Chapter Twenty-six: Living Conditions

'T Ain't Mine.

Thank you so much to all those who reviewed! I hope you continue to enjoy the story! Oh, and the last chapter is on the way soon too! I'll let you know the name of the next story asap, kay? Enjoy!

Kailey's Point of View:

The second time I woke up I was feeling much better, but still very tired. My throat was feeling a little dry again, though, so I forced my eyes open and looked right at Snape. Before I could even open my mouth, he handed me a goblet, which I drained within seconds before spluttering. It was not water.

"What is that?" I choked out, making a face and thrusting the goblet back towards him.

"A potion designed to help your magic heal faster," he answered, pushing the goblet back towards me. "You need to finish it off,"

I made another face and looked in the goblet to see the pukish yellow stuff bubbling back up at me as though it were innocent of any crime. Such as tasting like warm, lemon-mint flavored cough syrup. Yuck.

"Can't I just have water?" I asked, grimacing as my dad shook his head. I sighed and downed the rest of it in one gulp before coughing again, noticing the sound of a door opening. "Now may I?"

"Here," he said, handing me a goblet. I went to drink it before I realized it was still empty.

"Dad, hate to break it to you, but you gave me an empty cup," I growled. Someone laughed and I looked over to see Sirius, Remus, Harry, Lily, James and Keena all heading towards the bed. "Would any of you care to drink the potion I just took and then be given an empty glass void of water?" I asked, with an eyebrow raised in question.

"Snape, I didn't know you knew how to play a prank," James said instead of answering me while Lily took the goblet from my hands and filled it with water.

"How would it have been possible for me not to learn, having experienced so many of them?" Snape replied a little more waspishly than I had expected. Apparently they were no longer avoiding getting angry with one another.

"Why is everyone in here?" I asked, curious as to why anyone would be in the Hospital Wing if they didn't have to be. That and I didn't want to see James and my dad break out into an argument. Frankly, I was just too tired to deal with that at the moment.

"What, we aren't allowed to come and visit?" Lily asked.

"No, you gave me water, not an icky potion, you're allowed so long as I don't have to study," I answered with a grin. Harry made a sound of indignation. "Harry, you were not included in the everyone, I'd be insulted if you weren't here,"

"As you should be," he replied and I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Well, James is here because Lily is, Lily is because Harry is, Harry is because you are, Remus is because…I don't know, Sirius is because I am and I'm here because Ollivander is bringing me a new wand," Keena rattled off. "Remus, why are you here?" she added, turning her suddenly brown eyes to said werewolf in question.

"First you want me here and now you don't, would you make up your mind?" he answered, rolling his eyes. "Honestly, I thought that bipolar thing was due to having two souls,"

"Hey!" Keena and I said in unison.

"I wonder how often that will happen," Lily wondered aloud.

"Probably a lot," Keena said with a shrug. Her skin was lighter too. What the heck?

"Keena, why do you look so different?" I asked, tilting my head to see if it was just the light. It wasn't.

"You are looking at the newest addition to the Potter family, the first girl in centuries," James said grandly, pulling his now blood sister into a one-armed hug.

"Perfect, another one," Snape mumbled though everyone ignored him.

"So it was a potion?" I asked.

"Yeah, a blood replenishing one. You kept all of it for yourself, but not enough magic," Sirius informed me. "Which is why you've been sleeping all day," he added.

"So who figured that out?" I asked, looking around.

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked, sounding a little dejected.

"It clearly wasn't you, Sirius, I may not remember everything perfectly, but you were definitely not the smartest one of the group," I answered, causing Lily and Keena to burst out laughing.

"So who do you think it was who came up with all the pranks, then?" he asked, clearly expecting me to say it was him.

"Well, in all technicality, Remus was always the one to figure out how do to things so that they would work," I said slyly. "And I do recall you and James always talking as though you were Fred and George Weasley whenever the two of you wanted to pull off another prank," I added. "Never once was it you all by yourself, Mr. Black,"

"Are you calling me old?" he accused.

I just grinned before I noticed green flames coming from the fireplace before Ollivander appeared. He stepped out of the fireplace and shook the soot from his silver hair before raising his eyes to absorb our strange little party.

