The jet of green flame had barely roared into life when Teddy Lupin crashed through the fireplace into the front room of 12, Grimmauld Place. 'Harry!' the man yelled. 'Harry! We know where Max is! He set off his trace!'

'What?' the answer echoed back in chorus from the dining room of the terraced house. 'Where?'

Teddy hurried the short distance towards the source of the noise. 'Somewhere in Oxford,' he replied. 'I can't remember exactly. Cutter's Low or something like that…'

Daniel and Connor's eyes locked. 'Do you mean Cutteslowe?' the Slytherin ventured, 'Cause that's where, that's where…'

'You used to live,' Greg finished the boy's answer for him, 'and where Connor still does.'

The wheelchair-bound boy nodded. 'Yeah.'

'This isn't a coincidence, is it?' Albus took his turn to say what the adults in the room were all beginning to think.

'That'll do, Al,' his father warned. 'We'll take it from here.' He made to get up from the table and head back towards the fireplace, only for Daniel's voice to interrupt his steps.

'I want to come,' he announced.

Harry stopped in his tracks. 'Daniel,' he began, 'I really can't allow an eleven-year-old…'

'It's my house!' the boy snapped back. 'It's my mum, and it's my… my teacher who's trapped! I have to see what's happening to them – and anyway, I bet I know my way around Cutteslowe way better than any of you do!'

'This really isn't the time to have this conversation, Daniel,' the Auror tried to reason again.

'What about me, then?' Connor interrupted. 'What about my parents, and my brother? They only live two streets away from Dan's old house. What's going to happen to them?'

'I'm sorry, guys, I really can't talk about things when I really don't know enough… Hold on,' Harry stopped himself mid-sentence. 'Did you say two streets away?'

'Yeah…' Connor nodded slowly, before suddenly finding a quill and parchment being shoved into his hands.

'Map, please,' Harry instructed, his voice turning businesslike. 'Teddy, when he's finished this, get yourself over there. Change form or something – I don't care what you look like – and get yourself somewhere you can see over to the target house. Then call us when you need to. I'm going to the Ministry.' He made for the fireplace, pausing only to stop for a moment in the kitchen doorway. 'Love you, Ginny.'

Connor stared down at the untidy scribble that he had struggled to scratch out with the unfamiliar quill pen as he felt Teddy's face peering over his shoulders. 'I'm sorry,' he began, 'I can't draw…'

'It doesn't matter, mate,' the teenager assured him, 'it's good enough. Can you see across to Dan's house from anywhere in yours?'

'My bedroom,' Connor answered. 'On the top floor, at the back. You can see straight across – they've got some new lights on the top of the garage.'

'Thanks, little man,' Teddy ruffled the boy's hair, 'and I think you're right. You should be there. Let me see what I can do.'

It was less than half an hour before the fireplace at the Potters' house crackled into life again, allowing another Auror into the front room.

'Daniel Hamilton?'

'Yeah?' the eleven-year-old looked up.

'Josh Tregeagle,' the man introduced himself. 'We have established a perimeter of protective wards around your mother's house, and the surrounding streets have been evacuated,' he began to explain. 'We have also, between Teddy and I, managed to convince Harry that you'll be in absolutely no danger if you watch from beyond this perimeter. Are you in?'

'Yes!' Daniel answered in an instant.

'What about my family?' Connor couldn't stop himself from butting in. 'Are they going to be alright?'

The Auror nodded. 'All the houses on the estate have been evacuated for the night,' the man explained. 'As far as they know, it's a gas leak.'

Connor sank down into his wheelchair. 'Thank you,' he murmured, letting a deep breath escape from his lungs.

'Is anyone else coming, then?' Daniel, on the other hand, had jumped to his feet.

'I'm in,' Albus answered, instantly.

'And me.'

'Me too,' Nathan only took fractions of a second longer than his friends had done to declare his interest. 'Stick together, remember?' He turned to face his old schoolfriend. 'Charlie…?'

The brown-haired boy swallowed. 'I'm not sure,' he admitted. 'I mean, I don't really know what's going on, what all these things mean…'

'That's fine,' Daniel cut him off. 'Someone should stay here with Connor, anyway.' He turned back to the Auror. 'Okay,' he announced, 'we're ready.'

