The Ambiguous Artifice

by murkybluematter

Harriet Potter's third year masquerading as a pureblood boy promises to be even more complicated than the last two. All she wants is to get through her studies unimpeded, but with pureblood politics, ancient artifacts, and adolescent hormones getting in the way... well, at least she's up to the challenge. Alanna the Lioness take on HP, book three.

15. Chapter 15

The Ambiguous Artifice:

Chapter 15:

She opened her eyes slowly, squinting against the bright glow of the jewel across the small room. The air was still, her magic having been completely absorbed back into her in the wake of her newfound control. She expected to wake to Pettigrew's renewed attempt to absorb her power; with it no longer out of her control, she would have to fight off any attempt by the jewel to subjugate her magic personally.

Nothing stirred in the cavern, though, besides the eerily pulsating light of the jewel itself. She pushed up from the ground and crawled over to where Pettigrew was lying, fear growing in her heart. Had her magic killed him before she got it under control? She had felt so much triumph in finally gaining mastery of her own power, and to know that it had been too little too late to prevent the death of another would be devastating. She had to know, however.

She poked his leg cautiously. There was no response. She took the wrist closer to her and pressed on the pulse point. She waited. And waited. She let out a breath that was mostly a sob. The man was dead. Her eyes strained in the flickering light to try and see what had caused it. She didn't know what she expected to see. A blow to the head, maybe, or a neck broken under the pressure of the ward bursting. What she did see sent her reeling in shocked alarm. The body before her looked nothing like Pettigrew. In the place of a middle-aged man of rotund plainness was a dry, shriveled shell of a human being. It looked like the corpse of an old man, or of someone who'd been starved slowly to death over months. The skin hung loose, the muscles were hollowed out, and all the moisture and vitality seemed to have been sucked dry in the moments before his death. He'd been mummified. Had her magic done such a gruesome thing? She wanted to throw up.

The jewel pulsed suddenly in Pettigrew's hand, and then the hand began to move. She scrambled back in raw disbelief. He—he's alive!?

The jewel pried itself free from Pettigrew's grip and rose into the air of its own accord before her. She felt conflicting waves of relief and fear wash over her simultaneously. Relief that Pettigrew was not an Inferius, fear that the jewel was levitating all by itself.

It floated toward her and she backed away again until she was trapped between it and the wall of dirt behind her. "Stay away," she said, thoroughly creeped out. She felt her magic respond, almost carefully slow, flowing helpfully from her core to her hands. She smiled and threw up a shield between her and the jewel. She wasn't the victim in this scenario anymore.

The jewel passed straight through the shield as though it wasn't there. She flinched as it came at her, but it slowed to a stop just before her face. Its glow dimmed and it came closer. She moved her head away but it followed her. What on earth did it want? Couldn't it see she didn't want anything to do with it?

It rose to the level of her forehead, then bumped against it. She swatted it away but it came back, faster this time, and then she felt a pressure against her Occlumency shields. Her eyes flashed in anger. No. She wasn't about to be made a power-mad mind slave like Pettigrew. She grasped the jewel in an attempt to fling it across the room but it would not budge. She thrust her magic at it blindly but it did no good. The jewel was made of some other kind of magic, something just as implacable and resolute as her own, but which operated by different laws.

What do you desire? The voice was echoing through her mind, not her ears.

Nothing, she tried. Get away.

It persisted, filling her mind with a gentle heat even as she tried to block it out. What shall you control?

I don't want control over anything, she insisted. Only myself, whispered a part of her she was not quick enough to stifle.

Done. The jewel pressed harder against her forehead and then, to her horror, began sinking slowly into her skin. What the bloody hell was it doing?

The tingling feeling that crept across her mental senses was all too familiar. Enraged, she dived into her mindscape with a vengeance. She had just reclaimed that! No artifact, however ancient, was going to butt in now.

She found the jewel on her mountaintop, wandering about uncertainly in search of something.

"Get out of my mind!" she cried, surging forward.

She caught it in both hands and through her skin she felt it say, You desire self-control. I will control you.

"You certainly won't," she spat, willing her consciousness back to reality. She was getting this thing out of her head now.

When she opened her eyes, her hands were empty. Damn. How was she going to get it out? Physically carrying it out did nothing, and magic slid right off of it. She hurried back to her mindscape again, thinking that she was going to get very good at swift meditation if this went on much longer.

She caught up with it in her potions lab. "Get. Out."

She grabbed at it but it skipped out of her reach. She dove, not dissuaded in the least, and feinted left before grabbing it as it flew right. I have already agreed to this purpose, the jewel protested as she glared at it. She could not believe she was arguing with a rock. Was this how low she'd stooped?

"I meant control over my magic and my temper, not control over me," she growled.

I control you, I control your magic, I control your temper, the jewel thought at her. It seemed entirely too greedy in response to the part about controlling her magic for her to believe its innocent 'logic' act.

"I already have that control," she said firmly. "I don't need you. Get out of my head, now."

Impossible. The jewel dismissed her request. You are my wielder now. We are inseparable.

"I've seen what you do to your wielders," she sneered. "I don't want any part of it. You can go back to the tomb Pettigrew robbed you from."

He failed the test, the jewel protested. You have not failed.

"I don't want to take the test!" she cried. "You can't have me as your wielder anyway. I'm going to die…soon."

Irrelevant, the jewel decided. It began tugging away from her, and she despaired of a solution. She could hold it for now but she couldn't stay in her mind forever. Well, she supposed she could stay in her mind until Tuesday morning, but she wasn't sure she'd be able to hold onto it for that long. Already it had slipped twice from her grip and she'd had to grab it anew. It was like an incredibly non-aerodynamic non-golden Snitch.

She needed to trap it somehow, and quickly. Could she create a prison that would hold it before it escaped from her grasp and got to her magical core? Who was to say the jewel couldn't go through the door to the space room? She needed to encase it in a part of her mind it wouldn't be able to escape from. It would take ages of work to design a prison, so—

She reeled her mind to a halt, considering. She had sort of…already built something like that, hadn't she? A piece of her mind designed from scratch to be barred from accessing certain areas of her mind, including the space room. Her eyes slid from the jewel in her hand to the blank-eyed construct sitting listlessly in a chair by the fire. All her experiments to put unshaped magic into the shell had failed. The magic slid out like water, or else occupied it like flowers in a vase when she wasn't giving it direct instructions. It worked nothing like the semi-sentient construct she had imagined.

Her eyes went back to the jewel. It was…almost too perfect, wasn't it? The jewel needed a secure prison. Her prison needed sentience. Even if it didn't work…well, she was only going to be around a couple more days, anyway. She couldn't see the harm, and there was so much excitement bubbling up at the prospect of actually finishing this one last project before she… well. It had been some time since she'd felt excitement, and she thought satisfaction was a good feeling to die with, if one got the choice.

The jewel felt suspicious at her sudden smile. It could do nothing, however, when she firmly carried it across the lab and approached her empty construct. "Open up," she said. The boy opened its mouth obediently. She shoved the jewel inside the construct's mouth and said, "Swallow," before the jewel could get loose.

A single gulp and the Dominion Jewel was trapped in the stomach of a construct she'd designed to be a guard dog for her mind. The construct twitched and jerked, and she waited with great anticipation as it blinked several times and then focused on her. Its eyes narrowed and a frown crossed its face. "What is this—" It stopped. Blinked again. Then opened its mouth curiously. "A voice…?"

She smiled widely. "It worked!"

"What have you done?" the construct said slowly. "You've given me…a body?"

"Not exactly," she smirked. "I've trapped you in a limitedly mobile prison."

"Trapped?" the boy stood and began to walk in a circle, a smile slowly replacing the frown on its face. "Ha. Haha. I'm free."

"You wish," she scowled. "You're contained in a mental construct that I designed especially to be susceptible to my own will. You cannot leave my mind. You cannot access my memory, character, or magic. You will follow the prime directives I laid down when I designed you, and they are as follows: you will obey direct orders I give you, you will not act in any way that undermines my best interest as I define it, and you will protect my mind from any intruders that I have not invited in myself. Any questions?"

The boy was quiet for a long moment, an introspective look on his face. Then, before her eyes, he began to change. He grew taller, his hair lengthened, his teeth sharpened and his eyes began glowing red. Claws grew from his fingertips and in the center of his chest appeared something like a diamond stamp in red. He slashed at her without warning, but his body turned aside just before his clawed nails might have touched her face. He straightened and examined his hand with a blank expression. "Interesting."

She smiled triumphantly. Her design had worked. She'd spent ages getting the wording correct for all the command chains she wanted embedded into the construct's very being. It had taken a lot of research on contracts and loopholes and it had also meant ages of painstaking meditation carving runes into the construct that covered all the conditions she wanted it to be bound by.

"But how will I control your magic?" the jewel-driven construct mused, seemingly to itself.

"You won't," she said. "You will do nothing but what I tell you to do."

"I don't think so," the construct said. "I think I have to do what you say, but I doubt your ability to keep me from doing other things, as well. For example…"

He shot across the room faster than she could blink, reappearing next to one of the shelves on the other side of her lab. It was the shelf with an orb of her magic on it—the one she kept separate from her true core for when she wanted to project an aura as Harriett. What did it think it was going to do? She had designed it to be barred from accessing—oh, no.

The construct's mouth opened impossibly wide and it stuffed the orb of magic into its maw before she could get close enough to stop him. The construct swallowed it whole and a look of sublime pleasure overtook its face. "Ooh, yes. Your magic is very potent, young one."

She gritted her teeth angrily. "Don't think I'm going to let you use that." She opened her mouth to give it a command to never use any part of her own magic, when it forestalled her hastily.

"Come now, you've just given me the task of defending your mind, haven't you? How can I do that without magic to defend it with? Do you expect me to be a glorified distraction?" The construct looked disgusted at the very thought.

She huffed out an annoyed breath. "You don't get to control my magic."

"I have to," the jewel snapped. Its constructed form drew itself to full height, towering over her mental avatar. "My purpose has been set. I will be your self-control. I must have your magic to fulfill that purpose."

"I don't care if your purpose gets fulfilled." She rolled her eyes. "I don't care about you at all. I don't even need you to defend my mind. I just put you in there to see if it would work. I already told you I…I'm going to die soon. None of this really matters, anyway…"

She trailed off somewhat sadly. She was coming to terms with the end of her life—she was, and yet…there was so much she still wanted to do.

"You do not want to die," the construct told her.

"No one wants to die," she said tiredly.

"Inaccurate," the construct contradicted. "But nevertheless you do not want to die. Are you so certain of your Fate?"

"Not usually," she admitted, "but this time…yes. I can't see any way around it."

"Tell me," the construct said, voice greedy. "I am a master of changing a man's Fate."

"You are master of nothing, now," she said, voice cold. She could not forget all the trouble the jewel had caused. Even if it was not to blame for Pettigrew's decision to take her into the past and doom her, it was still not innocent in the yearlong affair of deceit and endangerment. She could see now that it had an impressive amount of sentience for a glorified piece of costume jewelry. That meant she could hold it accountable—and she did.

"I am master of this," the construct said, gesturing to the entirety of her mind. There was a smug smile on its face. It pointed lazily to the rug obscuring the trapdoor to the tunnels. It turned a royal blue. The construct smirked. "Yes. This domain will be my dominion, for now. You will come seeking power eventually. They always do."

She frowned and said nothing. The construct began to move about her mind, going this way and that, changing colors and moving things around seemingly at random. It was testing the limits of its control, she realized. Well, let it. What could it do, even if it changed the color of every single thing in the parts of her mind it could reach? She didn't care if it turned the mountain purple. As long as it was occupied and not trying to take over the world. She would be doing her final good deed by taking that jewel out of the world with her, she thought.

Her energy was waning, and she knew it was because her physical body had been without nourishment for too long. She wanted to stay in her mind but biological instincts were difficult to ignore. Even knowing it was pointless, she felt a need to do everything she could to preserve her life. There was a newly awakened fire for existence that was burning in her soul.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

She woke to utter darkness. The smell that assaulted her nose was indescribable. She had no idea how much time had passed, but it was long enough for Pettigrew's body to begin to smell strong. She coughed and gagged, then managed to crawl to her outer robes, piled not far from where she lay. She tore a piece of the relatively clean fabric off and blindly tied it around her nose and mouth. It limited her breathing, but it did filter some of the stench.

She had to eat something. She contemplated searching Pettigrew for food, but the idea of touching his dead, mummified body made her physically ill. Instead, she called up her magic. "Accio food." She felt the rush of the spell leave her fingers but there was no answering rustle from the direction of Pettigrew's still form. She swallowed slowly. Okay. No food. "Accio water." Nothing. He really must have been mad, by the end. That or he had been planning on leaving through the small hole that sat next to her book bag to—

The bag. She crawled over toward it. There wasn't any food per se, but there were other things inside that she could use. She tore open her potions kit with an idea to begin taking inventory—this time with an eye to anything edible, not just the most useful potions. She paused when she realized that it would be incredibly difficult to sort through her ingredients by feel and smell alone.

She summoned her magic once more, scared because she wanted this to work so badly. "Accio wand."

A whooshing thump and she felt what she recognized after a moment as a mokeskin pouch land in her lap. She felt for an opening, daring to hope. It opened easily to her touch. With its master's death, the pouch's protective enchantments fell, she deduced. Inside were two wands, Pettigrew's and—hers. The wand leapt eagerly to her hand, thrumming angrily at being separated from her.

"I missed you, too," she whispered, tears of happiness falling onto her cheeks in the darkness. "Lumos."

She cried out in pain as light bright enough to illuminate the whole cavern completely sprang from her wand tip, just inches from her face. Well, that was stupid. It took a good ten minutes for her vision to clear of spots and a headache potion to get rid of the pain behind her eyes.

When she could see properly, she promptly vowed to avoid looking toward the side of the cavern Pettigrew was lying on at all. The gruesome image would likely haunt her dreams. She turned her attention to her ingredients. She began pulling them out one by one, sorting them into three piles. The pile to her left was the poisonous, completely inedible pile. On the right went things that were either harmless or not poisonous enough to be worth not eating. In the middle she put ingredients she could mix by hand that would neutralize one another's dangerous components. That pile she was able to make largely because of the book she'd bought in Knockturn Alley while trying to fool Bill Weasley. The memory brought a smile to her lips. The oddest circumstances turned out to be fortuitous, didn't they?

The pile of hopelessly toxic ingredients she put back into her bag so that she wouldn't be tempted to consume them, even if she were delirious with hunger. She ate a few of the roots from the okay-to-consume pile to keep her energy up, then got to work pulverizing the ones that could be combined together. She would eat those first.

She also sorted the potions into 'can drink for water content' and 'not under any circumstances.' The not-ingestible pile was thankfully small. It mostly included such things as tinctures that were meant to be applied to the skin, like Agnes' Ageless Agent, and potions like Skele-Gro, which would do actual harm if taken by a healthy individual.

After drinking the last of the Pain Relief potions she curled up, exhausted, with her face as close to the hole leading out of her prison as possible. She didn't know how much fresh air was coming through it, but every breath she could take that wasn't filled with rotting corpse smell was a positive in her book.

She slept, an odd feeling of satisfaction creeping over her. She'd done everything she could, hadn't she? Surely no one could ask anything more of her, now.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Tuesday was upon her before she knew it. At least, that's what she assumed the debilitating pain cramping her stomach was. It could also have been one of the raw tubers she'd eaten, but as the pain was several times worse than what she'd felt the night she turned thirteen, she rather doubted the cause was bacteria-induced indigestion.

If the jewel trying to remove her magic had felt like fire trying to get out of her skin, this was like being exploded into dozens of pieces in extremely slow motion. She cursed and cried and sweated as something inside of her expanded beyond its limits and began attempting to tear itself apart.

She didn't know much about the resonance that was created when seven simultaneous cores existed at once, but she knew it was the seventh core that imploded, not the other six, so she theorized that either the seventh core attempted to neutralize itself to protect the other six, or time itself stepped in and destroyed the catalyst before the time stream could be disrupted by the simultaneous debilitation of seven temporally divided entities.

It was agony, but she was no stranger to pain, now. She kept her mind through it, holding onto all the thoughts that meant anything to her, as her magic became a destructive force once more. She supposed it was some consolation that her magic didn't want to hurt her, this time. She could feel it struggling against the resonance, in fact. It didn't seem to have much effect on the shock waves growing stronger and more frequent in her core, however.

What are you doing?

The voice rang from her mind with scathing alarm. What was that? Oh. The jewel, of course. She supposed it must be terribly confused. It would forgive her if she did not have the energy to spare comforting it at the moment.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something!

There's nothing to be done, she thought at it irritably. Couldn't she die in peace, at least? My core is resonating with the six others in existence. The resonance is backlashing against this core, and within minutes it will be over.

So stop the resonance!

She frowned. Stop the…? There was no way to do that without completely destroying her core. In a wizard, the magical core was tied to one's life force. Completely destroying it would kill her anyway.

Don't destroy it, change it!

You couldn't just change your magical core. That would be like changing the signature of your magic. It was impossible. Wasn't it? She sank into meditation almost curiously. Such an idea…well, she was intrigued, despite her acceptance of the circumstances. She was met on the mountain by the construct—at least, she thought it was the construct. It didn't look anything like the boy she'd created. It had taken the form of a red-haired giant, and it shook the mountain, now grown over with yellow daisies, with its fist at her approach.

"Finally!" it thundered. "Do you wish to die, fleshling? We must hurry."

It turned from her and leapt down the side, shrinking all the way until it was a mere six feet in height. It ducked through the false illusion hiding the doorway to her lab, and she followed after it, resigned but aware that this was more interesting than waiting to die.