"My, my, if it isn't James and Lily Potter," he muttered in fascination rather than shock. That just made him that much more likely to be related to Dumbledore in my opinion. "It would have been treat enough for me just to see young Harry once again, but this is more than I could have expected," he walked over with a sort of glide to his step and grasped hands with James before taking Lily's hand and pressing a light kiss to it. He gave a small wink to Harry who didn't seem to know how to take it so he just gave an equally small smile. "And Ms…Snape, is it now? Yes, I do see a slight relation to how you and your father carry yourselves, not to mention the strength in magic which your wands hold. I trust you are much better than the last I heard of you?"

"Yes, sir," I replied quietly. Man still gave me the creeps even if he wasn't in a dusty old wand shop.

"Very good, now, Ms…Potter," he said as he pulled a small box out of his pocket. Keena grinned at her new name. "I've brought several wands here for you to try, though I think it will likely be this one here," he explained while flicking his wand at the small box, causing it to grow into a crate filled with wands all inside their own individual boxes. He picked up the one on the top and opened it saying, "Mahogany, phoenix tail feather and nine inches, it's also quite pliable,"

He handed Keena the reddish colored wand and she took it in her hands for a moment before she gave it a great, sweeping wave and a shower of red and gold sparks dusted all throughout the Hospital Wing. Once the glittering dust had settled she looked around her to see that everything (and everyone) was covered.

"Sorry," she grinned.

"Liar," Sirius muttered, shaking his head and causing some of the glitter to float around his head before falling closer to the ground as Remus sneezed, getting the dust everywhere.

She gave a second wave of the wand and the room was clean once more. Ollivander grinned and placed the shrinking charm back onto the crate before pocketing it once more.

"How does it feel compared to your old one?" he asked.

"Actually, it feels much stronger," Keena informed him, still holding her wand by her side. "Thank you so much, sir,"

"Not at all, it is what I do," he answered, waving off her gratitude with a small bow.

"What do I owe you?" she insisted, trying to fish something out of her pockets. Something that probably wasn't even there judging by how far she was reaching into them.

"Not a Knut, my dear, that wand was made for you generations ago; meant for the first witch brought in, not necessarily born, by blood to the Potter family," he informed her. "It was paid for when it was commissioned. I daresay it is no mistake seeing as Mr. Potter's wand is made of the same wood, the same tree in fact, as well as the fact that the phoenix feather is cousin to the one which donated his own feather to young Mr. Potter's wand. Yes, you certainly do belong in this family,"

If anything this made the four Potters standing in the room grin much more widely.

Keena's Point of View:

A couple of days later Kailey was finally allowed out of the Hospital Wing. In celebration, we all headed out to the small cabin which had been home to Lily and James for so long. I say celebration because we were going to close it and destroy the horcruxes. Well, Harry and Kailey didn't exactly know about that part, though she might have a better idea of it than he did.

James and Sirius had turned into their animagus forms and were fooling around, amusing Harry and Kailey as they play fought. Lily, Remus and I were a little behind the group discussing how we were going to proceed with the destruction of the horcruxes.

"Is there any way we could get basilisk venom from out of the chamber?" Remus asked.

"I doubt it, you can't get in there without a parselmouth and the only one we know of is Harry," I replied.

"What about dragon blood? Do you think that could help?" Lily suggested, clearly not liking the idea of Harry going back down into the chamber.

"Dragon blood isn't a poisonous liquid, it'd probably end up strengthening the power of the damned items," Remus said, shaking his head. "Keena, you have no idea at all how they were destroyed?"

I shook my head. "I only remember bits and pieces of the future at this point, I've been forgetting more and more every day. You don't think that's been happening to Kailey too, do you or if this is a bad thing?"

"No, and she's been forgetting about what we were like and what we did when she was in our time. It's an aftereffect, she'll eventually just have her memories and you'll just have yours," Lily answered.

"Either way, that doesn't help us with our current issue," Remus said. "I don't much like the idea of just stabbing them with Gryffindor's sword, but that seems like our best bet at this moment,"

"I don't like gambling," I grumbled as we caught up to the others who had stopped in front of the cabin.

"So this is where you've lived?" Harry asked as James and Sirius turned back into humans. "It's a bit small, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but it was just me and your mum up until this past fall," James said, going up the steps and opening the door.

