Parts (62-68)

IV

Chapter 11

Circling Dire Straits

Part 1: Getting Along

"Where are we?" Annie asked curiously as she looked around through the swirling snow.

"Away from the people trying to kill Michael," Scorpius sighed, relief at his friend's relative safety and regret at having to bring Annie to Varanian's hideout conflicting in his mind.

Instead he went to shake Michael awake, Michael cringed and came to surprisingly quickly. It was only when Scorpius moved his hand away that he realized why, his hand was now damp with sticky red blood. Scorpius felt a moment of panic as Michael sat up with a hand jolting to his injured right shoulder, Michael blinked and looked around sleepily.

"Where's Jack go?" Michael muttered tiredly, his eyelids drooping unevenly while Annie batted away his hand to inspect his wound.

"Jack was out when they attacked. Now are you hurt anywhere else?" Annie said distractedly as she pressed her hand against Michael's shoulder instead.

"I don't think so. But Jack was there, I saw him, shadows."

"He might've been hit with something to stop him thinking straight," Scorpius offered as he stood, Michael managed to throw him an attempt at a glare, "Come on, they'll be able to help Michael."

"Who are they? The air?" Annie snipped irritably, "Is there any way to take us to a hospital or somewhere where there's civilization at least, this will need stitches."

"Aaron lives just over here, you just can't see it yet. Come on."

"Of course we can't see it, we can't see anything in this snow."

"Scorpius is right," Michael confirmed and Annie sighed as she reluctantly stood up with Michael, who staggered unsteadily and needed support. Scorpius led them through the snow as fast as he could but had to stop within sight, he and Michael would be able to see it but not Annie because of the Fidelius Charm. Until he told her.

"Okay," Scorpius sighed guiltily as he looked back to Annie and Michael, Michael was dead on his feet, "Before we go there I need... I need to know that you won't tell anyone about this place or the people inside it. Their lives depend on staying hidden, you can't tell Jack or anyone that you know them or have seen them. You can't even mention this location unless it's safe to do without anyone overhearing, you can't tell anyone about this place."

"Do we really have time for this?" Annie complained but Scorpius held firm, he cared about Varanian, Roman and Wyatt's safety was important to him. Even if they may not all be completely likeable, they were innocent and as Secret-Keeper, it was his responsibility to keep it a secret. He didn't want anything to happen to them because of him, "Sure. Whatever. I promise I won't say anything, who am I going to tell anyway? It's not like I've told anyone so far about you or Aaron. But if I'm going to be in on some secret conspiracy thing then I damn well want to get some answers. Now come on, Michael's still bleeding."

"You just need to look right there in front of you, focus because there's a huge dilapidated building right there," Scorpius told her and watched her disbelief turn to surprise before they continued on towards it, he headed inside and was very pleased to see Varanian was already about. His words just blurted out, "PAW attacked and tried to kill Michael, I Portkeyed us here to safety but he's injured. And I kind of had to bring his aunt too. Can you help, please?"

"What did we just do?" Jack asked fearfully as One sat them up, a smile still playing.

"We're magical now," One told him eagerly and laughed, a cruel twisted sound that made Jack want to shiver, "Wands will now work for us, we have the power now."

"What... What did you do to them?" a voice asked shakily and they simultaneously turned to see a third PAW member with a gray aura, looking between his fallen friends and Jack/One fearfully.

"Just ripped the magic from their souls," One shrugged, "Same thing we're going to do to you."

"No!" Jack protested desperately, "I don't... I don't want to."

"You have mercy for a man who tried to murder your little boy?" One sneered darkly and stretched out their arm, there was a crack and the third man disapparated in terror before Jack could decide what to do, "Oh well, he's gone now."

"Gone? But he might tell people!"

"Well you should've thought of that before you hesitated in taking his magic. The more magic we take the better."

"Why? Isn't one enough?"

"Silly Jack," One tutted and shook their head, "Every witch or wizard is born with their magic ingrained into their soul into a body that can handle the strain of living with such power. There's still only so magic they can safely channel that even their magical bodies can cope with, Pancratius is a famous example of why it's not a good idea to do so. He drew on his entire well of magic and absolutely obliterated himself, his mind, his body, his soul, he wiped himself from existence along with a good chunk of lives and landscape around him. All to stop a foolish Dark Wizard."

"Isn't that all the more reason to not take a lot of magic?"

"I'm getting to that, you have no patience. You were born a muggle, Jack, not a wizard. The problem with making muggles magical isn't giving them the magic, it's actually pretty easy to merge it into their soul but their bodies weren't born to handle it. The strain of containing power they weren't meant to have is fatal, they can't even last an hour. That's also the problem with more magic, even those magical can only physically handle a certain amount of magic much to Sal's frequent frustration."

"Who's Sal?"

"The Shadow Master. Try to keep up," One dropped in casually much to Jack's shock, for some reason it hadn't dawned on him that One was very aware of the Shadow Master's identity, the most wanted person in the wizarding world, "Now she-"

"She? The Shadow Master is a woman?" Jack wondered in surprise and One sighed.

"Yes, I said try to keep up. Wands are used to help channel the power, a focal point but they also allow only a safe, survivable amount of magic to be used at a time. Which makes sense, heaps of power generally isn't needed and naturally wizards are designed to make it difficult to unleash too magic anyway or it would kill them, which is one of the reasons why magic is so hard without a focal point. But that can be broken, snapped seemingly as a result of immense trauma when attempting to use magic, it tears down the magical walls and they lose the natural resistance. Ariana Dumbledore, Sal and her twin all went through this."

"The Shadow Master has a twin?!"

"Do you not listen to me at all when I'm speaking to you!? I've mentioned this before!" One snapped irritably, "Do you want me to explain this or not?!"

"Fine," Jack grumbled, "Carry on."

"Without walls, it's much easy to tap into their magic and tends to happen uncontrollably when experiencing a period of strong emotion like with children but more frequent. I can't really speak for Dumbledore since the girl died young a long time ago but the twins managed to learn to control their magic, it only took years and years and they still lose it if they're too emotional. Because of their lack of walls, they tend to use much more magic than wizards would normally safely channel with a wand. In fact, it's hard for them to use wands because they use too much magic than it's designed to safely channel and exploded. But it means that they're both immensely powerful in comparison to normal wizards, without limits on safety they can do feats that are beyond the allowances of wands. However they are still limited, they only have so much magic just like normal wizards, they're only fragile humans still."

"I don't think fragile is the best way to describe the Shadow Master," Jack pointed out as he thought of all the fear and chaos in the wizarding world, even the muggle news was warning of a group who drew a skeletal snake symbol in the blood of their victims because they killed muggles too.

"You can have power and intelligence while still being fragile. It's hardly relevant though. My point is that you're neither a muggle nor a wizard, we're something completely different and we aren't bound by the limits of humans. Sal lets us live because she's curious, she'll want us dead eventually and we'll need power to stop her. She's extremely powerful herself and has skill and experience that we don't, she even has the advantage of being one person not two so we need more to counter her with raw power. Especially if she ever gets her hands on Herpo's Scepter."

"Why? What does it-"

"H-H-Help m-me," a voice croaked to interrupt him.

Jack turned in surprise to realize it was coming from one of their victims, he'd assumed them dead because of the disappearance of auras. Jack crawled over to him and saw that the attacker was very much alive, his chest was rising and falling gently while his eyes blinked. Jack reached out to pull off the tacky silver mask, showing a dark haired man around Jack's age, scars on his cheek to neck from werewolf claws. His eyes were gray but devoid of hope and tears were silently streaming down the sides of his face, he reached out a trembling hand to take Jack's as if it took too much effort.

"Pl-Please, h-help," the man begged weakly, he looked so... broken and Jack felt a sliver of sympathy before remembering they'd be trying to kill Michael. They deserved to suffer. To die. They did.

"I don't understand," Jack muttered to One.

"You can't see the color of their soul anymore if it had a chunk taken out of it," One explained disinterestedly, "Broken souls can't be seen so they can't be touched, it's like they're out of reach. If you tear the magic from someone's soul they don't die immediately but last up to half an hour, it sucks seeing someone suffering without being able to feed off it."

"What do we do?"

"Take their wands and take them away to dispose of their soon-to-be-bodies or we'll have some explaining to do. We couldn't help him even if we wanted to, they always die unless you put the magic back into their souls. I would get rid of the magic we took from him even if I knew how."

"I don't want to do this anymore, One," Jack admitted as he swallowed, murderers or not, he hadn't wanted to be a soul-destroying killer. He didn't like what was happening to him, "Just get out of me, find someone else. I never asked for this."

"Firstly, I don't want to do that. You agreed and I don't want to give this up," One told him darkly, "You have no idea what it's like being the shadow of another being, its fine when you're a mindless mass of darkness but I'm not that anymore. I learned to speak, I learned to think, I learned to feel and I don't want to be a parasite, I don't want to be a shadow, I don't want to be a slave to the whims of others. I want to live, I want control, I want to enact the free will I learned. You hate it when I control you against your will, that's what my meager existence is like except resisting causes pain. I'm not human but I'm still a person, I deserve to have a life too."

"You say you learned to feel, have you ever felt compassion? Have you ever felt love?"

"No."

"Then you're not a person!" Jack snapped fiercely, "You're just a monster, you can never feel those things because you feed off pain so it goes completely against that. You don't even understand them, you can't see why I won't kill my own sister because I love her. And because of that, you'll always be a monster not a person so you don't deserve a life and certainly not my life. Let me go!"

"Secondly then, how?" One asked, an irritable sneer in his voice, "How do I unmerge us? Even if I wanted to, I genuinely don't know how to. It's more like mixing too colors in painting not slapping a sticker onto something that can easily be ripped off. So tell me, Jack, how would I separate us? I have no clue. And good luck finding someone who does."

"Please," the dying man whimpered and squeezed Jack's arm with a final burst of strength before his life left him.

"You going to wait here to be arrested or for your family to return and find you like this or can we get rid of these bodies now?"

"Fine," Jack sighed hopelessly.

They took the dead attackers wands and went to transport the bodies, it was just a matter of making sure you were touching them and will them to come with you to the location. Jack wished he wasn't a murderer. They tossed them into the ocean like they were nothing but human garbage, in a way they were for trying to kill an innocent child. His innocent child, Michael was only twelve.

"Fourteen."

"Shut up, One."

Michael was taken to one of the spare rooms with Annie and Wyatt to deal with his shoulder, Varanian's hair had turned black and his expression was cloudy. He motioned for Scorpius to come with him to the basement for more detail, Varanian's hair shifted back to its usual tawny color while Scorpius recounted about Michael being attacked and not having any choice but to Portkey away. He couldn't have just left Annie there to die.

"You should have," Roman complained irritably and the both of them jumped in surprise to realize he was sitting on the stairs watching them, "What? She's not a werewolf so they probably wouldn't have killed her. We can't trust her here, now we're all going to die."

"She didn't rat us out before," Scorpius pointed out, "She's covered for me twice now and Michael trusts her. I don't think she'll say anything."

"You hope she doesn't say anything. But she will. She's a woman so she obviously will because women are evil, they just want to hurt you and torture you and force you and kill you."

"Roman!" Varanian protested and Roman gave him an indignant look.

"What?"

"Could you try be anymore sexist?! The problem isn't her gender, it's the fact we don't know her or trust her."

"Because she's a woman."

"Roman!"

"What?" Roman wondered incredulously and Varanian just rolled his eyes, "That's what women are like! Like Alzay. And the Shadow Master."

"We don't know the Shadow Master's a woman," Scorpius pointed out, "All the times I've met him, he was using a man's body."

"Calderon's a guy so she had to be him to trick you and there weren't any women around when she was possessing your grandfather, it's hardly conclusive proof. The Shadow Master's a woman, wanting to hurt people and destroy the world or take it over it is totally a woman thing."

"Roman, we get it. Alzay is bad and she clearly fucked up your views, however it doesn't mean all women are evil any more than Voldemort being evil makes all men evil," Varanian offered but Roman continued regardless.

"And I actually had an idea that can prove it!" Roman protested, "We know that Brutus, Rabastan and a third mystery person are seemingly the highest ranking after the Shadow Master. We also know from a comment you overheard that Brutus' lover is more higher ranking than him, what if that person isn't a fellow Soul Eater but the Shadow Master themselves?"

"That's the dumbest thing you've ever said, it's ridiculous. It's much more probable that the third person is a woman and is simply the highest ranking of the three lieutenants."

"Why is it ridiculous? It's just as valid as your theory."

"Why would the Shadow Master possibly be dating Brutus?" Varanian asked and counted off his reasons on his fingers, "Evil psychopaths are hardly going to give a damn about his personality, he's deformed so it's not looks, he's sort of technically dead so it's not for money and there's a large age gap. Brutus is the same age as I am, a few months older even and we know the Shadow Master is around the same age as Marius. Women aren't interested in guys ten years older than them."

"Dom married Brutus' father, Aurelius. That's much more than ten years," Scorpius pointed out.

"Whose side are you on?"

"Yours. I was just saying. I think it being the third lieutenant is more likely. The Shadow Master is probably a guy, the bad ones usually are like Voldemort and a good chunk of Death Eaters like Rodolphus Lestrange or even my grandfather, Herpo and his advisor, Grindlewald, Brutus, Rabastan, Seraph, Selwyn, Duvall, Greyback, Florian, Grant, Bob... Marvin, Linden, Joel. Sorry Roman, odds are its more likely to be a guy."

"Exactly statistically, it's more likely," Varanian agreed, "Until we find out for sure if he is he or she or they or it, I'm just going to call the Shadow Master a he. Even if it's a she then it's highly unlikely to be Brutus' girlfriend. But if it turns out you're right though, I'll buy you a drink."

"I don't drink," Roman scoffed, "I drank once when I was eighteen, it didn't go well so I didn't do it again. Alcohol is bad."

"You really shouldn't overgeneralize so much," Scorpius pointed out as he recalled Leebin talking to him about worries, "One bad thing doesn't mean everything of it is bad."

"Yes it does."

"Fine. If the Shadow Master's a woman then I'll buy you a..." Varanian started to say but trailed off and gestured vaguely as he struggled to think of something, "Water."

"Thank you, I look forward to that water," Roman commented dryly.

"I'm glad. Anyway, what we should be more concerned about is the fact you and possibly Michael used underage magic outside of Hogwarts. You didn't technically do it in front of any muggles and it was a life threatening situation anyway, you should just get a warning at most. The most worrying things is what to do about the aunt, what to do for the last few days of term for Michael's safety and explaining how you got away, you absolutely don't want to mention the ring. You should say-"

"What's up?" Annie wondered as she came in from the top of the stairs, Roman yelped in surprise and tried to stand and turn at the same time on the steps. He failed and tumbled down the last few steps, "Are you okay?"

"Fine!" Roman squeaked as he jumped up before anyone could offer to help him, "I just have to go now. And I'll be in my room with the door magically locked and sealed if anyone wants me for something that doesn't involve being tortured and murdered by another person in this building right now who aren't usually here and have never been here before. They could be of any gender."

"Um... Okay," Annie mused as Roman stalked upstairs as she came down, "What's his problem?"

"He's insane," Varanian brushed it off with a dismissive wave of his hand before his eyes narrowed suspiciously of Annie.

"How's Michael?" Scorpius asked before Varanian could say anything.

"He should be okay, Wyatt could heal the wound enough so that it didn't need stitches and I could just treat it like a regular wound. He should heal up in a few weeks without issue as long as it doesn't get infected, shouldn't be so hard with the potions you guys have," Annie told him and Scorpius nodded in relief.

"Good."

"How did you know it was deep enough to need stitches?" Varanian asked and flicked his wand at his family photos and board of information, the photos went face down and the board flipped around to hide the contents from Annie before she could get close enough.

"I'm a paramedic," Annie shrugged as wandered closer to the table with a line of around twenty wands, Varanian's scowl deepened further, "What's wrong with being a paramedic?"

