Thanks very much to all readers and reviewers, especially Este and ChemicalFlashes - not long to go now...

The noise of the cell door echoed down the basement corridor of the Ministry of Magic, before Harry Potter's footprints thundered away to the elevator at the passageway's end. It had taken him less than one minute to arrest Max Deverill's father in the Swindon side street, but now, several hours later, he was little the wiser. Neither Veritaserum nor Legilimency had revealed anything to add to the Auror's knowledge, and now, with the evening approaching, he had to face the reality of explaining to the first-years, still waiting at the hospital, why Greg hadn't returned with him.

'You what?' Daniel barely let Harry muster even half of his explanation after calling the two boys into the cubicle that doubled as an office opposite the Borthwick Ward. 'How did you let that happen?' he yelled, jolting to his feet. 'You're supposed to be the best wizard of all time, and you just let them take him?'

'I really didn't have a choice…'

'Shut up!' the boy didn't even try to listen to the man's reply, turning his back on the Auror and storming from the room.

'Dan!' Albus called after his friend, but the other boy paid no attention. 'Dan!' he stood up, shouting again, before taking off to follow his friend without as much as a backward glance to his father. 'Where are you going?' he yelled, hurrying down the zig-zag of the staircase. 'Dan!'

'I don't know!' Daniel shouted back, coming to a halt mid-stairwell as he realised that Albus had followed him. 'In case you didn't notice, I haven't got anywhere to go!'

Albus clattered to a clumsy standstill beside his friend. 'Don't be so bloody thick, Dan!' he exclaimed. 'Of course you've got somewhere to go!'

'Where?' the other boy countered, shaking his head. 'My mum kicked me out, and now, and now…'

'You can stay with us,' Albus insisted, 'and even if you couldn't, I bet you could stay with Louis, or with Nath. Slytherins Stick Together, remember?'

Daniel fell quiet.

'I'm sure Professor Bennett will be alright,' Albus reasoned, 'and anyway, imagine if he hadn't have been there. What if Max had been kidnapped on his own?'

Daniel shivered.

'Come on,' Albus persisted. 'My dad will work something out. It's his job.'

'I guess.' Daniel's reply was quiet, but he agreed to follow his friend back upstairs to the Auror's makeshift office, where Albus shoved the door back open.

'Dan's going to stay with us,' he announced.

Harry looked up, slowly, from the seat behind his desk. 'Yes,' he acknowledged, impassively. 'Good plan. In fact, I think it's probably for the best if all of you stay with us until this whole thing gets sorted out.'

'Okay,' Albus nodded slowly. 'Is there anything we can do…'

Harry cut his son's question off with a shake of his head. 'Not right now, Al, but there might be, you never know.'

The Potters' family home at Grimmauld Place, tucked away along a crescent road in Islington, North London was, as Harry put it, possibly the safest house in the country. Following the Second Wizarding War, when the Order of the Phoenix had used it as a safe house, the Head Auror had improved and renewed many of the secrecy charms and intruder defences that helped hide the building from their muggle neighbours and wizarding enemies alike. In a house abundant with magic, it was no trouble to conjure enough extra space for the first-year boys to spend a fitful night's sleep.

By six o'clock the following morning, Albus had given up trying to sleep, and had made his drowsy way to the house's kitchen in search of some early sustenance. 'It's a lot easier with elves to do this for you,' he grumbled to himself, yanking a fridge door opening before deciding to settle for fruit juice rather than attempt to fry any eggs.

'Elves?' a voice echoed from the other side of the room, and Albus jerked around to see Connor's blond head, as the boy slumped in a wheelchair in the corner of the room.

'Oh, yeah,' Albus replied, stiffly. 'They work in the kitchens at Hogwarts.'

'Right.'

Albus shook himself. 'Hey, Connor,' he tried to make his voice seem as bright as was possible for such an early hour. 'Do you want a drink?'

The blond boy nodded. 'Yes, please. Could I just have water?'

'Sure,' Albus acknowledged, scurrying over to a cold tap and pouring the muggle boy a glassful. 'Here you go, mate,' Albus pulled out a chair to sit beside the other eleven-year-old. 'Sleep okay?'

Connor shook his head. 'Not really,' he admitted, looking down into his drink. 'I haven't really slept properly since the accident.'

'Oh,' Albus aimed for a reassuring smile. 'Sorry,' he offered. 'I wonder if there's anything we could give you? I don't know if magic would work for muggles…'

Connor shrugged. 'It's okay,' he mumbled, 'I'll have to get used to it anyway, when I go back, when you wipe my memory again, and I can't remember any of this, when I'll just be a kid with a broken leg.'

Albus felt his throat begin to dry, and snatched for another mouthful of his juice. 'That might not happen.'

The blond boy snorted. 'Yeah, right,' he rolled his eyes. 'What's going to stop it?' Connor challenged Albus. 'I'm not stupid… don't just lie to me cause you think it'll make me feel better!'

'I don't know,' Albus shook his head, 'but I promise I won't lie to you.'