Harry, Kailey and I waited in the living room while Lily, James and Sirius went to pack up their belongings that they planned to take to the mansion. Remus went to the closet to pack away the horcruxes. Harry looked up at the mantel and his jaw dropped.

"Where did all of those come from?" he asked, going to look at the pictures that ranged from the time he was a baby up until the present. Remus had even managed to send them a picture of Harry winning the Quidditch cup.

"Don't you remember when you were little you would go to the park sometimes? Well, I babysat for some of my old school friends and I would take their children to the same park. I managed to snap pictures of you when I saw you," I explained. "Then I would make copies and send them off to your parents,"

"Aw, Harry, what a cute picture," Kailey said, pointing to one which had a baby Harry with birthday cake frosting all over his face, James laughing with his face covered as well. "How old was he?"

"That was his first birthday," I said grinning at the look of embarrassment on Harry's face. "You didn't honestly think that there were no embarrassing pictures of you, did you Harry?"

"It was more of a hope, really," he answered to his feet.

A couple of minutes later we were walking away from the cabin. All of the pictures, much to Harry's dismay, had been packed safely away with Lily's belongings.

Later that afternoon, Dumbledore came into Gryffindor's chambers and asked to speak to all of the adults. Basically he kicked Kailey and Harry out of the rooms, telling them to go to either Snape's quarters or to Gryffindor Tower. The two exchanged confused glances before heading off.

Once the door shut Dumbledore put up a silencing charm. "Now, we must carefully handle the destruction of these dangerous items. Do any of you have a room which you think we could take care of this in?"

I thought for a moment as the others all looked to me, clearly expecting me to remember something. Then it hit me. "The Room of Requirement," I said.

"The what?" Lily asked, frowning.

"It's a room that will transform into whatever you need it to be. We could just get it to become a place in which we can safely destroy pieces of Voldemort's soul and take care of it there," I said excitedly.

"Brilliant, where is it?" Sirius asked. I frowned.

"You don't remember, do you?" Remus suggested quietly. I shook my head. "Is there anyone who would know?"

"Houselves most likely know of its existence," Dumbledore answered when I didn't reply.

"I think you're right," I said after a moment. "I think it was a house elf who'll tell them of it," I added, trying to remember.

"Which houself?" Dumbledore quizzed me.

"Sir, take a guess," I answered with a grin.

"Dobby," he said in realization. There was a loud crack and suddenly the little elf was standing before us. "Dobby, I have a favor to ask of you,"

Kailey's Point of View:

"What d'you suppose their talking about?" Harry asked as we headed up to the Common Room.

"I dunno," I answered with a shrug. "I haven't been remembering things like that lately," I added.

"But you still remember things that are going to happen?"

"Yeah, just not things from the time when Keena and the others were younger," I answered with a shrug.

"It's probably nothing then," he answered and I nodded.

"Doesn't help my curiosity at all, though," I said and he nodded this time.

"Hey, d'you think we have to stay in the common room?"

"Probably that or go outside," I answered. "Maybe,"

"Let's go outside then," he said, though he kept heading for the tower.

"So why exactly are you going up still?" I asked.

"My trunk is still up there," he answered.

"So? What could you possibly…need…your Firebolt?"

"Yeah, we're going flying," he answered. But one word just did not sound right to me.

I laughed. "You say that as though I'm actually going to go into the air,"

"Considering the fact that next year's Quidditch team is in need of a Keeper and a Catcher I'd say you're going to be getting into the air," he stated with a shrug.

"But—"

"Password?" the Fat Lady interrupted.

"Dumbledore said there are no passwords in the summer months," I answered.

The Fat Lady nodded and let us in.

"Now, where were we?"

"You were just agreeing to go flying," he said, running upstairs.

"Was not," I called after him.

"Were too," he called back.

"Was not," I yelled as he came back into view, his Firebolt over his shoulder.

"Were too," he was walking towards the portrait.

"Was not," I said firmly, as the Fat Lady closed behind us.

"Was not,"

"Were too,"

"Ha! You agreed, let's go," he said.

"That doesn't count!" I groaned in frustration.

We continued arguing all the way down to the Quidditch pitch and onto the field. Harry was just not getting it at all.