"Healers are generally awful people."

"Yeah damn those bastards who want to help people," Annie nodded and spoke with words laced with sarcasm as she went to pick up one of the wands idly to toy with, Varanian crossed the distance between them in a flash and snatched it from her hand to put it back.

"Don't touch my wands," Varanian complained at her with a glare as he replaced it, "They're dangerous in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to use one."

"And perfectly safe in the hands of people trying to murder my nephew. Who were those guys?"

"PAW. It stands for 'People Against Werewolves.' They're activists who've taken to killing werewolves since the attack on Hogsmeade, even those who- I told you not to touch my wands!" Varanian snapped mid-sentence and snatched the wand from her hand again, Annie backed up and held up her arms.

"Fine, I won't touch your little wand if it'll make you feel better."

"Thank you."

"Why do you have so many wands anyway? Aren't wizards supposed to only have one?" Annie wondered curiously.

"I don't use them all, some I just... acquired from duels, some I borrowed and some I made."

"You make wands?"

"I used to," Varanian shrugged, "I've had a whole bunch of jobs, I get bored easily and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life."

"So who are you really then, Aaron?"

"None of your business," Varanian insisted stubbornly as he crossed his arms and Scorpius shot him an incredulous look but Annie spoke before he could chastise him.

"I'm getting the impression you don't like me," Annie commented as she leaned against the stair bannister and folded her arms, not intimated by the much taller stranger, "Still bothered that I figured you out on the platform?"

"No."

"So you were bothered?"

"No!" Varanian protested, "It didn't bother me. And you didn't figure me out, I was deliberately being easier to spot for Scorpius so it was supposed to be more obvious than usual."

"Really?" Annie smirked disbelieving as Varanian's voice had faltered, "That's what you're going with? I guess it's better than it part of an elaborately stupid plan that included being found out and explicitly helped. Ever going to thank me for that by the way?"

"Ever going to thank me for using my Portkey and letting you and Michael take shelter?"

"Thank you for letting me and Michael use your Portkey and take shelter here after PAW tried to murder him," Annie offered readily and Varanian seemed taken aback for a moment, whatever he had been expecting her to say 'thank you' wasn't it. Scorpius realized that it also meant Varanian had no reason to not apologize since she had, Varanian must've realized this too because he looked like he was swallowing his pride before he spoke again.

"Thank you."

"For...?"

"For..." Varanian copied and swallowed again as his scowl deepened, Annie looked amused however, "For helping me on the platform. Even though I absolutely could've got out of it by myself without your help. I would've thought of something."

"I'm sure you could, Aaron."

"I could, Kira. And next time, stay out of it."

"Did you... Did you just call me 'Kira?'" Annie wondered abruptly in surprise.

"Is that not your name?"

"No! Not even close. Annie. How can you confuse Annie with 'Kira?'"

"They're close," Varanian protested, trying to hide his embarrassment of getting her name completely wrong.

"How are they close?"

"Um... There's an 'a' in both of them."

"You should take your own advice when it comes to not saying 'um' in questions, Aaron."

"Stop calling me Aaron!"

"You thought my name was Kira!" Annie complained, "I have to call you something until you tell me who the hell you are."

"Varanian," Varanian admitted finally, "Pip Varanian."

"Pip?"

"Annie?" Varanian countered with a smirk of his own and Annie inclined her head slightly to concede the point.

"Fair enough. So is that what you really look like now?"

"No."

"What do you look like then?" Annie wondered curiously, "If we're going to trust each other here then I should know what you look like. And we're going to have to trust each other, you for me keeping your secret and me for you not being an evil shadowy person."

Varanian rolled his eyes and closed them, having to seem to focus. He remained tall and lanky but his burn scars predictably became visible, which didn't seem to faze Annie who was probably used to seeing things like that as a paramedic. The exhaustion on his face shone through even more and he maybe aged slightly but his clean-shaven features remained the same. His hair mostly remained his usually scruffy tawny color except with some strands of iron gray woven in, he opened his eyes and that was the only real surprise Scorpius had. He'd expected either the icy blue or gray since he seemed to switch between the two but he'd gotten both, the left was blue and the right was gray. Scorpius supposed Varanian must alternate between both of his natural eye colors instead of leaving one on each eye.

"Happy now?" Varanian asked of her before shifting back and Annie nodded.

"So what is your doing there with those two guys, Scorpius and Michael?" Annie questioned.

"I'm going to go to check on Michael," Scorpius decided, not needing to hear what he already knew and the two almost gestured in unison for him to go. He left them to it.

Cade did his best to pretend the whole attack thing hadn't happened but he found he couldn't help but he bothered by it and felt more wary around Alzay, he didn't want her to be upset or be hurt again himself. He suggested therapy to help her deal with the aftermath of Roman's abuse since it was bothering her that much but she naturally refused, she really wasn't particularly open to muggle things or trusting of them and there was no magical equivalent. As much as Cade was fascinated and delighted with the magical world, sometimes their backwards attitudes and things could be frustrating. He wanted Alzay to be happy and therapy might really help her heal if she gave it a chance, she didn't though as it apparently would be no use anyway since she couldn't mention magic. At least she didn't attack him again.

Life continued on otherwise normal, Alzay didn't want Orous to start any kind of preschool as she claimed he was too young to be in a school-like environment. She'd been homeschooled herself until Hogwarts - as a majority of the magical children born to magical families seemed to - and refused to consider or accept that it might be good for him. Cade thought it would be good for Orous to be around kids his own age, he worried about him being in school as an albino - Cade did catch some people staring, some even asked him what was wrong with Orous - as he recalled all too well being bullied for his Down syndrome sister. Making friends as a toddler would - hopefully - lessen the chances of that, toddlers were less judgmental and they'd be more use to his appearance anyway, plus he'd have friends to back him up. He let it go though, maybe it helped Alzay to hold on to him a little longer. Even though she still wasn't spending a lot of time with him, she just seemed to work longer and longer hours.

Cade still spent time with Orous though, he threw him a nice birthday party for his third birthday with an Oreo cake since they were Orous' absolute favorite snack. He was most pleased with the choice of cake. Alzay again didn't attend, his friends were actually starting to joke there was no Alzay as most of them hadn't seen her since their wedding. She refused to be in pictures, she refused to even meet his friends and co-workers let alone spend any time together like regular adults did with friends, she apparently had no interest in introducing him to any friends of hers either. She claimed it bothered her that she couldn't be herself around muggles or se magic so she simply refused to even meet them, sometimes he wondered why she'd married him if she had no interest in his life or friends and seemed annoyed if he asked her about her work. Cade wondered what he was doing wrong, he tried getting her surprise gifts or flowers and putting aside time for them but she still didn't seem very invested even though he tried taking her to different places to keep things interesting. No matter what he did, he just seemed to continue failing as a husband. What was he doing wrong? His co-workers suggested she was having an affair but he didn't believe that, she wouldn't do that to him. He trusted her.

He did better with being a father, Orous had no problem talking to him about whatever crossed his little mind and enjoyed attention. Cade tried to make up for the lack of preschool by trying to teach him things, Orous did successfully learn the alphabet and to count to ten just as he'd said, it was perfectly normal. He also was finally happy to introduce Orous to the wonderful world of videogames now that the three year old could start to enjoy them, Orous was also now starting to shape his interests with things and it delighted Cade as it had with his sister to be able to start to share his interests with him. Being magical himself, Orous was naturally fascinated by magical things so fantasy wasn't too far a step from that and things like Star Wars were bright enough to captivate his attention. He did do weekly family outings - unless he had the weekend shift - to take Orous places, just like his family had done with him when he was a child and they remained some of his best memories. Although Alzay refused a vacation and almost always family outings were more like father-son outings, Alzay only seemed to come when she couldn't find an excuse to get out of going with them.

"Why does Mummy not come with us?" Orous asked one of the times they were at the aquarium and Cade felt his heart twist sadly, he really didn't want Orous to feel unloved, "Does Mummy not liker us?"

"Of course Mummy likes us," Cade told him gently, "Mummy loves you very much, she is just very busy with work right now. Just like I get busy with work too, it doesn't mean that we don't love you but we just have to work. It's what grown-ups do."

"Okay, Daddy," Orous nodded, seemingly satisfied before he noticed a wallet fall out of someone's loose pocket nearby.

"Excuse me!" Cade called hastily and the man turned, Cade picked up the wallet and handed it to him, "You dropped your wallet."

"Thanks mate, don't want to be losing that," the man chuckled.

"No problem," Cade offered with a friendly smile and the man continued on.

"Daddy, why did you do that? Why did you not letter it go?" Orous wondered curiously, "It was not yours."

"It was just a nice thing to do, if it happened to me then I'd like for someone to do the same. Do you like when people are nice to you?"

"Yes."

"So you should be nice to them, treat other people the way you want to treated. If you just always try to do the right thing and be a good person then you can be proud of yourself at the end of the day," Cade told him and Orous nodded in understanding, he smiled suddenly and pointed to a sting-ray.

"Look, Daddy, it's my sting-ray but bigging!"

The year went on like that, Alzay continued to seem more distant while Orous continued to grow. He wasn't completely perfect and free from ever doing something naughty but generally, Cade was very proud of Orous. He was a gentle child, very much a daydreamer but could still be very energetic and lost in his imagination of make-believe games. Cade still wished Orous could have more than Phoenix the dog as a playmate, his friends and co-workers children tended to be slightly too old or young to properly connect as playmates and Alzay remained against preschool. Cade had started researching into a muggle school for him, Orous would have to learn things like English and math before Hogwarts anyway.

"What school are we thinking of sending him too?" Cade asked Alzay one of the days, a few months before Orous' fourth birthday, "I've been looking into-"

"NO!" Alzay barked immediately and rounded on him furiously, "Orous is not going to a muggle school! Merlin's sake, he's a wizard!"

"He needs to learn things like math and eng-"

"NOT IN A MUGGLE SCHOOL HE DOESN'T!"

"Then what do you suggest? Is there a wizard equivalent?" Cade inquired, trying to keep calm and not really understanding the leap to anger. Alzay did have a short temper sometimes.

"I'll teach him."

"He needs to socialize."

"Not with muggles! He's an albino, I've seen the way they look at him. Like he's a freak. And what if he accidentally does magic?!"

"We just make something up to expl-"

"NO! No son of mine is going to a muggle school."

"I know there are risks," Cade protested, "But I really think it's best for him to-"

"YOU'RE NOT HIS REAL FATHER!" Alzay yelled and Cade felt the knife jab into his heart again, "You can't even have children, you don't understand what real parents go through and you never will! You'll never know what's best for him but I do know! And muggle school is not best for him! It's my choice not yours!"

"That's not fair. Just because-"

"LIFE'S NOT FAIR!" Alzay interrupted angrily, "Don't you have work to get to?"

"Yeah," Cade muttered, it was earlier than he usually left but he suddenly didn't mind. He didn't think he'd have been able to sleep much that night even if he didn't have work.

"Then go get ready."

Cade sighed and went to do so, petting Phoenix gently as he passed and the dog wagged its tail in approval. He wondered how his dog keeping skills compared to being a husband and step-father, he'd lied to Orous though. Sometimes you could always try to do the right thing and be a good person but you didn't feel proud at the end of the day, you just felt like a failure because it didn't seem to matter. Was he really completely wrong in wanting Orous to be able to go to school and have friends?

"Daddy?" Orous questioned fearfully and Cade paused in surprise at being called from Orous' room as he'd already put him to bed. He flicked on the light and headed in to see the three year old cuddling his little stuffed hammerhead sting-ray toy tightly, his eyes tearing up.

"What's wrong, Oreo?" Cade asked gently as he sat down on the bed beside his step-son.

"I hearded Mummy say you is not my real Daddy. I not understand," Orous told him quietly and Cade bit his lip before letting out a sigh, trying to think of how to explain it.

"Everyone needs a Mummy and a Daddy to be born but sometimes something happens and the Mummy or Daddy has to go away so the baby only has a Mummy or Daddy. The Mummy or Daddy might get lonely so they find someone else, a new Mummy or Daddy to be there for them, take care of them, play with them, love them. It's called being a Step-Mummy or Step-Daddy," Cade tried to explained while Orous listened unblinkingly, "Your Real-Daddy had to go away so Mummy found me to be your Step-Daddy. Do you understand?"

"So my Real-Daddy went away?"

"Yes."

"And you is my Step-Daddy?"

"Yes."

"And you love me?"

"Of course, more than anything," Cade assured him, desperately not wanting Orous to feel unloved and it was true, he did love Orous like he was his own son.

"And you take care of me and play with me and cuddle me and read me bedtime stories and sit with me when I is sick since my Real-Daddy went away?"

"You know I do."

"I think it is wrong," Orous told him abruptly, "You is more my Real-Daddy than my real Real-Daddy, you is always there for me and he is not. I love you, Daddy."

On that note, Orous flung his arms tightly around him. For the second time in his short life, Orous managed to bring him to tears of joy. He smiled through his tears and held his son close, he absolutely had not thought Orous would possibly think of it like that. Maybe when he was older then he would be more interested in his biological father, for now though Cade was happy that Orous grasped the concept and accept him. He kissed the top of Cade's white-haired head gently when he had to pull away as he needed to go to work, Orous was smiling at him too.

"I have to go to work now, okay?" Cade said as he tucked Orous back in and kissed him goodnight, "See you at the sunrise."

Part 2: Learning

Scorpius headed upstairs to where Michael was, his shoulder was now bandaged but he seemed to be sleeping peacefully and was otherwise unscathed. He felt a jab of guilt that Michael had been attacked, he'd known for months about PAW but hadn't really thought about it seriously or considered Michael would be targeted. What group could possibly claim to be on the side of good for going after a teenager? Let alone a teenager who'd killed Greyback and was partially responsible for the end of the Hogsmeade attack along with another werewolf. Were people just stupid? He was distracted from his thoughts by Wyatt arriving, moving past him - Scorpius had been idly leaning against the doorframe - to place a glass of water by Michael's bedside. Wyatt was just who he wanted to talk to.

"Wyatt-"

"It's in case he's thirsty if he wakes up," Wyatt explained before Scorpius could ask his completely unrelated question.

"Good idea but not what I was going to ask," Scorpius pointed out as Wyatt exited the room with him.

"Drat, I guess those three years of Divination were a waste of time after all. Rudy was right," Wyatt joked, "What is it that you wanted to ask me then?"

"Who's Rudy?"

"My roommate. The one who was killed. By Shadows. He was... He was pretty great but he was incredibly skeptical though, most skeptic wizard I've ever met. Especially of Divination and that kooky old Trelawney, not that I want to sound like I'm speaking ill of the dead. Her lessons were fun if bizarre," Wyatt answered and paused at a door, "Odd question choice there."

"It wasn't what I meant to ask. I wanted to ask you about animagi," Scorpius told him seriously.

"Well sure, come in," Wyatt offered jovially and opened the door to his room, "Welcome to my humble abode."

It didn't have much in it - which was understandable considering he was faking his death so didn't have access to all his things and had been living there a couple of months - but it was messier than his, Varanian's or Roman's. The single bed was unkempt and littered with clothes, there was a chest of drawers that weren't all closed properly and there were things casually hanging out like a yellow sleeve or socks. There was a bag of gummy worms plopped on the bedside table along with a glass of water, there was also a divan and desk with nothing on it but a radio.

"So what do you want to know?" Wyatt asked as he scooped up the bag of gummy worms and flopped down lazily on the divan, Scorpius took the chair from the desk to sit while what shoved a handful of them into his mouth before offering the bag to Scorpius but he shook his head.

"I want to know how to become an animagus," Scorpius announced and Wyatt stopped chew momentarily to look surprised, "I know but I don't know how to become one. You clearly do so I was wondering if you could please help me with that."

"Are you sure you want to?" Wyatt wondered curiously as he hastily seemed to swallow the gummy worms, sitting up straighter, "I mean, it's not something to be undertaken lightly."