'Coats first!' Ginny's raised voice interrupted, leaving a thin smile to flicker briefly across Joshua Tregeagle's face as the Auror fished in the pocket of his robes for a dirty, tattered rag. 'Portkey budget's a bit low,' he explained as the boys gathered back together. 'Everybody take hold in 3… 2… 1…'

It was a mark of the situation that the boys knew was developing that neither of the two cousins commented on their muggle-born friends' clumsy landings at the other end of the Portkey journey.

'It takes a bit of getting used to,' Albus explained, helping Daniel to his feet before letting his eyes drift to the scene unfolding in front of him. 'That's a lot of Aurors…'

'Full call tonight,' Joshua explained. 'Everyone who can be here has to be here. No chances when the Statute of Secrecy's at stake.'

Louis blinked. 'So you think… you think it's all connected?'

'You'd have to be mad not to,' the man nodded. 'If this is Kevin Brand, I know what he was like. Never happy unless someone was afraid of him. Usually his brother.'

'Lucas…?' Louis ventured.

Joshua looked around. 'Did he tell you?'

'No,' Louis shook his head. 'I just guessed.'

'Well, you guessed right,' the Auror confirmed. 'He was a few years above us.'

A sudden burst of noise distracted the boys from the man's recollections, diverting their attention to the concrete driveway outside Daniel's old house as a pair of figures emerged from the building.

'Let us go, Potter!' a man held a wand to his throat, amplifying his voice as he laid down a challenge to the Head Auror. The four children strained to make out his face in the glare of the streetlamps, noticing little more than a trimmed rim of auburn hair that sat above a gaunt, defined nose. 'You let us go, and we'll let them go!'

'We don't negotiate with terrorists, Brand,' Albus shivered as he heard the cold tone of his father's reply. 'Release your hostages, and the Wizengamot may well look favourably upon it.'

A joyless cackle of laughter filled the housing estate. 'And spoil all the fun? Oh, Mr Potter, you underestimate me,' the man paused, delighting in the silence that followed his threat, 'for without me you cannot release our prisoners. The corridors of this house are filled with gas so toxic that just one breath would incapacitate you for a day, and should you somehow penetrate this, the cell itself is now surrounded by a Stygian Flame, through which nothing human can pass. Your move.'

'What's a Stygian Flame?' Daniel turned to Albus, but the other boy could only shake his head.

'I have no idea, mate…'

'Have you heard of Fiendfyre?' Joshua, the Auror, interrupted the boys' questions with one of his own.

Albus and Louis nodded.

'It's enchanted fire,' the redhead began to answer, 'that burns anything in its path.'

'That's the one,' Joshua acknowledged. 'The Stygian Flame is a bit like Fiendfyre… only a slightly tamer version. A skilled wizard can craft a barrier out of a Stygian Flame, and the very best can even specify what the flame does, and does not, burn.'

Daniel turned away and retched, violently. 'Shit… sorry,' he mumbled, his face pale.

'Forget it,' Albus reached his arm around his friend's shoulders. 'Dad will work something out.'

'We'll take our chances, Brand,' the Head Auror's voice rang out again, 'and we appreciate the tip-off.'

Without further warning, a blast of blue light shot out from Harry's wand, only to strike against a suddenly-conjured purpled sphere and rebound, harmlessly, into the turf at Kevin's feet, seconds before another volley of multicoloured spells burst forth from the gathered Aurors towards the fugitive's shield charm.

'Take them alive,' Harry's voice roared as the purple hues of the barrier began to fade to pinks and greys, before disappearing entirely beneath the assault as Kevin and Stephanie's bodies collapsed to the ground. 'To the Ministry,' the Head Auror commanded. 'Four Aurors with each suspect. Individual cells. Now!'

The boys watched, open-mouthed, as a group of eight men and women strode forward to carry out their orders, surrounding the motionless bodies before vanishing into the cold Oxford night.

'Now,' Harry's voice echoed out again, its tone suddenly more urgent, 'we move to recover the hostages. Is Daniel Hamilton here?'