Connor nodded. 'Thanks,' he murmured. 'It's hard to know what's true and what isn't sometimes,' he continued, still looking away from Albus. 'Everything just seems so weird. I can't believe that all of this magic has been going on in our world for so long, and nobody notices it.'

'People notice it,' Albus observed, 'but Dad says we're pretty good at clearing our tracks… look at the Loch Ness Monster. Any muggle who thinks that's real just gets laughed at.'

'You mean it is real?' Connor blinked. 'Then what else? Vampires? Dragons?' he watched Albus nod slowly, before turning away again. 'Shit...' he whispered. 'This is too weird.'

The straining creak of an old door hinge interrupted the boys' conversation, and as the two children looked up, Louis' dishevelled figure appeared in the kitchen doorway.

'Hey, Lou,' Albus acknowledged his cousin, who made an incomprehensible grunt in reply. 'How come you're up?'

'How come you are?' the redhead sparred back.

Albus smiled. 'Couldn't sleep,' he answered, truthfully, as the other boy flopped into the next chair. 'OJ or water?'

'Water,' Louis answered, bluntly, rubbing his face with tired hands as the drizzle of running water echoed across the room. 'Thanks.'

Connor gazed, open-mouthed, at the new arrival as Louis gratefully swallowed his drink.

'What?' Louis snapped, noticed the blond boy's sudden attention. 'What are you looking at?'

'You… your eyes…' Connor muddled his reply.

'I think you've gone a bit Veela, mate,' Albus clarified, sensing an impending confrontation.

Louis sighed. 'I've been trying to work on the transformation,' he admitted, the menace draining from his voice. 'I think I've nearly got it, but it doesn't always work… and it doesn't go away again like it should.'

'Transformation…?' Connor risked the obvious question.

'Louis is half-Veela,' Albus explained patiently. 'His great-grandma was a Veela – they're a bit like Sirens, but from the mountains of Eastern Europe – but Louis is the first boy who's ever shown anything like Veela powers.'

Connor nodded, slowly, struggling to take in what he had just been told. 'So, what can you do…?'

Louis grimaced. 'I'm not really sure,' he admitted. 'It doesn't even work properly every time.'

'Can… can I see?' Connor ventured.

'Um,' Louis mumbled, 'I don't know if it will work…'

'Have you shown anyone before?' Albus asked. 'I mean, when you've tried to change on purpose.'

'Just Nathan,' the redhead's voice dropped, 'and it didn't really work then.'

'You don't have to show us,' the other wizard mediated.

Louis shook his head. 'It's okay,' he managed a thin smile, before downing the rest of his water. 'I have to try it sometime.'

Albus shuffled his seat a few inches closer to Connor's wheelchair, setting himself to watch as his cousin screwed his eyes up in fierce concentration. When his eyes blinked open again, Louis' pupils had swollen up into wide, black orbs, and the points of his cheekbones had begun to sharpen into ridges that led toward a sharp, curved beak. All the while, his arms and chest grew thinner, their bones more defined, before a rash of white and grey feathers started sprouting from the new skeleton as the boy's fingernails extended into talons.

Connor let out a gasp of shock, before hurriedly covering his mouth with his hand. 'Have you seen this before…?' he whispered.

'Yeah,' Albus muttered, under his breath. 'At school, when…' he hesitated.

'When?'

'When we picked on him.' Albus looked down at his feet. 'Don't say anything,' he added. 'I know.'

Connor just nodded, his eyes still spellbound by Louis' shifting figure, before a sharp screech from the Veela's beak jolted the muggle boy into losing his grasp on his glass of water, sending it shattering into pieces on the kitchen floor, and prompting another shriek as a shard of glass scored a cut across Louis' right leg.

'Shit!' Connor's eyes widened. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that, I swear!'

Louis screeched again, and his transformation began to reverse. Connor and Albus couldn't help themselves but stare, transfixed, as the cut on their friend's leg closed up and the downy covering faded away into the other boy's freckled skin.

'That's… fucking… awesome.' Connor breathed.

Albus nodded. 'Yeah,' he stammered, 'and… the cut,' he pointed to his cousin's leg. 'It's healed.'

Louis winced. 'That hurt like hell.'

'Sorry,' Connor repeated.

'It's fine,' the redhead assured him. 'I guess that might have been pretty scary.'

Connor nodded, slowly.

'Have you worked out if you've got any other powers, or anything like that?' Albus was eager to find out more, but Louis only shook his head.

'I haven't been able to hold it for more than a few seconds yet,' he admitted, 'but I guess I'll find out pretty soon.'

'Is that all you're giving us? Dog food?' Greg Bennett snapped a sarcastic acknowledgement as the tray that would pass for the evening's dinner skated through a thin hatch at the base of a bolted door. He and Max Deverill had been confined into a dark, dingy and damp box room without so much as a mattress to sleep on, or anything beyond the most basic of rations to eat. 'You have both, Max,' the teacher concluded, inspecting the lukewarm bowls of stew that sat in front of him. 'Unless you fancy playing Quidditch with the bread,' Greg bounced the roll on the hard floor, before forcing himself to gouge out a mouthful.