When the construct dropped to the tunnels below, she called after it. "You can't enter the space room. I designed you that way."

"I know that!" it roared. "If I could fix this without you I would!"

They raced through the passages together, reaching the space door momentarily. "What now?" she asked, wary. "I suppose you want to be allowed in?"

It shook its head dismissively. "No. Bring the core out."

She opened the door by thinking the password and peered inside. The situation did not look promising. Her core was vibrating so quickly that her eyes weren't able to keep track of its location. After-images appeared in every direction around it, and the entire room shook with the violence of the oscillations. "You want me to move that…out here?"

"Quickly," the construct insisted. "You must give it to me."

She scowled. "I told you I'm not giving you my magic."

The construct smirked. "Even if it would save your life?"

She sucked in a quick breath. "It—it won't. You're just trying to take advantage of my distraction."

"I can't do that—you made sure of it, remember?" The construct gazed down at her in smug impatience. "It's one of my 'prime directives.' I can't work in a way that directly undermines your best interest. Wouldn't you say your best interest is to live, instead of die?"

She damned the hope that sprang like gold from her heart. To live—yes, she wanted that badly. "Explain," she bit out, determined that if the trade somehow ended in freeing the jewel from her control, she wouldn't take it, no matter what. She would not exchange her life for the subjugation of who knew how many. The jewel could not be allowed to roam free, much less with all her magic at its side.

"You need a shield—a proper one, not these half-cracked attempts at Occlumency you've got going now," the construct said quickly. "Your core has to be hidden—transformed or kept behind a filter that will alter its frequency. Alter the form your core's output takes, and you stop the resonance. Your core will register as foreign to the other six. Otherwise, the pressure of your core exploding will kill you—there's too much magic involved for any other outcome."

"But how do I disguise it?" she demanded. "I can't change the form of my core—it's decided from birth."

The smirk crept back across the construct's face once more. "You give it to me, of course. Have you not thought it odd that I am not vibrating out of control, despite having swallowed a portion of your magic not long ago?"

Her eyes widened. How could she have forgotten? The jewel had altered her magic in consuming it—it had to have, if it wasn't being torn apart along with the rest of her magic.

"Let me consume your magic," the construct implored, holding its hands out entreatingly. "I was made to absorb magic and channel it through myself. Once the magic is contained within my power, its frequency will be altered sufficiently. The resonance will stop. You will live."

She was gasping, overwhelmed with the alternative just laid before her. She could live. But she had to give the Dominion Jewel control over her magic. But she would live.

"Quickly, quickly," the jewel chanted. "Your time to choose life over death is running out."

It was right. She didn't have time to debate alternatives. If she lived, she could figure it out later. If she died—well, it wouldn't matter. If nothing else, she could trust in the prison she'd built. Even if the jewel did end up getting exactly what it wanted—her magic—it still couldn't leave her head or disobey her will. What could it do with the magic, really?

Mind made up, she threw her hands toward the ball of fire, which had begun to bounce wildly about the space room, impacting carelessly with the orbs around it, all of which were thrown into disarray from trying to orbit an unstable star. The fire jerked out of her control several times, but she threw her desperation and newfound hope behind her will. She could live. She would live.

She finally caught the sun momentarily and tugged it toward her with all the strength of mind she had left. It hurled out of the space room and straight into the path of her wildly grinning construct. A jaw like a shark's expanded on unnatural hinges from the construct's head, and in the next moment, the sun was gone, winked out of existence—swallowed as though by a black hole into the gullet of the Dominion Jewel.

She watched with wide eyes, half-expecting the construct to explode into a shower of magic. It didn't, though. It breathed so deeply that its stomach bloomed out to fill the whole hallway. Then it burped, and its form solidified into a dark-haired woman with fiery red eyes. The stamp of the jewel glowed brightly from its exposed bicep as it placed a hand on its hip.

"Delicious…hmm," the construct drawled, looking precisely like the cat who got the canary. "Feel better? I know I do."

She had to admit, the pain that had been registering vaguely from her physical form seemed to have dissipated. The construct had been telling the truth, then. "Thank you," she said slowly.

The construct smiled patronizingly. "Don't bother. I did it for me, not you. I am not ready to be buried in another tomb, particularly one as inglorious as the hovel you're sitting in."

"If you know about the prison, then you know that there's no way out of it," she pointed out, the giddy relief she felt at being alive waning somewhat as the knowledge that she still wasn't safe reasserted itself. "We probably will end up buried in here."

"Nothing is certain," the construct said. It flicked its hair, and she had to wonder how it had known to do that. Then again, how many humans had it spent time around, over the years? Who knew what sort of things its sentience had been exposed to, really? "Another day alive is another day free. Do not underestimate the gift of a single day, child."

She could not argue with that. She owed it to the life she had bought with the control of her magic, so newly and dearly won, to do everything she could to extend her time. With that thought in her mind, she let her consciousness sink back into her body once more.

Everything ached, but it was the ache of the living. She was in one piece and there were still quite a few herbs she could eat to keep her strength up. She ate little, aware that in the best-case scenario she had to hold out until Friday evening. In all honesty it would probably be longer. Unless she spontaneously became an Animagus in the next four days. She huffed a small laugh. She would put that on her list of things to do if she survived. Right after hug Archie for ten minutes and kiss her baby sister. And apologize to Pansy. Again.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

The days passed, or she assumed they did. She had no concept of what was happening. After the first couple of days her strength was so low that a Tempus Charm sapped her powers of concentration dearly. She gave up on even Illumination Charms after a while. It didn't seem to matter, with her having memorized where everything in the little hole was by touch.

She oscillated between extreme states of mind. She took Calming Potions at turns with Pepperup Potions. A Mind-Sharpening Potion was followed by a Befuddlement Draught. She knew it was the height of irresponsibility to take so many potions in so short a time, but she was thirsty all the time now and it was all she could do not to gulp them all down at once in delirium.

She was taking Dreamless Sleep every now and then, trying to space it as far apart between other potions as she could. It would be poisonous in continuous doses, and even taking it once a day was dangerous over long periods of time. She didn't have a choice, though. And she didn't feel so weak and awful when she slept, anyway.

After a long while, the dark, cramped, staleness of the cavern was starting to drive her mad. She retreated into her mind when it all became too much, barricading herself in the space room, which was a lot more like the-room-of-lost-and-drifting-things without her sun inside to give her orbs a sense of direction. She immersed herself in memory after memory. Good times, bad times, all of it. She reminded herself over and over again that she had to hang on. When the temptation to take one of the poisonous herbs in her bag became too strong, she distracted herself with memories of her family, her friends, Hogwarts, and all the dreams and ambitions that she hadn't fulfilled.

Even happy thoughts couldn't sustain her forever, though. She knew that when her supplies ran out it would be the end of the road. Her Fate was, for once, entirely out of her hands.

-0

[SsSsSs]

-0

He wondered why he assigned essays at all when the only fruit they bore was that of his own frustration. Another large red T marked an under-informed Ravenclaw's grandly titled piece of drivel. He pushed the stack of parchment rolls to the side and rubbed his temples. Clearly expecting a thirteen-year-old to deduce something for himself was asking too much.

His mind lit upon the face of a grey-eyed boy with short hair. Rigel had never produced such twaddle. He checked the clock on the wall and noted that the boy was due very soon to turn in his weekly assignments. At a knock on the door, he tucked the essays away with a slight smirk of anticipation. He was interested to see what the boy made of this week's topic. He'd tried to make it challenging.

"Enter," he said, leaning back in his chair. He sat forward with a frown, however, when it was not Rigel who walked through the door. It was his godson, looking annoyed.

"Is Rigel done ye—oh," Draco looked around in confusion as he entered the office. "Where's Rigel?"

"Are you his keeper?" Severus asked, raising an eyebrow.

The blond-haired child who looked so much like his mother flushed ever so slightly. "He was supposed to help me review for Herbology after he dropped off his assignments. He's been gone ages, though. I thought maybe you were keeping him."

"So you thought to rescue him from my clutches?" Severus's lips twitched in amusement.

"I just came to remind you both that there are things other than potions going on," Draco scowled. "Did he say where he was going when he left?"

"He has not yet arrived," Severus told him shortly. "Have you checked his lab?"

"No…" Draco said, frowning. "He said he would meet me in the common room, though. I don't think he'd just blow me off."

Severus looked at the clock again, wondering. Rigel had no reason to be late to anything. Even if something had held him up on the way to his office, the boy had his time-turner. There was no reason he would not have used it to come back to the proper time—if not to turn in the assignment, then at least to meet his promise to Draco. The child valued the time he spent with his friends.

It was one of the reasons Severus had not pressed too hard on the details of the boy's time-turner use, despite suspecting that Rigel had been using it more than to strictly get to his classes and complete his schoolwork. If he wanted to spend more time with his friends, it would be good for him. He hadn't seemed overwhelmed by the use of the device, in any case, so there was no reason to attempt to curtail his use as long as the evidence pointed to him using it relatively responsibly.

Deciding to err on the side of caution, Severus stood. "We will check his lab."

He warded his office behind him and they walked calmly through the halls. The lab was dark and empty when they arrived, however. Severus considered his next course of action. He took out his wand and murmured a Point Me Charm. The wand spun on his hand confusedly, like a compass near a magnet. He cursed silently. Of course it would not work if the boy was currently in two places at once.

"I think Rigel has an anti-locating talisman or something," Draco said suddenly from beside him. "My tracker didn't work, either."

"Tracker?" Severus sneered. He was not certain he truly wished to know.

Draco grimaced a bit guiltily. "I thought he was up to something, so I tried following him one time. But the tracker was all wonky. It binged a bunch of different places, even when I tried it again later."

"Different places?" He pressed his lips together. That was dangerous. No one could know that Rigel was overlapping himself in time. "Do you have the tracking device with you?"

Draco blinked. "Sure, it's just a piece of paper." He dug through his pockets for a moment, then produced it. "Here, see? It's a joke product, from Zonko's." Severus nearly groaned at the Marauders' logo tucked into the corner of the parchment. "This in the middle is us. The tracker is supposed to appear as a red dot, and the distance and orientation is determined by the radar drawn on the paper, see? Except when I use it, this happens." He gestured to the existence of two dots, one nearly on top of them, one rather far away.

Severus squinted at the numbers designating the scale, then ripped the paper from Draco's hands to look closer. That wasn't right. The far away dot was more distant than was possible if the boy was still in the castle. What would he be doing out on the grounds at this time of night? He should know better, after how poorly his last walk near the Forbidden Forest had gone.

His eyes moved between the two dots indecisively. Which one was the more current version? He didn't want to alarm a version of Rigel that hadn't yet left the castle by confronting him with an accusation. His concern for the dot out of castle bounds overrode his hesitation, however, and he took off at a swift pace toward the nearest dot. It was just a few corridors over, and they closed in on it just as the dot began flickering ominously.

Severus sped up and rounded the corner to see—nothing. No, wait—there! The shimmer of a Disillusionment Charm near the end of the hallway. Even as he raced forward, the shimmer disappeared. He looked down to the parchment to see that the dot they'd been following was gone, as well. He took a deep breath, thinking hard.

So the Rigel they'd almost caught up to was the earlier one, temporally speaking. He had gone back an unspecified amount of time and only caught back up to the present once he was already out of the castle. Severus hadn't known the boy could cast a Disillusionment Charm, but it was not outside of the realm of possibility to think he had learned it in an effort to make his time-turning less noticeable. Why would he turn back in that moment, however? Why not turn back after turning in his assignments? And why had another version of himself not turned back after leaving the castle, that his disappearance would not be remarked upon?

It was sloppy and suspicious. Something might be very wrong after all, and even if it wasn't—there was no excuse for the boy being so far out of bounds. His action in either case was clear—he would track Rigel down and either assist in getting him out of yet another ill-conceived mess or demand answers.

"Where'd the other dot go?" Draco asked from his elbow, looking confused. "I swear this thing must be defective."

Severus sneered. The Marauders were a great many things, but they did not sell defective products. The boy was out in the woods somewhere, if he had to guess by the dot's positioning. They only had to find him.

He set off at a fast clip, leaving Draco scrambling to catch up. "Wait, where are we going? That other dot is way outside of the castle, there's no way that's him." After a moment, Draco reassessed that declaration. "Well, it could be. Do you think he's in trouble?"

"If he isn't, he will be," Severus promised darkly. He thought about forbidding Draco to accompany him, but decided it was a moot point. If they were going into danger, he might need to send someone back for help. If they weren't, there was no reason Severus could not protect his godson from the regular dangers of the forest.

The crude map led them straight to the forest's edge and, while Draco groaned aloud, Severus did not pause. They hurried through the trees. He was watchful but they encountered no animals of any kind on their trek through. That was extremely odd but he did not have the patience to dwell on the anomaly. His student was likely in danger. Nothing else mattered until this was resolved.

-0

[JpJpJp]

-0

The week was almost over, thank Merlin. If he had to sit through one more of the Minister's insipid 'working lunches' that took all afternoon, he was going to resign in protest. How was he supposed to get his work done in a timely manner when he was out of the office half the day? Instead of popping home at five-oh-one with the junior Aurors, he, the head of the department, was stuck sludging through reports until his stomach rumbled disgruntledly. No doubt Sirius will eat my share of the pie Lily promised to bake, he thought mournfully, struggling to focus on painstakingly checking the facts of each case that his men had submitted that week. It was the last thing he had to do before going home.

It took James another half-hour to sign off on them all, and his back protested like an old man's as he stood and stretched. Finally. He locked up his office and made his way through the many desks cluttering the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, heading resolutely toward the lifts. As he passed one of his detectives, George Filmont, he waved tiredly. "Any luck today?"

"No news is good news, some days," the thin man said, tucking a short quill behind his ear. "Hard to say what luck is."

James had to smile at the man's customary vagueness. He was a tightlipped fellow when it came to his cases, but that was part of what made him a good detective. He made to keep walking, then paused as a pile of unopened letters on the desk across from Filmont caught his eye. "Hey, this mail is piling up. Where's Rudvick? Isn't it his job to vet the letters that come from outside the Ministry?"

"Just the ones with no return address," Filmont agreed, shrugging slightly. "Rudvick's been out sick for weeks."

"And he didn't get anyone to cover for him?" James demanded, working his way up to annoyed. Why hadn't the head of Staffing and Personnel brought that up with him?

"He got Billowag, I think, but his wife's in hospital," Filmont told him. "He's barely getting his own work done, from what I've seen."

"Great," James sighed, plodding over to the desk and grabbing the stack of letters. There were at least twenty, some dated more than a month ago. He thought longingly of his wife and daughter, their beautiful faces so clear in his mind's eye. He dearly wanted to pretend he hadn't seen the pile of letters and get home to them. It was his responsibility, however, if one of his Aurors caused slack for any reason. He couldn't in good conscience go home for the weekend without at least going through them.

He opened letter after letter of mostly nonsense. Half were from people who thought their neighbors were dark wizards because they looked at them funny, and several were from people trying to apply for the program without going through the admissions desk. He set those aside to mark as 'do-not-hire-unless-extremely-talented.' There was a system for a reason. He paused at that thought and had to laugh. What a crotchety old wizard he was turning into.

The next one gave him pause. 'To Aurors searching for the Dominion Jewel'... wait a minute. He scanned the rest of it quickly. It was signed 'A Concerned Citizen.' "Just like the last one," he muttered. Peter? It can't be.

"Something good?" Filmont asked, looking interested. He was a nosy sort, always keen to know everything he could, but that was also what made him a good detective. It was lucky he was here, in any case.

"Send word to everyone on-call tonight," James said, slipping into his Auror voice with practiced urgency. "We've got a solid lead that we need to move on now."

He didn't know who this anonymous tip-writer was, and the last one hadn't panned out very well; a woman at the Alchemists Guild had mentioned seeing a stone, but couldn't remember anything about the man who'd brought it in. It was more to go on than they'd had in a while, though, even if it did implicate a man James hadn't thought long about in years. Could Peter really have something to do with all this? He supposed there was only one way to know.

The headmaster wouldn't like Aurors intruding on his castle grounds so late in the day, but James had no choice. With a name and an accusation, he had to at least question his old friend.

James took the time his people spent assembling to make a quick Floo call to his wife. It looked as if he'd be home very late and he wanted that slice of pie kept out of Sirius' grubby mitts.

-0

[SsSsSs]

-0

They followed the map until the red dot fell squarely on the epicenter, only to find no sign of Rigel. Severus looked around the clearing warily, wand out. There was nothing except a mound of dirt to distinguish it from any other clearing. He examined the mound with suspicion. Freshly disturbed dirt.

"The locator must be above us or beneath us," Draco said slowly. He, too, eyed the disturbed dirt, and then he paled. "You don't think…buried alive?"

Or dead, Severus's mind supplied automatically. He was gripped with the truest fear he had ever known. He pointed his wand at the ground and said, "Corpus Revelio."

Homenum Revelio could only be used inside closed rooms or dwellings, but the Corpse Detecting Spell could be used directly over any ground one suspected to be a burial site. He waited with grave trepidation for the results of the spell to come back. A green mist rose from the ground and Severus sank to his knees.

"No," Draco said, his voice cracking. "No, Rigel can't be…he can't be."

Severus had no comfort to give the child. He felt nothing beyond the heavy maelstrom of grief that assailed him. How could it be so? The boy was reckless, but he had the luck of Felix Felicis. What had happened here? Despair welled in his heart, shot through with regret. It was too soon. He had so much left to teach him. He had so much left to learn from him. His face set harshly and he clawed at the ground angrily. He would not accept this. Rigel would not be left to rot in a nameless clearing. No sooner had his fingers penetrated the dirt than a ward sprang into place in a web across the clearing.