Daniel opened his mouth to reply, only to find that the words wouldn't follow. 'Yes,' he tried to call back, but his reply was barely loud enough for Albus to hear alongside him.

'Yes,' Joshua held his wand against his own throat, answering on the boy's behalf. 'I'll bring him to you.'

'We're coming, too,' Albus announced as he heard the plans, and the Auror made no effort to dissuade the other children from following.

'Daniel,' Harry took the wand away from his throat as he greeted the eleven-year-old a few moments later. 'You were right. We need your help.'

The first-year nodded mutely in reply.

'Whatever traps Brand has laid, I am sure our men will be more than equal to them, but we need to know where it is most likely that Kevin has imprisoned Greg and Max.'

'The back room,' Daniel whispered. 'That's where, when I was grounded, M… she always locked me in there…' he felt his eyes watering and immediately looked down at the ground.

Harry paused for a moment, letting the boy's breathing slow down before lowering his voice as he continued. 'Can we get at it from the outside? Are there any windows?'

Daniel shook his head. 'It was dark,' he replied, simply.

'Well,' Harry continued, 'can you show us where it would be, in the house?'

Daniel extended an arm. 'That corner,' he whispered. 'Over there.'

'Thank you,' the Head Auror acknowledged, before turning away to return to his colleagues and discuss the next stages of their plan.

'Dan,' Albus hurried up to his friend, 'Dan? Are you alright? What's wrong?'

'It's nothing,' the muggle-born boy shrugged off his friend's concern. 'Just remembering stuff, that's all.' He wiped the sleeve of his coat across his face. 'I'm fine.'

By now, a cordon of Aurors had begun to form around the corner of the house that Daniel had indicated, each with wands raised aloft. The incantation of the spell that followed wasn't loud enough for the watching boys to hear, but there was no doubting its effect.

An oval chunk of the pebble-dash and concrete mixture that had covered the corner of the house was blasted from its place, scattering bricks and mortar on the grass verge and pavement outside.

'Greg!' Harry shouted through the flickering yellow-orange flames that burst to fill the wall's place. 'Max! Are you guys there?'

'Harry?' The teacher's voice answered back, faint against the crackling of the fire. 'Thank Merlin it's you…'

'We'll get you out of there,' the Auror called back, 'just sit tight… and don't touch. They're Stygian Flames.'

An hour later, however, as Joshua trekked back across the housing estate to update the four children – now clustered in a makeshift tent to protect from the chill of the winter winds – the Auror found himself with little progress to report on.

'They're good Flames,' the man summarised an answer to the boys' flood of questions. 'Not only are they keeping humans out, but anything touched by humans. We tried throwing through a Portkey; it turned into a burning missile when it passed through the Flames. It doesn't seem like anything that's been touched by human hands can make it through there without just burning up,' he concluded.

'Shit,' Daniel's spirits had fallen further, and the muggle-born boy had managed little more than one-word sentences for the last dozen or so minutes. 'How are they gonna get out?

'Sir?' Louis looked up, suddenly, to face Joshua, who smiled back.

'I'm not a teacher, mate,' the man answered, kindly. 'Just call me Josh.'

Louis nodded. 'Josh,' he emphasised the man's name. 'You know you said anything that's touched by humans can't get through the Flames? Well… what about things that aren't human?'

Nathan startled. 'Louis!' he shrilled. 'You can't mean…'

The redhead shrugged. 'No one else has any other ideas, have they? If they did, then they would have been freed by now. I can control it now, I know I can!'

'Louis,' the Auror cautioned. 'You're only part-Veela, still part-human. You'd burn up, too.'

'What if I transformed?' the boy persisted. 'Have you tried to see what happens if non-humans go through the Flames? What if this works? What if we can get them out?'

Joshua shook his head. 'I really don't know,' he admitted, 'but I suppose we can at least ask. Come on.' The Auror turned, leading the boys back across the closed roads to the corner of Daniel's old house, clearly identified by the flickering corner that could easily be seen from the children's tent. 'Harry,' Joshua began, only for Louis to interrupt.

'I bet I could get through,' the eleven-year-old proclaimed. 'If I transformed, then I could take the Portkey through and they could get out.'

