Chapter 15:

Dark Holiday

Teddy dreamed again of being a cabin boy on Tirza's ship. He was curled up in his cabin, a scratchy blanket wrapped tightly around him. Through a porthole, he could see the island, where the Malacquis troops were laying siege. Outside, Tirza was pounding on the door, telling him to let her in, but he didn't move. At the bottom of the door, he could see her feet. She was wearing green and purple toe socks. He turned his back and stared out the porthole while she yelled. At some point later, a pair of pirates came in and threw him into a boat (it wasn't clear why they could get in when Tirza couldn't). They took him to the island, where Holt tried to give him a recipe for the Pacifying Potion. He lay down in the sand, but the sun wasn't warm, and the garish green leaves went dull and lacy with rot. The island dissolved around him, leaving him in the cold ocean, and he fought with the waves until he woke up.

He got his breakfast at the Gryffindor table, then took it over to Hufflepuff, where he ate with Frankie and Tinny. Frankie had pictures of his brother and sister from Christmas. Mac had got a toy cauldron ("Complete with child-safe moving flames!") and seemed to be trying to brew handfuls of tinsel from the tree. Carny had been allowed to have her ears pierced, and the pictures of her were all showing off about a million different pairs of earrings. Frankie showed Teddy the ones he'd bought for her, which were tiny dogs that actually yipped when pinched. "She says they're her favorite," he announced proudly.

Teddy suggested that they spend the morning having a jaunt in the Forbidden Forest, as had been a habit for his first two years at Hogwarts, but Frankie looked terrified at the thought of losing that many studying hours, so it didn't happen. Tinny rolled her eyes behind his back. Teddy went to the library with them and practiced Charms from a book called The Outrageous Incantation Guide for Wizards, cheering himself up by managing to get a pair of quills to turn into small swords which dueled one another for everyone's entertainment, at least until Madam Pince came over and raved about them being dangerous, just because Tinny had a little cut on her hand from trying to direct them, and had bled on one of the books.

After lunch, he went back to Gryffindor Tower. Checkmate was frantic, and he saw her paw jutting out from under the door even before he opened it. She clawed at his jeans until he picked her up, then purred directly into his ear.

"Oh, come on, Checks," he said. "I'm sorry. Really. I didn't mean to - "

But he had to close his mouth on the apology, as she had decided that his face needed grooming, and he preferred to not have her decide to brush his teeth for him. It didn't seem very nice to make her stop after ignoring her for days, so he let her keep going, even though her coarse tongue felt like it was scraping off his skin, until she tired of it on her own. She dug her claws into the shoulder of his robes, and wouldn't let him put her down. He read ahead in his Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook for an hour or so, scratching her between her shoulder blades while she purred. At three, he decided he'd do well to wear a clean uniform to tea with Professors Longbottom and McGonagall, but Checkmate had to be pried away, and still cried pitifully while he changed. He felt quite guilty about leaving her alone again. On a whim, he promised her that he'd be right back, and went down to the Common Room and waited at the bottom of the girls' stairs. Mina Moran came down a minute later, and he asked if she could send Victoire.

Victoire appeared, looking confused. "What is it?"

"This is going to sound very stupid," Teddy warned her.

"What?"

"Can I borrow your cat? Just to leave in my room with Checks until I get back. She's been bored."

"Can I go up with him?"

"I won't be there."

"Yes, but you have the Palace of Peaceful Solitude up there, and I didn't finish my essay for Herbology. Couldn't I just use your desk while you're gone? The others are making a great racket up there, and the Common Room is a lost cause."

"What about the library?"

"I'm banned for a week. Madam Pince got caught in a hex I meant to send at Gavin Keane. It would just be while you were gone. Please?"

Teddy agreed to this, on the condition that she not invite anyone else in, and not rearrange any of his things or try to organize his homework. Or leave any pranks around. She thought these reasonable terms, though when she got there a few minutes later, her homework tucked between Bushy and her chest, she couldn't resist suggesting that his homework would go more smoothly if he changed the way he had his book shelf set up. He narrowed his eyes at her until she held her hands up in surrender.