"What?" Draco was shaking with rage. "Someone buried him and then warded it? How dare they? What kind of monster would deny his family a body to—to—" Draco was crying, and Severus wasn't sure the boy had even noticed.

He was distracted by the strangeness of the situation, however. Why would someone bother putting such strong wards on an unmarked grave? He stood slowly, tightened his grip on his wand, and cast a Bombardment Hex on the ground beneath him. The ward sprang to life again, and this time he studied it swiftly.

"It's a goblin ward," he said, frowning deeply. "That makes no sense."

"That goblin did attack Rigel when they came to inspect the wards after Halloween," Draco said through his grief. "Do you think—?"

"No," Severus said, his wheels turning. "This ward isn't made to keep something out. It is designed to keep something in."

"But he's only been missing an hour," Draco protested, angry and confused. "How could anyone have done something like this so fast? Maybe—maybe he's still alive down there and the spell was wrong."

"The spell wasn't wrong," Severus said sharply. There was no sense raising Draco's hopes when the likelihood went the other direction. Draco didn't know that there was no way of telling how long it had been. It could have been days. Still…he would find a way past this ward. He would know what happened, one way or another.

"If this was a prison, there was a door," Severus said, pacing before the deceptively loose dirt. No one would imprison themselves along with their prisoner unless they were mad. And the idea of Rigel being buried alive arbitrarily didn't sit right with him, for more reasons than one. Rigel just didn't have those sorts of enemies.

Draco got hold of himself after a long moment of silence. He began pacing the length of the clearing as well, staring at the ground and trying to be useful. After a minute of this, the boy got out something from his pocket that he held before him as he searched. It was his star light, he realized after a close look. It must be lighting the ground for him.

Severus lit his own wand with a Lumos and got back to the examination. There had to be a weakness.

"Uncle Sev, look here!" Draco called from the other side of the clearing, near to the tree line. "There's a hole that goes straight down." He strode over to take a look but before he got there Draco sighed in disappointment. "No, wait, there's little prints all around it. It's probably some animal's burrow."

He examined the hole in the light of his wand. "It's too uniform to have been made by an animal. This hole was made with magic. Why make a hole so small?"

"Air?" Draco suggested.

"Possible," Severus said in a low voice. "But that implies whoever did this wanted Rigel alive." He examined the animal prints around the hole carefully. They were miniscule. "A rodent or…no." He lifted his light higher and took in the many man-sized prints that led to and from the hole, before the rodent prints took over nearest the hole. "I will skin him alive."

"Who?" Draco looked from Severus to the hole, his star light clenched between white fingers. "Who did this?"

Severus didn't answer him at once, instead focusing his intent and casting a Patronus Charm. When the silvery mist condensed into a solid doe, he said swiftly, "Go to the headmaster at once. Tell him we need his phoenix to get through powerful wards. I am going to do what I can here. Tell him that Peter Pettigrew should be found and restrained until I return, then lead him back here."

"Pettigrew…" Draco's face darkened. "He was asking about Rigel. Rookwood told us."

Severus felt killing intent fill his heart. "Guard this clearing while I'm gone, Draco."

His godson nodded but asked, "Where are you going?"

Severus pinned Draco with a very serious glare. "Not a word of this."

"Of what—?" Draco broke off with a gasp as Severus transformed. His body liquefied and shrank until it stretched once more into the form of a saw-scaled viper. "Of…course you're an Animagus, Uncle Sev."

Severus ignored him, sending his body slithering down into the hole with no difficulty. His suspicions about the wards allowing Animagi through were confirmed. Of course he was an Animagus, indeed. He let the Marauders beat him at nothing, and he had long known of their clandestine full moon activities.

The hole led straight down about ten feet, then split into two paths. He swung his head back and forth between the two tunnels, scenting. The one on the right led deeper underground, and it smelled of death. He wound in that direction, venom dripping at the thought of what he would find at the tunnel's conclusion.

He emerged into a darkness so black that his eyes could not penetrate it. The smell of death mingled with that of wretchedness and filth. He followed the scent of rotting and came across the feet of a decomposing corpse. He steeled himself, then released his Animagus form. He stooped low as his head connected painfully with the ward around the ceiling and lit his wand. The sight before him was like nothing he'd imagined. There was a body that looked like it belonged more to a museum than anything. It resembled a two thousand year old mummy and yet it smelled putrid—fresh, give or take a week. What could have done such a thing? His heart rate slowed as his eyes roamed over it. The face was unrecognizable, but its height and proportions were wrong—the body was too big to be Rigel. Relief choked him, and he thanked the gods he'd spent his whole life damning that this corpse was not his precious student.

He put a sleeve over his nose and was preparing to turn back into a snake when he heard the hitch of a breath ever so faintly from behind him. He whirled in a low crouch, wand at the ready, wondering if he'd walked into a trap—no, the only other thing in the small dirt cave was a crumpled form covered in filthy cloth. Could it be…?

He approached cautiously, saying, "Rigel."

There was no response. He knelt beside the body and looked it over in the wand light, brushing aside the robes it was huddled within to get a look at the face. Dirt and grime formed a layer over the features that made recognition difficult, and the hair was too dirty to be sure of the color, but he had to assume this was his student. He felt for a pulse; the weak fluttering that answered him was not much reassurance, but it was something.

"Rigel, can you hear me?" He went to lift the boy, then remembered with fury that he could not get the boy out of the cavern. It had been designed specifically to let only the rat out—he supposed after reflection that the body on the other side of the cave was probably the Creatures professor. Severus could not bring himself to regret the man's passing—not if the alternative was Rigel's life.

He looked around the cavern for anything he could use, noting the littering of empty potions vials and the boy's potion kit laying empty beside him. Oh, no. What had Rigel done? He pictured his student eating the ingredients of his potions kit in starved desperation and felt fear reignite itself in his gut. What had he ingested? He immediately fished in his belt pouch for the bezoar he carried with him at all times. He pulled Rigel's head into his lap and stuffed the stone past cracked lips. "Swallow, Rigel," he said, coaxing the boy's throat desperately.

Rigel's reflexes kicked in and the stone was ingested. He looked about for other clues as to what he could provide the boy immediately. He summoned the boy's book bag from across the room and found, to his relief, a stack of all the most poisonous herbs and potions he could think of within. So the boy had sense enough to separate them, then, at some point. There was an empty canteen, as well.

He conjured water with a hasty Aguamenti and filled the container before bringing it to Rigel's lips. He was able to coax down several mouthfuls before Rigel began to cough and thrash weakly.

"Rigel?" He pushed the boy's hair back to see his eyes. "Rigel. Open your eyes."

The boy coughed again, turning his head ever so slightly. He held the water to his lips once more and Rigel gulped it down greedily, gasping between swallows and moaning in protest when he took the canteen away to refill it.

"Wake up, boy," he muttered, nudging Rigel's cheek insistently. "Wake up."

It was several long moments before his eyes fluttered open—or tried to. There was so much built-up grime in the way that he could barely pry his eyelids apart. "Snape…?" The confusion and disbelief was evident in his scratchy voice. "Is this a dream?"

"No. I'm going to get you out of here," Severus told him while propping up his neck for another swig.

Rigel laughed bitterly, a harsh sound that didn't suit him. "You can't. Only creatures…can get in and out. This is a dream."

He scowled down at him and refilled the canteen again. Rigel's eyes followed the stream of water with sadness. "I didn't…think of that. Stupid. I drank all my potions, and didn't think of the Aguamenti…Spell. Ha. Haha." The boy coughed softly again. "And now I'm too weak…to use my magic. Weak even in my dreams."

"You are not stupid," Severus said sharply. "No doubt you were delirious from your ordeal. How long have you been down here?"

"Down here?" Rigel's face screwed up unhappily. "Up there? I… don't know. What day is it?"

"Friday evening," he said, turning the words over in his mind. Had the other path led to a second chamber above this one? What would be the point of…no, surely not.

"Two…weeks," Rigel coughed. "Almost. Pettigrew didn't know you could go back…a full week the second time. Didn't know much…about time-turners. Sorry…I let him get…" the boy trailed off into weak coughs, and Severus stared in detached horror as he realized the full extent of what Pettigrew had done.

"Do not apologize," Severus said. "I know he took you from the castle when you were on your way to my office. You did nothing wrong."

"I did…lots of things wrong," the boy said slowly, looking past Severus's bent head at the dirt ceiling above them. "I'm sorry, though. I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I just…wanted to learn Potions…from you. Sorry. I—" More coughing, but his voice was getting clearer. "I've been really selfish, haven't I? But I learned…my lesson. Really."

Severus felt like hitting something. "Stop, Rigel. I know you didn't mean for this to happen. Pettigrew's death was not your fault. It was self-defense."

Rigel frowned faintly. "I don't think…it was. Was it? It's hard to think. My head hurts all the time. I think…I'm dying. Maybe you're my angel. I wonder…if you'd let me take my bag with me? Maybe they have cauldrons…wherever I'm going."

"You are not dying," he snarled.

"Feels like I've been dying…for ages," Rigel panted. The boy fell silent for a moment, then his eyes began welling up with tears. "I can't take my potions kit, can I? Cause I…ate it all." Rigel hiccupped sadly. "It feels like I made a potion in my stomach. Only all it does is…hurt."

"You foolish child," Severus said, frustration building at the helplessness he felt. "Does it hurt anywhere else? Are you injured anywhere?"

Rigel blinked slowly. "Yes. In my head…there's a lot of pain."

"Did you hit it on something?" Severus began feeling the boy's filthy scalp, searching for contusions.

"No," Rigel said on a long breath. "I ripped it up a little bit…inside."

He was talking about his mindscape, Severus realized with a frown. "Is that where you were, before you woke up?"

"Am I awake?" Rigel shuddered. "I don't want to be. I was thinking of something happy, I think. Was it you?"

He must have been living inside his own head to escape his physical situation. It was smart; it was probably the only reason he was so coherent if he'd been buried in a dirt box for two weeks.

Severus searched for a way to keep his student talking and awake. "Do you remember why Pettigrew took you, Rigel? What did he want?"

Rigel grimaced. "Yes. He wanted my magic, he said. Or the… jewel wanted it, probably. I think it was…controlling him all along."

Severus froze, having forgotten completely about that damn jewel. Should he search for it? Lord Riddle wanted it desperately. He would not believe that Severus had overlooked the chance to claim the stone before Dumbledore or the Ministry got their hands on it.

"I think it killed him," Rigel said seriously after a moment. "When I woke up, he was just…like that. Mummified. The jewel used to belong to the ancient Egyptians, you know. Do you think it…mummified all of them?"

He did not know, nor did he care to. He had to wonder how Rigel knew that, however. Had Pettigrew told him before his death? He looked over at Pettigrew's corpse, wondering if the jewel was on his person. He was torn, looking between Rigel and the mummified form of Peter Pettigrew. In the end, there wasn't anything he could do for Rigel at the moment except keep him coherent. He shifted Rigel's head to the side, making to move toward the corpse, but the boy whimpered softly.

"Don't leave me. I don't want to be… alone anymore."

Severus put aside the impotent rage, saying softly, "I'm not leaving. I'm just going to have a look at Pettigrew."

"No, don't go, please," the boy begged, eyes imploring. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for everything. I'm sorry for lying and sorry for making you worry and—"

"Rigel, I am not leaving you," Severus said, trying to penetrate the boy's confusion. "I just need to—" He broke off even trying and simply raised his wand instead. "Accio jewel."

Nothing happened, except Rigel starting to laugh. "If you want the jewel, you're gonna be…gonna be disappointed. It's gone. Ha. Gone and got just what it wanted, didn't it? Ha. In the end we were both stupider…than that ruddy hunk of rock."

Gone? What did that mean? Severus did not like the sound of it, but at least it was no longer his responsibility to search for it. He settled back, a close eye on the boy lying weak and delirious before him, to wait for the headmaster's bird to appear.

After some time, Rigel began to try to sit up, groaning all the while. Severus helped where he could, but the boy was in bad shape. "This…is this real, Professor? Is that why it hurts so much?"

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Black," Severus said. "The pain will be gone soon."

"Because you're rescuing me," the boy said slowly, almost awed. The shambled mess of his mind seemed to be reasserting itself bit by bit. "I…I hoped that someone would, but it was hard to believe you'd have any way of finding me. After a while I couldn't even focus my magic for a Tempus, and I had no idea how long I'd been down here. I thought maybe…that maybe weeks had passed and no one was coming." He began to cry again, but this time had the presence of mind to stifle the tears in his grimy sleeve. "I—" His breath hitched violently. "I can't believe I'm alive. I don't want to have the time-turner anymore. Can you take it?"

He stared, utterly flummoxed, as the boy shakily pointed to a mokeskin pouch nearby. He took it up and looked inside, finding Pettigrew's wand along with the time-turner, looking a bit dirty but perfectly workable. "I don't understand," he said, frowning, "Why didn't you use it to go back before the wards were set?"

A shamed look filtered into Rigel's eyes. "I couldn't go back before Tuesday. Before Pettigrew took me, I'd done Tuesday morning five times. Three times for my classes, and twice more for…reasons I now see were irresponsible. When Pettigrew took me back the second time, the resonance nearly killed me."

"Your magic," Severus breathed, appalled. Had the boy's core been maimed? Would he be reduced to Squibhood for what that rat had done?

Rigel smiled faintly. "I fixed the resonance problem, but I wasn't sure it was worth it to gamble the fix working if there were eight cores existing…" another rough cough, "…simultaneously. I was afraid the filter I put over my magic wouldn't hold."

"A filter?" Severus had never heard of such a thing. He could see the obvious leap Rigel had made—changing the way his core resonated might negate the resonance altogether. To come up with such a solution while malnourished and half-delirious from solitude and thirst, however, was nearly inconceivable. Rigel never failed to surpass all his expectations.

"Sort of." The boy looked troubled, but said no more on the subject. "Sir," he spoke after a few minutes of thoughtful silence. "How did you find me? And how did you get in here? And how are you going to get me out?"

"Draco was instrumental in my finding you," Severus admitted.

"Draco?" The word itself seemed to bring color back into the boy's face. He smiled softly. "Draco. I was…supposed to meet him for something tonight, wasn't I? Did he come looking for me?"

"He did," Severus drawled. "I believe he attached a tracking device he bought in Hogsmeade to your boot."

Rigel blinked a bit incredulously. "A teacher tracker? How long has he been…?" He sighed. "I guess I'd rather not know. I'll have to thank him for…stalking me." Rigel laughed, a much softer and less bitter sound than his earlier attempt. It relaxed something within Severus that had been half-certain the boy would be permanently traumatized by this experience.

Severus frowned at as the name finally registered. A 'teacher-tracker?' Draco hadn't mentioned the product was marketed for that purpose. It seemed he would have to begin doing regular sweeps of his own clothing.

Before Rigel could press for an answer to his other questions, Dumbledore's bird finally made an appearance. Rigel cried out against the flash of fire appearing just a few feet away and Severus realized belatedly that the boy's eyes would be very sensitive after so long underground. Even his dim wand light was probably paining him.

"Fawkes?" Rigel squinted against the spots in his eyes at the phoenix. "Oh. You can bring me through the wards?"

The phoenix trilled in agreement, a crooning song floating through the cavern that Rigel seemed to find comfort in, if the relaxed expression on his face said anything. Fawkes flitted over to Rigel and landed gently on his leg. The boy was transported away in a flash of heat.

Severus collected the boy's bag and empty potions kit. He took the mokeskin pouch, and left the rat to rot.

-0

[SsSsSs]

-0

At the surface, he met Draco and Albus. The headmaster's countenance was drawn. "I was unable to locate Peter anywhere on the premises, Severus."

"He is below," Severus said shortly, his eyes flicking to Draco.

"Tell me," Lucius' child demanded. "What did he do to Rigel?"

Severus considered the merits of dismissing the boy, but Draco would find out the generalities from Rigel in any case. At least he could spare Rigel the pestering questions. "Pettigrew took Rigel prisoner. He is dead now, and Rigel is close to it himself. I assume Fawkes transported him to the Hospital Wing?"

"Of course," Albus said, looking pained. "You are certain of Pettigrew's…passing? Did Mr. Black say how it happened?"

"An accident," Severus lied. He would say nothing that might incriminate Rigel until he had made sense of the boy's ramblings. "His body lies below. You are welcome to examine it when your phoenix returns, but I wouldn't recommend the trip. It's a festering sinkhole. Come, Draco. We shall see to Rigel's recovery."

Draco followed swiftly at his heels, face lined with anger and stress. "Is Rigel going to be okay?" he asked.

"His recovery may be slow, but I believe he is out of mortal peril," Severus said.

"But is he going to be okay?" Draco pressed. "I don't understand any of this. I don't understand how Rigel could have been kidnapped and put in such an elaborate prison just in the last couple of hours. I definitely don't understand what Pettigrew would want with Rigel in the first place. Rigel said he might resent him for how he fell out with Rigel's family, but there are much easier ways to kill someone. This has the feel of a plot—and a complicated one, at that. And whatever's happened to Rigel tonight was so bad that it almost killed him? This isn't like falling off a broom. This is like…like that thing with the basilisk last year, isn't it? It's big. It's going to affect him even after he's healed, isn't it?"

Severus gave his godson points for deep thinking, but deducted them again for his blathering delivery. "It is. This goes further than you realize, Draco." He wondered how much he ought to say, but Rigel had already given up his time-turner privileges. The boy would need a friend who could understand the whole of it, too. If he had trusted his godson with knowledge of his Animagus form, he could trust him with this, he supposed. The boy was maturing quickly. "You must reveal to no one that I have told you this, Draco. The Unspeakables are not forgiving to those who possess information they shouldn't. Rigel has been in possession of a time-turner since the beginning of term—"

"What?" Draco half-shouted, gaping. "You—why?"

