Chapter 6:

The Most Haunted Dwelling

Teddy went toward him and stopped beside the tunnel. Uncle Harry was blocking his way, smiling pleasantly. "Teddy, what am I waiting for?"

Teddy frowned. "No idea."

"I'm an adult," Uncle Harry said slowly. "I'm about to lead you off of school grounds, and away from most of their protections. An adult is out there, ready to kill you or maul and kidnap you. There is no reason at all to assume he has no access to Polyjuice Potion. What am I waiting for?"

"Oh, come on! You couldn't have got on the grounds if you didn't pass security."

"I'm glad you put such faith in my security systems, but less than impressed."

"Well, you wouldn't be stopping me for a quiz if you were trying to sneak me away."

"I wouldn't be stopping you for a quiz if you'd been careful in the first place."

Teddy rolled his eyes. "Fine. What language did Sirius write his security spells in, and what were they on?"

Uncle Harry grinned. "Now that's a good security question - no way for someone else to have picked it up."

"So, what's the answer?"

"French, and the Marauder's Map."

"Well, I guess that means you're either Uncle Harry or Victoire, then. You didn't turn Ruthless Scrimgeour into a rabbit in the Great Hall, did you?"

"Er, no. That doesn't sound wise." He dropped down into the tunnel and started in; Teddy followed. "Victoire picked an interesting fight."

"I wish they'd get along with one another. It's very annoying."

"Mm," Uncle Harry said.

The tunnel narrowed and Uncle Harry was forced to crawl. Teddy was able to continue along, bent at the waist. He imagined making the crawl with the Marauders, James making crude jokes, high-spirited Sirius transforming into a dog to run ahead, Peter huffing and puffing at the back. Dad would already be ahead of course, waiting in the Shrieking Shack.

Teddy frowned. "Uncle Harry?"

"What?"

"Why isn't the house still boobytrapped? I thought the goblins had had it set up to tell them the second anyone showed up there since they foreclosed on Dad. That's what Granny said, anyway, and Professor Longbottom told me the same thing first year, so I wouldn't try to sneak out."

"I paid off the debt," Uncle Harry said. "Vivian needed somewhere to transform."

"Oh," Teddy said.

Uncle Harry came to a wider place at the end of the tunnel and paused, his hand on the ceiling, where Teddy could see a wooden trapdoor. He looked troubled. "Teddy, there's a reason I didn't pay it off before. It's... I know you think of it as your dad's place, but it's... Voldemort holed up here during the battle. He tortured people here. He murdered Snape in the room we're about to climb up into. I know you've wanted it back. But it's not... I didn't think..." He sighed. "A lot of bad things have happened here, Teddy."

Teddy straightened up and squeezed in beside him. "So why bring me here now?"

"Vivian and Neville - I mean, Professor Longbottom - reminded me that you have other associations with it. I decided that how you relate to this house ought to be your business, not mine." He unlatched the trapdoor. "And by the way, I bought it with gold from the Black vault, which I plan to give to you when you come of age - your granny wouldn't take the key, but I promised it to you when you were a baby, and mean to follow through, so don't argue - so as far as I'm concerned, you may consider it yours." He opened the door and pulled himself up, and a moment later, Teddy followed him inside.

He found himself in a ruined, dirty room, with scattered bits of broken furniture. He remembered - through Dad's ring - pacing through this room, waiting nervously for the sound of his friends coming up the tunnel. The light that burst through between the boards on the windows had the same peculiar quality of gold particles that it had in the memories - early evening, waiting for sunset. Teddy smiled and took a few steps in. His eyes were caught by something dark on the floor, an irregular, blackish brown shape. A long-dried bloodstain. Uncle Harry studiously avoided looking at it.

Teddy tried to figure out if it would be less disrespectful to pull the floorboards out and replace them, to cover it with a rug, or to just really work on cleaning spells. It did seem to suck everything else into itself.

But still, it was small. One way or another, it was just one small scar, no more important than Uncle Harry's now that the malevolent force behind it was gone. After all, more people had lain dead in the Great Hall - including Teddy's parents - and he ate there every day, and joked with his friends, maybe even while he was standing on the stones where they'd been.

Then again, he tried not to think about that.

He skirted the stain and moved toward the entrance hall. "May I look around a bit before we start?" he asked.

Uncle Harry nodded. "I'll wait in the kitchen."