Checkmate and Bushy were happily grooming one another and Victoire had settled in at his desk when he left for tea ten minutes later. He saw her absently sorting the spare quills he had in a mug, but decided not to do anything about it.

He paused at the door of greenhouse three and straightened his robes. He hadn't paused at the thought of inviting an adult to talk to him, but now that it was upon him, he wasn't entirely sure of the protocol. At the back of the greenhouse, he saw Professor Longbottom stand up and wave to him. He took a deep breath, opened the door, and went in.

It was very warm inside, and the air was rich with the scent of soil and green things. Professor Longbottom was lounging comfortably on a chaise he'd Conjured, while Professor McGonagall sat stiffly on a wooden chair. Between them, there was a glass table of the sort one might put in a garden. There was a tea set and plate of sandwiches, and others with sweets and pastries. These were set beside a shallow stone basin with runic symbols on it. Silvery thought-clouds swirled around inside of it.

"I know you and Professor McGonagall have things to talk about," Professor Longbottom said, "but please have tea first. How do you take it?"

"Two lumps, and milk, if it's no trouble," Teddy said. The tea set went about getting a cup together as he sat down on a fringed ottoman. He looked at Professor McGonagall. "I hope I'm not bothering you."

"I'm retired, Mr. Lupin," she said. "That means that I find myself with a great deal of time on my hands, and I assure you, very few requests strike me as bothersome. Yours I find rather interesting. I wasn't sure whether you cared to share it with Professor Longbottom or not."

"I admit that I'm curious," Professor Longbottom said.

Teddy shrugged. "It's probably just a stupid idea. But I thought... well, I thought Greyback might be hiding somewhere he would have heard about from his mother, and I don't know anyone else who knew her."

"That makes sense to me." Professor Longbottom offered him a plate of pastries. "Did you tell Harry?"

"Not yet." Teddy selected a promising-looking custard cream, and plucked his tea from the air. "It might not even be anything."

"Well, we'll see, won't we?" McGonagall said, smiling thinly. "I admit, I do enjoy a chance to be here."

"Miss it, do you?" Professor Longbottom asked.

"After more than forty years of my life? Of course I do."

Teddy let their conversation go on around him, answering questions when they were asked, sometimes filling Professor McGonagall in on life in Gryffindor (Professor Longbottom pretended not to hear some of this). When the sandwiches and pastries were gone, they were all quite comfortable, and Teddy felt part of it. Professor Longbottom got to his feet and said, "Well, it's been quite nice - we really must do this again, Professor McGonagall - but I have essays to mark in my office, and I believe you and Teddy have work to do. Feel free to stay as long as you need to. Unless it's past curfew, of course." He nodded and left.

Professor McGonagall waited for him to close the door, then asked, "Have you ever used a Pensieve? I seem to recall that your grandfather owned one..."

Teddy shook his head. "They smashed it when they destroyed his office at St. Mungo's. The Death Eaters, I mean, when they accused him of stealing magic. Granny put it back together after the war, but the spell was broken."

She wrinkled her nose. "How petty. I'm sorry about that. I assume you're aware of how the Pensieve works?"

"Yes."

"Well, I've taken my memories already. We'll just enter them. We'll begin the day I first met Astrid, though there are a few other memories there. And Mr. Lupin, I must warn you that I softened the story somewhat in my telling. Nothing involving Fenrir Greyback is a gentle tale."

"I understand."

She nodded, and pulled the Pensieve to them. Together, they leaned over it, and tumbled through the surface, into a dim stone corridor that Teddy knew ran from the library to the Transfiguration classroom.

"I thought I'd start a few minutes early," she said. "Only a few, but I thought there was someone you might like to meet, though she doesn't play a role in the story."