"It was necessary for the extensive curriculum Rigel has been undertaking—"

"You gave a time-turner to Rigel and expected nothing to go wrong?" Draco interrupted him. "How could you? Do you know him at all? He's a workaholic! If he could study in his sleep, he would! And you just—just handed the keys to the kingdom over to him, did you? Of all the stupid—"

"Watch yourself, Draco Malfoy," Severus snapped. Re-estimating the boy's maturity swiftly. "I am making allowances for your unbalanced emotional state, but I will not tolerate you questioning my authority as Rigel's Head of House."

Draco spluttered soundlessly for a moment, then clenched his fists and blew out a short breath. "Well, how long was he down there, then? I assume you're only telling me because it's relevant. Was he…was he there all day?"

Severus shook his head slowly, aware that he was about to cause Draco a great deal of pain. "I believe he was captive for almost two weeks."

"Two—but—" Draco's face crumpled. "No…why is it always him? It isn't fair."

Severus couldn't help but agree with him, at that.

They made their way quickly to the Hospital Wing, entering to find Madam Pomfrey extraordinarily harried, and not at all for the reasons Severus might have anticipated.

"What is going on here?" he demanded, taking in Rigel's huddled form curled protectively into a ball on one of the many open beds, the nurse standing threateningly over him with her wand pointed aggressively into his student's face.

"This fool is refusing treatment!" Pomfrey shrieked. "Talk sense into him, Severus."

"Rigel," he said, approaching the bed slowly. "What is the meaning of this?"

Rigel uncurled enough to glare at the nurse. "I'm allowed to refuse if I want to."

"Why would you?" Severus asked patiently. "Don't you want to begin recovering?"

"He was well on his way, until he lost his good sense when I tried to do a basic Diagnostic Charm—" Pomfrey started.

"It was not a basic Diagnostic Charm," Rigel protested, sounding surprisingly firm for someone who'd been though what he just had. He spoke as if his life were newly dependent on this issue. "It was an incredibly in-depth and unnecessary Diagnostic Charm that violates my privacy."

"I need to know what's happened to you, Rigel," Pomfrey said, visibly distressed. Severus could see the signs of deep worry in the nurse's expression.

"I can tell you, if you'd just ask," Rigel said strongly. "I'm hungry, but my stomach is incredibly messed up from taking about thirty different potions in the last week, not to mention eating a whole lot of unwashed, raw ingredients. I don't have any injuries, but my skin itches everywhere, and I really want to take a bath. Or ten."

"At least let me assist you—"

"No," Rigel said sharply. "No. I don't need any help."

"Your muscles are weak with malnourishment," Pomfrey snapped. "I'm not leaving you to drown, you headstrong menace. It's nothing I haven't seen before, I assure you."

"That is not the issue," Rigel said quietly. "I have had a lot of agency taken from me recently and I would like to do this on my own. My magic will not let me drown, I promise you."

Poppy looked ready to launch a fresh protest, but Severus, who had never heard Rigel talk about his magic so calmly or assuredly, stepped in. "Let's respect Mr. Black's wishes, in this case. While he cleans up, we can discuss the regimen of potions he needs to be taking over the next month to get his digestive tract back in working order."

"But he—"

"Has survived this long," Severus said firmly. "He can do this."

Rigel's deeply grateful look brought his gaze to Severus. Then it slid past him and landed on his blond shadow, who had been taking in Rigel's dirty, thin, wan appearance with something like shocked denial. "Draco!" Rigel's face split into a wide smile, even as his lips cracked and he winced a moment later. "It's good to see you. I heard you helped Professor Snape find me. Thank you."

"Thank you?" Draco marched over to the bed and glared at Rigel with tears in his eyes, "How about sorry, Draco, for making you think I was dead?"

"I'm sorry," Rigel began, frowning.

"Don't apologize, you idiot!" Draco grabbed Rigel's shoulders and shook the frail boy. "I was so worried, Rigel, I thought—we found the corpse and I assumed—" he broke into a wordless groan and held the dark-haired boy to him tightly for a long moment.

"You should let go, Draco," Rigel mumbled into his friend's shoulder.

"Don't tell me what to do," Draco sniffed. "I'm so glad you're alive, you have no idea. Pansy is going to hit you at least twice for this—"

"That's nice," Rigel said, amusement softly coloring his tone, "but I'm pretty sure I have fleas, so—"

"Ugh!" Draco leapt back. "What is wrong with you? Next time open with that, Rye." Rigel laughed and Draco smiled back at him. "Seriously, though, go take a bath. I'll be here when you get out."

Rigel smiled as he slipped off of the bed on unsteady limbs. "Thanks for stalking me, Draco. Your nosiness actually saved my life."

"I'm not nosy," Draco spluttered. "You're suspicious!"

The levity left the room abruptly as Rigel hobbled into the bathroom adjoining the Hospital Wing. Draco stared after him with a deeply disturbed look on his face, and Severus wondered what he'd gleaned from the other boy's emotional state. Nothing good, it seemed.

"What happened to that child?" Poppy asked, looking heartbroken. "His smile is so brittle."

"I only know enough to say that his mind took the brunt of it, whatever pitiful state his body appears to be in," Severus said. "That said, there is little we can do for him mentally. He needs stability and security. Beyond that, counsel and support are all we can offer. His body will need help as well, however. He has been severely malnourished for upwards of a week and a half, so I recommend a full work up of nutritional supplements and repairing potions to sooth his digestive organs."

"Impossible!" Pomfrey said. "I had him in here this morning for lessons, and he looked nothing like that scarecrow of a boy."

"Wait, Rigel was in lessons with us this morning. How many classes is he taking?" Draco cut in, looking affronted.

"Twelve, I believe," Severus sighed.

"Were you trying to give him a mental breakdown?" Draco asked seriously.

"He was monitored closely—"

"Not closely enough!" Draco snapped.

"Are you in some way implying that my negligence is to blame for what has happened?" Severus asked, a dangerous growl in his voice.

"Of course not." Draco scowled. "Only—it was a terrible idea to give Rigel a—what you gave him, can't you see that? On the surface he looks very responsible and levelheaded, but it's all an act! He's a reckless idiot who pretends that it's not his fault he's always in the middle of trouble even though it's so obvious he's the only common denominator."

"You exaggerate his misfortune and turn it into a character trait," Severus argued. "Rigel Black did not ask for the world to set him apart. He must be prepared for what his life will involve, however, and the best preparation is knowledge."

"So his taking twelve classes was your idea," Draco inferred. "Professor, I must respectfully disagree with you on this. What's best for Rigel is not more classwork. He needs to spend more time relaxing, so that his head doesn't explode before he's seventeen."

"I daresay I know better than you what is best for Rigel," Severus sneered.

"Why don't we let Rigel decide what's best for Rigel," Poppy jumped in. "Since you're both so keen on giving him some autonomy. You can't have it both ways."

Severus gave the argument up as a waste of time, for the moment. He needed to focus on what Rigel needed now, not in the future. They could work out next year's schedule next year. He ran through a list of the potions the Hospital Wing would have in stock and the ones he would have to make himself. "Do you have a Toxin-flushing Potion, Poppy? You may want to administer one of those before you try fattening him up, just to make sure there are no harmful poisons left in his system. I gave him a bezoar when I found him, but it's best to be certain, in this case."

"Why would he have been eating poisons?" Poppy asked, appalled.

"I cannot explain why or how, but he went nearly two weeks with only his potions kit to eat and drink, near as I can tell. He had the presence of mind to avoid anything that would kill him outright, but I got the feeling he wasn't too picky with the things that would only make him mildly sick," Severus said, rubbing his eyes.

"Oh, Severus," the nurse sniffed. She was obviously confused, but knew better than to press for information he couldn't give her. "That's just awful. The poor dear."

"Rigel's smart," Draco said, looking both dismayed and impressed. "To go so long on just a collection of raw ingredients…it's lucky for him he's so obsessed with keeping his kit stocked. I'm not going to laugh anymore when he takes two hours at the apothecary."

"He is a clever lad," Severus agreed softly. It was probably the only thing that saved him.

"Not so clever," a voice behind them chimed in. Rigel was back, dripping water everywhere and only half-clean, though he'd abandoned his ruined clothes and donned a set of white hospital robes the nurse kept in stock for such times. "If I was smarter, I would have remembered to fill up my canteen with the Aguamenti charm before I got too weak to use my magic properly."

"That would only have bought you half a day, at best," Poppy pointed out briskly, shooing the boy toward his bed and drying him with a wave of her wand. "There's no need to critique your survival—just be grateful for it."

"Yes, ma'am," Rigel said. He leaned abruptly against the bed next to his own. "I think I may have—ah, overestimated my own strength. Can I take another bath later?"

"You may take as many as you please," the matron said. "For now, you must rest. Severus, will you draw up a list of the potions you'll be making so that I can devise a schedule?"

"Of course," he said. Turning to Draco, he told him, "Five minutes, and then you must return to your common room. It is far past curfew, Mr. Malfoy."

"Yes, Sir," Draco said, moving to Rigel's bedside quickly.

As Severus walked toward Poppy's office, he heard Rigel saying, "Try not to make it sound like I was really going to die, when you tell Pansy."

Shaking his head at the idea of Rigel and Draco managing to put something past Miss Parkinson, who was far cleverer than either of them, Severus left them to their reunion. There would be a bloody fallout for this night, of that he was certain. Riddle, the goblins, the Ministry, Dumbledore—they would all have questions. For now, the boy should have his moment of innocence. He had certainly earned it.

-0

[JpJpJp]

-0

Dumbledore met them at the gates and James couldn't help but find it uncanny how the old man always seemed to know what was going on before he ought to. So many times at school the headmaster had seemed a little too forewarned before one of their pranks, even the ones they kept entirely under wraps.

"We're here with a warrant to detain your Care of Magical Creatures professor for questioning, Headmaster," James explained, holding his paperwork up through the gates so the older wizard could peer at it.

"I'm afraid there might be a bit of difficulty with that," Albus said, tone heavy with regret.

James grimaced apologetically. He liked Dumbledore, and he respected him as a political leader, but he had a job to do. "I know you don't approve of the Ministry interfering with Hogwarts business, but I'm afraid Peter Pettigrew is implicated in a high-priority case."

"I'm certain he is," the headmaster said sadly. "Unfortunately, I do not think your questioning will yield the results you seek, at this point. Come with me, gentlemen."

The gates opened and James and his team of five Aurors filed through the wards quickly. Dumbledore relocked the gates and led them at a swift pace. After a few minutes, however, it was clear that he was not taking them up to the castle.

"Where are we going?" James asked, speeding up to walk beside Albus. "He is in the forest at this time of night?"

"He is," Dumbledore said, mouth in a grim line.

He was beginning to have a bad feeling about this. They entered the Forbidden Forest, much to the silent displeasure of the majority of his squad. All of them had attended Hogwarts, and they knew better than to traipse so casually into the dark woods.

"Is it far?" James asked, keeping his eyes peeled warily as the trees blocked out the moonlight.

"Fairly," Dumbledore said, "Your men can relax, however. I have made this trip twice tonight and have yet to encounter anything remotely dangerous. This part of the forest is currently deserted, for better or worse."

James was definitely unsettled, now. What could have happened to affect the creatures in the Forbidden Forest so acutely? It had to be related to the Dominion Jewel. Looked like their tip might be closer to the truth than he'd let himself presume. They walked a good while before reaching whatever Dumbledore was so keen to show them. He hoped it was not an elaborate diversionary tactic to give Pettigrew time to escape. That would tickle the Minister puce. He complained daily about the pressure he was under from the goblins who managed the Ministry's finances.

Albus stopped them in a clearing full of dug up earth. His bad feeling intensified. "He's dead," he guessed, reading the cheerless expression on the headmaster's face with confusion. An image of Peter's face rose from the back of his mind as he asked shakily, "How?"

"That has yet to be fully ascertained," Dumbledore said quietly. "I have seen the body myself and it is…unnatural, to say the least. I shall tender a guess that you are here searching for the Dominion Jewel. If Peter Pettigrew had it, I'm afraid it killed him."

James paled. The headmaster really was alarmingly knowledgeable at times. Was it he who had sent the anonymous tips to the Auror Department? It wasn't his style, but someone at Hogwarts had to have sent the message.

"How far down is the body?" James asked, slipping back into professional mode. "I wish you hadn't reburied it, Albus. We do need to treat this as a crime scene."

"Things are a tad more complicated than you imagine," Dumbledore said mildly. "I do not recommend you attempt that spell, Mr. Filmont."

James turned his head to see Filmont with his wand out, looking annoyed. "Why's that, Headmaster?" the detective asked.

Dumbledore waved a hand at the ground and a ward matrix sprang to visibility all the way around the clearing.

"Shite," Filmont swore. "It's a bloody goblin ward. Those double-crossing little sneaks!"

"Goblins didn't do this," James whispered. He recognized the signature on the rune closest to his feet. "It was Pettigrew."

He could remember the small boy poring over runes for hours and hours, long after he'd given up studying for any other class. Peter had always been fascinated with the little symbols. It was his runes that protected the Marauder's Map from wear and tear, and they'd used his knowledge tons of times over the years designing pranks and setting up wards to keep the prefects out of their stuff. To think that his old friend was dead, buried under his own wards…it brought an ache of sorrow to his chest. They hadn't been friends for years, but all they'd been through together wasn't something you could just forget.

"He buried himself?" Filmont asked sarcastically.

James had his wand held high, looking around the clearing at the pattern of footprints and gesturing for his men to do the same. Dumbledore cleared his throat and tilted his head toward a heavily shadowed side of the clearing. "I believe what you're looking for is over there, Mr. Potter."

James hurried over and his face set grimly. There was a small tunnel, just big enough for a rat, going straight down. "It's some sort of bunker," he said aloud. "Judging by the footprints that morph into paw prints, Pettigrew was some kind of small Animagus." He ignored the amused expression Dumbledore sent him, feigning ignorance. "The wards only prevent humans from crossing them, right Filmont?"

"That's right." Filmont looked impressed. "Ruddy clever. If Pettigrew was an Animagus…well, he had himself an impenetrable hidey-hole. Do you think he kept the jewel down there?"

"How did you get a look at the body, Headmaster?" James asked quietly.

"Fawkes," Dumbledore said. The phoenix appeared in a burst of flame a moment later. "He would be happy to take a couple of your men down—only two or three, if you please. The caverns are not big enough to accommodate all of you at once."

James beckoned Filmont over. He was his best crime-scene reader. "Prepare yourselves," Dumbledore advised. "It is not pleasant."

"Death never is." James readied himself.

"I should tell you that Pettigrew was involved in an attack on one of my students tonight. That student was held hostage in the caves below. Please, keep that in mind when you examine the scene." Dumbledore looked incredibly troubled.

James felt a bit ill himself. Peter had kidnapped a kid? Whatever for? He held out his arm to the phoenix grimly and with a flash of fire found himself underground. The cavern he emerged in wasn't so small as Dumbledore had made it sound. The domed roof was tall enough to permit standing, at least. Once Filmont joined him, they began systematically documenting what they saw.

"Not to contradict the illustrious headmaster," Filmont said, tipping his head in the direction of Albus' phoenix, "but there's no body down here."

Fawkes trilled, diving toward the floor and then rising again to hover in front of them.

"Dumbledore said 'caves,' didn't he?" James clarified. The phoenix nodded. "We'll go to the lower cavern next, then, all right?"

The bird hovered contentedly near the top of the cave as he and Filmont got back to surveying it. There was a pile of niffler carcasses in one corner, a lantern whose light had burnt out, a circle of some sort that had been broken and redrawn several times, and evidence of human waste in multiple places. There was an empty burlap sack, as well, but the sum total of the random amalgamation of clues didn't make a lot of sense to James.

"Well, I'd say it's pretty clear what happened here," Filmont said, closing his notebook with a snap.

"Care to enlighten me?" James said, one eyebrow rising. "What did you do, read the past in the niffler entrails?"

"Something like that," Filmont smiled darkly. "Those nifflers were used to draw the runes in here—at least some of them. Probably the last few. These wards couldn't have been put up quickly—too complicated. My guess is our man prepared this place well in advance. Once he had his hostage in the cavern—though don't ask me how he got him through that tiny hole unless the student was also an unregistered Animagus—he killed these nifflers to finish off the wards and trap the kid inside."

James felt sick but knew he had to act with a professionalism that befitted his title. Even if it was Peter who had allegedly done these things. "The circle?"

"Ward of some kind," Filmont said. "Not runic—something short-term. The perp had to reapply it numerous times. From the looks of the splash marks, it was made with some kind of liquid, though I'm not sure what—"

"I know it," James said, surprised. He peered closer at the uneven way it had been drawn on the ground. "My daughter invented this potion. It's a portable ward. But…how could Pettigrew have got the potion? It's not for sale anywhere. It's still being tested by the Department of Mysteries, as far as I know."

"That's…very odd," Filmont said, a guarded look on his face. "James, your kid doesn't go here, does she?"

"No," he said, great relief in his tone. To imagine that it might have been his little girl trapped in this dark hole—just no. He would lose his lunch if he thought too much along that road. A thought struck him suddenly, however. "My…godson does, though. Harry could have given him some of the potions she'd made…" He struggled to keep his calm despite the alarm that trickled into his gut. There was no proof Archie was involved in any of this. Dumbledore would have mentioned that right away, were it so.

"Let's just get this documented and get back to the surface," James said, uneasy urgency making his fingers shake slightly as he ran a hand through his hair.