Teddy stepped gingerly out of the ruined parlor, not looking at the blood stain again. The entrance hall was just beyond it. A broken chair was in the doorway. Stairs led up to the next floor. The wallpaper was shredded and the bars on the banister were splintered. A thick layer of dust lay over everything, though it had recently been disturbed - large paw prints looped back and forth, a pacing track, then a spot had been hollowed out under the coat pegs. He guessed that Vivian had slept there last night. It was an abandoned, hated place, but in his mind's eye, he could see it as it should have been, as it would have been if.

There would be a frayed but bright runner carpet on the floor, with scattered stains from sloshing potions and juice cups (Mum had never been good at householdy spells). The slanting wall beside the stairs, leading to the cupboard where they kept their winter cloaks, would be covered with photographs and Dad's drawings. There was Teddy, small and missing teeth, showing off his books, then he was with his brothers and sisters, all mugging for the camera at King's Cross. There was Mum, a picture from her promotion, when she first took on a student (Teddy mentally gave her Uncle Harry himself), and Dad sitting at the high table at Hogwarts, where Robards sat now, talking to Hagrid and Professor Longbottom and Vivian. There was a drawing of the Marauders, with their animal forms made from clouds above them, and another of Mum holding a baby while Teddy himself looked up with large eyes. He could see it so clearly it felt like he could touch it, and he reached out to do so.

It faded, leaving the dirty, torn wallpaper. Teddy touched the wall anyway, felt its reality. He felt someone looking, and turned to see Uncle Harry standing in the kitchen door, watching him curiously.

He went on, leaving Uncle Harry behind, moving up the stairs. At the top of the staircase was a door that led into a very small bedroom. Dad's desk - the one Mum had taken apart to make into Teddy's own crib - had once been in here. They'd have needed to get a new one. And bookshelves, lining the walls. Curtains for the window, which would look out over the back garden, where they'd planted rosebushes. Teddy was curious as to whether the one they'd actually planted was still there, but when he peeked out the window (one of the few unboarded ones), the garden was an overgrown mass of weeds, and if the rosebush was growing among them, he couldn't tell. He went on to the first of the three bedrooms that lined the upstairs corridor. Mum and Dad's had been the one in the middle. He opened the door. There was a large bed here, with dusty curtains. He looked at it and wondered if he'd started there, then wrinkled his nose and looked away, not wanting to contemplate that particular notion. An end table had been overturned in their haste to leave, and under it, he saw the corner of a book. He picked it up and brushed cobwebs from it. The cover showed a witch on board a ship, her robes pulled up to reveal a great length of her thigh, to which she had bound a hidden wand. She had a cloud of long, unruly red hair like Ruthless's, which fluttered in the sea breeze, a bit of it curling around her bosom. The title was To the End of the Earth, and under it, it said, The third part of the Trials of Tirza. The fourth part had been scheduled to come out the next year, to be written by Fifi LaFolle. It looked like the rest of the Fifi LaFolle books in Mum's collection. Teddy pocketed it.

He moved on to the room at the end of the corridor. The floorboards here were warped badly; this had been the room Mum had been working on in the memory the ring had given him last night. The room that would have been his.

He went to the window and looked between the boards. He could see Hogsmeade's high street. A musician was playing at the Three Broomsticks. The ghost of Madam Rosmerta was drifting along, looking pleased. She glanced up directly at Teddy and waved. He waved back, then looked at the room, imagining it covered with his Muggles and Minions posters. There was a wardrobe in the corner, hanging half open. He reached out to open it all the way, to think about hanging his robes in it, maybe a cheerful pile of dirty ones hidden at the bottom because someone was coming over soon and there was no time to really clean.

But as soon as it swung open, he jumped back with a scream as something inside it began to snarl.

Teddy heard the harsh thump of Uncle Harry running up the stairs, but it was too late, he could see it was too late - the huge gray werewolf was already out of the wardrobe, white foam dripping from its jaws, its eyes obscenely intelligent. It was growling. The claws at the end of its forepaws were razor sharp...

The door burst open and it looked up, then there was a great pop and the wolf disappeared, replaced by a tall, black-cloaked figure, its face hidden deep in a hood, its white, scabbed hand dangling beside its knee. The air around him rattled.

Uncle Harry cried "Riddikulus!" and the creepy, shroud-like robe suddenly turned into a bright pink hoop skirt with a thin shawl over its head. A lacy parasol appeared in one hand, and, from under the shawl, a pair of gigantic lips, painted red, made smacking noises.

Teddy laughed.

The creature blew into bits.

Uncle Harry raised an eyebrow. "Well, I wasn't actually planning to start with a boggart in the wardrobe, but I'll take it as a good sign."