"I'm sure. If you don't want to help me then I'm still going to do it, I just thought since you are one and we're on the same side and stuff that it would be good."

"I didn't say I wouldn't help you, Scorpius, it's just something serious. It takes a lot of time and effort to learn it, we're not looking at weeks or months here but years. Most magical folk think it would be cool to be an animagi but most don't have the focus and patience to put the time in to learning it, it's not a case of flicking your wand and becoming a bat at the end of an hour's class. It's difficult for adult wizards let alone a fourteen year old, Human Transfiguration isn't even taught until NEWT level because it's incredibly difficult. Unless you're a Metamorphmagi, they make everything look easy."

"I know it's possible for teenagers to do it, I know of three who'd managed to become animagi before NEWT level."

"I didn't say impossible, I said difficult. It depends on the individual, their dedication and natural skill determine how long it will take. But it's still a time consuming process, even if you're the most dedicated and skillful there is, it will take you a long time."

"Okay," Scorpius nodded, "I get it, it will take time. I still want to do it. So what do I need to do?"

"You also realize that you can't pick your animal, right?" Wyatt pointed out, "Some people want to turn specifically into something they like but it doesn't work that way, you can only turn into one specific animal that is determined by your inner personality and traits. It's not even necessarily the same as your Patronus animal, for example my Patronus is a heron - the same as my mother's was - but I turn into an awesome winged lizard because Patronuses can be influenced by other factors aside from personality but the animagi form is based off the personality of the individual alone. Just because your Patronus is a Thestral, it doesn't mean that you'll become a Thestral. You might but it's not set in stone or guaranteed. Do you understand and accept that?"

"I'm okay with that."

"Good then. There's basically three parts to the process to learn to turn," Wyatt told him as his cheerfulness returned, "First part is preparing your body, you need to cast a spell over yourself to make your body able to change. It basically makes sure your body is physically able and keeps your mind your own not overwhelmed by animal thoughts, it's not necessary once you've learned the ability but it's crucially important during the learning process. You're not just using magic you see, you're teaching your body to become a different thing. It wears off so you'll need to get used to casting it a lot, I recommend using it every time you feel it weakening. Once it's learned how to exist as an animal with your own thoughts intact then you're good but until then, it's a serious threat because even if something horribly backfires you can try to get help from people who can fix you up. Unless of course, you're thinking like an animal who doesn't know to get help or even realize they need it. For example, there was a man trying to become an animagi and half turned himself into a fish but turned his mind into a fish too so the fish mind tried - naturally - to get back into the water and the guy drowned because the fish wasn't capable of realizing it didn't have gills. Or another time a man half turned into a lion with a lion mind, ran off to go do lion stuff still with human hind legs and was never seen again. So part one is important.

"The second part is the main and longest part, the actual turning into the animal. It requires another spell but more important than that is focus, you have to be willing your body to change into your inner animal. This is the longest and most time-consuming part, you have to sit there focusing for long stretches of time. Expect a lack of results, it's completely normal to not have any visible signs of success for the longest time, months or even years. When you do start to get results they'll be erratic and random, it'll be color changing at first like your arm might turn green for a bit or maybe you'll get scales or fur. And at this point, it has absolutely nothing to do with your natural animal. Your body's basically realized that you're serious about wanting to be an animal and it's trying to figure it out, these changes rarely last more than a few minutes at most and you may not even notice it if your clothes are covering it or if you have your eyes closed to help you concentrate. That's why some people like to do it nude to make sure they notice changes, it's not necessary though. Being comfortable is most important here, you'll concentrate best if you're comfy and focused which for me was closing my eyes and not being nude because it's cold.

"When you do start to notice those changes or maybe you won't, I had no idea I was starting to make progress until Rudy told me my eyebrow was scaly and I just hadn't noticed. You will notice when the changes get more severe which is when we get into more dangerous territory, these are things like growing a tail or having your hand turn into a hoof. These things again have nothing to do with final form but these things last longer and can be quite painful as your body structure can change temporarily, you can even get stuck like that which I'll get into that and this is also when you can get your mind transfigured to an animal too without that spell. You'll start to notice that some things are happening more often than others as your body finally starts to realize what you are, this will keep narrowing down until eventually you're only part-transforming into your inner animal. As it narrows it will also get more severe, for example say you might have grown goat horns one day and lizard frills the other but now you'll be getting lizard frills, eyes and scaly scan down your face, chest and back. Some people have it worse it than others, some people might have a long period of it narrowing down and have guessed their animal while others might not even have realized what the animal was until they full-transform for the first time.

"Now about actually changing back because you won't be able to use magic as an animal. I'll also back up a bit here, as I mentioned you can get stuck with part-animal characteristics during the learning-to-change phase. You'll need to be able to do some untransfiguring spells here to reverse it, a general reversible spell or more specific ones for what has happened can work equally well depending on which you find easier. Or else you'll have to go to get a Healer or someone to reverse it instead, you'll also definitely need to get help for example if you can't use your arms. Like if you're a snake with no arms to physically use your wand if you get stuck like that. This is also super important because the first spell used does wear off and sometimes that means it's no longer protecting your mind from becoming the animal, which is another reason why it can disastrously backfire to learn this. This doesn't tend to be a problem so much when you transform fully for the first time, it doesn't usually last long as your body springs back pretty quickly but on rare occasions you can get stuck like that which is especially bad as someone might not know you're even a person and again there's a risk of you losing your mind when the spell wears off. This is why having a mentor or teacher is useful to help you in case things go wrong, like McGonagall had Dumbledore, Rudy had our Transfiguration professor, I had Rudy. You have me when you're not in Hogwarts.

"And finally the third part, getting used to transforming. Now you've managed it once, going through the process again should turn you completely again. You need to keep doing this, if you don't then your progress will go back and you're body will forget. It'll hurt less every time until it doesn't hurt at all anymore, eventually you'll start to wonder what it even felt like to hurt. Kind of like apparating, I couldn't do it without throwing up when I was learning it but now I actually enjoy it. You'll also need to resist the urge to transform back immediately, the more you stay as your animal, the faster you'll get used it. At first just hold off the urge to turn back then just let it happen when you want to turn back, in time resisting the urge will make it go away and wanting to change back will make it reappear then you just focus and be back. You also can wane off the spells, cast the first but stop casting the second and instead just focus how you would, you should start being able to turn just on focus alone pretty easily and not need the spell anymore. Once you can do that, stop using the first spell and you'll change and keep your mind easily. This part is pretty natural and doesn't take long at all, a few weeks at most. Then you get registered because boom baby! You're an animagus now, welcome to the club."

Maurice was broken. His Daddy no longer cared and was never coming for him, there was no way out of that place or the pain. All there was being a soldier, doing his best to be a good soldier and learn as much as he could. That was all his life was. He got up when Flame got him up and worked hard on his classes, obedience and success meant no painful punishment so Maurice threw himself into it. He also learned that you were supposed to remember the information you were writing down with the pain quill, if not you had to write it down again. And again. And again. And again for however long it took for things to sink in. Maurice learned fast that remembering was important, anything to diminish the amount of pain was good. Being a good soldier meant less pain and praise, Maurice would be a good soldier. He discovered he was actually good at work, except learning to speak.

He stopped crying at night, he was too hurt for that. He was withdrawn to the point that some days he could go without signing at all, he didn't think most people could sign anyway. He passed his third birthday, not that he was even aware of what a birthday was. It came with new classes however, they now started learning to resist torture and magic training. Taker gave him a word and then Moon used the spell of pain on him to try make him say it, it was a trick though. Stay quiet and you were hurt, give the answer and you were hurt worse for betraying your fell soldiers. Magic training involved trying to use magic without a wand, that usually involved focus or pain but at least success was possible randomly and accidentally. The format of some of the classes, you were also asked questions about the stories of war and started to learn why certain things worked or failed to win. In exercise you also got to outside sometimes or did more coordinated things with those in class like marching in lines. Flame encouraged him to succeed, Flame explained how it was important for soldiers to be useful or they died. Maurice learned about death when they were gathered to watch someone who wasn't good enough, if you failed as a soldier then you didn't deserve to be alive. There was a flash of green and the sobbing teen never got up again. Flame explained death to him, Maurice didn't want to die.

Maurice's life settled into this new routine of classes, all the while Flame telling him about how important loyalty was, how important success was for their cause. War was coming and everyone who couldn't fight would die, just like that boy since he wouldn't have lasted in the war anyway. Winning the war was all that mattered or the world would just be over, they'd only win if the soldiers were good enough. Everything Maurice was going through was a good thing, to prepare him because he'd go through worse in war and if he couldn't get through this then he'd never get through the war. These people were actually the good guys, they were on the same side as only drove Maurice to want to do even better, it was his purpose in life to be a good soldier. He absorbed what he was told and started to forget about his life before coming there, they'd been fading the previous year without him realizing it but he didn't even remember his father's face by the time he turned four. 'Daddy' was too distant of a memory to recall, something to do with abandoning him, something bad.

"Okay so the incantation for the first spell is Facila," Wyatt explained as Scorpius got out his wand, "You wave it around yourself, there's a slightly spark of white at the tip if it's working and you'll feel like you're being rained or in a shower. As if there's water running over you, through you, it's a bit weird at first but not painful or uncomfortable. After a while, it will start to fade which can be minutes or hours depending on the strength of your spell and generally you can make it last longer the more you get used to using it. You'll feel it start to fade because it'll be like the water's coming down slower, that's usually a good time to call it a day or redo the spell so it goes back. You ready?"

"Yes," Scorpius nodded and waved his wand around himself as he said the incantation but nothing happened.

"Keep trying," Wyatt offered as he leaned back lazily on the divan once more, starting to eat his gummy worms again, "It could take a while."

So Scorpius tried. Again. And again. And again. It quickly proved to be one of those annoying spells that didn't come naturally to him, like the healing spell they'd done or casting a Patronus. Scorpius did hate failing, it was incredibly frustrating. He considered stopping but he'd rather know what to do so he could practice at Hogwarts, he wouldn't be able to see Wyatt or contact him for several months for any advice so he didn't exactly have time to waste. Wyatt seemed completely unfazed though, eating his gummy worms as he watched him lazily, occasionally advising about correcting his wand movement slightly. They actually breaked for lunch before he finally succeeded, he didn't see the white light but he felt like he was being rained on suddenly and rained through his skin even. It was a strange feeling to describe, it wasn't painful or particularly uncomfortable but just strange. He kept feeling surprised that he wasn't wet.

"Success," Scorpius announced proudly with a tired smile.

"Well done, it only took you several hours which is actually faster than I thought it would take you," Wyatt offered and Scorpius lost his smile.

"Why? Did you think I was weak?" Scorpius tried to ask but it came out more as a demand and why shouldn't it? Was it not bad enough his parents thought he was weak and pathetic and incapable of doing anything without Wyatt thinking the same? Did everyone just think that about him?

"No, it's just a difficult spell. Relax," Wyatt told him, looking almost slightly concerned, "So normally I would recommend stopping there for the day but since I don't know what's happening tomorrow and we only have today and tomorrow before you're back in Hogwarts, it's probably best to teach you the second spell so you can practice. Don't be disappointed if you haven't had any changes by the time Easter comes, it takes months or even years for even adult wizards. This is advanced stuff."

"Okay," Scorpius nodded although he was determined to prove Wyatt wrong and have had some success. The faster he mastered being an animagi, the sooner he could be there for Michael.

"Alright, so the incantation for this one is Fianima. But first make sure you're comfortable, if you're thinking your back hurts from that position or you need to pee or you're too cold then you're taking focus away from the spell, relax your body and mind," Wyatt explained and Scorpius shifted his position slightly to be more comfortable, he was warm enough and didn't need the bathroom. He also used Leebin's advice to clear his mind because he thought that too would be helpful, "Right so now you just aim the wand at yourself and say the incantation, you'll feel like a slight pressure where the spell hits but there's no light or anything. You may want to close your eyes if it helps you concentrate, it helped me but bugs some people so whatever you prefer. That spell lasts until you lose focus which is trickier to notice than the first, if you start thinking about dinner instead of animals then it's time to redo it. If in doubt then redo it because worrying about it knocked your focus anyway and focusing is more important than the spell itself, you just need to will your body to change. Tingly sensations are a good sign, don't be deterred by a lack of visible results but also don't assume you'll fail because I said that because believing you can succeed is important."

"Fianima."

Considering how difficult the first spell had been, Scorpius had been expecting this one to fail first try too. It didn't however, he felt the slight pressure on his chest where his wand was aimed. He closed his eyes and willed his body to change, willed it to alter to animal. For Michael. He felt a tingly sensation dancing beneath the raindrops under his skin, he smiled to himself. He could do this.

Part 3: Closure

"What are you doing?" Varanian's voice asked abruptly and Scorpius was jolted from his animagi concentration to see him standing watching him with a bemused scowl, the raining feeling was starting to weaken anyway.

"Trying to become an animagus. Did anything happen?" Scorpius answered readily and glanced back to Wyatt briefly but the animagus shook his head in reply, his mouth was too filled with gummy worms.

"What? Why are you...? What even...? Just come on," Varanian decided finally, "We'll do some real training that will be useful now and not take fifty years to master."

"Okay," Scorpius agreed hesitantly, it had been why he was there and now he knew what to do to become an animagus, he could continue practicing it at Hogwarts, "Thanks, Wyatt, I'll see you later."

"Bye," Wyatt tried to say - his mouth was still full - and waved him in farewell as Scorpius left with Varanian.

"It doesn't take fifty years to master being an animagi, all of the animagi I know did it faster than that."

"Why do you want to be an animagi anyway?" Varanian wondered incredulously as Scorpius went with him through the house.

"You don't have a problem with Wyatt being an animagus. It could be useful for you."

"Wyatt is already an animagus and it does happen to be useful. If you mean it could be useful to stopping the Shadows then you're wrong, your animagi animal could be an elephant or a slug which is pretty useless and it takes years to master even if it's less than fifty. By the time you succeed, I'll probably be dead and the Shadows will hopefully be gone. So if that's why then don't bother wasting your time on it but if you have another reason then knock yourself out. Just you know... be careful, its not something to be taken lightly. Don't go all crazy and dead on me."

"I do have another reason," Scorpius admitted but didn't particularly feel like sharing, "And I should be able to do it sooner rather than later, I'm great at Transfiguration. It's one of my favorite subjects, well second favorite I guess now because Midas is such an awful teacher."

"It was one of my favorites too, after Defense Against the Dark Arts. And Alchemy, I also loved that. It's NEWT only, I'd definitely recommend it," Varanian commented thoughtfully and Scorpius resisted the urge to point out that Defense Against the Dark Arts was also his favorite, it was somewhat ironic but he still didn't think he was anything like Varanian. Varanian though shrugged and apparently lost interest as his focus shifted, "So you said before that Dom has married Aurelius Ashain?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Because she's one of the people who send letters wanting to help, she may actually be in a position to help though," Varanian explained as they reached his basement where Scorpius noticed the pictures of Varanian's family were upright again, he frowned as he realized their love interests looked similar. Varanian's dead wife Ethel reminded him of Molly due to her curly hair and general prettiness, they'd even started dating the same way because he'd taken Varanian's advice, "We know Corvinus Ashain is a Shadow and that Soul Eaters regularly meet with him, the mansion is highly protected though and not somewhere Wyatt or I can infiltrate easily to spy on them. Dom however is already in or at least can through her husband, if she could spy on them then that would actually be useful."

"Then ask her to spy for you, I know she believes you're innocent," Scorpius offered distractedly, what if he was like Varanian? Was he going to wind up alone too? Was he going to be bitter and unhappy with no sense of humor and not considered likeable? His only focus being stopping the Shadows? Scorpius had no real life goals or aspirations apart from that, except for becoming an animagus to help Michael. It was like Roman said, Varanian had nothing substantial to hold onto. Scorpius didn't want that for himself, he didn't even want that for Varanian.