"Well, there's something that doesn't make any sense," Filmont offered hesitantly. "I mean, the headmaster said that one of his students had been attacked tonight, but there's enough human waste here for a few days, I'd say. How long does this potion ward last?"

"I think twelve hours, at least," James said.

"Why apply it so many times if it wasn't running out? Unless the kid broke it a dozen times." Filmont shook his head. "Something isn't right here."

"Nothing is right here," James muttered. "If we have everything, lets go below."

Fawkes' fire engulfed him and when he next took a breath he had to gag strongly. Bending double to control his stomach was the only thing that saved him from cracking his skull against the ceiling. He cast a Bubble-head Charm for himself, then did the same for Filmont when his detective appeared choking and gasping.

"He's dead all right," Filmont said, face distorted behind the bubble of fresh air. "Dead for a thousand years, looks like."

James took in his old friend's dead body with a numb sense of horror. The body was more gaunt than Peter had ever been in life, the features sucked clean of any resemblance to the man he once was, but James couldn't deny it was he. The coat he wore, littered with pockets and a size too big…it was Peter's signature style, even when they were in school.

"You want to search him, or you want me to do it?" Filmont asked, sounding incredibly unenthused.

James pulled a pair of gloves out of his pocket. "I'll do it." He walked, bent over, to where the body lay. Even ignoring the mummification, the actual flesh seemed to have been rotting for days. "Why wasn't he reported missing?" he wondered aloud as he catalogued the position and other details before touching the corpse. Peter's hand was frozen as though clenched around something, but there was nothing there. Had someone taken the jewel before they arrived? He couldn't let Dumbledore keep it, legally. He would have to question the student who'd witnessed this and see what he knew.

He searched the coat and clothes of the deceased, trying not to think hard about any of this until they had all the facts. Whatever the truth was, he didn't doubt it would be horrifying. Something clenched hard in his chest when he found a small green ring in one of the many pockets. Hadn't Archie worn something like that? "No jewel," he said after a long moment, straightening—as much as he could, anyway—and tucking the ring into an evidence bag. "Anything?" he asked his detective.

"A whole lot of empty potions vials," Filmont said, sounding perplexed. "Someone was either trying to kill themselves or had an extremely diverse series of ailments." He examined the residue in several of the vials and shook his head in confusion. "Befuddlement Draught, Numbing Potion, Blood-Replenisher, Dreamless Sleep…it's a whole potions cabinet worth of vials."

"Human waste again," James added, peering around the tiny cavern. "Mostly accumulated here, as though someone were too injured to move."

"Or too insane from taking all these potions at once," Filmont said uneasily. "There's a bunch of debris here, too, little stems and stalks, like someone was eating the leaves off of plants, only there are no plants down here."

"I don't like this at all," James said. "Let's get what we need and go. We'll have to take the body, if Fawkes will let us."

The phoenix didn't look pleased at the prospect, but the bird obliged nevertheless. They resurfaced and dropped the Bubble-head Charms gratefully, even as their companions exclaimed in shock at the state of the corpse they'd recovered.

"What did that?" Aberly asked with great unease. "Never seen a curse do that."

"It was the goblin artifact, wasn't it?" Greenhole guessed. "Look at his hand."

"But where is the jewel?" Filmont asked, looking at Dumbledore pointedly.

"According to the student who was accosted, it is gone. I don't know any more than that at the moment," Dumbledore admitted.

"We'll need to question him," James said. "Albus…who is it?" His expression pleaded for the headmaster to name some poor, unlucky kid whose name he didn't recognize. The regret in those piercing blue eyes said it all, though. "No…not Archie. He—is he all right? Where is he?"

"James…" Filmont said, his tone reminding him of his business here.

"Dammit, Filmont, that's my godson," James snapped. "Is he here or at St. Mungo's, Albus?"

"He is here, and he is fine—or as fine as one can be, after what he has experienced," Albus said sorrowfully. James didn't want his sorrow. He wanted to know how it had happened.

"Has Sirius been informed yet?" he asked. "Remus?"

"I have not spoken with the boy myself, yet," Albus said, "He was only rescued an hour or so ago. Severus took him to the Hospital Wing—"

"Snape?" James spat, furious. "Why not Remus?"

"Professor Snape saved your godson, Auror Potter," Dumbledore said firmly. "When young Mr. Malfoy noticed Mr. Black missing, he went to his Head of House and Severus acted immediately, tracking the boy down and sending for Fawkes to free him. He is in safe hands, James. I assure you."

"I want to see him," James said, mind going in a thousand directions, none of them good. He took off toward the woods, snapping orders as he walked. "Tunstin, get that body to the Ministry morgue. Aberly, when we reach the castle you will track down the Defense professor, Remus Lupin, and escort him to the Hospital Wing. Greenhole, you will use the Hospital Wing Floo to call Grimmauld Place and inform Archie's father that he is needed at Hogwarts. The rest of you stay with me until we have the full story. Once we have solid information on the jewel's whereabouts one of you will go to Gringotts to explain the situation to the goblins. The media will not be informed until we have the full cooperation of the goblin press corps, understood?"

"Yessir," came five voices at his back.

Good. Because James didn't understand anything. But he would, before the night was out.

The Hospital Wing was dark and quiet. "He is likely sleeping," Dumbledore said placatingly. "He had been through a long ordeal—"

"What are they doing in here?" Snape came out of the shadows and stood before them, between the Aurors and a bed with the curtains drawn. James eyed the curtains worriedly, but focused his attention on his former enemy, for the moment.

"You rescued Archie?" James asked bluntly. He saw Snape stiffen, defensive hate written all over his face, and knew the man expected James to accuse him of being an unregistered Animagus. He wasn't stupid—for Snape to have found the boy, he probably had a way through the wards, and there had been tracks suspiciously like a snake's sidewinding overlapping the rat tracks near the entrance. James was not quite that petty, however. "Thank you," he said, sincerely. Archie was like his own son in many ways. If anything had happened to him…well, Sirius would never recover from losing his son, and that was nothing to what it would do to Harry and Lily. "Our family owes you a great debt."

"Save your debt," Snape sneered. "I care more for the boy than I do your forced gratitude."

James had to sigh. The Potions master never changed. He slipped his pocket book out of his robe and palmed a quill. "Since Archie is asleep, can you tell us what you know about tonight's occurrence?"

"Tonight?" Snape's eyes slid, fathomless, to Dumbledore.

James turned to the headmaster as well. "We found traces of at least several days worth of human waste in both caverns," he told the old wizard. "It also looks like Pettigrew has been dead several days at least. Is there something more you'd like to add to your report? Like why Pettigrew wasn't reported missing the moment he stopped showing up to teach classes?"

"He was never missing," Dumbledore said, lips pursed unhappily. "Unfortunately, you may need to speak to the Department of Mysteries before you interview young Mr. Black about what happened."

"Not the Unspeakables," Filmont groaned.

"We already know about the experimental potion that was involved," James said, frowning. "I recognized it as one of my daughter's inventions."

"It isn't that," Snape said impatiently. "Just contact them—you'll have to anyway, as one of their artifacts was involved in the crime that rat committed."

"I thought it was a goblin artifact," one of his Aurors whispered, confused.

James was starting to suspect something headache-inducing, however. He shared a look with Filmont and knew his detective was thinking a time-turner might unravel some of the mystery around the crime scene, too. "I'll Floo the Department of Mysteries," Filmont said, scowling. "Damn Unspeakables and their damned paranoid confidentiality clauses." He muttered all the way to the Floo, which Greenhole had just stepped back from. Before Filmont could get the Floo powder out of the jar, the grate sprang to life and Sirius stepped through, looking frantic in what were clearly conjured robes.

"Archie?" he asked, eyes zeroing in on Dumbledore from across the room. When he saw James there, he paled dramatically.

"There, sleeping," James said quickly, motioning to the curtains. Sirius turned toward the bed without another word and disappeared behind the curtains to see his son. "What can you tell us, without stepping on the Department of Mysteries' toes?" James asked, turning back to Dumbledore and Snape.

"Peter Pettigrew has been in possession of the Dominion Jewel for some time," Snape said, a sneer in his voice that James supposed was a permanent affliction. "According to the little that Mr. Black has said, Pettigrew held him captive in a bid to take his magic—I've not the faintest idea why," he added before Filmont could open his mouth. "I gather the man was quite mad by the end of it. Mr. Black was held prisoner until his classmate noticed him missing from the common room this evening. By a rather unlikely turn of fate, Mr. Malfoy had tagged Mr. Black's shoe with a tracking device: one of your own brand, I believe, Potter."

Snape's lip curled in distaste at the mention of the Marauder joke line, but James ignored it. He dutifully jotted down that Archie had been found thanks to an opportunely placed teacher-tracker, ignoring for the moment the implications of the Malfoy Heir attempting to keep tabs on his godson for whatever reason.

"So you tracked Arch—Mr. Black to the clearing in the woods, deduced he was underground, and sent for the headmaster's phoenix to rescue him?" James supplied, glossing over his suspicion that Snape had gone underground after Archie in his Animagus form with professional smoothness.

"Indeed," Snape said, face revealing nothing but boredom. James suppressed an eye roll at the other man's natural sense of superiority.

The Hospital Wing doors opened before James could ask if Heir Malfoy had any information worth an interview. Remus rushed in, his hair sleep-mussed and his face etched with deep concern. "Archie?" he asked, spotting James immediately.

"He's fine, Remus," James said reassuringly. "Sirius is with him, just there."

Remus slumped in relief. "What happened?"

"We're ascertaining that now," James said. "Go see to Sirius, will you?"

"Of course," Remus said, frowning. He nodded to Snape and Dumbledore before leaving them to join Sirius behind the bed curtain.

Aberly jogged into the Hospital Wing a moment later, huffing and puffing. "Fast bloke, your friend," the Auror panted. James made a mental note to increase the physical fitness qualifications for the next annual evaluation.

Before they could continue the questioning, Madam Pomfrey came stalking out of the door that connected her quarters to the wing like an avenging angel. "What is all this ruckus?" the nurse demanded. "James Potter, are you disturbing my patient?"

"No, Ma'am," he answered automatically, taken back to his school days involuntarily.

The older woman drew herself up menacingly. "You'd better not be. That boy needs his rest."

"Can you give us a rundown of the child's injuries?" Greenhole asked, quill at the ready.

"I don't see how that's any of your concern, as the culprit behind them is deceased," Pomfrey sniffed. "If there isn't going to be a criminal trial, I see no reason to violate Mr. Black's privacy."

"We're just trying to get a picture of what happened," Filmont, who had finished his call to the Department of Mysteries, said in a weary tone. "Standard procedure."

"Well standard medical procedure is to tell nosy Aurors to keep their—"

"It's quite all right, Madam Pomfrey," Dumbledore broke in, hands held up entreating peace. "It might be best if there was as little mystery to these events as possible."

The Floo grate flared to life again and Filmont muttered, "Speaking of mysteries."

A hooded Unspeakable came through and turned his faceless head back and forth along the ward. "Where is Arcturus Black?"

"He's asleep," James said stoutly, "And you won't be disturbing him."

The Unspeakable walked slowly toward their group, speaking softly. "This is no business of yours, Auror. Our artifact is implicated—"

"In a capital crime," Filmont interrupted flatly. "It's everyone's jurisdiction at the moment. So why don't you clue us in on why the crime scene that looks a week old was apparently made in the last few hours?"

The Unspeakable paused, thinking for a long moment. "Very well. It appears the facts are indisputably revealing, in this case. Everyone present must agree to be bound by the secrecy that we hold—"

"Just tell us what happened, and we'll decide how much needs to be included in the report," James said firmly. "A child was almost killed tonight, and a man met his death in the most gruesome of ways. We're not agreeing to censor anything just yet."

The hooded wizard somehow gave off the impression of displeasure despite not having moved an inch.

"It would be best if we could all understand what happened," Dumbledore put in mildly. "I'm sure the Aurors would be amenable to giving you a copy of the full report when it's finished, in the interest of information sharing."

"Of course," James said tiredly. Inter-office politics were the worst. Especially when they interfered with investigation. Especially when that investigation concerned a member of his family.

The Unspeakable bowed his head in agreement. "Arcturus Black was issued a seven-day time-turner at the beginning of his school year through the sponsorship of Albus Dumbledore and his Head of House Severus Snape."

James' mouth dropped open in shock. Archie had been given a time-turner? He'd thought the Unspeakable would say that one had gone missing, or even that they suspected Peter had stolen one or applied for one. They'd given Archie one? "Why?" he choked out. "He's thirteen."

"At times exemplary students are selected for a special program that allows them to take more than the maximum number of credit hours in a term," Dumbledore explained. 'This program is a secret kept between the student and his Head of House, and the ones chosen are expected to do all that is necessary to keep the existence of their time-turners hidden from their classmates and families. It is a precaution we take to prevent the student being taken advantage of, though in this case it is clear that it did not work."

"Archie had a time-turner." James was still completely floored by this twist in events. "Well. I knew he was a good student, but…that's…" He cleared his throat and refocused his attention. "So he was held captive much longer than a few hours, obviously. Do we know how long?"

"Two weeks," Snape hissed, rage coloring every syllable. "He was held in that hole for two weeks with no one the wiser until tonight."

"Two…" James could feel emotion trying to choke him. He battened it down forcefully. "Two weeks." He wrote it down with shaking fingers. "And Pettigrew was there with him the whole time, I suppose."

"Presumably," Snape said. "Mr. Black's account was understandably garbled."

"Did you recover the time-turner?" the Unspeakable asked urgently. James couldn't hide his disgust at the man's lack of tact. Was that really all he was concerned about?

"Yes." Snape looked equally disgusted as he pulled out the small golden device from his belt pouch. James examined it with interest before the Unspeakable snatched it and hid it within the folds of his robes. He'd never seen one before. It was smaller than he'd imagined. "I found the device in a mokeskin pouch along with Pettigrew's wand."

"Was there anything else in the pouch?" the Unspeakable asked. So the Department of Mysteries was aware of the Dominion Jewel as well. Was nothing an actual secret anymore?

"No," Snape said blankly. James had no way of knowing whether he was lying or not. Snape had one hell of a poker face.

"Have you searched the boy?" the hooded figure pressed.

"I certainly have not," Snape snapped. "I was a bit preoccupied saving his life, if you must know."

"How…how was he?" James asked, not sure if he wanted to know. He couldn't imagine how Archie had survived such a thing.

"Not well," Snape said quietly, an uncomfortable intensity in his eyes that James found he recognized from his own gut. "He survived by consuming the majority of his own potions kit."

Archie had a potions kit? James supposed he must, if he studied Potions, but he couldn't imagine a student's kit would have much worth eating. Poor Arch.

"That's an understatement," Pomfrey huffed. "The boy was clinging to life. He had a dozen different mild poisons in his system. Intestinal damage all through his digestive tract from eating raw tubers, among other things. He has lingering delirium from overdosing on mind-altering potions—"

"The boy uses drugs?" the Unspeakable clarified.

"The boy was forced to drink the contents of his potions kit for its water content, weren't you listening?" the nurse snapped. "He was severely weakened by malnutrition and I don't doubt barely able to produce a spark of magic with his coils in the state they are."

"What happed to his magic?" the Unspeakable pressed, too interested for James' comfort.

"He hasn't said," Pomfrey told them, eyes narrowed in disapproval. "Something tore them up from the inside out while he was down there."

James felt too sick to wonder what could have done that to his godson, but Snape provided an answer anyway.

"The resonance," the sallow man said shortly. James had no idea what that meant, but the Unspeakable inhaled sharply.

"And he lives?" the hooded man asked, sounding breathless.

"He is a resourceful child," Snape said. The pride in his tone seemed stronger than that of a professor for his student, even a Head of House. How close was Snape to Archie?

"What is resonance?" one of his Aurors finally asked. "For, uh, the record?"

"Resonance occurs when one relives the same instant seven times," the Unspeakable answered, still sounding awed. "The presence of seven simultaneous cores creates a frequency feedback in the magic that always destroys the seventh core, in most cases killing the wizard in question within minutes."

"He should not have been using the time-turner so frequently," Dumbledore said, greatly troubled.

"He has three classes at once on Tuesday mornings," Snape said briskly. "In the course of his usual week, he was present in that time on five separate instances. When Pettigrew kidnapped him, he obviously didn't get what he wanted by the time his seven days were up. By taking the boy back another week, he set into motion the resonance that occurred when Tuesday came again."

"Is the boy a Squib?"

James glared at the Unspeakable in fury. How could he just ask that so callously? His heart shook at the possibility being laid before him. He would be grateful as long as Archie lived, but to be so maimed…it was soul crushing.

"He is not," Snape spat. "He circumvented it in time."

"Impossible," the Unspeakable declared.

James wasn't sure if he should feel relief or not. Which was he to believe? Snape or the expert on weirdness?

"You may see for yourself when he wakes," Snape said, smirking slightly. He sounded very certain. "Rigel Black is a remarkably clever boy."

It was strange to hear Snape of all people talking about Sirius' son like that. And calling him by that name, which James gathered was a sort of nickname he used at school. "Is there anything else?" he asked the Hospital Wing's matron after a long pause.

"Just this: there were traces of mind-weakening herbs still in his system," Pomfrey said, an indignant tone in her voice. "They aren't the sort that would be useful in any of the common potions, as they work potently on their own. That man was drugging Mr. Black to keep him complacent."

The tension in the room shot palpably high as several people, James included, suddenly wished very much that Peter Pettigrew were not already too dead to feel pain. That bastard. How dare he? To any child, but more, to Sirius' son? Had they ever known him at all?