Teddy shivered. "Try not to die at the end of it all, all right?"

Uncle Harry reached down to help him up, then put a hand on the back of his neck. "Come on downstairs."

"Should we have saved the boggart?" Teddy asked, following Uncle Harry down the stairs. "I saw in Dad's memories that he used a boggart for you."

"He saved a memory of my lessons for you?"

"You were mostly talking about Quidditch. He was really happy to be teaching you. He remembered reading to you." Teddy shrugged. "And you used to read to me, so it's all working so far, right?"

"Right." They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Uncle Harry led him into the kitchen, which was at the back of the house and had a door that led out to the back garden. This room hadn't been entirely destroyed - unless Voldemort had decided to do a bit of decorating while he was here - and it contained a single table and four chairs. The wallpaper was stained, but not ripped. Uncle Harry had banished the floor dust into a pile in the corner. The wooden counter was splintered and stained. A broken plate was in the sink at the base of a tent of cobwebs, and a mug full of rusty chopping knives sat on the stove. Uncle Harry looked around with vague interest, then turned back to Teddy. "A boggart wouldn't be much use in teaching you. Mine turns into a Dementor, because that's what I'm afraid of, and that happens to be something you can use a Patronus against. Your boggart is a werewolf. The Patronus doesn't have any effect on it. I'll teach you the way I taught the D.A. - but remember, it's a lot different when there's something coming after you."

Teddy bit his lip. "Why should my boggart be a werewolf? It was my mum's Patronus! And it was... well... Dad."

"If you weren't afraid of werewolves, you'd be crazy. And your dad would be the first to tell you that, so don't go there."

"But - "

"Trust me, Teddy, you would have been raised with a fear of werewolves. It would have been self-preservation." He sighed and sat down at the table. "Boggarts aren't just what they seem to be. My fear of Dementors is a fear of fear. A werewolf - aside from your obvious connections, of course - is about the dark side of things. A fear of what secrets there might be out there."

Teddy thought that might be reaching a bit. He sat down across from Uncle Harry. "So... Patronuses. How do they work?"

It didn't seem to be what Uncle Harry was expecting him to ask, but he recovered quickly. "Well, they're a projection of your good feelings, and they serve as a shield against Dementors and a few forms of Dark magic. That's the primary function. But we've discovered that they have other uses. Dumbledore discovered it, actually. The Patronus is distinct to the wizard who Conjures it because it contains a part of that person's essence. And because of that, it can serve as an emissary - er, a messenger." He winced. "This was easier when I just had a lot of people asking me what the incantation is and what they have to think about."

"Sorry." Teddy shrugged. "You're doing it just right. I think I get it. What's the incantation and what do I have to think about?"

"The incantation is Expecto Patronum. Try it." Teddy did; Uncle Harry nodded in approval. "The really important part, though, is to find a happy memory and concentrate on it. The most powerful happy memory you have."

Teddy wondered if it had to be one of his own. The happiest memory he had was one of Dad's, the one where his mother had let him fly a hawk, and the hawk had taken all of his troubles away and he felt completely free, just for a moment. Teddy was generally happy, and didn't have any particularly unhappy memories - the unhappiness in his life had happened before he had memories - but nothing really stood out the way that had stood out to Dad. He supposed he'd been quite happy the first time James had recognized him when he came over, and had tripped over his own feet while running up and burbling, "Smy-Teh!" He nodded. "All right."

"You probably won't be able to do it the first time," Uncle Harry warned. "And I sort of hope you don't. I'd love to come up here with you a few more times."

"Well, you could always teach me other things. Or you could tell me all of those things you said you'd tell me when I got older."

"You're thirteen. You're not older yet." He stood up and raised his wand. "Let's try the Patronus. Expecto Patronum." A white stag leapt out of his wand and paced the kitchen. It stopped beside Teddy and dipped its head.

"It's Prongs!"

"It is."

"Do you think mine will be Moony?"

"No idea. Given your boggart, I don't think so, but then, you never know. Only one way to find out."

Teddy lifted his wand, imagined James running down the front hall grinning madly, and said, "Expecto Patronum!"

His wand glowed a little, and a tiny silver cloud escaped it.

"You just need to concentrate," Uncle Harry said. "Try again. You're doing just fine."

They kept at the lesson for an hour, and by the end of it, Teddy could get a large silver cloud each time, but it hadn't taken any shape. He tried other memories - sitting with Granny watching a snowstorm, riding around Diagon Alley on Uncle Harry's shoulders while giant people smiled up at him, playing on the rope swing at Shell Cottage with Victoire and her sisters. Uncle Harry again assured him that he was doing very well, then led him back through the tunnel.