"When you get back to Hogwarts, you need to talk to Ashylos and find out the location of the final part of the Scepter. The Aurors divided what he saw last year into two parts, the first in Hogwarts and the second in a cave where Voldemort kept a Horcrux, which Roman knows the location of from growing up around Potters and Weasleys. However, Ashylos took a piece of the staff thousands of years ago for a wand and I don't know where that is or what happened to it. I'm not quite sure if the Shadows are after that too or if it's necessary but it might be, Ashylos would probably have a better idea on how relevant it is to potential usage of the Scepter and where it is if it is something necessary."

"I'll ask him," Scorpius promised, still half-lost in his thoughts as he watched the closest picture of Ethel. He wondered what she'd think if she was still- He cut himself off, that was a stupid thing to wonder as he had the means to speak to her within his pocket. Maybe Varanian could get some closure from talking to her one time and would be happier, plus Scorpius could talk to him about his sister's murder. And Varanian deserved to be happy, he was risking his life to do something good for the world even if he was flawed and who wasn't flawed? And Varanian wasn't the only one risking his life who deserved to be happy. Wyatt, Michael and even Roman all were. He wondered if Ethel would be on board, he should ask her.

"Are you even listening to me?" Varanian asked and Scorpius was pulled from his thoughts again, he looked back to the fugitive.

"Yeah, of course. Why would you think I'm not?"

"Well it's partially because you're gazing off over there when I'm over here and partly because that's the third time I've asked you that."

"Sorry," Scorpius mumbled as he blushed a bright scarlet, "What were you saying? What's the plan?"

"That woman actually thought of a good cover story," Varanian told him, Scorpius wondered if he'd forgotten Annie's name again or simply didn't like giving her credit when he didn't seem to like her, "You and Michael managed to fight off PAW, she drove you both to a muggle hotel to stay in safety off the grid and you remained there because Michael needed to rest from his injury and transformation. She rang her brother to give him the lie so he knows where his kid or at least where he's supposed to be, he can tell the Ministry to make sure you're off the hook from underage magic - and so they're aware that Michael is at risk from PAW for future reference - but her phone can conveniently run out of battery and the charger is at the apartment so they can't contact her. You show up to go to Hogwarts as planned and everything is alright."

"Brilliant plan."

"I could've thought of one too," Varanian muttered under his breath irritably before speaking up as he drew his wand, "So anyway, I wanted to take advantage of the little training time we have while we have it. Make sure that you're absorbing what you're learning, wand at the ready to stupefy these targets I'll conjure. Now!"

Roman found himself feeling very lost without Maurice, tending to the deaf child had been a crucial part of his life and now he was gone. Audrey must really have hated him to not find it difficult being without him for months on end, Roman couldn't even write to Maurice because he wasn't yet old enough to read. He found himself very lonely, it was just him and Smokey. Without Maurice, he was oddly motivated to improve his sign language skills further so he'd be able to communicate with him more fully. Maurice may be completely deaf so he couldn't learn a spoken vocabulary but he could still have a better signing vocabulary, even if it still felt silly to Roman. It helped ease the loneliness in the annoyingly long months before Christmas and made him feel like he was doing something good in preparing for his boy. He also kept up with the letters to Alzay to plead to be in Orous' life, every week without fail.

It was the first Christmas in a while that Roman was looking forward to, only to see Maurice because he still wouldn't celebrate the day. Alzay's birthday was on Christmas Eve and it destroyed the whole to associate it with her, he refused to celebrate her birth. Assuming she really had been born and not simply spawned from Dementors, Roman still had nightmares about the things she'd done to him. However, he received a reply saying they didn't send the children back for Christmas. Roman wrote back to protest this and they wrote back that it was more beneficial to Maurice's learning to wait until Easter, he reluctantly decided to agree since the new year had begun by the time their final reply came. It was only a few more months and it was for the best, Maurice was probably fun with those childish play activities anyway. He sent them a stuffed toy to give to his son though, not a Christmas present but just something so Maurice would have something of home to know that he was still loved and thought about. They promised to pass it along.

He was all eager for Easter to come, he bought Maurice a load of chocolate eggs along with some new toys and set them on his bed so Maurice could see them when he got back. It was bad for his teeth but one sitting couldn't hurt, Roman just wanted him to be happy and make up for not getting to see him in so long. Easter came and no Maurice. Roman wrote to ask where the hell his son was and they replied saying there had been an error, they'd meant to put the summer not Easter although how they could confuse an event and a season was beyond him. He told them he wanted his son back now but they said it had to be summer, he'd sent the stuffed toy and they claimed to have passed it along as well as reiterating that his father did miss him and love him. It was even less months away than Easter had been by the time the replies came, Roman really didn't like it but he decided he'd live with it until summer. He was pretty sure he wasn't sending Maurice back there though, he hated the lack of communication and a year without seeing Maurice was too long. Far, far too long. Although he did have much more time for his work, his boss was very impressed.

His boss was so impressed in fact that Roman was offered to travel abroad on several occasions to help with identifying and studying some artifacts, usually rich people who wanted cool things but where completely ignorant to what the things could actually do. He deplored the communication aspect but studying little pieces of history fascinated him to no end, he had Smokey and Calming Draught to cope with his anxiety as for the most part he was left alone with the artifacts. In the summer, he was offered to help and to be on sight for the excavation of a purely magical city from Ancient Egypt after impressing a rather rich, powerful and influential Egyptian wizard named Malik Akram by stopping him for inadvertently activated ancient magical curses. Roman wasn't a Curse Breaker but he could identify and avoid them until someone with the right skills could break them. It was an incredible opportunity, the catch was that he would be away for months. But how often was Roman going to be on sight for something so rare and momentous? The Egyptian Ministry of Magic wasn't even letting a lot of foreign wizards have access, Malik had had to pull some strings to get him recommended at his age. He couldn't say no, the school could take care of Maurice for just a little more. He'd make it up to him later.

He was really looking forward to it but there turned out to be a big reason why he didn't, that reason's name was Leila Akram, Malik's daughter who was looking into a career with ancient artifacts so naturally was put with him. Roman hated her. Alzay had made him extremely wary of women, he didn't want to be tortured again and Leila terrified him. He was afraid she'd turn on him any second and lash out at him, he needed Calming Draught to be around her and he was around her a lot since he was supposed to be teaching her. It was also tedious teaching her, teaching her was annoying and meant he couldn't just work in silence except when he spoke to himself as usual and explaining things was frustrating anyway. But the thing he utterly despised about her more than anything else was how beautiful she was, she was stunningly gorgeous with wavy blond hair that reminded him of Luna. She wasn't like Luna though, she had inherited her father's deep brown eyes and his sharp wit. Roman hated her for being attractive, he hated himself for being attracted to her and he hated the whole damn concept of dating. And the evil bitch had the nerve to be nice to him! Nice! She pretended to be kind, she pretended to be interested in the things he said, she actually did extensive research so she could pretend to have a similar fascination with history that he did. She was good at pretending to be nice, she would be likable if she wasn't an evil pretender. And she was pretending. She had to be. Just like Alzay.

After a vigorous training session where Scorpius did actually manage to still do things he'd been learning before the wedding took him away, he was finally allowed dinner and to go to bed. Not that he had any intention of going to bed immediately, he went to check on Michael to make sure he was alright before returning to his room to try to summon Ethel. He took out the stone like he would to summon Lyra except focused on thinking about Ethel as he turned the stone over a few times, starting to feel extremely nervous about summoning a random stranger when it might not even work.

"Hello?" a voice questioned and Scorpius jumped in surprise as he turned to the shade of Ethel. Unlike Lyra, she didn't seem to have aged as she would've since her death or else just looked remarkably good for her age considering she should be in her later forties but looked only in her mid-twenties. Just like the photos, she did bear quite a strong resemblance to her mother who Scorpius had met a few years ago but she had curly hair like her father and he oddly felt reminded more of him. Her brown eyes had the same twinkle of curiosity his had when they'd met and she had the exact same expression.

"Err... H-Hi, Ethel Embry is it?" Scorpius asked nervously.

"It was before I got married."

"I'm Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy. I know your husband, Varanian... Err... Pip Varanian."

"Thanks, I was afraid I was going to confuse him with my other husband named Varanian," Ethel commented sarcastically while Scorpius blushed for the second time that day, Ethel smiled apologetically, "Sorry. And I know you who you are."

"Good, I don't have to explain a lot then," Scorpius said in relief, "Do you... Do you want to speak to him? Varanian, I mean, you husband. I can totally do that."

"More than anything-"

"Great," Scorpius grinned as he hurried over to the door, opening it for them to go down. Even though he'd have to give the stone to Varanian and re-summon her. It occurred to him just how miraculous this stone was, all the people who needed closure, all the people who wanted to say one final goodbye. Maybe Roman had it wrong, it could be used. If someone else was in control of it and regulated how other people used it then they wouldn't be at risk for suicide or wasting away, Wyatt could say goodbye to his roommate Rudy and dead mother, maybe Roman would be less strange if he could say goodbye to his sister and parents, Abby could say goodbye to Nick, Albus could meet his grandparents-

"No," Ethel interrupted his thoughts suddenly and he realized she'd walked over to him while he'd been thinking, she reached out to stop him but her hands went through him, "You can't let Pip speak to me."

"What? Why?" Scorpius wondered in confusion as he lost his good mood.

"Because I don't belong here anymore, you can come back from a lot of things but death isn't one of them. Time moves forward not back, the dead have to move on and so do the living. Neither can do so if you keep bringing them back," Ethel told him and Scorpius scowled, first Roman and then Ethel, "I died to save Pip, I willingly sacrificed myself to save his life and I don't regret it. If it comes down to you or someone you love, it's an easy choice and I'm glad I got to do something good in the end. When his time has come, we'll be there to welcome him with open arms but until then, he has a life to live. He can't live with echoes of death speaking to him, it's an illusion, just false hope. He'll never move forwards then, never have a chance to move on and be happy like I want, stop feeling guilty over what wasn't his fault. Assuming this war doesn't kill him anyway. And you can't live like this either, Scorpius, you can't keep using the stone. No one can. Life and death is not something to be messed with or used idly, let go of the stone. You have to learn to move on, learn to let go."

"I don't want to let go," Scorpius protested and completely wasn't paying attention to Roman exiting his room opposite Scorpius' and snatching the stone from his hand, banishing Ethel, "No, Ethel!"

"Did I not tell you to not use the stone?!" Roman shrieked at him irritably, "Bad Scorpius!"

"Bad Scorpius? What am I, a dog?" Scorpius snapped back, equally irritated, "Give it back, it's mine."

"Who's Ethel anyway?"

"Varanian's wife."

"Why were you even talking to Varanian's insane wife of all the people who've died?!"

"You should be glad, she was agreeing with you about the stone."

"Really?" Roman wondered and his anger turned to surprise, "Huh, I guess she wasn't so insane after all."

"Why do you think she's insane?"

"Well aside from being a woman, she thought Varanian was a good catch. I don't know if you've noticed but he has pretty awful people skills."

"Better than yours," Scorpius complained and held out his hand, "Now give me back my stone."

"I will not," Roman insisted and pulled his hand further from Scorpius, "This is for your own good. If two completely different people both agree on this, isn't it a sign that it's universally known to be a bad thing?"

"Not necessarily. Please, Roman, I need it. I haven't even seen my sister today yet."

"Do you know how this stone ended up in the forest?" Roman asked him in a more serious, quieter tone.

"No," Scorpius admitted, he kind of didn't want to know anymore. He just wanted the stone back while he still thought it was good to have it.

"Harry Potter," Roman told him and Scorpius couldn't help but be shocked, it must have registered on his face because Roman nodded solemnly.

"Why would he do that? There were so many people he loved dead, his parents and those Marauders and whoever else was lost in the war that mattered to him because I'm sure there is some."

"He did it because he knew what I'm trying to tell you. He never wanted the stone to be used or found, even by him. Maybe even especially by him because he knows how much it appeals to him."

"What's up?" Annie asked and they both jumped slightly in surprise as she came down the stairs, Roman tensing immediately as his eyes bulged with fear.

"Nothing," Scorpius started to say.

"Come here, muggle woman," Roman said instead and Annie raised an eyebrow but continued her approach.

"Sure, insane man," Annie snipped.

"Do you know any dead people that you want to speak to?"

"No. But I know dead people that I don't want to speak to if that help-"

"Here," Roman offered and shoved the stone into her hand, Scorpius gasped in surprise, "Take this. It's a stone that can bring back shades of the dead, it can't be used and should never be talked about to anyone but me and Scorpius. Keep it safe from us and never use it."

"Are you actually insane?" Scorpius demanded while Roman stepped back from Annie fearfully.

"And that's all. Bye now. Don't hurt me," Roman blurted out as he slammed his door shot, Scorpius heard locks clicking into place. As much as Scorpius didn't agree with him randomly telling Annie, maybe... maybe it was better that she held on to it for a bit. She didn't know how to use it either and he needed to think about things.

"Goodnight, Annie," Scorpius told her the probably even more confused woman as he retreated back into his own room and closed the door behind him.

Part 4: Back to Bad

Scorpius was still torn on the stone, as soon as he convinced himself that Annie holding onto it was for the best, he started convincing himself it was a bad idea and vice versa. He lay awake thinking about it and feeling guilty for not talking to Lyra, making him tired for the entire day of training with Varanian. Michael remained asleep for most of the day but he did come to a bit in the evening, stupid full moon. In lieu of the stone, he instead used the time he usually spoke to Lyra to work on becoming an animagi again. It was a habit he was hoping to get into, it couldn't be that hard. Patronuses were the hardest spell he'd attempted previously and even that had taken him around a year. He got no results that night though.

The next day was back to Hogwarts, Varanian had apparated Annie to her car the first day so she could drive it to a random muggle hotel parking lot for the sake of their cover story after he was done filling her in. Michael was up and moving but looked dead on his feet, he apparated the three of them to the car which caused Michael to vomit. Scorpius didn't think Michael had been apparated before. They bade farewell to Varanian and Annie drove them back to the apartment, Scorpius still preferred Jack's motorcycle. Annie put on some music on the radio though while Michael simply fell asleep, using magic while already weakened from the full moon clearly was something that should be avoided in future.

"Mikey! I'm so glad you're okay," Jack burst out desperately just as they were through the door and hugged his son abruptly quickly before glancing at Annie irritably, "Did you forget how to use phones in prison?"

"I warned you the battery was low," Annie protested in an extremely convincing lie while Michael pulled away.

"You could have come back when I said so not ran off and hid because Aurors take attempted murders seriously!"

"Well when you're around when people try to kill Michael, you can deal with it your way. How am I supposed to know what the protocol is for something like this?"

"You were around," Michael spoke up suddenly and everyone looked at him in surprise, "Jack, I saw you here during the attack. You were here."

"No, I wasn't," Jack scoffed.

"He was out, remember?" Annie offered.

"I didn't see him," Scorpius added but Michael only scowled.

"He was in his room," Michael protested stubbornly, "We even spoke, I said I thought you were out and you said I'd just not noticed you coming back because I'd been asleep. I said okay and you went back into your room and came back out during the attack."

"I didn't come back until after the attack," Jack insisted, "You must've been dreaming, Annie would've noticed me returning. Right, Annie?"

"Yeah, you didn't come back," Annie confirmed with a nod.

"I wasn't dreaming," Michael told them, "It was real."

"Dreams can feel real sometimes," Scorpius pointed out, "Annie's observant, she would've noticed him coming back through the door and it's not like he can apparate."

"And there was like a shadow under your skin, in your eyes like you were possessed in the light of the Patronus I conjured to try get help. Then I passed out," Michael recalled and drew his wand to aim at Jack, "Expec-"

"Michael!" Scorpius interrupted him and yanked his friend's arm down, "You shouldn't be using magic right now and besides, that's just proof he's not possessed. I've seen people being de-possessed and I'm sure you have too, there was no weird visible shadow ever, let alone in Patronus light. And black eyes are when they're being controlled only, not just because of the Patronus light."