"What are the readings on his core?" the Unspeakable asked after most of those in the room were calm once more.

"There are none," Pomfrey pursed her lips. "I can see his coils, but the core isn't registering on any of the Diagnostic Charms—the ones the boy will let me use, anyway," the nurse added bitterly.

"How can you be sure it was not destroyed, then?" the Unspeakable asked.

"The boy himself told me he masked his core in time to prevent the resonance from tearing it apart," Snape cut in. "You likely cannot get a read on it as the boy had altered it in some way."

"To change its frequency?" the Unspeakable seemed to be muttering to himself. "It would take an array so complex as to forbid a timely solution."

"Perhaps we should all retire for the night and continue this in the morning, when we can talk to Mr. Black himself," Dumbledore suggested. "There's no sense in prolonging our speculations past the point of usefulness."

The Unspeakable looked ready to argue that point, but he was interrupted by the curtain around Archie's bed being pushed back slowly. They all looked around to see Sirius sitting in the chair at the boy's bedside and Remus standing with his hand on the fabric. "He's awake," Remus called to them softly. "He says he'd like to get the questions over with, if that's all right."

They crowded round, though James motioned his four remaining Aurors to keep back a bit, in order to allow Archie at least a modicum of space. His godson was propped up against his pillows, looking exhausted and much too thin. His eyes were clear, however, and when he spoke it was with a coherence he hadn't let himself hope for, after hearing all that the boy had endured.

Even through the professionalism he tried to summon for the interview ahead, he couldn't help but think, Sirius, your son is stronger than we ever realized.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Their faces were so expectant, and probably all for different reasons. She didn't know if her story would shock, appease, or disappoint them. She found she really didn't care. She just wanted this over with so she could go back to sleep. Why had they summoned her uncles? This would be so much easier without three members of her family staring down at her. They didn't need to hear this. Especially when they'd be picturing it all happening to Archie—sweet, happy Archie, whose soul was so pure it was profane to imagine any of this happening to him.

How much of the truth to tell? It was a question she'd been struggling with since she awoke to the sounds of voices and all through the hasty reassurances and hugs she gave Sirius and Remus. She didn't want to be caught in a lie. Her best bet of getting out of this mostly unnoticed was in painting herself as the unfortunate victim who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. How could she explain Pettigrew's taking her without telling them about her powerful magic—magic that Archie did not have, and which Sirius, Remus, and James knew he did not have? She would have to include some of her less than honest activities, if she was to give them a narrative everyone would accept.

"It started…a while ago," she said slowly. "I'm not sure how much is relevant to your investigation, so I'll just tell you everything."

"Please do," James said, a professional mask on his face that didn't quite disguise the latent worry in his eyes.

"A few weeks ago—in conventional time, not folded time—I was walking by the forest when I heard the sounds of someone in trouble," she told them. "I followed the sounds to a clearing, where I saw Professor Pettigrew fighting a dragon."

"A what?" Remus' jaw dropped. She'd forgotten that Dumbledore had kept the dragon mostly under wraps at the school, only informing her Head of House and a couple of officials from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. "Peter was fighting a—what?"

Rigel realized belatedly that Remus and Sirius had no idea who'd done this to her, though by the lesser confusion on James' face, he had been informed. This was going to be very hard on her uncles, she thought regretfully.

"Professor Pettigrew had the dragon chained up in the clearing and was trying to stop it from roasting him by holding up this large red stone between him and the dragon," Rigel said, wincing at the furious look on Snape's face at her words. It was definitely not the story she'd told Dumbledore the night it happened, and Snape was no doubt wondering why on earth she had lied about it, but it needed to be said now. "He lost control of it, and it nearly killed both of us, but I sent up sparks and made a loud noise to get the dragon to back off. Dumbledore came and rescued us—Pettigrew was pretty badly slashed at that point—and I didn't see Pettigrew again after that except in passing."

"That would be the dragon you reported sighted on the grounds, Dumbledore?" James said, looking a bit annoyed. "You didn't tell us one of your professors was keeping it captive in the woods."

"That is because that is not the account Mr. Black gave on the night in question," Snape growled. "Rigel, what have you done?"

"I'm sorry," she said, "but I lied. The truth is, I've known what the Dominion Jewel was for a while now."

Shock and confusion lined every face looking back at her.

"I overheard my—uh, Uncle James asking to use my dad's library to look for background information on a goblin artifact that was missing." She pretended not to see James' frown. "I'm friends with the Weasleys—"

"Is that relevant?" the Unspeakable, who she could only assume was there because she'd violated about a dozen time-turner rules, asked sharply.

"Everything I'm going to say is relevant," she said calmly, staring into the black hood. She was not going to be intimidated by a bit of shadow magic. She had seen much scarier things in the last week. "The Weasleys' eldest son works for Gringotts. He's a curse-breaker who was assigned to the tomb that got broken into over the summer. He was also assigned to look for the jewel at Hogwarts after the goblins were banned from the premises. It was obvious to everyone that the goblins' missing artifact had something to do with what happened on Halloween, and I guessed that whatever they were looking for was probably taken from the tomb in the first place. When I overheard Dad and Uncle James talking, it started to fall into place."

"You overhear things a lot, it seems," one of the Aurors behind her father drawled. James glared at him, but Rigel merely shrugged.

"I do, actually," she acknowledged. "I overhear enough to know that the goblins and the Aurors weren't the only ones looking for this thing, in fact. That much was confirmed when Riddle showed up at the school with a flimsy excuse about talking to the headmaster."

"Lord Riddle of the SOW Party?" James clarified weakly. He looked incredibly overwhelmed all of a sudden.

"Of course," Rigel said. "Why else would Pettigrew, a devout member of the Party, suddenly express a pressing interest to teach at Hogwarts, the one place controlled by Riddle's political enemy? He thought Riddle, his Party leader, couldn't get to him here. And why else would Dumbledore take on such an unqualified teacher, unless he also suspected Pettigrew's application to Hogwarts was either at Riddle's behest or represented some kind of break with Riddle and wanted to keep Pettigrew where he could watch over him?"

All eyes turned to Dumbledore, who looked mildly affronted. "Peter Pettigrew demonstrated a remarkable way with a variety of creatures in his interview for the position. He seemed sufficiently qualified, and we needed a professor immediately."

"That makes sense," Rigel said easily, not actually trying to offend Dumbledore. "I'm just letting you know what I assumed. My guesses contributed to the reason I didn't say anything about Pettigrew having the stone that night. I didn't know for certain who all was after it for their own gain. If I told you, and you were after the jewel, it wouldn't be the right thing to do. Professor Snape is a member of the SOW Party as well, technically, and I had no way of knowing if he was reporting to Riddle or not, so I couldn't tell him, either. Including the goblins, that's three powerful players all looking for a very powerful artifact. I wasn't prepared to hand it over to any of them."

"Why is that?" James asked, frowning deeply. "Why did you think it was best to allow Pettigrew to keep it?"

"First," Rigel said, frowning, "I submitted an anonymous tip that very night to the Auror Department telling you who exactly had the jewel. I assumed the Ministry, the only neutral party in the affair that would be bound by legalities, at least, would come arrest Pettigrew, confiscate the jewel, and that would be the end of it."

Heads turned to James and the other Aurors. "We only received the tip tonight," James sighed, rubbing his temples. "There were staffing issues…well, in any case. We did not receive it in time, obviously."

Snape muttered something about Ministry incompetence, which all six Ministry officials bristled at, but Dumbledore, ever the voice of reason, spoke over their hostility. "Mr. Black, I am disappointed that you did not feel you could trust those of us here at Hogwarts, but I can understand your position. Did you think the stone dangerous?"

"He was using it to control a dragon, Headmaster," Rigel said, frowning. "Semi-successfully, at that. I'd been doing research on the jewel by that point, hours and hours of reading, and I knew enough to be terrified at the idea of it falling into any one person's hands, benevolent or not. Did you know it was used by the ancient pharaohs to subjugate nature and beast alike? Or that it could steal a creature's sentience? Or that it could be used to steal the magic of another wizard with enough control?"

"I did not," Dumbledore said, looked suddenly aged. "Such a thing…"

"Yes, exactly," Rigel sighed. "I think you're a good person, Headmaster, but you have many people who look to you for guidance. Your hands are exactly the sort the jewel is most dangerous in—leaders who have a large amount of influence, like the ancient Wizarding pharaohs did. It corrupts even the best intentions. Pettigrew wasn't an evil mastermind, don't you see? He was just an average wizard, until the jewel got its hooks into him. Imagine if Pettigrew had been someone with real power and resources right off. The damage done to our world would be inconceivable. That is why I informed the Aurors. I thought the Ministry would either destroy the thing in the interests of neutrality or lock it away in the Department of Mysteries with all the other incredibly dangerous artifacts."

"And we will," the Unspeakable said smoothly. "Where is it?"

"It's gone," she said flatly. "It was destroyed in the cave."

"How?" the hooded man demanded.

"Don't know," she said. "I was unconscious at the time." There was no way she was going to tell them it was living in her head at the moment. That sounded like a good way to be locked away for life.

"Perhaps we could back up a bit and start back at the beginning?" James asked, frowning. "We seem to have jumped ahead. So you knew Pettigrew had the jewel weeks ago. Then what happened, Archie?"

Rigel organized her thoughts. This was the part she had to sell. "I sort of…misused my time-turner a bit after that." Snape frowned forbiddingly, and the Unspeakable seemed to grow more sinister in presence. "I thought it was the right thing to do, but now I think I should have left well-enough alone. I used my time-turner to keep an eye on Pettigrew. I followed him when he wasn't in classes or in his rooms. I thought if I kept an eye on him, nothing bad could happen before the Aurors arrested him. Only, they never came, and I kept thinking it would be just one more day, maybe, and he was going into the forest a lot but I just figured he was practicing his control on the creatures in there and there wasn't anything I could do about that and—"

"Breathe, Archie," Sirius said softly.

She sucked in a breath for effect. "Sorry. I just—I can't believe I was so oblivious, even while I was watching him so carefully. He wasn't controlling the creatures in the forest anymore. He was building a prison…for me."

"Because you saw him with the stone," James realized, seeing at once where the tale was going.

"Yes," she said. That was why she had to tell them about seeing the stone that night with the dragon. She didn't want them thinking Pettigrew targeted her for a more specific reason, even though she was convinced that the jewel had steered him toward her because of her magic, not because she was a witness. "I did try to convince Pettigrew I was stupid, after he woke up from his injuries those weeks ago," she added, not wanted to appear completely careless in front of all these people, half of whom she respected greatly. "I thought he bought my act. I guess not, though."

"He took you tonight—ah, linearly speaking?" the same Auror who'd spoken earlier, the one with long hair and a short beard, said.

"Yes," she said. "I was on my way to Professor Snape's office to turn in an assignment—oh!" She looked around for her bag suddenly. "I think I still have it, Professor, in my—"

"Forget the assignment, you foolish boy," Snape said, scowling.

She sat back slowly. "All right, I'll turn it in tomorrow, then." She caught Remus smothering a small smile from the corner of her eyes.

"What happened next?" the Unspeakable prompted impatiently.

"Right," she said, sighing. She was getting to the part she really didn't want to discuss. "Well, he jumped me in the dungeons. Summoned my wand from behind, then got me with a body bind."

"Coward," Sirius snarled. He reached for her hand and clutched it tight. She squeezed back, smiling reassuringly.

"I got him good, though," she recalled. "Bloodied his nose, I think."

Sirius attempted to smile at that, but it was brittle. She turned back to James. "I tried everything to get away. I used a trick a friend taught me to get my arm free of the Incarcerous and tried to go for the time-turner. I thought if I could get it to spin even once, I'd be beyond his reach. The jewel, though…it's hard to describe. It can freeze your will completely. Like the Imperius, I guess, but it's hot. Everything feels like you're caught in a mirage, way out in the desert. It's hard to tell what's real, and the heat sort of melts your brain. He got me with it before I could get the time-turner from my shirt. He summoned it—and why in Merlin's name is there not an anti-summoning ward put on time-turners, Mr. Unspeakable?"

The hooded face looked up from a clipboard on which he was scrawling notes furiously as she spoke. "I will look into that. Normally the Notice-Me-Not Charms are sufficient."

"Yeah, it was stupid of me to play that card so quickly," she admitted. "If I was thinking clearly, I would have waited until he let his guard down. Because I drew attention to it, Pettigrew got his hands on the time-turner. He was…pleased." She trailed off darkly at the memory of his unnaturally ecstatic expression. He really had been desperate, at that point, hadn't he?

"It isn't your fault, Archie," Remus said softly, coming around to stroke her hair gently. She tried to smile, but knew it was not convincing when he added. "Truly. You did all you could. Sometimes the other bloke is faster."

She frowned at that. Next time she would be the faster one. "Well, you can guess what happened next. He used the time-turner to take us both back in time as far as it would go."

The Unspeakable paused in his scribbling for a moment. "You mean to say that this Pettigrew simply turned the dial as far as it allowed?"

"That's right," she grimaced. "I don't think he'd ever seen a time-turner before, though he had a rudimentary understanding of how they operated. He seemed disappointed when he realized it had only gone back a week."

"In future, it may be wise to place greater restrictions on the time-turners that are allotted to students," Dumbledore said, worriedly.

"If there is such a program in future," the Unspeakable muttered.

"After you had gone back in time, did Pettigrew take you directly to the forest?" James asked, returning to the point with an apologetic expression. She wondered if he'd already been to see the caverns while she'd been sleeping. Perhaps he could guess that she was reluctant to continue.

She cleared her mind as best she could, trying to see the details objectively, filtering out all the unnecessary memories and focusing on what the Aurors needed to know. "That's right," she said, her voice devoid of emotion. Sirius squeezed her hand with concern, but she could not focus on him right now. Her mind was elsewhere. "He took me to an underground cave-like structure that I gather he'd built himself either by using the power the jewel had over nature or by using it to control creatures like the nifflers into digging it for him."

She saw James exchange a look with the long-haired Auror, and decided that he had seen the place Pettigrew had kept her. She fought the shame that rose in her cheeks and forced her mind back to a weightless detachment that would help her through this.

"I didn't know there was a second chamber, at that time," she said, her voice slightly quieter. "Thinking back now and realizing that my future self was just beneath me, the whole time…it's surreal. And I thought I was used to the oddities of time." The faces around her were growing graver as she delved into the meat of her story. She supposed she should keep introspective detail to a minimum, to avoid horrifying everyone. She was horrified enough for them all. "He had my school bag with him—picked it up from the corridor where he caught me."

"Relevance?" the Unspeakable broke in sharply.

"Patience," she snapped back. After a short breath, in which she told her frayed nerves very sternly to cool it, she said, "It's important. Inside my bag there were maybe a dozen vials of Protection Potion. It's a—"

"I'm familiar with Miss Potter's work," the Unspeakable said, nodding. "Very well, continue."

She took another breath, then explained. "Pettigrew used a combination of the Protective Potion and the jewel to keep me under control while he tried to figure out how to take my magic."

"He did not have full control over the jewel?" Dumbledore hazarded.

"I believe that's correct," she said, unwilling to talk about her former suppressor. "He was unable to take my magic, in any case, no matter what he tried. It did…hurt quite a bit, though. I think it did something to my coils, Madam Pomfrey mentioned."

"I thought that was the resonance," James said, sweeping his hand through his hair in a gesture so familiar it warmed her heart. She had missed her family, all those days alone.

"The resonance was later," Rigel said. "After Pettigrew wasted the week trying unsuccessfully control my magic, he decided he needed more time. I tried to explain the laws of time and I even tried to appeal to his sense of purpose by letting him know that going back that far would kill me and make controlling my magic ultimately fruitless, but he was quite insane, by that point; at least, he was beyond the reach of logic."

"Why was he so fixated on controlling your magic?" the Unspeakable asked. "What gave him such a specific focus in the first place?"

"There was a prophecy," she said, frowning. "I forgot about that."

The Unspeakable shook his head. "There are no records of a prophecy regarding one Peter Pettigrew."

"It wasn't made by a witch or wizard," Rigel explained, "It was a centaur prophecy."

James pinched the bridge of his nose as the long-haired Auror muttered, "Of course it was. Bloody stargazers."

"How did he come by such a thing?" the Unspeakable demanded. "Centaurs do not deign to tell humans their foretellings."

"He used the jewel," Rigel said, wondering if anyone was paying attention to the important bits. "He's been practicing on the creatures in the forest all year. He forced the prophecy from a centaur in an effort to gather more information on how to use the jewel—I'm guessing that's why the herd moved to other parts of the forest, actually."

James slowly wrote that down as well, sheer disbelief in his gaze now. She supposed the whole thing did sound rather outlandish, told all together like that.

"Anyway, the prophecy said something about one having to control the jewel by controlling others, and it was incredibly vague, so I suppose Pettigrew could have interpreted it any way he wanted to," Rigel said. "I think the jewel is a rather single-minded artifact. It's sentient, to a degree, and its controlling purpose seems to be controlling others. So Pettigrew was completely fixated on this one thing, except it wouldn't work, and instead of trying anything else he just…persevered. After he turned us back the second time, the jewel must have sensed his ultimate incapability. It turned on him, I think, and killed him, destroying itself in the process."

"And you were…asleep during this," the Unspeakable said, sounding unconvinced.

"I was meditating, but yes, I was unconscious," she told him. "I was busy trying to figure out a way to prevent the resonance from killing me." That was a complete lie, but they didn't need to know about her magic snapping and her having to get a hold on it, or about the long period of time she spent in an unrecognized memory. It was irrelevant to their goal of finding out how Pettigrew died.

"How did you?" It was an Auror who asked the question, but she couldn't help noticing the Unspeakable's intent stillness as she considered the answer.

