and Scorpius said obediently.

"Your leg is completely healed now." The woman stood up. "I need to leave now, my legacies. It was a pleasure meeting the two of you – you are both very charming young men." She winked at them, making Teddy and Scorpius shiver. "Goodbye. Don't forget to speak with the child of Wisdom."

"What?" Teddy grunted out, receiving no reply. Scorpius stared at the spot where the beautiful woman had been a moment ago – she appeared to have vanished from thin air. Peculiar.

"That was certainly something," Scorpius commented to his elder. "Say, Teddy, how's the leg?"

Teddy shook it. "As good as anything," he said in awe. "It's as if my leg had never been broken in the first place. Blimey, Scorpius... It's as if she'd been a bloody goddess, for Merlin's sake."

"Who do you think is the child of Wisdom?" the blond boy asked. "Or do you think she was just raving mad?"

Teddy shook his head. "She was barking mad, perhaps, but she was definitely something. I won't forget her anytime soon, that's for sure."

Scorpius smirked. "Don't let Victoire hear you say that."

"Well said, Scorp." Teddy laid a hand on the younger boy's shoulder. "C'mon, let's get out of here. Maybe if we follow this path..."

Breathing heavily, Neville turned to Victoire. "As for you, Miss Weasley, I will have to demote you from your prefect's position. I am sorry, you must understand, but this – this is very serious, what you have done."

Victoire nodded, staring at her lap. "I understand, Professor Longbottom," she said softly. Al watched all of this with the heavy feeling that he was next, he and Rose; Neville had already admonished both Victoire and Alcmene, demoting the former and suspending the latter. For the umpteenth time, Al cursed his cousin and recklessness in general: why, why, why?

Al's gut feeling was right, of course, although Neville's brown eyes chose to pose on Rose instead of him. "As I have understood, Miss Weasley," he said evenly, "It is you was the, ah, mastermind behind this whole operation. Am I right, Rose?"

"Yes," Rose said, not sounding guilty at all, "Yes, sir, you're right."

Neville threw up his hands, seeming to be quite pissed off by her nonchalant attitude. "Rose, what were you thinking of? You have your mum's brains, everyone says so; why don't you think for once? Your mother would have never-"

"I'm not my mother!" Rose snapped, crossing her arms and glaring defiantly at the Headmaster. "For one, my birth name is Weasley, not Granger. Secondly-"

"Miss Weasley, there's a time and place for a smart mouth, and it isn't in the Headmaster's office," said a smooth drawl. The students and the teacher's heads turned to look at the speaker, a portrait of a man with greasy black hair who wore black robes. At Neville's annoyed look, he sneered. "Forgive me for my little, ah, interruption, Headmaster Longbottom."

Neville bristled and scowled at the portrait. "Not now, Snape! Can't you see I'm-"

Rose's eyes widened. So this was Snape's portrait that Al spoke of so lowly! Just to be sure, she called, "Are you Professor Snape?"

"Who else would he be, Miss Weasley?" said another portrait, an aged wizard with a rather generous beard and twinkling blue eyes. He stuck a lolly into his mouth. "Mm, a rarity – pineapple. Delicious, I must say, delicious."

"Dumbledore," Rose heard Al murmur.

"Sweet-gobbling fiend," Snape's portrait muttered darkly, glowering at Dumbledore. He shifted in his chair, smoothing his black robes, and stared unblinkingly at the students and the Headmaster. "My, my, Longbottom and brats: please continue. Watching dunderheads get punished is a pastime of mine."

"Your only pastime, probably," Al muttered. "Seriously, get a life."

"Oh, I would if I could," Snape retorted, giving the boy the Evil Eye. "Ah, you again, Potter! I must say, the Potter genes – I don't believe that your imbecile of a father went a day without getting into trouble. Damn Gryffindors."

"As I was saying, Miss Weasley," Neville said over the portrait's voice, "You will be suspended for two weeks." He turned to Al, who shrunk farther into his chair. "Same goes for you, Mr Potter. I am highly disappointed in you, as you may know. Owls have already been sent to your parents, all of yours'."

His brown eyes shifted through each of them in turn. "You will return to your dormitories immediately," he said in a voice that breached all argument. "All of you. Dismissed."