"But I-"

"We're part of the Shadow War, it's natural to have nightmares. Warped slightly where they don't quite follow the same rules of reality, Specters don't work like that and what would they want with a muggle anyway? No offense Jack."

"Yeah. No offense, Jack," Annie agreed and Jack nodded too.

"It wasn't a nightmare, it was real," Michael told him but seemed to be losing his confidence in the wake of so much denial, "It felt real."

"I'm sure it did," Jack offered gently and put a hand on his son's shoulder, "But it wasn't real. I'm fine now that you're safe, dreams can be freaky sometimes but I'm not possessed or anything. I'm sorry I wasn't there."

"It's okay," Michael muttered quietly as he put away his wand, "Sorry."

"Do you understand?" Percy Weasley was asking of his eldest daughter during breakfast, he'd been talking to her about apparation since she would be starting to learn it when she got back to Hogwarts. Molly nodded through her mouth of bacon, naturally Lucy had no say in the conversation. How could she when she was a squib?

The four of them were in the kitchen eating breakfast, the family and then her. Penelope Clearwater. Lucy despised the upstart bimbo. The woman was clearly taking advantage of her poor lonely father, cashing in on the Weasley fame to further her Ministry career. Penelope wasn't even eating, pouring over work she needed to do instead. She didn't really eat in general, she just nibbled loudly and annoyingly on her food. Her father must really be desperate and Molly was just a traitor for trying to be nice to her, Penelope was trying to replace their mother and Lucy seemed to be the only one to be bothered by that. Molly was such a back-stabbing bitch, her father was just so alone that he was blind to how awful Penelope was. And today, Lucy would be stuck with her.

Lucy had contracted Dragon Pox from having shared a room with the infected Rose for most of the holiday, she was on the mend and shouldn't be contagious but still green. Dragon Pox was a magical illness that muggles didn't know about, they were rarely infected and even if they were, it was usually those already aware of the magical world as they contracted it from an infected witch or wizard, any other outbreaks were dealt with by obliviators to keep it secret. And going back to her muggle school as a greenish pockmarked lump would disrupt that, meaning that unlike Rose she got to stay off school until she was completely recovered. She wouldn't actually mind this if she got to stay with her grandparents but they were babysitting Vale, those youngest and oldest were more at risk so to be on the safe side, she couldn't be around Vale. Penelope was watching her since she could work from home whereas her father had stuff he needed to physically be in the Ministry for, he and Aunt Hermione were busy dealing with the fallout from the useless Minister. Penelope did... nothing useful.

She didn't even get her father's attention at breakfast, he was far too focused on his favorite daughter since Molly was going back to Hogwarts and he was dropping her off for once. He talked about Molly all the time when she was gone and talked to her all the time when she was there, bragging about her OWL results or how she'd made prefect or how she became a Quidditch Captain at just fourteen. Her father had no understanding of the muggle grading system, despite Lucy trying to explain it several times. She could shove a page of absolute failure results at him and he'd still smile, tell her she'd done brilliantly. Molly was the perfect daughter though, the one who was magical, the one who got to be a witch and go to Hogwarts. She bet Molly never got picked on for being weird, all Lucy had known of the muggle world was really things her grandfather had said and that wasn't always completely accurate. It wasn't so bad now, she knew things and had friends. She was also rather good at taking care of herself, martial arts were a nifty little extra-curricular activity and she'd practice on anyone who got on her nerves. But she still didn't like school any better, she'd rather be in Hogwarts. She couldn't even be honest with her friends about herself because they couldn't know about magic.

It was torturous to be a squib, born into the wonder of the wizarding world but unable to take part in it. She was trapped between two worlds, the world she knew and loved but didn't belong in and the world she did belong in but didn't know or like. Lucy would begrudgingly admit there were aspects of the muggle world she liked but it still paled compared to the wizarding world, it was like an amputee liking the perfectly good prosthetic but the real leg was still infinitely better. She thought it was very much like that, magic should've been a part of her but she'd simply been born without. Lucy thought that everyone should be born with magic, muggles and squibs were simply suffering a common birth defect of having nothing. Science was her favorite subject, she very much wanted to get to the route of magic and find out how to heal this birth defect instead of simply adapting to it.

In the meantime though, she still very much deplored her life and the fact Molly liked to rub it in at any occasion like talking to their father about apparation or obsessing over Quidditch or showing off her super cute boy toy- err... boyfriend. Lucy had to correct herself, Scorpius was two years younger than Molly after all. Molly had everything and she had nothing, it wasn't fair. Life was easy when you were a bitch- err... witch. Lucy had to correct herself again, although Molly was both really. Although at least Lucy didn't have a gross scarred foot like Molly did now, clearly little miss perfect had missed the mark when it came to fighting off werewolves. She'd point it out more but it seemed foolish when she was all green. She took her time eating her breakfast, she didn't have to rush like Molly and their dad did. Lucy thought they wouldn't have had to rush if their dad hadn't had to lecture Molly for several hours on apparation and the importance of success with that and exams to make Head Girl for next year. Lucy was dreading next year, Molly would be of age so she could use magic at home. Lucy alone would be unable to.

"We're leaving now," Molly announced and Lucy was drawn back to her sister, why couldn't Molly have been the squib? Why did Molly have to have magic when she didn't? Why did Molly get to have everything and Lucy had nothing? It wasn't fair and Lucy hated her sister for it, someone had to take the blame.

"Bye," Lucy told her dismissively, she'd wanted Molly gone. She liked it better when Molly wasn't around to remind her of what she didn't get to have but Molly did.

"Have a good term at your school, I hope you feel better soon," Molly offered, trying to smile kindly but Lucy just gave her a murderous look. It was like she was just trying to rub it all in, emphasizing they went to different schools, emphasizing that Molly hadn't gotten sick because the perfect girl got her own damn room.

"I said bye," Lucy reiterated more forcefully, Molly almost looked hurt at the cold tone as she left.

"Maybe you should try being nicer to your sister, eh?" Penelope told her, the nerve of her to eavesdrop on the conversation.

"Maybe you should try keeping your fat nose out of other people's conversations."

"That's not nice," Penelope scolded.

"I'm not fucking five," Lucy spat out at the condescending tone as she shoved aside her plate, "I wasn't trying to be nice but if you need me, Madam Slutwater, then I'll be in my room."

"Lucy!" Penelope gasped in outrage but Lucy simply smirked to herself as she stalked off to her room while Penelope called her back to be told off. Like she was going to listen to a money-grubbing bitch who was manipulating her father.

Lucy retreated to her room and pulled on her headphones to blast some music, they didn't have electricity but batteries worked fine in her portable CD player. It was outdated by muggle standards but CDs were easier to buy than the internet stuff, she could only ever use physical muggle money after all. She actually had a pretty good collection, they were pretty cheap and her friends constantly gave her old unwanted ones since they used the internet stuff. Lucy closed her eyes as she listened, it was relaxing and she was soon mouthing along to her favorite songs. Until she felt the headphones abruptly pulled off her head.

"Hey!" Lucy protested as her snapped open to look at Penelope murderously, "Give that back, it's mine!"

"No," Penelope told her strictly, "You're not allowed to swear or speak to people the way you did, or to walk off and ignore me calling you."

"Because they play music so I couldn't hear you, duh."

"Well I'm taking it off you as punishment, you can earn it back with good behavior and completing your chores. Your father told you to fold put away your laundry yesterday and you still haven't done it."

"I'm sick!"

"You're perfectly capable of carrying out one simple task and keeping a civil tongue," Penelope informed her as she wrapped the wires around the CD player and pocketed it, "Do that and be nice and you may get it back by this evening."

"This is bullshit! You can't punish me!" Lucy yelled as Penelope started to leave, continuing out even as Lucy was speaking. Lucy furiously scrambled out of the room after her, "Hey! Don't walk away when I'm talking to you!"

"That's not talking, that's shouting and see how it feels," Penelope stated calmly.

"Give it back! You have no right to take my stuff!"

"I have every right. Your father told me so," Penelope added as if that made it any better, she was probably lying anyway.

"Liar! Wait till I tell my father, he's going to be so mad at you!" Lucy screamed but Penelope continued to be unfazed, "You're not my mom! You're nothing to us or to Dad! You have no right to punish me, you stupid bitch!"

"Actually," Penelope insisted and came to an abrupt halt at the top of the stairs, spinning to face her as she shoved an engagement ring in her face, "Percy proposed to me and I said yes. I love him and I'm going to be his wife whether you like it or not, I'm going to be your stepmother whether we like it or not. I don't care if you like me but I care that you be civil to me, if not for my sanity then for Percy's sake because he wants his family to get along."

"No!"

Lucy was horrified at the thought of her father marrying that bitch and angry at the bitch's victory in worming her way into the family funds. She lashed out and hit Penelope with an expertly placed punch, Penelope was caught completely by surprise and fell back. They were still at the top of the stairs and Penelope screamed as she tumbled down the old oak wood, there was a deafening crack as Penelope reached the bottom. Penelope went still and silent.

Lucy stood there uncertainly, torn between storming off into her room and leaving the bitch to deal with being injured or checking on her. She'd just decided on the former when she noticed the puddle of red forming by Penelope's head, the woman still hadn't moved or gotten up. Maybe she was knocked unconscious? Lucy was obligated to help her now, bitch or not. She stormed down the stairs in frustration but had an increasingly cold feeling in the pit of her gut, it engulfed her body entirely when she reached the bottom. Penelope's eyes were staring open lifelessly. Penelope was dead.

They quickly packed up their things and headed to the platform, Jack coming with them and complained Annie drove too fast while she insisted that if he drove then they'd never make it in time. Michael seemed to be fighting sleep, Scorpius didn't speak to him in the hopes his friend could rest like he needed. They made good time considering their unconventional morning, Scorpius' mind saw fit to remind him he was running out of chances to ask Annie for the stone back.

"Scorpius! Michael!" a familiar voice called and he turned in time to recognize Albus before he was pulled into a hug before Albus moved onto Michael, "You'll never believe what happened to Ro- Gee, Michael, you really look like crap."

"Thanks," Michael muttered sarcastically, "Full moon does that to you."

"Oh yeah. Sorry."

"So what were you saying?" Scorpius asked.

"Rose. Rose got Dragon Pox, she's not contagious anymore but still frightful to look at," Albus told them excitedly, "Its karma, right? Because she's always going on at people for their looks like Latimer."

"Your stuff is on board," Annie announced as she and Jack returned from apparently getting their luggage on board. Albus went beetroot red as he saw her, his mouth opened and closed several times before simply walking off with his head hung, "Bye random child."

"Scorpius!" another voice called and Scorpius couldn't help but smile as he saw his parents, his father was holding baby Sol.

He went over to them, passing Byron Knight begging to not go back to Hogwarts. They fussed over him because they naturally thought he was still a weak child but at least he got see Sol, the little guy was gazing around in amazement. Scorpius was even allowed to hold him while standing up, his initial terror at dropping his brother relaxed to happiness as he enjoyed feeling closer to his brother. He wondered how much Sol would've grown by the time he saw him again at Easter. His fear of dropping Sol returned when he had to hand his brother back over, Sol managed to be heavier and lighter than he'd thought. He kissed his brother and mother goodbye before hurrying on to the train, he was one of the last on board. Abby had been waiting for him though to take him to the compartment with them, or at least with the friends in his year as Maurice, Orous, Vern and Corin were apparently in their own compartment along with Vern's girlfriend, Olivia Nott. Molly would be in the prefect's compartment, unfortunately.

Albus had not been kidding about Rose, her skin had a greenish tinge which did little to mask the craterous pockmarks. If they weren't so fresh then he'd think they weren't as bad as Latimer's though, he didn't think they'd leave permanent scars as Latimer had mentioned having a worse strain and plenty of people survived it. Rose was clearly deeply unhappy about it though, her eyes looked puffy from crying and her hair was a mess as if she simply didn't care right now. Scorpius supposed that made sense, perfect hair - Scorpius still thought the blond looked bizarre - wouldn't do any good if her skin looked like that.

"Is there any free- Eugh," a random student said as he opened their compartment door, wrinkling his nose in disgust as he saw Rose while his two companions had similar disgusted reactions.

"Gross," his lone female of the group commented, "So ugly, I'd rather sit on the floor than beside a blotchy green lump."

"Hey!" Roes protested and the girl looked incredulous.

"What? I wasn't talking to you."

"Yeah, no offense," the boy who'd opened the door added before closing it as they left, Rose burst into tears.

"Gr-Great! I t-told my pa-parents I d-didn't want to go back un-until I was b-better, ev-everyone th-thinks I'm ug-ugly," Rose sobbed miserably as she buried her face in her hands.

"It's not that bad, it'll get better," Abby offered gently.

"N-Now I kn-know w-what it f-feels like to be L-Latimer," Rose cried before stopping abruptly and looking up worriedly, "Is that... Is that wh-what I sound like to him? L-Like those mean k-kids."

"Well..."

"Yes," Scorpius admitted readily, hoping she might be nicer if she realized how rude she was.

"Yep," Michael agreed reluctantly.

"Absolutely," Albus nodded confidently.

"Yeah," Abby confirmed and Rose frowned.

"I must s-sound like a horrible p-person," Rose pointed out and Scorpius decided there was no point making her feel worse when she seemed to be realizing it herself, "D-Did he ever cry because of the th-things I said?"

"No idea," Scorpius shrugged truthfully, Latimer would be more used to the comments by now but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. Not that that meant Latimer would cry over it, Latimer's counsellor was the only person who he knew had made Latimer cry for certain.

"I should be nicer to him."

"You should," Albus agreed, sounding extremely certain, "He's pretty good when you get to know him."

Rose fell silent on the matter and they went back to catching up on what had happened since the wedding, it was a mixed bag. Abby described her Christmas as empty and unhappy, Albus described his as awesome - except for Rose getting sick - as his dad could spend time with him, Rose's had been awful from being sick and Scorpius' had been alright. Michael had fallen asleep as exhaustion claimed him, his head lolling to rest on Rose's shoulder. Rose seemed very happy with this.

James was frustrated his dad wasn't there again to drop him off on the platform but it wa expected, at least he'd be heading back to Hogwarts where there was a certain Slytherin punching bag with his name on it. And he'd see Carver again. And he had a Beater position to get back, Molly had promised a chance. He got a compartment with his friends and listened to them recount their summers, everyone but him and Carver seemed cheerful. His closest friend was just quiet, he said he'd had a great holiday and claimed to just be tired. James thought he'd be tired too if he'd just came back from the Bahamas. The journey was pleasant aside from the Trolley Lady's visit with snacks, where James had to refuse delicious treats. He was doing it for Carver, his friend was sticking to a sort of diet to keep his weight in check and James thought he should be encouraging not shoving his face with Licorice Wands and Cauldron Cake in front of him. Carver might feel left out being the only one to not eat too.

His sacrifice was seemingly rewarded when he got back into Hogwarts, who would he see just in front of them but the Slytherin he was after? Byron or something. James smirked, thanking fate for not having to wait as he withdrew his wand and launched a spell to trip the brat up. Byron fell face first onto the stone and he joined his friends - except Carver in laughing as the Slytherin went to stand up, James grabbed the boy's collar and hauled him through the closest door to an empty classroom. His friends followed.

"Please leave me alone," the Slytherin begged and his friends laughed again.

"Pwetty pwease! What a coward," James mocked as he closed the door behind them, the Slytherin flinched at the sound and eyed them fearfully.

"Maybe we should wait, Jay, I don't want to miss the feast," Carver hissed at him and there were murmurs of agreement, "I'm famished."

"Long as we're quick, it'll be fine. We'll just do a quick punch-bag while the other carriages are still arriving."

"Okay. Levicorpus," Carver agreed and cast the spell to haul the Slytherin into the air by his ankle, leaving him dangling and helpless before he could try to defend himself.

