The moment the train steamed to a halt in the station, Valkyrie stood and took her bag from the rack. Skulduggery fetched his own suitcase and led the way out onto the platform. Valkyrie's eyelids were heavy, and her brain was filled to the point of exploding with boredom (as she had been for the last hour when she had left the trio to their own devices). She had her jacket and hat back on and was looking around for a glimpse of Seamus, but Skulduggery just began to walk away. Valkyrie noticed at the last minute and strode after him.

"Could have told me you were moving." Valkyrie muttered when she caught up with him.

"I could of, yes." Skulduggery nodded, and Valkyrie scowled. That was when she saw Seamus standing by the entrance to the platform, with a middle-aged woman stood next to his smiling.

"Hi Seamus," Valkyrie smiled. Seamus turned to her and grinned.

"Mam" Seamus turned to his mother "This is Skulduggery and Valkyrie. You know Valkyrie, she lives down the street from us."

"Pleasure to meet you." Skulduggery tipped his hat to her, and Valkyrie did the same.

"I don't recognise the name Valkyrie." Seamus mother said, seemingly thinking.

"You might know me as Stephanie" Valkyrie explained "Stephanie Edgely."

"Oh Stephanie!" Seamus's mother smiled and wrapped her in a hug she wasn't expecting. "It's good to see you dear, how've you been? Good I hope. I heard you had a new addition to the family."

"Yeah, my little sister, Alice." Valkyrie said as Mrs Finnigan let go of her.

"Well then, we'd best be getting back home. Where would you like dropping off Mr Pleasant?"

"Haggard is fine." Skulduggery replied.

"Oh good. I'll take Seamus first, and then come back for the both of you – apparating with more than a few people can be dangerous."

"Naturally. We'll wait right here." Skulduggery replied.

"I'll be back in a second." Mrs Finnigan smiled, took Seamus hand and disappeared into thin air. Almost like teleporting.

"Is Ghastly picking you up from my house?" Valkyrie asked. Skulduggery nodded.

"He's bringing the Bentley and I'm driving it back to the Sanctuary."

"Ok."

"You know the cover story."

"Yep." Valkyrie nodded "I'm so amazingly talented I've been picked to be in exchange programme with an English school, and I won't be back until July."

"Precisely."

"July seems a long way away."

"It'll pass sooner than you think." Skulduggery said calmly "I'm going to try and find out more about this Voldemort fellow over the holidays. I'll bring you up to date when we're back on the train."

"Ok." Valkyrie had told him about the attack on Ron's father when she had returned to their compartment. It didn't sound good.

Mrs Finnigan reappeared before anything more could be said, and wrapped her arm around Valkyrie's.

"Ok dear, don't let go and try not to throw up."

"Throw up?" Valkyrie was thrown into the sensation of having her body twisted and stretched, pulled and squished, and then swirling before being sucked through a tube. It was almost impossible not to feel sick. For a brief moment she panicked and though the sensation would release Darquesse, but before she could contemplate it any further her feet connected with solid ground, and the sea air hit her nostrils. She swayed a bit on her feet.

"Are you alright dear?" Mrs Finnigan asked. Valkyrie gave a brief smiled in return and a second later Seamus ushered her further onto the pavement and his mother disappeared again to get Skulduggery.

"Are you alright?" Seamus asked her.

"Yep, just a little woozy. Never done anything like that before."

"The first apparition is always weird. But you get used to it after a while." He said, smiling slightly. Valkyrie sighed and smiled back before Mrs Finnigan and Skulduggery appeared. Skulduggery didn't look in the least bit fazed.

"Thanks you very much Mrs Finnigan, you've saved us a lot of trouble." Skulduggery said to her politely.

"No problem. I'll apparate you both back to the station when I take Seamus if you like."

"We'd really appreciate that." Skulduggery said, smiling with his façade. Seamus's mother smiled back and then walked towards her house. Skulduggery took out his phone and began to call Ghastly, making arrangements for him to be picked up in the Bentley.

"Thanks Seamus. We'll see you soon." Valkyrie said, hugging him. He seemed startled at first, but then accepted it for the second it was happening, and then Valkyrie was smiling at him and walking away.

"Hey Skulduggery," Valkyrie called back.

"What?"

"Do I go through the front door or the window?"

"Front door, they're expecting you."
"Ok." Valkyrie wheeled her suitcase to the front of her house, vaguely aware that Seamus was watching her, and took off her jacket, stuffing it into the bag. If he parents saw her clad in leather thy might think something was wrong. Leather trousers didn't seem so bad with a white t-shirt. She straightened her hair with her fingers, plastered on a fake smiled and knocked on the door. It was opened almost in an instant and Valkyrie was wrapped in her mother's warm arms.

"Stephanie! Oh welcome home!"

"Thanks mum." Valkyrie smiled as she was dragged inside and bombarded with questions about what the foreign school was like. She smiled and told them it was a very academic school and she had made lots of friends there already.

Seamus watched as she was dragged inside her house, smiling and laughing like the past few months had never happened. Seamus turned to say goodbye to Skulduggery, but the skeleton detective with the false face was already gone. He was alone outside, in the dark. And even then, he thought he could see people, just a few shadows of people in combat suits, moving around the place, almost as if they were watching the houses. He waved to one of them, but if they were people, they didn't wave back. He gulped before turning and hurrying into his house, eager to tell his parents of his time at Hogwarts, and how Harry Potter didn't seem to be lying about Cedric's murder, and how the nice polite pretty girl down the street that sued to babysit him, was actually a bad-ass detective working in secret to save the world alongside a dead man. He had a lot to tell them.