Harry's jaw dropped. 'Louis,' he mustered, playing for time as he struggled to come to terms with the boy's suggestion. 'It's a brave idea, but how would we know? You could get killed. Your mum and dad would never…'

'Have you tried sending any non-humans through the Flames?' Louis would not be sidetracked. 'Why don't you conjure a bird, see if that survives? Or take one of my feathers when I change?'

The Head Auror nodded. 'I will try the feather,' he accepted the boy's suggestion. I will have to remove it magically, and levitate it through the Flame – if anyone touches it with their hands, it will instantly contaminate it, and make it burn.'

'Fine,' Louis didn't blink. 'I'll do it.' He unbuttoned his coat, throwing his gloves and hat to the ground, before screwing his eyes closed and focusing, deeply, on the birdlike form that he knew he could attain. Within seconds, his cotton shirt lay ripped open on the ground beside him and his Veela form stood, wings outstretched, in front of the Head Auror.

'Wow…' Albus whistled. 'He was right when he said he'd worked it out.'

Nathan shook his head, disbelievingly. 'When did he tell you that?'

'This morning,' the black-haired boy answered. 'Before breakfast, in the kitchen. Neither of us could sleep.'

'Oh,' the muggle-born nodded. 'That figures. He's tried to show me before, but it's never worked like that, not that quickly, not that well…'

'He's never done it to try and save someone's life before, though, has he?' Albus speculated, watching his father's wandwork loosen a single feather from the Veela's wings, before levitating it through the wall of Stygian Flame, into the box room prison cell and back out again. 'It's worked…'

Harry closed his hand around the feather, before lifting it upwards to closely inspect its condition. 'It's worked,' he echoed his son's verdict. 'It's singed in places, but it's survived. Louis,' he looked up, speaking directly to the Veela in front of him. 'Change back, please.'

With a loud squawk echoing around the block of houses, Louis' wingspan fell back into his shoulderblades and his feathers shrunk back into his freckled skin. Instinctively, Nathan grabbed his friend's discarded coat and threw it around the other boy's now-bare shoulders.

'That was awesome, mate,' the blond boy whispered, 'fucking awesome.'

'Louis,' Harry's voice rose again as he walked back towards the redheaded boy. 'This is your feather,' he ignored the strangeness of his assertion and kept speaking. 'It's singed, charred, burnt in places, but it's survived. This is an incredibly dangerous thing to do.'

'I'm still doing it,' Louis insisted. 'I'm not going to die, am I? They might, if we don't get them out.'

The Head Auror didn't argue, instead discarding the scalded feather and turning to conduct a whispered discussion with another of his colleagues, before heading over to shout a message through the roaring of the Stygian Flames. Within a minute, he had turned back. 'I'm going to conjure a pair of ball-bearings, and levitate them in the air in front of you. Then, Auror Boot here will cast the Portkey Charm on the ball-bearings, and your Veela form will carry them through the Flames to the prisoners. Is that clear?'

Louis nodded. 'Yes.'

'Fine,' Harry confirmed. 'Then let's go.'

Nathan lifted the coat from his friend's shoulders, backtracking slowly towards the other first-year boys as they watched their Housemate transform again, before stepping forward and clasping his hooked beak around the enchanted silver balls. 'This better work…' Nathan mumbled.

'It will work,' Albus insisted, without taking his eyes away from Louis' measured strides towards, and into, the flickering wall, before – only seconds later – Max Deverill and Greg Bennett's bodies landed on top of one another only a handful of feet away from the boys' vantage point.

'Sir!' Daniel shouted, hurriedly running towards the teacher. 'Are you okay?'

Greg blinked once, twice, his body adjusting to the sudden chill of the winter evening. 'I'm fine, mate,' he shook himself. 'A bit hungry, but fine.' The teacher snapped his head around, back to the still-blazing flames as the distinctive Veela form stumbled back out of the room that had been his prison. 'Is that Louis?' he asked, watching the birdlike figure stagger as it returned to human form.

'Yeah,' Daniel answered, helplessly, as he watched Louis collapse to the ground and Nathan immediately sprint towards his fallen friend. 'Oh, shit…'