James called it 'punch-bag' because it quite literally was, the Slytherin was very much like a punching bag as he hung there in the air. Leebin said he needed to find healthier ways to vent his anger but this was a victimless crime, the Slytherin could hardly be called a victim considering how evil they were. Carver had to keep the boy levitated but the rest of them circled him and started punching, his friends laughing as the Slytherin swayed from their blows.

James didn't laugh, he just punched as he unleashed his wrath. His frustration with his father's lack of attention at the wedding, his frustration with his lack of time with his father in general, his frustration with Albus trying to say he wasn't good enough to be a Potter, Vern hogging all the spotlight, Dragon-breath staying with him, his family's general dysfunctionality, his still lacking attraction to girls. He pummeled out the holiday's rage against the Slytherin, was it just him or did his friends hit much less frequently and with less force than James did?

"That's enough," Carver announced, checking the time before sloppily letting the Slytherin drop.

"Goody, I'm starved!" Ryan said eagerly and they started to walk away.

"Just a minute, I'll catch up," James offered as they left, he was feeling much better.

James knelt down beside the boy, his face was all swollen from forming bruises that were probably from James since the others tended to go for the main body only while James did both. Blood was dribbling from the boy's nose and mouth, tears were oozing from his eyes. How pitifully pathetic, it was true about Slytherins being worthless cowards. He patted the boy down to find his wand, hurling it into one of the farthest corners.

"I-I'll tell on you," the Slytherin threatened, his voice coming out tiny and terrified.

"Tell on me and I'll go after your brother," James countered, his threat much more menacing as he lowered his voice. It occurred to him the Slytherin might not be capable of the love necessary to care for his brother's safety although the eyes did widen as if it did matter, it could be a lie to lull him into a false sense of security though so he elaborated, "So if you do tell then you'll just prove my point about Slytherins being evil and not caring about their family. And then I'll hurt you worse."

"You hurt me anyway," the boy whimpered.

"I'll hurt you worse. Assuming you're even believed," James scoffed to enforce his lie, he was very sure the boy would be believed with the number of Slytherin lovers on the staff, "I'm the son of Harry freaking Potter, who are you the son of? Elwood worships the ground my Father walks on because he's the greatest hero the wizarding world has ever seen to those of us who are actually people. Who do you think he'll believe? The son of his idol or a piece of worthless trash like you?"

"You," the boy admitted quietly after a minute.

"And don't you forget it."

James stood, withdrawing his own wand to magically detach the boy's prosthetic legs and toss them into the opposite corner of the room. The Slytherin could crawl across the floor for them like the disgusting insect he was, James pocketed his wand happily. He stomped his foot down on the boy's face hard enough to leave an imprint of the sole of his shoe before exiting, he closed the door behind him and went to enjoy the feast in perfect time. It was good to be back.

Scorpius finally got to be reunited with Molly when they reached Hogwarts, it was pouring rain which was creating rampant amounts of slushy snow. Not that Scorpius cared, he cupped her face in his hands and pressed his lips against hers. He didn't care about the rain soaking him or the fact her face was wet and her lips tasted like raindrops, he kissed her passionately and she mustn't have cared about the rain either because she kissed him back hard and tentatively put her hands to his hair. They may have left on a good note but he still recalled freaking out when they were trying to make out, he very much wanted to prove to her that he still liked her and was still capable of kissing her.

"Might want to get a move on before all the carriages are gone and your lips are stuck together!" Maurice snapped so irritably that they pulled apart, the younger boy was already shaking his head as he walked away to get a carriage.

"He probably has a point," Molly admitted as they went after him to get a carriage, their hands locking before he'd realized it.

"Hey Scor, Molly," Calderon greeted him in passing and Scorpius felt the knife of betrayal, anger and hurt twist into his heart. He glanced at the assistant, who getting drenched in the rain as he oversaw the students and luggage getting to Hogwarts. Calderon attempted a smile but Scorpius didn't, "Have a nice break?"

"Mind your own damn business, assistant," Scorpius snapped coldly and Calderon's expression saddened as sorrowful blue lights danced around him, reflecting the emotions Scorpius felt minus the anger. The rain actually seemed to intensify but he walked off without another word.

"Did you ever think maybe Calderon has a reasonable explanation?" Molly asked him quietly.

"Like what?" Scorpius wondered bitterly and painfully as he climbed into the carriage with Corin and Maurice, ending their conversation as neither of the boys were aware of Calderon's Specter-filled past.

Instead he chatted with the Third Years and Molly, effectively taking his mind off his cousin. He should've known better than to trust the son of Bellatrix Lestrange. Corin had enjoyed the holiday, Maurice complained Cade was insane and Molly explained about her sister also getting Dragon Pox from Rose. She also announced her father's engagement to the woman he'd been dating and was living with, Penelope. They reached the castle and Scorpius petted the Thestral before heading out of the shower with the others, rejoining everyone and Latimer for the feast.

"Y-You know, Latimer," Rose spoke up nervously, "You actually have really nice eyes."

"I hate my eyes," Latimer muttered disinterestedly before seeming to realize Rose was the speaker as he did a double take and looked up from his plate of food.

"Well I think they're lovely. Absolutely not ugly. At all. In any way. And I am actually being honest," Rose continued and seemed pleased of herself, Latimer looked at her as if she'd grown an extra head.

"And you know what else? Your hair, it's very... clean-looking. It's good to have clean hair."

"Did you hit your head?" Latimer asked, sounding serious. Albus was trying not to laugh at Rose's attempts to be nice.

"No! I just never noticed before. You also have nice nails, not gnawed on like Molly's," Rose pointed out, this had Molly frown and examine her nails while Latimer glanced at his briefly too, still looking very confused, "You-"

"Rose, stop it," Latimer told her, "Just because you have Dragon Pox, doesn't mean you have to be awkwardly nice to me. You have a common strain, you'll be right as rain in a few weeks and your skin will clear right up. You'll be no worse for wear and will not have immunity to more severe and dangerous strains, you can go back to being your usual self. You can stop trying to laugh now, Al."

"Sorry," Albus muttered as he choked down his laughter while Rose just scowled.

"So erm... I don't know if you guys realized that Ashain isn't here. He's ill for some reason," Latimer commented with a knowing look for those aware of his possession. Scorpius frowned, wasn't Ashylos supposed to not be effecting Professor Ashain's life?

Part 5: Planning

August Longbottom was unhappy, he couldn't decide whether it was worse to be back in Hogwarts or worse to have stayed at home. He wasn't too fond of either location since he'd been attacked by Shadows in both, at home the Shadows had attacked when he was nine and he would've died along with his parents before Calderon healed most everyone. Then last year Florian had attacked, assuming you ignored the werewolf breach and stampedes since they hadn't affected him so much except convince him Hogwarts wasn't safe. And his brother had died, right outside the room he was in now. He sighed as he picked at the welcoming feast food, his fellow Ravenclaws all catching up with each other around him. But not to him.

August had never made any friends. Sure he had people he'd grown up with due to their parents' friendship but he'd never made any friends himself, never managed to connect with anyone by himself. He barely even had a civil relationship with the boys he shared a dormitory with, let alone friends with anyone. It made mealtimes even more miserable, he couldn't lose his concerns in a book to distract himself then. He could only feel lonely and think about things he'd rather forget, why did he have to get Ravenclaw? If he could just have been a better person then he could've gotten Hufflepuff - like his mother - with Hugo, if he could have just had more personality then he could've gotten Slytherin - like his brother - with Lorcan and if he could have just had more courage than he could've gotten Gryffindor - like his father - with Lily. But no. He'd been put in Ravenclaw, the house for boring goody-two shoes bookwormy losers like him.

No one in his family was as studious as he was, or had been at least. What the fuck did it matter when the world was being torn apart outside with Shadows and PAW and crazed vigilantes? He was barely putting the minimum amount of effort in anymore to complete his work, he was still getting passing grades so no one even noticed or cared about his drop in success. There was no reason to try, it seemed selfish to care when people were dying. His brother had died. And it hurt, like a burning welt on his heart. August couldn't help think about it every time he was in the Great Hall, that's where he'd been after all. Nick had tried to stop Florian, stood up to the maniac Shadow and outed him before the entire room. What had August done? Oh yeah, just staying sat in his seat like a good little boy. There was no excuse, Lorcan had tried to fight too - James really needed to rethink his Slytherins-being-cowards approach - but August had done nothing. He had done nothing while his brother died.

Statistically, August recognized that there was a good chance his efforts might not have contributed as he had been a First Year and he might've instead of or as well as Nick. But it wasn't the point, no matter what would've happened. At least then he would be able to look himself in the mirror and know he'd done everything in his power to save his brother, instead of turning away in shame and disgust. He wasn't surprised his father hated him now, he'd figured it out. His father wished that August had died, died instead of Nick. Nick was charismatic, likable, smart, talented and despite being in Slytherin, he knew his father had been loved and been proud of his eldest son. Despite the last few months when they'd fallen out. Nick was clearly favored, why wouldn't his parents prefer it if August had died instead? Or at the very least not done absolutely nothing while his brother was being brutally murdered. His father hadn't even accepted a gift from him, he was that worthless in his father's eyes.

"August?" Lily questioned abruptly and August turned as she tapped him on the shoulder, "Come on, Viola wants to talk to us."

"I'm eating," August insisted with a scowl, he didn't like Viola. He hadn't liked her when he first met her, he hadn't liked her all last year and he didn't like her this year.

"Yeah right," Lily rolled her eyes and tried to mask it by correcting her glasses, "Come on, Aug, do it for me. Vi says it's really important."

"Fine," August agreed as he got up, Lily grinned.

"See, I knew you were the best."

August wondered if she'd still think he was the best if he told her that he was only going because she'd just keep pestering him until he did go. That or throw a tantrum, although maybe she'd outgrown that by now. Viola was waiting for them just outside the hall, it surprised him because she was alone. He'd been expecting Hugo to be there, along with one of the Scamander twins since they remained on friendly terms with both but the twins were not on good terms with each other. Especially after Christmas where Lorcan had severely burned Uncle Rolf's hands, Lysander was furious with him and even the families were starting to eye him warily now. August just felt bad for him, it wasn't like Lorcan had done it on purpose.

"Come on, this way," Viola announced strictly and led them away, if she wasn't so evil she might've been pretty. She had slick black hair and violently violet eyes, naturally she didn't even say 'hello' first.

"Did you have a nice break?" August asked conversationally since it was what normal people would do, not that Viola was normal. She struck him as the kind of person who'd spend the holidays lighting fires and pulling the wings off butterflies.

"Yes, I spend it with my Father not my idiotic Mother. Met some more of my half-siblings too."

"Why is your Mother idiotic again?"

"Because she can't recognize my Father's brilliance," Viola snapped irritably as she opened a door to a vacant classroom. It wasn't empty though, a small - probable - First Year was curled up in the corner, hugging his knees to his chest as he sobbed, "Hey, crybaby, beat it."

"Viola," Lily complained at her friend's insensitivity as they walked over to the boy. The boy looked up, revealing a bloody face that was blotchy from bruises. All beneath hard lines of a shoe impression, he was wearing Slytherin robes. Why did August have a feeling that James was involved? Lily gasped in shock while the boy looked terrified, "Merlin's beard, what happened to you?!"

"N-Nothing, I-I fell!" the boy yelped and scrambled to his feet hastily, trying to wipe his eyes while August nearly rolled his at the blatantly obvious lie.

"Come on, we'll get you to the Hospital Wing," Lilly offered kindly in a gentle tone but the boy flinched fearfully as she reached out her hand to him.

"N-No, I'm good. B-Bye," the boy told her before hurrying to the exit, tripping over his own awkward feet and falling flat on his face. Lily and August both moved to help him but he'd jumped up before they reached him and continued on, fresh tears already meandering their way through the grooves of the shoe imprint as he left.

"Poor kid, why do you think he acted like that?"

"Probably because James is the one who hurt him and you're James' sister," August guessed and Lily rounded on him furiously.

"James didn't hurt him! I get that he can be mean sometimes but he wouldn't hurt a First Year, he's sixteen now!" Lily yelled angrily in defense of her brother, "And he certainly wouldn't brutalize them like that!"

"Lils, I hate to break it you but he kinda would. You don't see it but he's horrible to Slytherins."

"Not that horrible! Geez, August!"

"It's true! He has a nasty streak."

"Vi, you're a Slytherin that James doesn't like," Lily realized and turned to her friend, "Has he ever hurt you or threatened to hurt you or bully you or anything like that?"

"No," Viola said dismissively.

"See! There's proof, if he was so bad then he would've picked on at least one Slytherin we know. He never hurt Vi and he's never hurt Lorcan, since her erm..." Lily trailed off and her anger was replaced by concern for a moment, "Burned Uncle Rolf's hands super badly just for hugging him, I think James would've been hurt worse for bullying him. He picks on Slytherins sometimes but doesn't beat them up, that poor boy was bleeding."

"Wait, what?"

"He's been suspended twice, he maimed Michael's eye and could've killed him by having him fall out of the window," August protested, although realized it was kind of pointless as Lily wasn't going to believe her eldest brother could be so awful to others without concrete proof. James was getting away with it for being Harry Potter's son for a different reason, not because it made his behavior acceptable but because people were so reluctant to believe the son of heroes could be that bad without concrete proof. Naturally, there generally wasn't as people would be too afraid to speak up so unless he was caught in the act... He was probably being caught in the act less without Calderon constantly walking around.

"Technically Scorpius maimed Michael's eye when he got in the way of their duel and James said he didn't mean to make Michael fall out of the window, he was just trying to scare him," Lily said defensively, "It was a real mean thing to do and I wish he'd leave them alone because they're actually pretty great but he wasn't trying to hurt them so badly, it was an accident."

"Forget that, what were you saying about Lorcan?" Viola interrupted before August could counter with examples of intentional serious harm, "Burning his Father's hands? Did he not get in trouble for using magic?"

"Oh yeah, on Christmas Uncle Rolf tried to hug him and Lorcan accidentally used magic to burn his hands. Poor Uncle Rolf is on a potion regime now to repair the burns and his hands are all bandaged, he can't work or do a lot for himself until he gets better," Lily explained sadly, "It was an accident though, it's not like he used a spell. It was just an uncontrolled magic so he's not expelled from Hogwarts, he still feels really bad though so don't say anything."

"I won't," Viola promised and August saw the ghost of a smile on her face.

"Didn't you want to tell us something?" August asked darkly as he recalled the reason for being there in the first place, he thought he'd much rather be back in the Great Hall picking at his food unhappily.

"Yes," Viola confirmed with a slick smile as she sat down on the edge of an old desk pressed up against the wall, he and Lily leaned back against the one next to it. Unable to sit as there was another desk on top of it, spider webs intertwined through them, "I've mentioned my Father, right?"

"You mean the absolute most perfect Father in the world that you never shut up about? No, you haven't mentioned him at all," August quipped sarcastically.

"I've not said what he does for a career before though, have I?" Viola shot back with a glare before refocusing on her point, this was true which led August to believe he was either imaginary or unemployed, "He is a Chrysouchos."

"What's that?" Lily wondered eagerly.

"It's the Greek version of Aurors," August explained with a roll of his eyes at her ignorance which Lily caught and scowled at him.

"Don't do that, it's not an obvious thing. Who knows the names for Aurors in every country?"

"You don't need to know every country, just the ones that are more relevant to England such as Europe - the continent we live in - and major political players like China or Japan or Russia."

"Merlin, Aug, don't be so pedantic," Lily complained before giving a smug smile as she folded her arms.

"Did you even know what pedantic means?"

"Hugo told me and I think it perfectly describes you sometimes."

"Focus, people," Viola interjected before August could ask her to be more specific, it annoyed him when people used words they didn't know the meaning of. August frowned sadly at himself, he was pedantic, "And you're actually right, he's a Greek Auror but he specifically works on a lot of hush-hush stuff which is why I'm not really supposed to talk about his work."