Teddy looked at her; she was smiling oddly.

A door opened, and a young Minerva McGonagall came out of it. To Teddy's surprise, she was rather lovely, in a very strict way, although she did her best to hide it with a severe hairstyle and fussy robes that made her look older than she was. She looked down the corridor. A girl was coming toward her. The girl had a Head Girl's badge on her robe, and had tied off her light brown ponytail with two ribbons, one blue and one bronze-colored. She was very thin, and had light-colored eyes.

"Professor McGonagall," she said, "Professor Dumbledore told me to have you come to his office. A parent is here."

"Thank you, Julia," the younger McGonagall said.

The older one leaned over as Julia went away, ribbons bobbing cheerfully. "That's Julia McManus," she said. "She's in her seventh year here. Two years from now, she'll marry her mentor in the archives - a nice older man named John Lupin."

Teddy smiled. "I think I recognized her. She looks like Dad with a ponytail. Thank you."

Professor McGonagall nodded, and they followed her younger self down the corridor, to the rotating staircase that led to the headmaster's office. Teddy had never had occasion to visit Headmistress Sprout there, but he had been there once before he started school, when Aunt Ginny had showed it to him. They reached the top. The door was open.

A man with flowing auburn hair and sharp blue eyes stood up behind the desk. Teddy had seen pictures of Dumbledore, of course - who hadn't? - but seeing him face to face was a different experience. He nearly crackled with energy. "Come in, Professor McGonagall," he said. "Madam Greyback, this is Minerva McGonagall, your son's Head of House."

He moved aside, and a woman rose from a chair beside the desk. She was tall and had curly blond hair that was pulled back with a decorative clip. She was wearing a Muggle style dress, and nervously chewing gum. "Has Fenny been naughty?" she asked. "I really do try with him, but he's so wild sometimes. And of course, I can't do magic. It's hard to control him when I don't have the same powers he does."

Dumbledore sat down again. "Please take a seat, Madam Greyback. We need to discuss Fenrir, who has gone quite a bit beyond naughty lately."

While the younger version of Professor McGonagall told the story of the girl Greyback had attacked in the Common Room, Teddy came around Dumbledore's desk to get a better look at Astrid Greyback. His glance happened down onto the desk, where there seemed to be a letter of resignation from a teacher, and a letter open, of which he could only read, "...what we discussed on my previous visit..." It didn't seem related to Greyback, so he looked back at Astrid, who was twisting a handkerchief in her hands as she listened to what her son had done. Teddy noticed that she seemed upset, but didn't seem surprised.

"Oh, dear," she said when Professor McGonagall stopped talking. "Is the little girl all right? I'm afraid Fenny has always played a bit roughly. A boy needs a father to learn these things, and I'm all by myself."

The older and younger versions of McGonagall both ground their teeth. "Madam Greyback, this is a serious problem. It's an expulsion offense."

For the first time, Astrid Greyback seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. Her eyes went wide and she sat back in the chair, looking very small and frail. "Oh, no," she said. "Please don't send him home!"

Dumbledore looked at her shrewdly. "I will assume that you are concerned with your son's future."

"Well," Astrid said, "I... of course! He's my boy. My only child."

The younger Professor McGonagall leaned forward, frowning, and the older one leaned over to Teddy and said, "Please remember that I was quite young at this point."

Teddy nodded.

The younger McGonagall said, "Is Fenrir's father able to help in any way? My own father - "

But Astrid Greyback was shaking her head rapidly. "He was taken by werewolves! Werewolves! He's not really there anymore."

"Lycanthropy doesn't alter his essential humanity," Dumbledore told her. "If you could tell us something of him, perhaps we could help you find him, should you wish his assistance." Unlike McGonagall, he didn't look hopeful. In fact, Teddy thought he looked deeply suspicious. "Where was he taken?"

Astrid looked back and forth nervously. "I... is this... Fenny doesn't know this."