"I could have come back by myself," Teddy said, pulling himself up among the roots.

"Er, no. I don't want to hear the words 'by myself' from you until we catch Greyback. I've extended some protections through the tunnel, but I don't want you getting any ideas. Give me a promise that you will not abuse your house."

Teddy promised. They walked up toward the door, and while they waited for Professor Longbottom to come let them in, Teddy said, "Are you going home?"

"Yes."

"Tell James I'll write him a little story soon. I owe him one."

Uncle Harry smiled. "You were thinking of James?"

"James is cool."

"I happen to fully agree."

The door opened, and Professor Longbottom greeted them both. He sent Teddy upstairs - "You're getting close to curfew" - then the pair of them headed for his office. Teddy rather wished he could go along. Professor Longbottom's office was very comfortable and nice, and had its own weather system to take care of his plants.

But he went up to his room instead, and settled in for his homework. There wasn't much of it, and this early in the year, it wasn't very hard. When he'd finished, he started to change into his pajamas, but when he pulled his robe off, something thudded to the floor. He leaned over and found the old paperback from his parents' bedroom. The text on the faded back cover told him that it was the story of Tirza Malone, who'd started out as a detective tracking a gentlewizard jewel thief, but of course she'd ended up in love with him, but then his past had caught up with him, and they'd taken him down to prison in Australia at the end of the second book. Now she'd had to commandeer a pirate crew to get her down to help him. Teddy wondered why she didn't just Apparate a little bit at a time until she got there, but he guessed that wouldn't make much of a story. Mum had put a little bit of paper in toward the beginning. Curiously, Teddy opened to it.

relentlessly toward the Cape of Good Hope.

Tirza stood on the deck, her fiery curls tugged gently by the slipstream, caressing her scalp like Holt's gentle fingers. She imagined the ship as their marriage bed, gently creaking...

Teddy winced, but kept reading, as he noticed the word "Fire!" set off by itself on the next page. The reminiscence finally ended after nearly three-quarters of a page, but then it turned into quite a good sea battle, between Tirza and her pirates, who all worked spells by themselves, and a strange bunch of hit-wizards who multiplied their spells like an army. Tirza finally got her ship away by maneuvering it up a river on the African coast, which the hit-wizards were unable to navigate. She waited for them to leave, but just as she was about to continue her search, a young Muggle boy from a village nearby came running for help.

He read two more chapters - Checkmate curling up on his lap and trying to bat it away from him - during which Tirza started to feel unfaithful to the missing Holt, because the handsome pirate lieutenant Brock was such a great comfort to her. The author seemed to favor this over the real plot, which was about an escaped nundu that was destroying villages, and Tirza had to figure out how to kill it without attracting the attention of the local authorities... quite a trick, since that particular beast had never been caught by fewer than a hundred trained wizards, but as the cover said Tirza had other things to do in the book, Teddy guessed she would figure out a way. He hoped she wouldn't decide she was in love with it and try to tame it or some such silliness.

His eyelids were drooping by the time he finished chapter three, so he stashed it on his end table, very glad that he had no roommates to see him reading an Enchanted Encounters novel. He didn't move Mum's bookmark; he just folded over the corner of his own page. He put out his lamp and went to sleep, and wasn't surprised to find himself on Tirza's ship. Of course, instead of just reminding him vaguely of Ruthless, Tirza had become Ruthless, right down to the tawny, slightly upturned eyes. Teddy was himself, but Brock had hired him as a cabin boy, and he kept telling Ruthless that she shouldn't go off after Holt, as it was very dangerous. She waved her Beater's bat at him. "Do you think I can't rescue him? Do you think I'm some weak little girl?"

"No!" Teddy protested. "I think you're very strong."

"Then maybe you'd just rather I was rescuing you!" Then her fingers had grabbed his shirt, and she was kissing him, and it was like the wind and the sea, and everything else the book said (literally; she tasted like saltwater). He woke up before dawn, lit his lamp again, and continued to read.

Ruthless sat down across from Teddy as usual at breakfast the next morning, but he found it difficult to carry on the usual run of conversation, as he was wondering whether the bosoms she was hiding under her purposely-too-big robe were as big as the ones under Tirza's tight-fitting gown. He didn't think so - he'd sort of seen them at Trollsbane Tarn, when the t-shirt she'd been swimming in got wet and clingy - but they could have grown. There was no way to tell.