'Sir,' the boy protested. 'It's okay, you can have some…'

'No,' Greg cut off the fourteen-year-old's argument. 'You need it much more than I do. I've been stuffing myself on Hogwarts desserts all term, and you look like a skeleton.'

Despite the thick sweatshirt and coat that Greg had insisted on Max taking, the boy couldn't stop himself from shivering, and the teacher instantly apologised.

'I'm sorry, mate,' Greg backtracked, 'probably not the best time for a crap joke.'

'It's okay,' Max barely looked up, prodding a plastic fork into the stodgy offering. 'It's still better than being Imperiused.'

Now it was Greg's turn to shudder as he heard his pupil's stark honesty. 'Can't you at least warm this shit up?' he yelled.

'Are you meant to be a wizard?' Stephanie's voice sneered back. 'Why don't you use some fucking magic?'

'Because,' Greg shouted, 'you've got our fucking wands, you stupid bitch!' He lashed out at the door, only to receive nothing more than a bruised toe for his troubles.

Max managed a thin smile. 'If you ever tell me off for swearing when we go back to school, I'm never going to be able to take you seriously.'

'Special circumstances,' Greg couldn't stop himself from reflecting the boy's grin. 'I promise I won't tell you off for swearing if you're imprisoned by an evil psycho at the time.'

'Does detention from Weasley count?' the fourth-year answered, deadpan, and it took all of the teacher's self-control to keep a straight face.

'I'm not answering that, mate,' Greg couldn't keep himself from smiling. 'No way on earth.'

The fourteen-year-old swallowed a mouthful of the broth in front of him, screwing up his face in disgust as the mixture passed the back of his throat.

'I never want to hear you complain about school cooking again, though,' the teacher observed, before laughing as the blond boy snorted through a mouthful of the stew, peppering the plastic tray with his half-eaten food.

'I promise,' Max nodded, solemnly. 'Sir,' he changed the subject, 'do you think we'll get out?'

Greg took a deep breath. 'Yes,' he insisted. 'I mean, I'm guessing this is just Dan's old house in Oxford – it can't be that well protected – the worst thing is that no one else knows where we are. If we… hang on a minute…'

The teacher hunched down, leaning towards Max before beginning to whisper the start of an idea into the boy's ear.

'Finished!' Max hammered against the door of the box room a few minutes later, having forced the remnants of the cold stew down his throat, before waiting for Stephanie's footprints to give away her return to collect the tray. 'Hey!' he shouted as the woman's hand reached back through the hatch. 'If you think magic's so evil, how come you never cared when Professor Bennett made your TV bigger this summer? How come you didn't mind that?'

'Shut your trap, you little shit!' the woman sneered back, snatching for the tray before pausing and letting the hatch fall shut again. Seconds later, the door had swung open and Stephanie stood, silhouetted in the doorway, a sharp kitchen knife raised in her right hand. 'On your feet!' she shrieked. 'Both of you! Now!'

The two wizards had little option but to follow orders, and they slowly followed the woman's directions into the centre of her cluttered living room.

'I'm looking after you – I might as well get something back!' Stephanie held up Max's wand. 'How about doing something with this?' She flashed a modest emerald ring on the same hand.

'No chance,' Greg snapped back, only to receive a swift slap in reply, as the gemstone on the ring drew blood from the teacher's cheek. 'The answer's still no.'

Stephanie spat in Greg's direction, leaving the man to duck away as his jailer turned her attention to the other captive. 'What about you, darling?' she sneered, holding the wand out, but keeping her knife in close attendance. 'I'm not asking for much,' she simpered, 'just a bigger emerald.'

'Don't do it,' Greg interrupted again, only to catch another blow across his face for his troubles.

'What'll it be, boy?' Stephanie leered, menacingly, the blade of her knife drawing closer to Max's pale face.

'I'll… I'll do it,' he stammered, slowly taking his offered wand. 'En… Engorgio,' his voice only came as a whisper, as he concentrated the little energy he felt onto the emerald. 'There,' he murmured.

'Bigger!' Stephanie snapped.

Max sighed. 'Engorgio,' he repeated, and the woman cackled maniacally as the gemstone swelled again.

'See,' Stephanie snatched the wand back from Max's hand, before turning back to face Greg. 'That wasn't so hard, was it? No breakfast for you tomorrow.'

Greg didn't reply, but even his silence wasn't enough to avoid his third slap of the evening.

'Now, back in your little hole!' Stephanie leered, jabbing her kitchen knife frenetically skywards as she herded the two wizards back into their cell, before slamming the door as she left.

'Well done, Max,' the teacher offered, letting his hand rest briefly on the boy's shoulder. 'Good spellwork, mate.'

The fourth-year nodded, slowly. 'Are you alright, sir?' he ventured, his eyes drifiting towards the cuts on the man's cheek.

'I'm fine,' Greg brushed off the concern. 'I played seven years of Quidditch, remember. I've had much worse than this.'

Max managed a thin smile. 'What do we do now, then?'

'Now?' the teacher echoed. 'Now, we wait.'