"Nor will he, if it can be avoided," Dumbledore said kindly, though his eyes remained wary.

"We weren't... properly married." Astrid's mouth twitched in a nervous smile, and she swallowed hard. "I don't think you'll find him. He was on the continent. During the war?" She gave Dumbledore a significant look.

Dumbledore sighed heavily and pressed his fingers against his eyes. "He was in Gellert Grindelwald's employ."

"Yes," Astrid said. "You must remember that, at the time, we thought differently. He said that there was a place for everyone, even Squibs like me."

"I am sufficiently familiar with Gellert's philosophy," Dumbledore said.

"Right. Well, my family... they thought it sounded like he had the right idea, with Squibs learning what we were good for. They gave me a holiday in a school meant to train me for life in the new order. It was to be something like a camp. I learned to chop potion ingredients, and help wizards who needed - "

" - who needed subjects on whom to experiment," Dumbledore finished.

"Yes!" Astrid seemed pleased at not having to explain a great deal, and not at all troubled by what he'd said. "I tried a potion that was meant to temporarily transfer memories once, and another time, I was charmed to see if I could be taught to dance prettily. It was quite fun at first. But since nothing seemed to work on me, they mainly put me in the chopping room. My fingers bled. I wanted to go home. It wasn't much of a holiday."

"I can imagine," the younger McGonagall said.

"The camp leaders - they watched us to make sure we didn't wander off and get lost in the woods - used to come through. They were often... friendly to us. I didn't like most of them. They wore these horrid fur capes. They smelled bad, like they hadn't been properly treated."

"Grindelwald used werewolf guards," the older McGonagall explained to Teddy. "That was, in his philosophy, their proper function in the world."

"I'm guessing these weren't nice werewolves," Teddy said.

"To put it mildly."

"One of them paid special attention to me," Astrid said, "and one day, he offered to help me get away. He knew how unhappy I was. We ran away to the woods together, and we stayed there for days and days. But then the werewolves took him away. I was locked in the cabin where we'd stayed. He didn't come back. I got frightened and I broke out. I was lost in the woods, just like they warned us. I finally came across a little cottage, where a witch and wizard lived. The witch brought me to the Zaubererreich, and they sent me home to England. They thought I didn't stay in my place." She looked down sadly. "I knew Fenny was coming by then. I didn't have a choice. I had to go back to my father, so I told him I'd been married while I was abroad. He gave me our little house before he died, when he realized Fenny was magical, and I wasn't the last in our line."

"And this is the story you've told Fenrir?" Dumbledore asked.

"I lied and told him we'd been married. Please don't tell him we weren't! I'm sure it was only because his father was a powerful wizard and wouldn't have been allowed to marry a Squib."

"What was his father's name?" Dumbledore asked. "Now that the Zaubererreich has ended, perhaps he would care to take a hand in his son's life."

"Oh, no. No, I'm sure he wouldn't." Astrid's face was deathly pale, her eyes preternaturally large.

Dumbledore seemed to have got the answer he was looking for, though she hadn't said anything at all. "When did Fenrir begin to play roughly?"

"Oh, he always did. Isn't that just the way boys are?" Astrid gave a watery sort of smile. "Please don't send him home. I'm sure he just needs a firm hand, like yours. You destroyed Grindelwald - I'm sure you can handle one little boy."

Dumbledore looked rather ill. "I'll consider what you've said." He looked up at a portrait. "Phineas, would you be so good as to find our Head Girl to take Madam Greyback to the gate?"

An irritated sigh came from above, and Teddy smiled despite himself as he looked up to see Phineas Nigellus, the never-changing, turn and stalk out of his portrait frame as though sentenced to the gallows. After a few minutes of awkward silence, Julia McManus came back and nodded politely to the mother of the child who would ruin her own child's life, then led her away.

"You surely don't intend to allow him to stay?" the younger Professor McGonagall demanded.