"I don't think you understand the fact that I do not like heights, nor have I ever nor will I ever," I said, folding my arms.

"C'mon, Kailey, at least try it?" he pleaded, making big puppy-dog eyes. They were, unfortunately, extremely effective because of their vibrant green color.

"Well, even if I agreed, which I haven't, you only have one broom," I stated.

He frowned. Clearly he hadn't thought of that.

"Then I guess we'll just have to share," he shrugged.

"Isn't that dangerous?" I asked, knowing that I had a memory somewhere of Keena nearly falling off when she and Sirius had gone up together once.

He shook his head. "Don't you trust me?"

Damn it.

"Of course I trust you," I answered immediately, not liking where this conversation was heading at all.

"Well, then let's go," he said, mounting the broom and gesturing for me to sit in front of him. "You can sit up front so that you can see,"

"You mean so I don't squeeze you to death like I nearly did on Buckbeak," I grumbled.

"Well, yeah that too," he answered with a grin. "C'mon, it won't bite,"

I bit my lip but walked over and mounted in front of him. "If you do any sharp dives—"

"Here we go!" he shouted, taking off into the air at a break-neck speed. The analogy alone made me wish I had made a better argument…

Keena's Point of View:

We found the Room of Requirement with Dobby's help and were now standing behind a magically fortified wall designed by the room itself. The horcruxes were on the other side of the room and Remus was carefully studying a text that had information on the damned items. He finally snapped the book shut and grinned at us all.

"So, what do we do now?" I asked, impatient from all the waiting.

"Fiendfyre," he answered simply. "The room will stop the fire from spreading and the ring and cup will be completely destroyed,"

"Brilliant, so you know how to cast the curse?" James asked. Remus nodded.

"Should we maybe just do one at a time, just in case?" Lily asked.

"I highly doubt that that would make a difference," Dumbledore stated fairly.

"If you say so," I muttered, not at all convinced.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get rid of them," Sirius said.

After requesting that the room keep the fiendfyre from spreading beyond the two horcruxes, Remus set off the curse. Within moments I found myself witnessing the largest explosion that I would ever see…

Kailey's Point of View:

Originally I had thought that we would at least stay near the Quidditch field. Oh, how wrong I had been.

We were currently racing high above the grounds of Hogwarts, heading towards the castle at a speed that no snitch could outrace. I was clutching onto the broom handle chanting to myself that I was okay and I was not going to fall. Unfortunately, Harry didn't have a very good track record for not falling when he was by himself on a broom. Needless to say, I did not believe a word I said to myself.

"Harry, the tower!" I screamed as we headed straight for one of the highest towers at Hogwarts. He only laughed and pulled the broom up so that we were completely vertical, riding so that we were parallel to the tower.

Suddenly he circled out of the jet-like race and paused in the air.

"Are you alright?" he asked, laughing. "You're shaking,"

"Then why did you ask?" I replied shakily. "Merlin and Founders, Harry, I knew you liked flying but I never realized that you were mad!"

"We haven't fallen, though, have we?" he responded cheekily.

I looked over my shoulder at him to raise an eyebrow at his smirk. "You're just lucky that I thought to put my hair up this morning, otherwise you'd've choked on it all by now,"

He just laughed. "Then I think that makes you the lucky one considering I actually know how to fly,"

"Who ever said that I couldn't?"

"You've never been on a broom before," he answered, shaking his head.

"Neither had you and you went and caught the bloody rememberall," I replied, sticking out my tongue.

He opened his mouth to reply when a great booming noise erupted from somewhere within the castle. At first it sounded like a rumble of thunder when suddenly a window just below where we were floating shattered and suddenly it was like a volcano was erupting. Harry grabbed the handle of the broom and told me to lean forward and we took off away from the castle as fast as the Firebolt would take us. We were over the Forbidden Forest in a matter of seconds before Harry turned the broom around so that we could see what was going on.

There was pitch black smoke billowing out of the broken window with two streaks of green light snaking in and around the smoke. The smoke was suddenly enveloped in a bright orange glow of fire before all traces of the explosion disappeared completely.

"What was that?" I breathed out once everything was quiet again.

"I don't know," Harry answered, sounding awestruck.

Moments later there were loud cracks heard all coming from Hogsmeade. We watched as what must have been twenty Aurors came swarming towards the gate, looking like nothing more than ants because they were still so far away.