"Then why are you?" August wondered in annoyance, if his father told him not to say something then he didn't go around blabbing about it.

"I'd explain if you'd stop interrupting me," Viola snapped at him and threw him another dark look, "What he's working on right now is about an Ancient Greek artifact, the Scepter that belonged to Herpo the Foul. It's the rightful property of the Greek Ministry, they loaned it to the British Ministry to study but the British betrayed them. They pretended they had accidentally destroyed it, they were unapologetic and refused to pay any kind of compensation. This seemed suspicious and eventually, the Greeks learned that the British hadn't destroyed it but simply pretended to so that they could keep it for themselves. Bear in mind this was before the Ministry reforming with your father, Lily."

"It doesn't surprise me that they'd do something like that, I mean Dad says it was pretty corrupt and bad," Lily admitted, "Especially to things they did to my Dad, I'm kind of not surprised that Voldemort took over so easily. And now, the Ministry is turning bad again without Uncle Kingsley like that stupid werewolf bracelet law."

"Exactly. And the Greeks only found this out just before Shacklebolt's demise so when they asked for their rightful property back, the British were looking into it but after he died they went back to their old story. The Greeks were trying to figure out what to do next when last Boxing Day happened, when the Soul Eaters attacked the Ministry and tried to steal the Scepter."

"No way!"

"It's true, the attack was a distraction so they could try steal the Scepter. Depending on which truth you believe, Varanian was either trying to steal it for the Shadows or trying to stop it being stolen with Roman Rivers' help. Your Father thinks the former and you'll notice that's why theft is on their wanted posters as well as the other stuff, they kept the Scepter out of the papers but that remains. To prevent further theft, the British broke the Scepter into two pieces and asked your Father to hide them from the Shadows. Maybe he doesn't realize its Greek property, maybe he knows but is still being forced to follow orders, I don't know but he did. He hid one piece in a cave that once held one of the Dark Lord's horcruxes and he hid the other in Hogwarts."

"That's ridiculous, why would they hide it here?" August interrupted incredulously.

"Is Hogwarts not praised as being one of the safest places?"

"For objects maybe," August stated bitterly as he thought of the amount of life-threatening events and death occurring in the school over the past few decades.

"Is that why my Dad was here at the start of the year?" Lily asked as the realization hit her, Viola nodded in confirmation. August groaned inwardly, that made the story seem more credible and he was rather disappointed in his Uncle Harry. Hogwarts did not need even more reasons to be targeted by Shadows, there were innocent people, children even and that was including Uncle Harry's own as well as nieces and nephews.

"He hid the Scepter here in the Chamber of Secrets with Professors Longbottom and Ashain's help as they're both Aurors and Calderon since they needed a Parselmouth," Viola continued, "They also used this Blood Magic to guard the Scepter half so that only they could get to it with a blood tribute but what they didn't think of is that those sharing their blood - namely their own children, grandchildren or a twin sibling - can also get by. The Greeks tasked my Father with stealing the Scepter back before the Shadows can get it, it's rightfully theirs but Hogwarts is difficult to get into and you need those of the blood."

"Merlin's cock, you are seriously not suggesting that we steal it?" August wondered at the ludicrous suggestion while Lily's eyes lit up like Christmas lights.

"Absolutely. I was taught how to say 'open' in Parselmouth to get in so I just need a Potter, a Longbottom and an Ashain. Ashain's kids are here so it shouldn't be too hard to convince the gullible little girl to go with us, we can do this. We can make our fathers proud and give the Greek government back a priceless piece of history."

"They'd be proud we're breaking their own protection?"

"Yes," Lily agreed eagerly, "It'll be just like when my Dad was a kid and he was doing heroic things, saving Mum in the Chamber and stealing Flamel's stone before Voldemort could get it. Our Dads will be proud that we're like them, defying the authority to do the right thing for the poor Greek government. If he doesn't know the Scepter belongs to the Greeks then he'll be proud when he finds out and if he does know then he'll be proud that we could do what he's not allowed to do because of the stupid new Minister. It's a win-win."

"Well I'm out," August announced, "I think this is a terrible idea."

"C'mon, Aug, don't you want your Dad to be proud?"

"This won't make him proud, he'll probably just hate me even more. If I recall, my Dad actually tried to stop your Dad from stealing Flamel's stone in the first place."

"And he regretted it!" Lily protested desperately, "For once in your life take a risk. For once, don't sit on your lazy arse with a book in your hand. For once, actually get up and do something worthwhile - hell, for once in your life actually get up and do something at all other than read. For once have some sense of adventure, some courage. That's what your Dad wants to see, not a boring bookworm. We can't do this without you."

August sighed unhappily, he still didn't think it was a good idea even if it was the rightful property of the Greeks. Which he still wasn't sure if Viola was telling them the whole truth either. The idea of stealing still wasn't appealing to him, regardless of the reason. A bad thing done for a right reason didn't make it any less a bad thing, just sometimes the necessity of the reason outweighed the immorality of the action. Then again, maybe he was trying to think about it too logically. He wasn't going to magically become braver or more adventurous anymore than he was going to magically make friends, some things you just had to leap in and do yourself. It still didn't sit right with him but wasn't that the point? He wanted to go against his nature anyway so it was supposed to feel uncomfortable, the feeling of wrongness it was actually a sign that he was turning down the right path... He thought. He might be overthinking things again which was never good, Occam's razor suggested the simplest solution was usually the right one. Although, by that logic wouldn't that mean that he thought it was wrong so it was wrong? What would Nick do?

"Okay, I'll do it," August blurted out in agreement, maybe committing to it would make him feel better. It didn't.

"See, I knew you were the best," Lily grinned and hugged him distressfully tightly, August wondered if she'd still think he was the best if she knew his doubts. He also wondered if she noticed that she said she 'knew' everyone 'the best' a lot, they couldn't all be the best, "My Dad is going to be so proud me, maybe he'll even be around more since its lessening his workload."

"When do we do it?" August asked as Lily finally stopped crushing his ribs.

"Not yet," Viola explained, "We still need to convince one of Ashain's kids to help us, like I said we need the girl. The boy is just… damaged. Plus we need to wait for Calderon to be out of the castle, if not his magic will pick up that we've broken in. Thankfully, they're using him as a test subject for some magic repressing potion so he'll leave whenever they need him again for that."

"Awesome," Lily announced and fist pumped the air, "Plenty of time to train up. I can't wait to tell Hugo."

"You can't tell Hugo, this is a secret. The less people know a secret the better, just having to repeat the information risks the chance of it being overheard. First thing to remember about being a soldier."

"Right… But we can tell people after though?"

"When the mission is completed and my Father has both halves of the Scepter."

"Can't wait," August muttered unhappily.

Part 6: Settling

Aside from Leila, Roman was actually enjoying Egypt despite the heat and the sand. He was still sending letters to ask for Orous or contact, he even sent him a gift for Christmas since in Egypt it was celebrated on January 7th thus less tainted by Alzay's birth. He actually enjoyed it for the first time in a long time, he had something of an amicable relationship with Malik who loved the same stories of history as he did - probably why Leila could feign interest so easily - and welcomed him to the feast with his blissfully small family. He only wished his sons could be there with him, he had to write repeatedly and frustratedly just to be told of his son's good progress. Studying the ancient city was fascinating and awe-inspiring, walking in the footsteps of history every day and surrounded by well-preserved artifacts, relics, random things and even the murals on the walls were beautiful.

Admittedly, Roman wasn't the only person there as there was Leila and others - all but two were Egyptians but generally they knew enough English when communication was necessary or Leila could translate - but they didn't stay together. Roman was mostly alone with Leila or sometimes with one or two of the others, particularly if they were in an area that required more of an expert - such as a lot of translation needed or a curse broken - but it was alright, it wasn't crowds and crowds. The emptiness of the city made them feel less intimidating to be around, they seemed smaller and less scary in the vastness of history. In general, Roman actually felt much safer in Egypt. It was untainted by Death Eaters or Alzay and the city was well away from civilization so he didn't have to feel terrified by crowds and cities, they travelled by Portkey to and from there every day. Malik allowed him to stay in rather generous guest quarters in the huge house that were - naturally - away from the main family. Smokey was well taken care of when he was away by the servants, they were indulgent of his loyal cat and kept the place spotless much to Roman's delight.

"Rome, look at this," Leila called him over and Roman rolled his eyes, she always called him 'Rome' which was just stupid.

He moved away from the rather interesting hieroglyphs he'd been looking at to go over to her, if he was right then it was some kind of riddle. Either that or some crazy guy's rambling but Roman thought it was more likely a riddle, part of the mural was of a sphinx which were known for their riddles. As far as his mediocre translation skills cold tell, it read:

Something that is only yours
But also shared by all breathing things
It to be lost or can be taken
But stealing doesn't make you own it

You can take the key
Though really a lock
But can unshackle you, see

It breaks when you ask
But what do you say?
Ride without horses
Through the middle of the road

But first it's the end
For the magical effective one
Meet your closest friends
To avoid the others again

And finally, I fall without breaking
But my sister breaks without falling
What I have, my sister can't see
As she has the light from the ring
It comes down from the mirror of the sea

If you don't understand this
You can't save what you have
But if you hear my words
With a jackal on your trail
Do not reunite, weather through the sun
Then simply say my name
To receive the gift of my Isis

It did seem out of place for that rather wealthy area as artifacts he was finding were all related to the field of healing, not something that tended to be associated with riddles. The sphinx was oddly placing an ankh - that looked like a healing one - on some human's forehead, causing a blue glow. And he needed to decipher it not be distracted from it. Trust Leila to call him over. Stupid sexy Leila.

"I mean seedy. No, silly. I meant silly," Roman muttered as he corrected himself irritably and reached Leila, who thankfully was more interested in what she'd found than him talking to himself. Which happened to be a drawer lined with twenty odd Ancient Egyptian healing ankhs, he gasped and she grinned.

"Thought you'd like them," Leila pointed out which detracted from his good feeling, they'd found three so far. Two used up and one not but he hadn't expected to find this many, let alone in the same place.

An Ancient Egyptian healing ankh was just that, an ankh which looked like a little silver cross with a loop in place of the top bar, inside the loop was the palest of blue crystals that was drained of color after use. They were extremely rare, just finding three had been a pleasant albeit bittersweet surprise. They could only be used once and could supposedly cure any ailment no matter how severe, even things that magic usually couldn't heal like curse wounds for example. It was with known with complete certainty whether they worked or not as the most recent recorded supposed usage was hundreds of years ago, people didn't know how anymore.

Roman thought they worked though, there had to be a reason why the crystal lost its color. They weren't used though or even attempted to be, instead studied to try figure out how to recreate them because it would be an incredible magical healing breakthrough for the modern community of wizards. Roman loved them, if he could use them then he could probably heal the scars Alzay had given him or maybe cure his sons of their albinism and deafness - although he thought it was sadly less likely since both had been born that way, they were amazing but not miraculous and were unable to cure things such as vampirism - but at the very least, it would make him feel safe. Just knowing that he had something to stop him dying in case Alzay - or anyone, there were plenty of people who wanted to murder him - tried to kill him with a fatal curse would or if he got an incurable illness, it may not be the perfect safety net as he would still have to be able to use it - and know how - but it was something comforting. Unfortunately people couldn't just have them, they all belonged to governments or extremely rich people. Neither of which Roman was.

"You know what I think?" Leila commented as he knelt beside her to study the ankhs, wishing to confirm they were indeed genuine.

"No, I'm not a Legilimens," Roman complained as he resisted the urge to sigh, he couldn't care less what she was thinking. Which was probably involving torture and murder anyway.

"I think this is where they used the healing ankhs, it was probably only for those in dire need who could afford it. I don't think they were particularly easy to create, if not there would be more of them in general so it was probably expensive. It would explain why this room looks quite wealthy, right?"

"Right."

"And I think the riddle on the wall is referring to the ankh and how to use it, maybe as a chance for poorer people to have access to it. They needed to earn their right to use what they could not afford."

"What makes you say that?" Roman wondered although he'd started to think as much himself, the mural did depict the sphinx with seeming to be using one of the healing ankhs.

Ancient Egypt was the first place magic was recorded, they didn't exactly have a system of wands yet and scepters predated them but before that it was anything. They used various things to try channel their magic, eventually figuring out about cores in wood which was the basis for wands and scepters. Wands coming into fashion as they were easier to carry around and handle than the longer and more ornate scepters, as they originally believed the length was very important to the power and frequently had combinations of different cores and woods in the same scepter. Which was why they were generally more powerful, easier to use but more unstable as they weren't fine-tuned yet. The ankhs probably worked similar to this - as did several ancient artifacts - as channeling magic into them was needed - why it didn't work with muggles - along with a specific spell to activate its specific purpose. As unlike wands or scepters though, it would only be capable of the one feat of magic although whether just once use or multiple varied on the items in question.

Scorpius went to bed but stayed up with the map, hoping to get to see Ashylos but Professor Ashain/Ashylos didn't go to the chamber that night though. Although Scorpius still managed to notice something odd, as opposed to being predominantly 'Atticus Ashain' and sometimes shifting to 'Ashylos', it was now doing the opposite. It stayed predominantly as 'Ashylos' and only sometimes was shifting to 'Atticus Ashain' which Scorpius wasn't sure to take as a good sign or not, did it mean Ashylos was stronger now? That was good but maybe something was wrong if Professor Ashain was ill and less on the map. He eventually put the map away and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

"Merlin," Molly gasped uneasily the next morning at breakfast, reading from a letter she'd gotten, "Penelope died yesterday."

"Who?" Albus wondered through a mouthful of sausage.

"Don't speak with your mouthful," Michael chided him.

"Yes, mother."

"Penelope, my Dad's girlfriend or fiancée," Molly explained sadly, "They'd just gotten engaged to be married. She was babysitting for Lucy, apparently Lucy was in her room when she heard a crash. She went to investigate and found Penelope dead, she'd tripped and fallen down the stairs and... died from her injuries. It's smudged, I think Dad was crying when he wrote this. She was dead by the time Lucy reached her and tried to get help, nothing anyone could do."

"I'm sorry," Scorpius offered uncertainly and gently, really Percy was the one who needed condolences though.

"Thanks. Poor Dad, first Mum and now Penelope. And poor Lucy for having to be there for that."

"See, dating only ends in badly," Maurice pointed out as if it were obvious, "Death is bad. If Percy had never dated then he wouldn't have had to lose not one but two lovers. He would've been better off alone. You'd think he'd have learned his lesson from the first death."

"Maurice, could you at least try to not come across as an insensitive asshole?" Rose complained, Maurice looked at her incredulously.

"How was that insensitive?"

"Do you think if I asked Elwood then I'd be able to go home for a bit to be there for my Dad?" Molly asked which cut Rose off from replying.

"You could ask," Latimer shrugged and Rose grinned as she seemed to notice him for the first time, "You have nothing to lose by asking."

"Did you have a good night's sleep, Latimer?" Rose asked him conversationally.

"No."

"I'm sorry to hear that, maybe today will better. Do you have any lessons you like today?"

"Please stop pretending to be nice to be, it's creepy," Latimer told her, looking slightly disturbed while Rose seemed disheartened. The bell rang though and they headed off to their classes before the conversation could continue though.

"Do you think Latimer hates me?" Rose wondered unhappily as they headed to the first class of the day, which happened to be Herbology.

"Probably," Albus shrugged, "You can't be mean to someone to months then suddenly expect them to not hate you. Why do you care anyway?"

"Because I feel bad and I'm trying to be nice to him but I don't think I'm doing a good job. I tried to apologize to this girl in our dorm with the really bad under bite and she gave me a similar response. What do you think I should do?"

"Give up."

Scorpius quickly noticed they were being avoided in classes again, this time because of Rose. Some just avoided her and looked with disgusted looks, others actually called out mocking taunts about her green skin. Despite their best efforts, Rose was still upset and cried multiple times. Transfiguration was particularly painful thanks to Midas, who shrieked upon seeing Rose.