"I thank you for reserving that until Astrid was well away," Dumbledore said. "And in fact, I do intend to allow him to stay, after we've had a discussion with him. If he errs again, we will have no choice - he is a danger to other students - but I don't imagine he will become less dangerous when we relinquish him to his mother, do you?"

McGonagall straightened up. "He will be less dangerous to my students."

Dumbledore smiled faintly. "I always knew you would make a fine teacher, Minerva. But Fenrir is one of your students. Perhaps between us, we can undo some of the damage he's absorbed."

"Hmmph." She sat down. "She nearly sounded like she admired the Zaubererreich, after everything that happened to her."

"Of that, I'm quite sure."

"I can't even imagine..."

"Can't you? I assure you that Gellert would have found an appropriately high place in the world for a woman of your intellect."

The scene went suddenly white, and Teddy was thrown back into the greenhouse. The older Professor McGonagall, leaning on a walking stick, looked at him warily. "Did you find what you need?"

"I don't know what I'm looking for," Teddy said. "Did you ever see their house?"

She took a deep, heavy breath. "I did."

"May I see it?"

"Teddy, I'll show it to you, but I've grave misgivings about it." She sat down on the wooden chair where she'd taken tea. "Three years after Greyback's expulsion - for the incident a month after the attack on Twyla Dorne - the Wizengamot learned that he'd taken a werewolf's bite and become lycanthropic. A neighbor witnessed his transformation, and only kept him off by strong curses. He was called before the Wizengamot for failing to register, but Astrid came in his place. I was there to testify about his behavior prior to the bite. She said he'd run off, and didn't care to place himself in the Ministry's hands, and she didn't know where he was at any rate. They demanded that he appear for that night's full moon. She said she didn't think it would be possible. And they sent her home. He was of age, after all, and she could only be expected to do so much, especially if he'd left home. Of course, he didn't show up. But I found myself unable to sleep. You see, Astrid had looked quite ill at the hearing, as if she hadn't been sleeping. Her hands were shaking. And she had a great gash across her collarbone.

"I realized that he hadn't left home at all.

"I went to the Aurors, but there had been an attack the night before that they were certain of, and they had convinced themselves that it was Greyback, and weren't interested in checking on Astrid. Your grandmother's Uncle Alphard - he was a school chum of mine - was hanging about at headquarters, courting a pretty Auror whose name I don't remember, and when he noticed that I meant to go on my own, he insisted on coming with me.

"We were too late."

Teddy nodded, understanding. "He killed her?"

"Yes. And Teddy, if he was the werewolf the Aurors were after, then he killed Astrid before he transformed. It was... a messy kill. I don't know if I should take you there."

"I won't look at her. It's the house I need to see."

She still looked troubled by the idea of taking him, but, after what seemed a long time, pulled a silvery thread of thought from her head and let it swirl down into the Pensieve. She nodded at Teddy, and they fell back into the past.

The world that rushed up around Teddy was dismal - a run-down shack in the middle of nowhere, hidden from the world. The front garden was overgrown, but now dead. Scrawny pine trees, looking like the drawings of a clumsy child, poked listlessly against a gray sky.

The younger Professor McGonagall, who had just Apparated, paused with her hands on her hips, and a second later, a pop announced the arrival of a young man with wavy brown hair like Granny's (and Teddy's own, for that matter). It had to have come down from the Crabbe side of the family, but it was the only sign. His sharp-featured face and flashing gray eyes would have given him away as one Black or another, even if Professor McGonagall hadn't already told Teddy that he was the famous Uncle Alphard, who would eventually be burned off the tree for helping the as-yet-unborn Sirius make his escape.

The older Professor McGonagall looked anxiously at Teddy. "You'll keep your word, Mr. Lupin? And not look?"

"I'll try."