"Harry, they can't know about what was going on," I said, suddenly. I wasn't sure but I felt as though whatever the others were doing was top secret. "C'mon, we've got to warn them!"

He swerved the broom around and raced us back to the castle in record time, the Aurors still far enough away that they probably didn't even notice us. We sprinted into the castle and came sliding to a halt when my dad came out of nowhere, looking angry that Harry and I weren't somewhere safe.

"Didn't they tell you—?"

"Dad, the ministry is here!" I panted. "We've got to tell them! They can't be seen, no one can know what they've been doing!" I finished in a rush. His face paled and he nodded once before sending off a patronus.

Moments later Fawkes appeared in a golden flash and landed on my shoulder. Harry and Snape each touched a feather and we were transported to Dumbledore's office.

Keena's Point of View

The fire extinguished itself and we looked around at one another. We were all covered in soot but we were all also grinning big and goofy smiles.

"Three down," James said, referring to the diary.

"And likely four to go," I finished.

"Kill-joy," Sirius muttered.

The glass-like wall had shattered due to the first wave of heat that rolled off of the fiendfyre, making quite the explosion. Moments later the room had been filled with green light, encompassing the entire room. I had held my breath as it filled everywhere else in sight when suddenly a big, billowing black cloud of smoke had emerged from the center of the fire, sucking in all of the green light. That was when the window had shattered.

Now the entire room was black, but it was empty and everyone inside was safe. Lily had made to fix the window only to see that it had already fixed itself and everyone was now celebrating. Naturally, that's when the silver patronus had come into the room. Those four little words uttered in Snape's voice sent waves of panic through the room.

"The Aurors are here,"

Dumbledore had summoned Fawkes to him and the six of us were in his office. He then sent Fawkes to the Great Hall where, for some bizarre reason, Kailey, Harry and Snape were. Moments later the other three had joined us as well.

"Why weren't you two inside the Common Room?" Lily demanded immediately.

"If we hadn't been outside we wouldn't've seen the Aurors," Kailey answered. "I'm not sure why, but I feel like whatever you guys just did was extremely illegal, not to mention I thought that you and Mr. Potter wanted to stay secret,"

"Kailey is right," Dumbledore said. "However, we must explain the explosion somehow,"

"How do we explain without making them want to take Harry from Sirius and me?" I asked, worried.

"Say I did it," Snape suggested immediately. "A potions accident or something," he elaborated.

"But then you could lose your job," Kailey argued, and then her eyes widened. "You could lose me!" She was right, and by the sound of it she was very upset about the prospect, not that I blamed her for that in the least.

"Kailey, this gives your father the excuse that the rest of the world needs for you not to live with him," Dumbledore said quietly. "It will also keep his position with the Slytherins safe,"

She opened her mouth but could think of no reply so she shut it again.

"Headmaster! The Aurors are on their way," one of the old portraits announced. "The others will need to leave now or risk being discovered,"

"Then there is no time to waste," Dumbledore replied. "Severus, you stay here, Lily and James go to the chambers, stay there until someone comes to get you. Kailey, Harry, Keena, Remus and Sirius you must go to Gryffindor Tower. Clean yourselves up, your presence will most likely be wanted very shortly,"

It was as though Dumbledore were running a fast paced mission once more and as soon as he was finished we all made a quick exit. Thank Merlin the Aurors didn't know about all the secret passage ways.

We were silent the entire way to the Tower and the Fat Lady admitted us without question of a password, reminding me of how the gargoyle in front of Dumbledore's office did the same thing.

Remus, Sirius and I performed quick cleaning spells on ourselves so that we would look more presentable. Kailey and Harry sat down on the couches, Kailey with her head in her hands in worry. She still had no idea where she was going to go.

"Should we tell her?" Sirius asked quietly.

"Not yet, we should wait for it to be official," I answered in kind. "Remus, are you going to come with us when Dumbledore calls us down?"

He shook his head. "A werewolf would not help your case at all," he replied. "And don't bother arguing it you know it's true,"

"Unfortunately," I replied bitterly.

Within the next five minutes, the portrait door opened and admitted Nymphadora Tonks.