"I changed the frequency of my magical core," she said slowly. "So that it would no longer resonate with the others."

"How?" the hooded wizard pressed.

"I filtered the core through something else in my mindscape. I happened to have an extremely complex magical structure I had already built lying around, so I modified it using Occlumency and encapsulated my core within it." There. That was both informative and incredibly vague.

"What does…that even mean?" one of the Aurors asked.

"It doesn't matter how," she said, trying to sound dismissive. "I doubt I'd be able to replicate it, anyway. I was just desperate for any way out of…well, death, at that point."

Sirius could no longer keep quiet. "That rat deserves worse than he got," he snarled. "How dare he? He put your life at risk half a dozen ways. What kind of a man—"

"I don't think it was entirely his fault, Dad," she said quietly, stroking Sirius' hand firmly. "He was driven quite out of his senses by the jewel. From the moment he came into contact with it, he was doomed. It exaggerated his ambitions and distorted his view of logic, of right and wrong. I think all he could think about was pleasing the stone."

"He should have resisted," Sirius spat. "He should have died before he put a child at risk."

"It doesn't matter now, Dad, can't you see?" She did not like seeing Sirius so angry. "The jewel took back everything it gave. It left him mummified, like the pharaohs of old. He can't hurt anyone anymore." And neither can it, she thought vindictively, hoping the busy little construct in her brain heard her loud and clear.

"You forgive too quickly," Snape said, cold anger in his voice. "He left you to rot, Rigel. In the dark. Without food or water or even fresh air to breathe—"

"I know," she snapped, her anger igniting quickly and then being snuffed out just as quickly by the part of her who just wanted to get through this conversation and go to sleep. She softened her voice. "I know what happened. I also know why and how it happened. I'm not going to paint Pettigrew as more evil than he was to make myself feel better. He was weak-willed and greedy, but not evil. He wanted everyone to see him, to respect him, probably. Lots of people want that. Without the influence of the jewel, he never would have acted on his ambitions. We can't blame people for the desires they don't act on—it isn't fair."

"Very wise," Dumbledore said, nodding slowly. "You show grace where most would have room for only hate."

"Hate never helped anybody," she mumbled, feeling the exhaustion catch up with her, now that her report was finished.

"He should rest, now, if you have everything you need," Pomfrey said immediately.

"We have a lot of things to verify," James said, nodding shortly. "Archie can get some rest. We'll stop by if we have any further questions."

The Aurors readied to leave, no doubt going to explain to the goblins that the artifact they'd been so long in searching had disappeared. James gave her a long hug before he left, and she leaned into his broad shoulders with a deep sense of peace. She was okay. Everything was going to be just fine. "Take care, Arch," he said. "We'll see you at home soon."

Home, she thought longingly as she settled back into her pillows. There was a nice thought.

The Unspeakable attempted to stay, insisting he needed clarification on several points, but a combination of glares from James, Sirius, Remus, Snape, and Pomfrey changed his mind. He muttered something about drawing up preliminary reports and Flooed out with the others.

"I'm gonna sleep, Dad," she said, making a token attempt to sound a bit more like Archie. "Okay? Will you stay a while?"

"As long as Albus will let me," Sirius said, leaning forward to kiss her forehead gently. "I'm so glad you're all right, Son. So glad."

"Me, too," she said, smiling a bit. "Night Dad. Night…" She yawned. "Remus."

"Sleep tight, Pup," Remus said. "We'll guard your sleep."

She closed her eyes and reveled in the soft mattress, the clean sheets, the warm air and the knowledge that all would still be well when she woke. All night long a wolf howled and a dog brayed in her dreams.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Sirius could not stay forever and Remus had duties to attend to for his classes, but she had a string of visitors throughout the weekend to keep her company. Draco and Pansy were there first thing the next morning, worried and quiet, but seeming to understand that she didn't want to talk about anything to do with what had happened. She assumed Draco had filled Pansy in on the highlights, as the girl would slip into pensive worry every now and then when she thought Rigel couldn't see.

She helped her friends distract her by asking all about the things that were going on in her absence, not that anyone was doing much besides studying and gossiping about her, of course.

Pansy and Draco stayed as long as they could, but Rigel tired easily and had to nap on and off throughout the next few days. The rest of her friends came to visit, of course, in ones and twos (or in the case of the Weasleys, fives). Most of them simply could not fathom what had happened. The story circulating was that Pettigrew had attacked her and she'd killed him in self-defense. It made her sick to think that she was associated with murder, and she tried to explain to as many people as she could that Pettigrew died in an accident, but people still believed she'd slain a live basilisk, so she supposed she was fighting a losing battle. She would have to consult her PR team, as Fred and George were still calling themselves, on what to do about it.

She'd thought originally that she could sleep for years and never feel rested again after what had happened, but that wasn't true. By the middle of the following week, she was going stir-crazy, and she'd taken to pestering her friends to bring her books to read or to collect her homework, at least.

The professors weren't giving her any homework, though, and Dumbledore had said something about exempting her from end of year exams that frankly concerned her. Was she supposed to do nothing until school got out a few weeks from now? What nonsense. She didn't survive so much soul-scarring drama to sit in a room and stare out the window. She wanted to do something.

When Snape came to visit her near the end of the week after her rescue, she was ready to beg.

"I am losing what mind I have left," she said, exasperated into hyperbole. "Please assign me some work to do. Or bring me my cauldron. I'll—" she paused, frowning. What could she do with a cauldron? She had nothing to brew with.

Snape began to smile slightly and she tensed, blinking up at him from her bed. "What?" she said, suspicious. "What's so amusing, Sir?"

The Potions master fished into his robes and pulled out—her potions kit. Awed, she reached for it with trembling hands. "You recovered it. Thank you."

"Open it," Snape said, still amused.

She raised an eyebrow and pried it open curiously. It was…entirely stocked. She gaped, opening drawer after drawer and pouch after pouch. Everything had been replaced. There was more than had been there before, even. All the potions vials had been replaced, as well, and there was an entire collection of potions already made. She read through the labels in disbelief, laughing a bit when she noticed most were survival potions, and tearing up when she recognized Snape's spidery handwriting.

"You made all these?" she asked, touched.

"A potions maker should never be unprepared," Snape said archly. "Especially one so prone to trouble. I added a few potions that you would be unlikely to come across in your average medicine chest. Things to help if there is ever a next time. Offensive potions, and a few bottles of water, as well—just in case."

She laughed, wiping her streaming eyes hurriedly. "Thank you. I don't—thank you, Sir. This is…perfect. It's just what I would have done, if Pomfrey would let me out of this bed. I'll take it everywhere, I promise."

"See that you do." Snape looked pleasantly satisfied at her reaction to his gift.

"Professor," she said, hugging the potions kit close and blinking up at him imploringly. "Can I leave the ward, soon? I'm going to be fatter than I was to begin with if Madam Pomfrey is in charge of my diet much longer." That was pure exaggeration. She was still on the thin side, and her stomach was still pretty messed up. It hurt to eat anything that wasn't entirely bland, but there was no reason she couldn't eat porridge in the Great Hall just as well. "I want to get my strength back up," she added. "I can't do that sitting here all day, right?"

"It is too soon for you to be—"

"It's too soon for everyone else!" she exclaimed. "Sorry, but it feels like everyone around me is much more affected by this than I was. I'm okay, Professor, really. I wish everyone could see that."

Snape was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, she could see the care he was taking not to upset her. It annoyed her, but she supposed she ought to expect such a thing. He cared about her, she reminded herself sternly.

"You have not fully processed what has happened to you, yet," Snape said. "This illusion of functionality will not last. It's important for you not to force your recovery; in the long term, hurrying back to classes won't help."

"I need the daily routine to feel normal again," she said. "I don't need to sit and think any longer. This wasn't some lightning-fast event that I barely had time to process before it was over. I sat for days and days and did nothing but think and come to terms with the situation over and over again. I'm done thinking. I just want to live my life again."

She couldn't pretend to be broken to fit someone's expectation of a victim. She'd done enough pretending in her life, she decided. Sure, she had nightmares at night, and yes, her body still reminded her daily of the abuse that had been heaped on it, but she didn't see either of those things changing just because she thought about them more.

"Think how you would feel," she pressed, sure that Snape was the sensible sort of person, like her, who would rather move on than dwell uselessly. "Have you ever done nothing for a whole week? It's horrible."

Snape's lips quirked in amusement and she counted that as a victory. He was coming over to her side. "Unfortunately, it's out of my hands. Madam Pomfrey has final say in all matters pertaining to her prey—ahem, her patients, that is."

"Traitor," she sighed, looking up at the ceiling despondently.

"I'll leave you to your wallowing," Snape drawled, making his way toward the exit.

"Thanks again, Professor!" she called after him. She really was grateful for all the time he'd put in on her behalf. She smiled down at the kit in her arms. She was going to add a few things of her own, as well, starting with a blade. In fact, she might start carrying one on her person. If she'd had a knife when she punched Pettigrew, her first hit would have been the only one necessary.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

Madam Pomfrey kept her in the wing all that week before finally relenting on the condition that Rigel come in and let her check her over twice a week for the rest of the term.

Before she was released, however, she had a most unexpected set of visitors.

"Mr. Malfoy is here to see you," Pomfrey said one afternoon as she watched Rigel finish her after-lunch Potion.

"Draco?" She sat up straighter in her bed. "Isn't he in class?"

Lord Malfoy came around the curtain and Rigel blinked in astonishment. "Good afternoon, Lord Malfoy," she said. "How is your wife?"

"She will drop by in a little while, if that's acceptable," Malfoy said, looking down at her with a sort of guarded weightiness. "I finished my meeting with the Board of Governors early, so I thought I'd come ahead. How are you, Mr. Black?"

"Very well," she said, smiling slightly. "Madam Pomfrey says I can be released this evening, in fact."

The matron snorted and swept off to her office disgruntledly. It had taken much pleading to be released even on good behavior.

"Quite the ordeal you had," Malfoy commented, shifting his gaze to rest on the cards and presents people had been sending her. His eyes lingered on the stuffed toy that the Weasley twins had somehow managed to make look like Mrs. Norris.

"It all happened so quickly," she lied. "I hardly even remember it now."

"How fortunate," the blond-haired man said, eyeing her as though he knew she was bluffing. "I suppose you've grown accustomed to being thrown into unusual situations, have you not?"

"I have had prodigiously poor luck these three years," she agreed readily enough. "I have high hopes for next year, however." Then again, that was what she'd said about this year.

"School ought to be a place of safety," Malfoy said, disapproval in his voice. "To think that a Hogwarts professor was responsible for such a willful attempt on a student's life…well, perhaps we ought to have more stringent employment requirements for our most illustrious center of education."

"Is that was you were talking about with the Board of Governors?" she asked, wondering what kind of guidelines he had in mind.

Malfoy smiled thinly. "I'm afraid our discussions are confidential. You needn't worry for your uncle, however; the Defense curriculum is the most comprehensive the school has seen in years, and test scores are expected to be particularly high this year."

"That's great," Rigel said. "Professor Lupin won't be teaching next year, though."

"Why is that?" Malfoy asked, eyes sharpening.

"Everyone knows there's a curse on the position," she said. "When Remus agreed to take the professorship, he designed a contract that would only allow him to teach for one year, after which he would be forced to retire. He wanted to teach, but he didn't want to take a chance with his life, or with the safety of others."

Her uncle had confessed in one of their tea times that if he didn't have her and Archie and their parents to think of, he might have taken the job without worrying overmuch about the curse. As it was, Remus couldn't bear to think of losing any of them, or of putting himself in a position where he might be lost to them.

"A cautious man," Lucius said, inclining his head respectfully. "That is a reassuring trait, in one of his affliction."

"It comes more from living with my father and Uncle James," she joked. Malfoy smiled politely but didn't appear terribly amused. She cast around for something else to say, then realized there was something she had wanted to convey. "Mr. Malfoy, I wonder if you might give your…" what could she call him? "your friend, Mr. Riddle, a message from me?"

Malfoy raised a curious eyebrow. "Of course."

She smiled gratefully and related the message carefully. Malfoy's expression narrowed at her words, but he didn't say anything. He merely nodded. "I will tell him that."

"Tell who what?" Lady Malfoy had arrived, and she breezed in to buss Rigel on the forehead. "Rigel, how are you? We came as soon as we got Draco's letter about what happened. He couldn't tell us everything, of course, but we're so glad you're all right."

"Thank you, Lady Malfoy," she said, a warm feeling in her chest. "Your family is, as always, too kind to me."

"You are our family, Rigel, you know that," Narcissa said, patting her hair worriedly. "We would be devastated if anything happened to you. Do be more careful, won't you?"

"I am beginning to think I shouldn't go anywhere without Draco and Pansy," she said, smiling. "I don't believe I've ever gotten into too much trouble with them by my side."

"As long as you recognize that," Narcissa teased. Her face fell as she grew serious, asking, "Will you be released soon? No permanent damage?"

"Tonight," she reassured the kind woman. "I've been fully recovered for a while. Madam Pomfrey just likes to fuss."

"I heard that, Mr. Black!" the matron called from outside the curtain.

The Malfoys chuckled at her wince.

"Well, we merely came to assure ourselves of your continued well being," Narcissa said, tucking her blankets into the mattress absently. "Will we see you for the garden party this year?"

She frowned. "I'm so sorry, but I don't think I'll be able to make it this year. I've made plans to go out of the country for an internship, and I believe I'll be kept too busy to Floo home."

"I see," Narcissa looked intrigued, but simply said, "Send us a note when you get back to England, then, and we'll arrange tea."

"I would like that," Rigel said. "Thank you for coming to see me. It was very thoughtful."

"It was the least we could do," Malfoy said, holding the curtain aside for his wife. "Get some rest, Mr. Black."

"Can't avoid that, around here," she told them, waving wryly as they departed. Sure enough, Madam Pomfrey was there a moment later, taking away one of her pillows so she was forced to lie flat. She grumbled at how annoying it was that she fell asleep so easily in the middle of the day. When was she going to be able to relegate her sleep to strictly nighttime again? She supposed when she stopped nodding off after each meal she would know she was fully healed.

She just hoped her body would hurry up with it, that was all.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

She had been excused from all exams. Her assurances that she was fine and that she'd really prefer to take them went unheard—or at least unheeded. While her peers sweated furiously over a History of Magic essay-based final, Rigel went down to the lake and stared at the water. She had taken to spending a lot of time outside, lately, no longer being the fan of closed in spaces that she once was. She took her books outside and read rather than stay in the dorm room, and she hadn't successfully brewed anything since she was released from the Hospital Wing.

She would, she told herself, she just…needed a little time away from potions ingredients. The smell of certain things took her back to the cavern, and quite ruined the experience, she'd found. The memories would fade, she assured herself. Everything faded, eventually.

It was there by the lake on a sunny day in late May that Dumbledore found her and sat down beside her on the grass.

"Afternoon, Headmaster," she said, cocking her head at him politely. "Nice day, isn't it?"

"One of the nicest I've seen," Dumbledore agreed, his beard ruffled slightly by the breeze off the water.

They sat quietly for a little while, until the headmaster said, "I've been thinking a great deal about what you said, Mr. Black, about keeping the specifics of the jewel to yourself in an effort to be responsible. I've come to think perhaps the reason you are sensitive to the ideological conflict between Mr. Riddle and myself is because you fear being pressured to choose a side."

Rigel thought about that for a moment. "I think I already have been," she said eventually. "A lot of people assume things about what I think or support, either because of who my family are or who my friends are. Mr. Riddle has taken an…interest in my development. It unsettles me. I have no interest in becoming another cog in his Party machine. Ideologically, my views are closer to the platforms you support, Headmaster, but I don't want to be a face for your political agenda, either."

"Many people remain neutral in both politics and society," Dumbledore said mildly. "You are so young. There's no need to feel pressured to choose just yet, or at all."

"You say that, but reality is not patient," she told him. "I suppose you've guessed my magic is a little unusual."

"I know you are a special boy," Dumbledore said easily. "I believe there is more to the story of what happened in that cave than you told the Aurors, and I want you to know that if you ever need help with something, whether it be guidance or more substantial assistance, you are free to ask, and it would not constitute choosing a side, so far as I am concerned."

She was unexpectedly moved by his words. It was not often that someone offered something free of strings, she knew. "Thank you," she said, her voice a little thick. "I have been having difficulties, but it came to a head recently and…settled, for better or worse."

"Your magic has changed," Dumbledore observed. "Madam Pomfrey has been quite bewildered by its lack of signature, though she tells me you have no difficulty with it."

Rigel nodded. "What I did to stop the resonance…it transformed my core, in some ways. It's better controlled, ironically, but it feels a little like Pandora's Box, at times. I know it's contained safely, but it still feels very vulnerable."

"Many things in life are like that," Dumbledore said slowly. "The things we want to protect often feel the most vulnerable, for all our efforts in protecting them." She took that in thoughtfully. He was right. Everything she did to secure their ruse, for example, only left her achingly aware of how fragile it all was. Dumbledore looked over at her consideringly, then said, "Did you know I had a sister?"

She shook her head slowly.

"She was in a terrible accident," Dumbledore said, sadness coloring his tone with deep, raking hues. "It left her magic locked inside of her—except when it would escape. She lived a troubled life, and a short one. It is not my intention to intrude on your privacy at all, but I do worry about you, Mr. Black. When a thing is repressed long enough, it has a way of breaking free with sudden and life-altering violence."