She nodded grimly. "And Teddy, anything else you may see or surmise, though not nearly as serious - might I ask you to keep it to yourself?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

While they'd talked, the younger McGonagall and Alphard had rushed up to the cottage, calling for Astrid. McGonagall stopped and pounded on the door. "Madam Greyback! Madam Greyback, it's Minerva McGonagall, I mean you no harm, nor do I mean harm to Fenrir."

"You're speaking for yourself alone, there, Pallas," Alphard said. He put his hand lightly on her shoulder, and pulled her back from the door. "We're coming in," he said.

He didn't wait for any answer. He just raised his wand and blasted the door into tinder.

He froze. "Oh, God."

McGonagall closed her eyes. "We're too late."

"We should find her," Alphard whispered. "Maybe we can still save her."

He didn't sound hopeful, and when Teddy got close enough to the door, he could see why. The kitchen they were facing looked like a firework had gone off in a bucket of red paint. The cupboard doors were spattered, the table covered with a bright splash. A thick scarlet rope snaked down the front of the refrigerator. Bloody footsteps - bare feet, but larger than Astrid's - led off toward a door on one side, a door that was slightly ajar. Through it, Teddy could see a bed, and one bare leg dangling off of it.

"We'll remain out here," the older Professor McGonagall said. "Turn your back."

Teddy did as he was told. She looked pale and shaken. Behind him, he could hear Alphard and the younger McGonagall - Pallas, he supposed - going through the murder scene. Alphard said, "My God, Pallas, don't you see it's pointless? She can't be alive!"

A moment later, she burst out of the room, covered in Astrid's blood. She leaned over the sink and vomited into it. Alphard followed. He put his hands on her shoulders and she turned to him. He hugged her. "I'll send for Aurors," he said, pulling away.

Pallas shook her head. "No, I..." She gathered herself. "I'll send a message. Alastor Moody worked with us in the war, getting people out of Europe. Dumbledore discovered a quicker way to communicate." She raised her wand and Conjured a Patronus, then said, "Astrid Greyback is dead. Fenrir missing. Come immediately." The Patronus - a cat, Teddy saw, which looked like her Animagus form - jumped at her and then disappeared.

"Nice trick," Alphard said dryly. "Possibly useful enough to share with the world at large now that there's no more need for secrecy."

"Please don't," Pallas said.

Alphard shrugged.

"Is the Patronus form always the same as the Animagus form?" Teddy asked, thinking of his hawk.

"Generally," Professor McGonagall told him. "There are exceptions."

"And if a person were to become a bird - a hawk, say - he could fly?"

She smiled, but didn't answer.

Pallas and Alphard began to talk listlessly about the war with Grindelwald, and within a minute, Alastor Moody arrived. He was their age, and, though it was years before he would obtain his magical eye, Teddy could already see why they called him "Mad-Eye." He had a wild, half-crazy look about him, and Teddy felt almost as though he could see the two interlopers from the future perfectly well. Moody told Pallas and Alphard to stay out of the crime scene, and they obliged by moving into a room on the opposite side of the kitchen, a dusty, cluttered room that had to be Fenrir Greyback's bedroom. Teddy had been thinking of trying to search the bloody kitchen, but if Greyback had mementos, they would probably be there, in his private space. He and the older Professor McGonagall followed Alphard and Pallas. Pallas took a seat at a work table; Alphard paced restlessly around.

Teddy began at the bedside table, where a dusty and nearly unused candle stood. Apparently Fenrir hadn't spent a lot of time reading after dark by its flickering light.

"Is there something I can help you look for?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"I don't know," Teddy said, feeling foolish now, no longer convinced that he'd find anything. It had been a mad idea from the start. Why would he have anything? His father hadn't even known he existed, and he knew his mother. He wouldn't have the hole Teddy had, he wouldn't need to squirrel things away, and why would he want to, his father hadn't been a good man, his father had been -

He stopped.