"Tonks, long time no see," I said excitedly. We hadn't worked together in two years and I was happy to meet the clumsy witch again.

"I'll say, you Unspeakables really know how to disappear when you want to," she answered, coming over to give me a hug. "But I'm actually here about that explosion; you must've heard it,"

"Yeah, what was that?" Sirius answered.

"Apparently Snape screwed something up in the dungeons," she replied, shaking her head. "Sounds like something I'd do to be honest," she added.

Sirius smirked. "You always were a bit clumsy,"

"A bit," I snorted and Tonks laughed.

"Yeah, well, I'm supposed to be sending you two to Dumbledore's office. Kingsley is down there with a couple of others and Snape as well. They want to…er," she paused as she looked around and found Kailey and Harry sitting on the couches, both looking at her expectantly. "Well, you'll find out when you get there,"

"Alright, thank you Tonks," Sirius said, giving a nod to the others as we headed for the portrait once more.

Kailey's point of view

I was miserable. Now the ministry was going to forcibly take me away from my dad and I really would have nowhere to go. A ward of the ministry, not something I ever really planned on becoming. The only thing that would be worse would be if they just sent me to America to stay there permanently. I really felt as though Dumbledore had not thought this through enough.

"Why are they going to see Dumbledore?" Harry asked Tonks, bringing me out of my thoughts. I looked up at her as well, dreading the answer.

"They…well, why don't we start with introductions," she floundered, clearly uncomfortable with talking about this. "I'm Auror Tonks, but you can just call me Tonks,"

"I'm Harry Potter," Harry answered, reaching to shake her hand as she came over to sit down on a chair, Remus following her.

"Remus Lupin," he said, when she turned to him second. Her hair turned a dark shade of red when he took her hand for a moment before she caught herself and her hair turned bright pink.

"I'm Kailey Snape," I replied, not bothering with the handshake. "Are they going to take me away?" I didn't want to see her trying to beat around the bush.

Her hair turned from its vibrant pink to a faded blue. I knew it.

I sighed and put my head back into my hands, not even moving when someone's hand began rubbing gentle circles on my back for comfort. I gave another great sigh before sitting up. Harry's hand remained on my back in a comforting gesture and I gave him a small smile of thanks. I looked over at Tonks, whose hair had turned from faded blue to a brighter blue.

"Don't worry, kid, I'm sure Dumbledore will have it all figured out," she informed me.

"Then why the blue hair?" I quizzed. Remus looked over at her with an eyebrow raised in curiosity.

She blushed. "Sorry, couldn't help it," she answered with a shrug.

"Tonks is right, Kailey, Dumbledore will have everything taken care of," Remus nodded in agreement getting the conversation back on track.

"He better, he owes me," I muttered, slumping forward once more, placing my elbow on my knee and my hand underneath my chin.

Keena's Point of View:

"I'm afraid I don't understand what is going on here," Sirius said, acting his part. "Why would you need to ask us about the explosion if the headmaster has already told you it has been taken care of?"

Kingsley glanced at a murderous looking Snape before turning back to face Sirius and me. "The minister has decided that the living conditions which Ms. Snape has been subjected to are not the safest and for that reason he has ordered that she be taken out of his custody immediately—"

"Do not play that game with me, Shacklebolt," Snape spat and two of the Aurors stood up straighter, gripping their wands at their sides. "The minister has been looking for this excuse since this past fall when he was unable to locate not only Black but Potter as well, meanwhile my daughter and myself, whom he still considers a death eater, located Potter all too easily for his liking,"

"Severus," Dumbledore warned gently, though his eyes were blazing as he turned his gaze back to Kingsley who shifted uncomfortably as the Aurors behind him lowered their wands in guilt. "The Aurors did not request your presence, Sirius, I did. I believe that it would be more beneficial to both Harry and Kailey if you would take her in for the time being. Kingsley has already agreed to this arrangement and I will tell the minister myself, if you both are willing to accept,"

"Of course we will take her, Professor," I answered with a grin.

"Excellent," Dumbledore stood up, rubbing his hands together. "Now, shall I escort you to the entrance, Auror Shacklebolt?"

That is the end of this one! I know it's kind of long but I hope you enjoyed it just the same! Please review and remember that the end is nearing (probably in the next chapter or two)! Next comes 27!

:-D