As soon as the students had left, Neville collapsed into the Headmaster's chairs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Bollocks," he muttered, wiping the sweat breaking out on his forehead with a hanky, "Being Headmaster... Not the most pleasurable experience."

The sound of footsteps made him go tense immediately. Turning in his chair, his jaw dropped as he caught sight of the two trespassers who stared at him in turn. Neville got up slowly, walking towards the intruders with a deep frown.

"Mr Lupin," he said curtly as he recognized one of them. The other stared at him with grey eyes, the same pale eyes that belonged to the blond boy who had made Neville miserable during his school years. Neville glowered at him. "And Mr Malfoy... I should have known. Take a seat, the two of you. And kindly explain your presence in my office at this time of the night."

"I do not know why you went," an olive-skinned woman in a toga growled, pointing her tightly-gripped sword at a taller woman. Although the two of them were both sufficiently attractive, clearly only the taller woman could be called beautiful. "Did we not make a pact? Did I not say that I was going to watch over my legacy?"

"The Malfoy boy is my legacy as well as Lupin," the beautiful woman pointed out, nonchalantly examining her perfectly manicured nails. She seemed oblivious to the silver blade the other was threatening her with. "I don't let my great-great-great – well, great-something children get hurt, Nemesis."

"I sense disrespect," Nemesis bared her teeth, her miniature scale earrings jingling. The sword's blade dug a bit closer to the other's skin. "While your pathetic pea of a brain may not understand the concept of honour, Aphrodite, it means a great deal to me. You know what happens to those who breach my code of honour, do you not?"

Aphrodite finally looked up from her nails and gulped at the sight of the blade. "I'm – I'm sorry, Nemesis, there was honestly no disrespect intended! I was just protecting Lupin and the Malfoy boy – forgive me!"

"Hmph." Nemesis loosened her grip on the sword a little, watching the goddess squirm with perverse pleasure. "And what about Lupin, hmm, Aphrodite? Lupa told us, on the first day of employment, where our loyalties lay with werewolves, in case you had forgotten, you imbecile."

"It wasn't my fault that my legacy mated with a werewolf!" Aphrodite wailed, annoying Nemesis to no end. "And I'm not an imbecile!"

Just as Nemesis was about to poke at Aphrodite for real, the door of the temple opened, revealing an all-business Athena, closely followed by Artemis and two or three of her Hunters. "Who's an imbecile?" Thalia Grace inquired, raising an eyebrow.

"Her." Nemesis pointed an accusing finger at the goddess of love and lowered her sword. She bowed her head at Athena, and then at Artemis. "Greetings, sisters."

"Greetings," Artemis said in reply. She turned to Thalia and her comrade Phoebe. "You two, I want you to watch the man outside. I will join you shortly, Hunters."

"Yes, my Lady," the Hunters murmured, hurrying out of sight.

Athena gave Nemesis and Aphrodite stern looks. When she had recruited them, she had specifically told them to work together – not kill each other, for goodness's sake! "What were you rowing about, sisters?"

"Small personal differences," Nemesis muttered. "We will not row in the future, Athena, I am sorry." She elbowed Aphrodite, who had taken out a pocket makeup kit. "Say something, idiot," Nemesis hissed.

"I'm sorry, too," Aphrodite yelped out, catching her lipstick before it fell to the ground. "We'll – I'll – be good in the future!"

Athena sighed, burying her face in her hands.

"Who's the man outside?" Aphrodite demanded Artemis. "Is he dangerous? No, wait – is he cute, Artemis? Is he?"

Typical Aphrodite. "This is not a dating convention, Aphrodite," Artemis said wearily. "But yes, I guess you could say that – the man isn't hideous-looking, at least."

"Who is he?" Nemesis inquired.

"A child of Hades – a quite famous one, might I add." Artemis tilted her head to look at the two other women. "His sister was a good, loyal Hunter for a bout of time. Nico di Angelo is outside, demanding that we tell him whatever has happened to his mortal girlfriend – well, obscenities aside, that is."

So, what does everyone think about poor Teddy and Scorpius? Aphrodite, Nemesis, Athena, Artemis? Neville, Snape, and, of course, the sharp-tongued Rose (hmm, not so smart, lashing out at the Headmaster, though)?

Since the next chapter's been written since the first week of November or so, I think I'm going to post it tonight, so watch out for the rest! :D

Please read and review, especially if you favourite/alert!