He'd been moving aimlessly away from the bed, looking for a box of treasures or a lever that hid something. He didn't know what he'd intended to do with it, as he couldn't very well touch anything here, but he'd still been looking, ignoring Pallas and Alphard's desultory conversation about their school days and the Grindelwald war. But as he came around, he noticed that both Professor McGonagall and Pallas were looking with identical expressions of distaste at the most obvious thing in the room. Occupying nearly the same spot on Fenrir's wall that Teddy's poster of the sexy chemist occupied on his own was a poster of the ugliest building Teddy had ever seen, a black monstrosity of a tower jutting up among rugged mountains covered with scraggly trees. The photographer had taken the picture from underneath a gate over the road that led up to the building, and over the gate, he could see the words "Zum Wohl der Menschheit." Teddy spoke no German at all, but the poster had obviously been made for English speakers. He wasn't sure if it was meant to threaten or convince, but he knew the motto that had been written in now fading letters at the bottom: "FOR THE GREATER GOOD."

"Is that Nurmengard?" he whispered to Professor McGonagall.

She nodded. "When Grindelwald was coming to power, he had allies here. He wanted everyone to agree. He put out what he thought of as attractive posters. There weren't many who found that attractive, I'm glad to say." She considered it. "Though I suppose we were punished for our hubris about that a few years later by our enthusiasm for something even uglier." She turned to him. "Why?"

Teddy didn't answer, because he wasn't sure of the words for it. Greyback would have grown up hearing about Astrid's "holiday" near Nurmengard. About his father the werewolf, and the cottage in the woods. About her wandering for days before she found anyone.

"That's where they are," he said. "I mean, I think... I think it might be."

"Nurmengard is held by legitimate authorities now," Professor McGonagall said doubtfully.

"I know, but... the woods." Teddy looked at the poster again. There were miles and miles of woods around the prison. He couldn't know they were there, and even if he did, he couldn't know where they were in that tangle.

Except that he knew there was a cottage.

Days from the nearest home.

And he knew they were there.

Professor McGonagall seemed to notice that he had found something, and said, "Shall we leave here?"

"If you're ready," he said. "I don't want to rush you."

"They're my memories, Mr. Lupin; I can visit them whenever I so choose." She smiled at Pallas and Alphard. "And I choose to rather more often than I once did."

She put her hand on his shoulder, and a moment later, they were thrown out into the greenhouse. Teddy took a deep breath. "Thank you," he said. "I should talk to Uncle Harry now."

"Teddy... I'm sorry that you had to see something as horrible as what was in that house in order to find it."

"I didn't really look," Teddy said. He started to say that he was going to go to the gate to talk to whatever Auror was on security today, but then he remembered that she was his guest. It would be rude to just walk away from her. In fact, he wasn't sure how to end the tea. Had she invited him, he'd just make his proper excuses and leave, but it couldn't be polite to just tell a guest - an older guest - that it was time to go away now. He was burning to talk to Uncle Harry, but instead, he sat down and raised Professor Longbottom's teapot. "Would you care for another cup of tea?"

She laughed. "No, thank you. I believe I will visit Professor Longbottom's office to say goodbye, and then I'll return home. It's been interesting." She nodded to him and left. Teddy quickly tidied up Professor Longbottom's tea set, then started down to the gate, meaning to catch today's guard and ask for Uncle Harry, when he remembered that he had a better way.

He raised his wand. "Expecto Patronum." The hawk appeared, and he concentrated hard on Uncle Harry and said, "Declamare Patroni. I have an idea about Greyback. I'm going to the main gate." The hawk swooped down, circled at him, and disappeared.

He wanted to say it was all right not to come if he was having tea with the family, that he could send his Patronus, but he didn't think Wings could carry anything that complex. He guessed Uncle Harry would understand that, anyway. Since he hadn't said anything about being in trouble, maybe Prongs would just show up and tell him that they could speak by Floo, or at his lesson on Thursday.

But when he got to the gate, Uncle Harry was standing there with the Auror Williams, looking serious. He opened it and came in. "What's this about, Teddy?" he asked.

Teddy told him everything.