He knew she'd take her Beater's bat to him if she caught him looking at her, so he concentrated as much as he could on his porridge, stirring it into shapes that didn't entirely help the matter. He could feel his face getting hot anyway, so he started morphing, just to do it, and ended up with several first and second years asking him to morph their faces for them. He'd mostly avoided this since a Quidditch party during his first year, but was grateful for the distraction now. He looked up toward the door, where Ron Weasley was on guard today (Uncle Harry spent Thursdays and Fridays in the London office), watching him with some amusement. At some point, Victoire had come down to sit beside him, and she looked supremely bored, which was fair enough - she'd been watching him morph as long as she'd been alive, and it wasn't exactly a novelty. To his relief, Ruthless had gone on to her first class.

He avoided her for the rest of the day, staying away from the library and slipping in and out of meals as quickly as he could, glad she was a year ahead of him, and hoping very much that he wouldn't end up thinking of Tinny's bosoms next, or Laura Chapman's, or Jane Hunter's. That would be quite awkward in History of Magic or Herbology, though at least they weren't quite as likely to take a swing at him over it. He spent no time in the Common Room, and pretended not to hear Ruthless call over from the fireplace, where she'd landed the best spot, to see if he wanted to play cards. He did his homework quickly and went back to Tirza's world, where she and the pirates were all setting up a magical trap for the nundu, which would drive it into a deep pit. He wasn't sure what they meant to do with it once it got there. Maybe they'd send it to Azkaban, where it would certainly be securely kept. For some reason, in the midst of this, Brock the pirate was moping about, as he fancied a village witch who had never realized there were other magical people in the world, but thought he might really be in love with Tirza (he'd apparently forgotten that she was married to Holt, or maybe she hadn't told him). After five chapters, they managed to kill the nundu with poisoned meat after trapping it in a pit. Teddy thought this unfair; he liked the nundu by then, though he guessed they had to do something to stop it from destroying villages. He wondered if Hagrid would ever bring one to Care of Magical Creatures, and decided to suggest it as soon as he could. Brock decided he had to go on to help Tirza, and the witch he fancied decided to go along.

The night's dream involved Ruthless clambering around in the jungle, her dress sticking to her. Victoire was living in the village now, helping Brock's girlfriend, and looked very bored most of the time. Teddy wondered if he'd work his entire circle into the book before he was finished reading it.

He waited for breakfast until he guessed it would be crowded and ate among the crowd of first year boys, who seemed happy to have him. He finished quickly and started out of the Great Hall.

"Lupin!"

It was a boy's voice, so he turned. "Frankie."

Frankie looked at him oddly. "Is Greyback in the Hall somewhere, so you need to get away?"

"Er... no."

Frankie's mouth twisted in a little smile, and Teddy realized that he knew exactly what was going on. Looking back, he thought he might have seen Frankie ducking out of places quickly himself. Frankie laughed. "Come on," he said. "I'm headed down to Care of Magical Creatures. I'll walk you down to Herbology."

Teddy was glad of the company. They went out into the morning together.

"Are you going to come to the game tomorrow?" Frankie asked. "I've been thinking about one of the historical ones. We could do a game during the Blitz."

"Maurice will kill you - he's been storing up computer use points."

Frankie shrugged. "Oh, that's worked into the historical scenarios. Computer points in games before nineteen-eighty turn into code-breaking points. He'll be able to solve just about anything."

"Oh." Teddy walked along toward the greenhouses. "Frankie?"

"What?"

"Do you think Ruthless is... good looking?"

"Is that who you're avoiding?"

"Do you think she'd kill me?"

Frankie laughed. "Oh, yes. No question about it. You're living dangerously, mate. And here I am thinking you're just worried about mad murderous werewolves. I should've known better. So are you going to come to the game, or do you intend to keep hiding from Scrimgeour?"

"I'll be there."

"Do you want me to work out a story where Wings and Bertha are trapped in a burnt out building somewhere? You could roll to kiss her."

Brass-Knuckles Bertha was Ruthless's character, and Teddy didn't think this a particularly good idea. His horror at it must have come out in his face, as Frankie started laughing again. They reached the branch in the path that Teddy would use to get to the greenhouses, and Frankie went on ahead, reminding Teddy to present himself tomorrow morning at breakfast. Teddy agreed and went on. He was the first person to get there for class, and Professor Longbottom asked him to help set up the new pots they'd be using for the Whistling Wallflowers they were meant to work with today.