He had known about her suppressor all along, she realized. She swallowed shakily. "I have recently come to the same conclusion, Headmaster. I'm very sorry about your sister. I think…I'm going to try believing other people when they tell me they can help. I was so afraid of becoming beholden to someone or something, so convinced that a step in any direction would send me into quicksand, that I ignored resources that were there for me all along. I'd like to think that I learned something from all this, at least."

"I'm certain that you have." Dumbledore smiled ruefully, a lifetime of experience in his gaze. "It is a great injustice of the world that our worst experiences often change us the most dramatically, but there is consolation in that usually we are changed for the better for having endured them."

She wasn't sure she felt better as a person, exactly. Sharper, maybe stronger, and certainly wiser, but not necessarily better. There were still many angry, bitter parts of her that wished it had never happened. She wondered if one day it would simply seem another chapter in the narrative of who she was, unpleasant, but instrumental to her character in the way Dumbledore seemed to be describing. She had a feeling Dumbledore was speaking from personal experience, however. She wasn't sure if her experience was one that promoted growth or not, yet. She supposed only time would tell.

"You should write a book," Rigel said after a while. "You could fill it with wise advice."

"I find that when one tries too hard to be wise in a general sense it lacks a feeling of genuineness, relevance, and immediacy that causes the advice to fall flat," Dumbledore mused.

Rigel smiled. "I think that's the same reason we decided Professor Snape shouldn't bother writing down his insults. When it comes naturally in the moment, it means more, is that it?"

"I shall have to remember that comparison," Dumbledore said, chuckling appreciatively. "Yes, it seems insults and wise advice are similar in that regard."

"It's good to have such expert sources among the living, then, in case I ever need either," Rigel laughed.

"Living sources are always preferable to books, I find." The headmaster inclined his head, gazing at her over the top of his half-moon spectacles. "And that is saying something, Mr. Black, for a good book is a near-priceless thing."

"I agree." She drew her knees in to rest her chin on them as she turned her gaze out to the water once more. When she was in the cavern, it wasn't books she was thinking of, however much she loved knowledge and reading. It was the people she would miss, and their faces that reminded her over and over again that life was worth hanging onto. She felt she'd lost that perspective somewhere along the road of her ambitions. She would not forget again.

"Alas, I must be returning to my duties," Dumbledore said on a long sigh. "Pray, enjoy your youth, Mr. Black. The clock turns all too swiftly."

She watched him go, wondering if he felt as old as he looked, or older. She felt old, sometimes. She did her best to be the person her friends and family knew, the person she wanted to be, but sometimes she felt like someone else.

She frowned, wondering exactly how old she was, anyway. Probably at least…fifteen, she realized, blanching. Was that right? It was two months until what would have been her fourteenth birthday. Since her thirteenth birthday, she had done August in normal time, then compressed at least a year before her Modified Polyjuice wore off between September and January. That was thirteen months. About five months of regular time after that. Plus whatever folded time she'd experienced between January and now. She added a month spent brewing Polyjuice. If she assumed she'd doubled her time since January with the time-turner (which was a conservative estimate, she had to admit), then she was currently at…twenty four months since her thirteenth birthday. At least.

Was that why she felt old? Because she was fifteen? Maybe. More likely it was just her chronic exhaustion coupled with a sense of dissonance with reality that only seemed to be increasing, rather than decreasing, the longer she spent 'recovering.'

Her mind turned to the implications of her ageing. What would they do over the summer? All three of the men in their family knew what she looked like at the moment. Archie couldn't pretend to have a sudden growth spurt in the next two weeks. Her mind whirred and clicked, eager for something challenging to do. She began mentally composing a letter to Archie—probably one long overdue.

Real life was about to catch up to her very quickly, she realized. When she went home she would have to be completely recovered, because her family would be looking for changes in Archie, not Harry. She was suddenly grateful for her imposed period of rest and recuperation. It would give her time to reestablish her personality on an even keel.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

She met with Snape before the end of term to discuss her schedule. They had to adjust it, as she was certainly not going to be issued a time-turner again, even if she could bring herself to use it.

After thinking about it seriously, she decided to drop Magical Theory, which she reasoned she could read up on herself, and Ancient Runes, which no longer appealed the way it once had. Snape told her the headmaster had agreed to move her Alchemy class to one evening a week, and Pomfrey had suggested she was advanced enough to move her into the fourth-year Healing class (next year's fifth years), which she would share with two other students. Her Potions studies would have to be relegated to the weekends, but she was okay with that if Professor Snape was.

She thanked the professor when they had finished working it all out, but he stopped her from getting up with a hand gesture.

"There is one other thing we must discuss, Mr. Black," he said. There was a look in his eye that said he was preparing to do something he didn't want to.

She tensed, and straightened. "What's that, Sir?"

"I would advise you to be very careful, this summer," Snape said, voice measured. "The generalities of your ordeal have not gone unremarked upon outside of these walls. Certain parties may feel that this experience has made you vulnerable."

Rigel blinked slowly at him. "You mean Riddle, don't you? What does he want with me, really?"

"I believe he means to bind you to him in some capacity—politically, if he can," Snape said. She was surprised at the candor he showed her. "If you decide to throw your lot in with Riddle, it should be when you are fully prepared to make such a choice. For now, be careful. He will take every advantage of your weakened state—"

"I'm not weakened," she protested.

"Your Occlumency has been all over the place since your attack," Snape told her sharply. "Your shields fluctuate constantly, reading differently every time I see you. You need to settle your head, Rigel. Preferably before you meet Lord Riddle again."

She frowned. She hadn't done anything with Occlumency lately. The fact that her shields were noticeably changing was rather concerning news, considering her mindscape's…new addition. "I'll be careful," she promised distractedly. "I'll be out of his reach anyway, most of the summer. I'm going abroad for a Healing internship." Archie was, anyway.

"I suppose that means our apprenticeship is on hold for a few months," Snape said, affecting a grumpy tone.

She hadn't realized the apprenticeship was meant to continue over the summer, but she grimaced apologetically in any case. "Sorry, Professor. I thought I needed to fill the summer to keep busy. If you need help with any of your projects, though, you should ask my cousin Harry. She'd love to help, and she's always free." She said the last with a bit of cheek, just to see him roll his eyes.

"Perhaps I will," he drawled sarcastically. "I could use an apprentice who still respects me."

"You mean one who's afraid of you." Rigel grinned. "I can't help you with that, though. Harry isn't afraid of anything."

She was sure she'd never told a bigger untruth.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

She had been studiously avoiding going into her mindscape for any reason or even thinking too hard about the state of her magic in general. She knew she couldn't neglect it forever, however, particularly if her shields were undergoing significant alterations in her absence.

With a deep sense of reluctance, she found a quiet spot in the library the next morning and delved into meditation. It was laughably easy. She could barely remember a time when Occlumency came to her with difficulty, at this point.

When the landscape of her mind materialized around her consciousness, however, she had to wonder if she'd taken a wrong turn and ended up in someone else's head, somehow.

Her mountain just…wasn't there. She'd materialized instead on the banks of a river so blue it hurt her eyes to look at it for very long. There were smatterings of trees here and there, and downriver she could see a very large boat of Egyptian design. The air was hot and when the breeze picked up around her, she felt grains of sand brush against her cheek.

Incensed, she looked around for the culprit. It took a moment but she eventually spotted a large form walking out of the trees with a pile of mangos in his arms. Did mangos grow on the Nile? She shook her head and focused. The form was a heavily tanned, overly muscled man with a white cloth around his waist serving to preserve his modesty, and she marched his way with a scowl, saying, "What do you think you're doing up here? You can't just change everything. It took me ages to build that potions lab, not to mention my space room—where is it, even?"

The large man didn't stop or even look at her. He just kept carrying his mangos up the beach.

"Hey," she said, catching up to him. "Stop ignoring me. I want to know just what you—"

"Please stop harassing my slave," a voice rang out across the mindscape.

She whirled and saw another figure, smaller and swathed in gold, lounging on a chair in the artificial sunshine. "You." She jogged over. "What have you done with my mindscape?"

"Whatever I like, fleshling," the construct, which was currently fashioned crudely after one of the old pharaohs, informed her. It turned to look at her and its headdress glinted somehow despite there being no actual light source in the sky. "I told you. This is my domain, now."

"If I order you to change it back, you'll have to," she said, frowning at it.

"What, don't you like it?" the construct asked. It looked up at her indolently as the large man began peeling one of the mangos and feeding slices to the richly adorned construct one after another in a slow march of lavish ridiculousness.

"Where is my space room?" she demanded.

"Calm yourself, child, I haven't touched your precious…seriously? 'Space room'? That's a terribly unoriginal term. I've been calling it the Universe of Your Mind." The construct looked awfully pleased with itself. "In any case, it's right where you left it, see?"

The world replaced itself in an instant and she found herself in her potions lab, which was largely the same as she'd left it. A moment later, the vision was gone and she was back on the riverbank. "What?" She blinked and shook her head in confusion. "What was that?"

"The other layer of your mind," the construct said. "Obviously. Haven't you ever seen Occlumency done in layers? This is an illusion that masks the truth of your mental landscape. You charged me with protecting your mind, remember?"

"Oh, yes," she said, gesturing at the mango-peeling man sarcastically. "I'm sure you did all this for me."

"Are you always this tiresome?" The construct sighed.

"Are you?" she spluttered. Since when did the jewel get so cheeky?

"I am as I am," the construct said slowly. "I am Pharaoh. I am Dominion. I am—"

"Delusional," she muttered, rubbing her head in annoyance. She had a megalomaniacal sentient object making itself emperor of her head. This couldn't possibly go wrong. "Okay," she said after taking a mental breath. "We need to come to an agreement about some things. Item one—"

"I'm going to stop you right there," the construct drawled. "Here are my conditions. You leave me in peace, and I won't actively attempt to stop you from using your magic whenever and however you please."

She rolled her eyes. "You can't stop me from doing anything. I've programmed you otherwise."

"Are you sure?" the construct asked, affecting concern. "You programmed this body to be unable to access your magic, too, didn't you? How's that working out?"

"I consciously overrode that directive," she ground out.

"You think," the construct smirked. "Look, I respect you for trapping me—that was unexpected and rather refreshing, in all honesty. I haven't had a host work against me in a long time. That said, don't overestimate this prison. I control your magic now. You can try to give a laundry list of directives that covers everything I can and can't do with it, but because your magic can only go through me, every restriction you put on me is a restriction on how you can use your magic as well."

She paled. Was that true? Would the construct be able to do anything she could do with her magic? She had a brief vision of herself forced to give up all magic and live in the Muggle world in order to prevent the jewel from accomplishing its goal of world domination.

"Don't be dramatic," the construct said, bored. "I'm not unreasonable. This domain is interesting. It responds much faster than reality. Takes less effort, too. As long as you don't put unreasonable restrictions on me, I won't put unreasonable restrictions on you."

She frowned. "I'm not sure I want to know what you consider 'reasonable' restrictions. No—don't tell me. Just listen for a second. I don't know how much you've managed to glean from my mind about my actual life—"

"Practically nothing," the construct complained, "It's all locked away in the Universe of Your Mind, and that is very annoying, just so you know."

"Well, it's very complicated," she said patiently, "and if any of the complications go wrong, I will be thrown in Azkaban for the rest of my life. I will go insane. And this will no longer be a fun place for you to live, get it?"

The construct looked fascinated. "Interesting. What did you do?"

"You don't need to know," she said sharply. "You just need to understand this: sometimes I need my mind to look a certain way, to certain people. If you fluctuate my Occlumency shields all the time, some very powerful people are going to notice inconsistencies in the lies I'm telling, and that will be bad for both of us."

"Well that's easy enough," the construct shrugged. "Just give me a heads up before you see these people, and I'll switch the order of the layers so that your world is on the outside and my world is underneath."

"Can't you just switch them now and leave them that way?" she asked.

"No," the construct said. "The world a consciousness occupies is the one on the surface—I'm not spending any more time in your dreary mountainscape than I have to."

"It's not that bad," she argued.

"It's stark. And lifeless. And a symbol of the repression you inflicted on your own magic for over half your life." The construct ticked each point off on his fingers.

"How do you know that?" she asked, frowning. "You said you couldn't get into the—"

"Oh, you left this one out," the construct said, smiling as he took a familiar black orb out of his belt sash. "Fascinating study. I wish I knew what happened next."

She flushed angrily but refrained from trying to snatch it away. He had already seen it, after all. "May I have that back? I'd like to put it with the rest of my memories."

"Maybe later," the construct pouted. "I have nothing else to look at when creating and destroying things gets boring. Besides, I'll protect it from any intruders—that's my job, remember?"

She gave up trying to talk to this infuriating compilation of intention-gone-awry and sheer happenstance. She turned to go, then paused. She should at least try giving it a direct order to make sure it worked, right? "No slaves."

"What?" the construct sat up, alarmed. "Why?"

"It's considered evil, these days," she informed him blithely. "Also, it's my mind, and I say so."

It narrowed its eyes at her, then sneered. Producing a couple of golden coins from thin air, the construct tossed them carelessly in the direction of mango man. "There. Now he's a servant. Happy?"

"Ecstatic," she growled, abandoning her meditation altogether. She would put that overgrown mineral in its place when she had more energy.

-0

[HpHpHp]

-0

The reply from her cousin came not in a letter but in a box. Inside there was a book on what looked like Magical Theatre, of all topics, and a bottle of plain old Polyjuice Potion. Unlike her Modified Polyjuice, which went bad rather quickly after it was finished thanks to the way the natural magic of the amber stone interacted with the other ingredients, regular Polyjuice could be kept for months. She didn't know what he expected her to do with just one dose, though she suspected it had to do with their disguise problem.

When she wrote him originally, she'd glossed over the events of a few weeks ago, dedicating most of her missive to the problem of their appearances. She'd regretfully informed him that there was no believable way her appearance could change suddenly at this point, which meant they would have to stage an incredibly potent growth spurt during the fall. She was interested to see what solution he'd come up with. Archie's reply was, like Archie himself, unexpectedly devious, yet brilliant.

Rigel,

For once, your obsession with all things Potion-related is to your detriment. There are other ways of achieving what we want, this time. Here's the plan: I have oh-so-preparedly arranged with Hermione for her parents to invite me to dinner the night we get back from AIM. I'll go home with her folks, then tell them I have to pick up something in Diagon Alley for my dad on the way home. You will meet me at the Leaky and we'll switch. When that happens you will use one of the glamours outlined in the book I've enclosed to take on the appearance of what you will look like when you have time to brew and take the next dose of Modified Polyjuice. I know what you're thinking—how will I know what the next dose will look like? Well, that's why I've included two strands of hair plucked at the same time. One you'll use now to combine with yours in the ritual and then add to the regular Polyjuice. When you transform, you'll have an hour to memorize those features—I suggest you take a picture, personally. You need to get good enough at glamours to keep one up around our parents until the Modified Polyjuice Potion is finished.

As for me: I told you about the internship I secured to appease Dad's idea that I've grown unusually fixated on you, right? Well it starts just a couple of weeks into the summer vacation and lasts nearly two full months. That will work easily as my 'growth-spurt period,' won't it? Until I go away, I'll keep the face we've been wearing, then change my appearance to match your new appearance before I return.

As a bonus, this will actually make our parents more certain that our looking alike is some kind of unconscious magic on my part, because you'll appear to grow naturally, and I'll appear to have magically 'caught up' over a shorter, but still gradual, period of time.

Don't think I haven't noticed you keeping something huge from me lately—your last letter especially was unsuccessfully blasé. I've already had a letter from Uncle James, and we are overdue for a long talk. Speaking of which, Hermione sort of figured some stuff out and we should probably talk about that some time, too. The important thing to remember is that everything is fine!

Learn a convincing glamour, and try to stay out of trouble until I see you again.

-Harry

She didn't know why he bothered signing the letter 'Harry,' when the rest of its contents were so completely incriminating. She also didn't know why he accused her of holding something back and then threw in a line about his friend knowing more than she should like it wouldn't make her blood pressure skyrocket if he wrote it fast enough.

She had to admit his staggered appearance-altering plan was solid, though. As long as she learned the glamour before school got out. It wasn't as if she had anything else to do, she thought wryly. Thinking about the hairs Archie had sent, she decided to combine them with hair samples she'd taken from herself in January. They would be almost a year old, so the change would be less dramatic overall. Then she could catch up her appearance with the next dose.

They wouldn't be able to switch places and pose as one another until Archie got back from his internship, but she supposed they wouldn't need to, with Archie out of the country anyway. This would also prevent Remus from being confused about which of them was which; if Harry's appearance was significantly different, he would think nothing of Archie's behavior being a bit different from Rigel's.

Overall, she was just glad the year was over. She was more than ready to go home. She would work on her correspondence courses, tinker with new ideas for Shaped Imbuing, and have a generally quiet summer. She hoped.

-0—0—0

-0—0

-0

[end of chapter fifteen].

A/N: So ends book three, dear readers. Was it predictable? I felt like a lot of the work on this chapter consisted of following the strands of everything I'd introduced in previous chapters to their logical, inevitable ends. I couldn't tell while writing if this was going to be boring or suspenseful, annoyingly angsty or poignant. I trust in my fabulous readers to make what they will of it, but I'm generally satisfied with how things turned out. If it seemed unnecessarily trying at times—the whole book, not just the chapter—I share your feelings. That said, Harry grew a lot. The next book, she will be noticeably different, I think.

There will be an epilogue after this chapter, but I'm posting it as soon as it's done, instead of waiting until the next book. I don't know when the next book will be out, as I honestly haven't done much work on it yet. I'll let you all know on my profile when I begin making progress. Until then, stay amazing everyone! Special thanks to my sister for 'hyping,' as she calls it, and to Mary for polishing the rough edges (this time I said 'head to tow' ^^').

All the best,

-Violet Matter