A/N: Um, wow. It's actually been over a year since I added to this. I wonder if anyone besides BA is going to read this chapter.

I know it's been a long time, and I'm sorry, and listing the reasons why isn't going to help anybody and will waste a lot of your time. So I'm just going to say that I'm back now with a tentative idea of what might come, though I may go back and edit past chapters just because some sentences make me wince loudly.

I love you guys, my readers, and I'm sorry to leave you on tenterhooks. I hate it when authors do that. Well, I'm back, and don't count on punctual updates but I don't think you'll have to wait a year for them either.

It's great to be back. Now, read.

x x x

He wished he'd thought to bring the invisibility cloak down to breakfast, even though he knows it would only be postponing the inevitable. He isn't sure what he's doing down here in the first place, really, except to prove that he's fine.

It's been a week, after all. He's tougher than that. He shouldn't still be waited on.

He leans his head against a bandaged hand and waits for the others to come down. People are watching him from the other tables, and whispering, but they would be whispering anyway. Even he can't just disappear after - after what happened, and not have people wonder. No one says anything, though, for which he's grateful. He'd come down early for a reason.

Peter's face doesn't change when he sees him - he supposes it would have taken more than that to surprise Peter these days - but James looks suitably displeased. "Pomfrey can't have let you out."

He shrugs. "I'm here, aren't I?"

James doesn't say anything more, just loading some sausage on his plate and then holding it out. He doesn't want any, and tells James so, but James doesn't put the plate down so he takes one piece. Doesn't eat it, just takes it and puts it down, quivering on the end of his fork. James looks satisfied, though, and moves on to toast.

Peter doesn't look at him, really. It's not surprising. If he'd been them, he'd treat him like porcelain too. He still wishes they wouldn't, though.

No one says anything more. They don't need to. The tension's like another person, taking up the place where the last marauder used to be.

x x x

Minerva would have have done just about anything than tell Eileen about her son. It wasn't even her job, really. But Horace was suddenly extremely busy, along with everyone else, and the Headmaster appeared to be gone altogether, and it's not like they could not be told. So Minerva did.

Eileen cried, which Minerva had to admit she'd been expecting. She was glad the muggle hadn't come - not that she had anything against muggles, in general, but she didn't like Tobias Snape. Though it might have been better for Eileen, who was upset that she didn't seem like she could make it home.

"I'm sorry, Eileen," Minerva said. She wasn't much for comforting, not even when she was younger and Eileen was the cheeky little Hufflepuff who asked the strangest questions. She did try, though, patting Eileen on the back and trying to remember how her mother had done it.

Eileen shook her head, face hidden in her hankerchief. "Just sudden." She trembled under Minerva's palm. "Did he go quickly?"

"He did." Minerva didn't like lying, and this particular one left a metallic taste in her mouth. Eileen did swallow at this. It had to be a comfort somehow, though. Minerva was glad she didn't have children to outlive.

She ended up walking Eileen past the gates and apparating her home, if you could call it that. Eileen closed the crumbling door behind her, filled with Minerva's lies about Avada Kedavra and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Minerva was sure she heard someone shouting, but she turned back to the school; there was a reason why she didn't try to find out what became of her students after they left.

At dinner, when the Headmaster asked how her day had been, she didn't bother to answer him. That was answer enough.

x x x

Sorry for the short chapter. Felt like I should post something. If I get another little snippet, I might tack it on to this chapter.

Reviews are food for my ego. Blow it like a balloon!

~DreamingOfNothing