He worked with Laura Chapman and Joe Palmer, pruning and potting, competing with Tinny and Roger to see how many pots they could finish, at least until Professor Longbottom took points away from both Houses for being careless. After that, they were more careful, and Teddy's plant started whistling a cheerful, seafaring sort of song. Teddy decided this would make a good story for James, so after classes, he went back to his room and made up a plot about a bunch of walking flowers that sailed around helping fish solve their problems (the fish - as in any story directed at James - had found a treasure, and didn't know what to do with it). He drew a quick fish, which looked terrible, and a flower with roots for legs and leaves for arms, which was even worse, and Charmed them both to leap around the parchment. He'd take it up to the Owlery to send it after the game tomorrow. Once he was finished, he picked up To the End of the Earth again, and returned to the sea as they finally made it to the southern tip of Africa and made the turn toward the Indian Ocean. On the way, there were sharks, a strange sort of flying animal that Tirza didn't know, despite being an expert in Magical Creatures, and rumors of the evil hit-wizards, who did, in fact, show up just as they rounded the Cape of Good Hope. There was nowhere to go. So of course, Tirza decided to try to seduce the hit-wizard captain (though she swore she would remain faithful to Holt while she did it... though a "deep and secret part of her" wondered if it was really Brock to whom she was being faithful now, of course). Teddy decided it would be a good time to put the book away for the night.

The next morning, he stayed at breakfast, and Victoire and Ruthless crowded in on him. Victoire suggested that Ruthless could do something "cute" with her hair. Ruthless hit her with a Giggling Hex, and, giggling uncontrollably, Victoire tossed a bead full of Sunshine Solution at Ruthless, causing a burst of hot summer sun to shine on Ruthless's face. Ruthless left to get the antidote before she ended up with even more freckles, so it was just Victoire that Teddy walked down to the still life that protected Hufflepuff House. It swung open, and Frankie invited them in. He was dressed like a Muggle in the nineteen-forties.

"I reckoned I'd get some Transfiguration practice in while I was at it. Come on, everyone else is here except for Ruthless."

They went in, and the Hufflepuff players had definitely gone all out, finding things to Transfigure into Muggle gadgets from the 'forties, even putting up copies of the Daily Prophet from the library. BOMB BREACHES DIAGON ALLEY - GRINDELWALD SNITCHED TO GERMAN MUGGLES? and HALF-WIZARDING VILLAGE UNDER COVER TO PLAY HOST TO MUGGLE CHILDREN AT REQUEST OF KING!

"We'll start out during a bombing," Frankie said. "Get right into it. Donzo, you and Victoire and Maurice will be in a pub, celebrating her finishing up a new film. Teddy, you and Ruthless are in a church that gets bombed to rubble, you'll start in the cellar - "

Teddy's jaw dropped. "Frankie, I think..."

A candle on the table suddenly glowed bright blue, and Frankie said, "Aha, Ruthless is here. I charmed the floor outside to tell me." He went to the portrait hole and pushed it open. Ruthless came in, with much less sunlight, looking grave. She was holding today's copy of the Daily Prophet.

"Teddy," she said. "I think you need to see this." She looked at Victoire. "You too, most likely."

Teddy and Victoire went over to her, and Teddy took the newspaper. Unlike the archival ones on the walls, this had no air of being from a different era. This was just today's news.

WILTSHIRE WEREWOLF ATTACK - MORE THAN A BREAK-IN by Rita Skeeter

The Malfoy family may count itself lucky to be out of its Wiltshire Manor when it was attacked by werewolves Tuesday night, but their holiday was a curse for the nearby Overby family. Late Friday night, eight-year-old Neil Overby, barefoot and covered in blood, stumbled into the Leaky Cauldron in London, with a tale too horrible to contemplate. The eldest of four children born to Ellsworth and Farah Overby, he is now the sole survivor of his family.

"They were angry," Neil says. "The old man said that the Malfoys weren't around, so he'd take what they wanted some other way. Then they all turned into wolves! He bit me and dragged me away."

Neil, of course, now bears the lycanthropic curse. Neil was held by Greyback's pack, but managed to slip away when they moved toward London. "He kept trying to make me hunt and eat raw meat, and saying he was my family now," he says.

Does he have anything else to say?

Well, according to the proprietor of the Leaky Cauldron, the first words to come from the child's swollen and bloody lips were, "Where is Harry Potter?"

Where, indeed?

Teddy put the paper down and looked at Victoire, who was reading it silently, her face white as a cloud.