"Over here, over here, Weasley!" Midas squeaked at Rose and magically moved another desk to the front on the opposite side to Michael, gesturing for her to sit, "You sit there until you're better. Don't touch anything."

"I'm not contagious," Rose pointed out.

"If you touch anything unnecessarily then you lose fifty points from Gryffindor!"

Midas then proceeded to clean the floor that Rose had walked across and the door since Rose had touched it, she told them to read a chapter in their Transfiguration books before cleaning the same spots again. When they left, she was cleaning the desk and chair that Rose had been at. The other teachers treated her normally at least. Molly had gotten permission to temporarily go home, Scorpius got to say goodbye to her at least. Ashylos didn't go to the chamber again that night but Scorpius had Astronomy anyway. The next day, Midas was no better and had actually put some kind of magical plastic wrap like thing over the desk and chair for her. They had Defense Against the Dark Arts though for their Patronus lesson after lunch, Scorpius also noticed that Michael had mail for once from Annie.

"Mother of Merlin," Rose gasped, her jaw dropping when they entered the classroom, "Is it just me or did Ashain suddenly get hot?"

Scorpius glanced at his favorite professor and had to do a double take, he almost thought he was Ashylos for a minute. Professor Ashain could now easily be mistaken for a Sixth or Seventh year, he looked a teenager and seemed to be growing his hair longer to be closer to Ashylos' too. He'd lost some weight, his muscle tone gone in place in Ashylos' lankier build. He exchanged looks with his friends - minus Rose who had chosen to be out of the loop on all this stuff - as they too recognized the change, even though they hadn't seen Ashylos. Professor Ashain still spoke with his own voice though and set them to work.

"I guess Ashylos has been busy," Michael muttered and Scorpius could only nod.

"Hey, Professor!" Albus called out excitedly and shot his hand up into the air, Professor Ashain came over to them and Scorpius nodded he moved as if lacking energy. And his eyes managed to look tired despite lacking lines or bags, his eyelids flickered as if it was an effort to keep them open.

"Need help, Mr Potter?" Professor Ashain asked.

"I was just curious, if I can get out of doing homework now. Since we're related now and all."

"Erm..." Professor Ashain started in confusion, his complete bewilderment evident that he had not heard about his father's marriage. Which wasn't surprising considering they were estranged, "Remind me, how are we related again?"

"You didn't hear?" Albus grinned happily, "You know my cousin, Dom?"

"Yes, I know her. Actually works in class instead of asking me pointless questions. What about her?"

"She married your Dad. So she's your Stepmother now which makes us like Stepcousins! So does that mean I get off having to do homework?"

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," Professor Ashain insisted in disbelief as he crossed his arms.

"It's true!"

"Ask anyone who was at Victoire and Teddy's wedding, they kind of ruined it with their announcement," Rose confirmed and Professor Ashain's expression turned to one of complete shock, then he cringed and put a hand to his face as he shook his head gently.

"So about the homework, Cuz?" Albus asked eagerly and Professor Ashain lifted his head.

"Never call me that again. And no, you do not get off doing homework. Now get back to work," Professor Ashain told him before going back over to his desk.

"Was worth a shot. And worth asking for the look on his face anyway."

"Does that mean that we're related?" Cassia called over eagerly from nearby where she and her brother were doing their own work, Albus looked horrified.

"No!"

Scorpius drifted out as he kept his eyes on Professor Ashain, the professor slumped into his seat at his desk. He placed his elbow on the desk and propped his head up with his hand, echoes of pain on his face as he rubbed his head and his eyes very obviously struggling to stay open. He spent the entire lesson like that, unless he was specifically called off. In contrast with his usual way of going around helping those who he thought needed it instead of just those who asked for it. Scorpius could only hope he was okay. Thankfully, Ashylos finally decided to show up at the chamber that night.

He headed out alone since Albus and Michael were both asleep, he thought he'd rather talk to him alone anyway. Albus had left the cloak out - as he had done since they'd gotten back - so Scorpius could use it specifically if Ashylos made a move. Not that Scorpius really thought he'd need it with a map to see where people were. A map that he now knew rightfully belonged to Harry Potter. He tried not to think about that as he reached the bathroom, Ashylos was actually already facing the door.

"Khai're, Skorpios," Ashylos greeted him with a hint of a smile, "I saw you in the class and thought we should speak, I was waiting."

"I've been waiting to see you since we got back," Scorpius pointed out, "What's going on with Professor Ashain?"

"I do not know," Ashylos admitted, "He is just ill and weak, it's why I have been coming here as often in case I'm causing it which is frustrating because I'm so close. I don't know though, there's nothing else I can do for him and nothing the healer gives him helps. It might just be stress because physically he is fine."

"Well... I erm... We should... keep an eye on that," Scorpius offered awkwardly, he'd been expecting Ashylos to know what was happening. If he didn't know though, there wasn't anything they could do except keep an eye on him and try figure it out. Vaguely he recalled promising to ask him things that Varanian wanted to know, "Do you know where the final part of the Scepter is? The piece that you took in the aftermath for a wand, we know where the other two are. And whether you think the Soul Eaters will be going after that too?"

"My wand is hidden beneath the Ashain manor. I spent my life traveling, I thought it would be good to have a focal point to come back to. I used my accumulated wealth to build it, I designed it myself but left it for my wife at the time for the decor as I left when the parts I wanted were done. There's a labyrinth beneath it, you'd need my blood and my password to get to it," Ashylos explained dismissively, "I can get in and out easily without anyone living there noticing, and I have done in the past."

"Wait, you just left your wife?"

"Nai, it was for the best. As I said, I usually travelled and with good reason. I do not age, remember? At some point, even a wizard's lifespan starts to get suspicious and retaining such a young age makes it harder. Nicholas Flamel was a famed Alchemist and created the elixir of life, he and his wife had to live reclusively to avoid everyone wanting on the secret to immortal life. I did not want that for myself so I could not stay if I wanted a bloodline to establish itself and keep control of the manor, I chose the name Ashain as a demonym of Ashylos and left her to raise the children."

"You left your children?" Scorpius wondered, thinking it was rather cold but Ashylos scowled.

"It was necessary, having a focal point required my bloodline to stay there. I left them all the wealth I had accumulated over the hundreds and hundreds of years of my life and I befriended them all in adulthood without revealing who I was. Sometimes it's better than that, most of my lovers or wives found it difficult to live a nomadic lifestyle with someone who doesn't age while they do and children find it just as hard. You have to learn to let go sometimes, even if it hurts."

"How many children have you had?"

"Too many that I have had to watch as they aged and died while I didn't. Except the youngest, he was only seven when I was killed. His mother was a muggle who died in labor so I was raising him alone, I have no idea what became of him," Ashylos told him sadly and sighed, "As to your other question, I do not know whether your Shadows will want my wand or not. It is not pivotal for the Scepter to work, it would make it easier but it can work with it. The crystal orb on it is the real threat."

"Why? What does it go?" Scorpius asked curiously.

"Well, you know how we've established that the magic can be torn from your soul at the cost of your life?"

"Yes."

"Even wizardkind can't cope with this extra magic inside your body though."

"I know."

"The orb can contain the stolen magic, not only that but it allows the wielder of the Scepter the ability to use this extra power safely," Ashylos said and Scorpius thought his blood might've turned to ice at the thought of the Shadow Master or even Herpo the Foul wielding the magic of multiple wizards, "It's why Herpo was capable of such great feats, he had the power of multiple people readily. It has its flaws, the contained magic is finite but simply taking more increases it again."

"How did Pancratius defeat Herpo if he had all this power?" Scorpius wondered worriedly.

"Just because he has this power doesn't mean he can necessarily control it easily, you're messing with magic greater than you would normally use. Think of it like carrying a stack of books, you would normally carry the amount you can safely hold and walk with but extra power is extra books and it's harder to walk with a stack taller your head threatening to fall on you just as much as anywhere else," Ashylos explained and looked concerned, "That is why I fear for your Shadow Master, if they as adept with wandless magic like the one who resides here then they are used to channeling more magic than the average wizard so it will be easier for them to control or get used to controlling the extra power. It would be devastating."

Part 7: Justice

Lucy had lied about Penelope's death, she didn't see the point in telling the truth. She may have hated the bitch but she still hadn't meant to kill her, it was an accident. What was the point in getting herself into trouble for an accident? Worse than that, what would her father think of her if he knew she'd killed his fiancée? Accident or not, he'd probably take it the wrong way. She'd just received her music and pretended that she'd simply heard Penelope fall, no one had questioned it. Why would they? It lined up.

She may not have wanted the bitch to be dead and had been sad seeing her father hold his fiancée's dead body and weep, however she was glad that Penelope was finally out of their lives. Her father was a wreck, he wasn't really sleeping or eating or even working. She hadn't seen him like that since her mother had died but she still thought he hadn't been that bad, or maybe she just had failed to notice as she'd been younger. It was a time when having a big family came in useful though, there were plenty of assorted relatives to stop by to comfort him and help out with things like food. Her grandparents were frequently over, Aunt Ginny too as she had a flexible work schedule, her Uncles Bill and George also tended to come over when their work day was over, even Teddy and Victoire dropped in once. Her Uncles Harry and Ron and her Aunt Hermione didn't as they tended to be busier, at least Dom sent a letter offering condolences from her and her husband too. Molly had come back from Hogwarts to be there for their father too, naturally because Molly was the perfect daughter. Not that Lucy really could be bothered to snap at her right then. It didn't seem the place for it in the time of mourning, even if her father was the only one mourning.

Lucy actually wanted to be back at school for once, she didn't like being around her father when he was sad like that. Not when it was accidentally her fault, she felt kind of bad and annoyed that he was so hung up on that harpy. She'd even heard him crying sometimes, death was the only thing that she'd ever seen make him cry and both in recent times for her mother and Uncle Charlie. Penelope didn't deserve his tears. Lucy really wished she could've been back in school rather than having to attend to the funeral, her grandparents, all her surviving aunts and uncles, her sister, her cousin Victoire and Teddy were all there to pay their respects though. Dom hadn't come, she'd apologized via letter but thought showing up with Aurelius would cause a scene with her father and she didn't want to do that to Penelope's funeral. Her father was okay with this, Lucy would rather they had showed up and caused a scene, it would've been more interesting.

The funeral didn't seem as solemn as the others she'd been to, maybe because Lucy didn't like Penelope or because she sat amongst her family who - minus her father - weren't upset. They were sad that her father had lost his fiancée and that a woman - if you could call her that - had lost her life but they hadn't been close to her so it was more impersonal. Lucy hated every second, Penelope had family and friends there who were upset which bothered her. Penelope may have been awful but her family and friends hadn't done anything to her, yet there they were sad and grieving because of Lucy. Guilt gnawed at her but didn't consume her, she felt bad that some people were upset and that she'd killed but not that Penelope was gone.

And it had been an accident. Which by definition was an unexpected and unintentional chance event, Lucy would never have purposely hit her if she'd known that Penelope would fall to her death from it. What kind of moronic witch died in such a pathetic way anyway? She should have... apparated or... something, not just died like a muggle. She really felt like she shouldn't be at the funeral, she didn't think people should go the funerals of people they'd killed. It was nearly over though, people just needed to throw down their flowers and watch the coffin lowered. Tears leaked from her father's eyes as he tossed in the rose into the hole, she felt a stab of jealousy as she watched Molly hug him. Stupid perfect Molly, if she could just do magic then her father would love her move too, if she could just do magic then she would've been on the train to Hogwarts and Penelope would still be alive.

She turned away and looked down into the grave bitterly, her father would think even less of her if he knew what she'd done. If she was a witch then she wouldn't have died from something as mundane as falling down the stairs, she wondered if anyone would notice if she spat on Penelope's grave. She sighed, that was probably too far. She just hated the situation, Penelope couldn't just leave quietly and let them go back to their lives. She had to drag Lucy down with her. And on that note, she noticed the chill crawling down her spine as she stared down into the gloomy darkness as thoughts of Penelope's twisted dead arm snaking up from the hole and dragging her down into the blackness for her crime. Accident or not, Penelope wouldn't be understanding. Lucy moved away quickly and wrapped her coat tighter around herself against the icy air, she shivered again. Just for a second she stopped as she thought she saw a shadow hovering over the grave but there was nothing, she shook her head at her eyes foolishness and hastily caught up to her father. She hoped her father could get over it and they could just put the whole Penelope thing behind them, she hoped.

"Well look at the first verse, I think it's referring to life," Leila told him and looked at him as if asking for approval, "Something that is yours but also shared by all breathing things, you can lose your life and have it taken by being murdered. Which is what I think it means by stealing doesn't mean you own, because taking someone's life doesn't give you their life. Right?"

"Why are you asking me for confirmation? I don't secretly have the answer to a riddle from Ancient Egypt," Roman pointed out incredulously and she blushed.

"Sorry, you just usually know more than me. Anyway, the second verse seems to assume that you already the key which makes me think that it's establishing that its talking about the ankh since they are also known as the keys of life. Making it a rather apt thing to use for healing. And assuming you already have it makes sense as if you don't have a healing ankh then deciphering how to use it is pointless," Leila continued, "But it says it's a lock because the magic is kind of locked away unless you know how to get to it. The next line I think is referring to what it can do, unshackle meaning free as in freeing you from whatever ailment you need. The first two lines of the third verse I think is tell you that you require a word or combination of words, an activation spell. The lock to the healing power breaking if you say the right words, implied it's something specific with the question of what do you say specifically."

"And then?"

"I don't know, that's all I got. The rest is probably the spell," Leila shrugged and Roman glanced back to the mural, which had been his thoughts as well, "If we're right then and someone can decipher it then we can figure out how to use the healing ankhs again, it's incredible. Do you think there'll be a mural with how to make them as well?"

"No," Roman shook his head fiercely, "This city fell to Herpo the Foul, they wouldn't have wanted their knowledge to fall into his hands. If you can create them then you probably know the spell with that so that is more important, even if you figure out this riddle then there's only a finite number in existence and Herpo wouldn't have been able to make more so it was less important. They abandoned the city when they realized Herpo could beat them, important information like that would've been taken with them. He probably killed them though, without realizing the information they had and it died with them."

"Oh well, it makes figuring out this riddle more important," Leila announced as her face transformed into a grin, she winked at him, "We could be the first two to have the secret of the healing ankhs for thousands of years."

"It wouldn't be a secret when everyone found out, they'd all be used and wasted. And something incredible and miraculous would become worthless trash. I hope they never figure out," Roman announced as he folded his arms, realizing that might have come across sounding worse than he meant it, "I just mean that history should be preserved."

"I know what you meant," Leila assured him, "I guess we could keep it a secret then, just in case one of us ever needs to cheat death."

"I couldn't cheat death even if I figured it out," Roman pointed it out as if it was obvious, "You're the only one of us who could afford one."

"You could have one if you want, a souvenir if you will.

"That would be stealing," Roman protested, realizing what she was trying to do here. Set him up to go to jail for theft, evil bitch.

"I won't tell."

"I won't be a criminal and I don't trust you either."

"You have some weird trust issues, have you ever noticed that?" Leila commented as she put her hands on her curvaceous hips and he unintentionally met her eyes, beautifully warm coffee-colored eyes that weren't cold and icy like Alzay at all. Roman looked away abruptly as he felt his heart quicken in an unusual way, had someone knocked off the Cooling Spell? "You can trust me, Rome. Teamwork requires trust."

"Actually it requires work. Which we should get back to. Document those and I'll get back to over here," Roman told her seriously and moved away quickly.

Despite all that, Roman did still work on deciphering the riddle just for the novelty of knowing a secret of history in his spare time. Leila did too and it became habit for them to discuss their theories when they were together, usually at meals or when they were working if talking about the work at hand was unnecessary. She did get less annoying as the months went by, the more she learned the less tedious questions she needed to ask so her personality improved. Or her surface personality anyway, she was either hiding the evil psychotic desire to torture and murder him well or just hadn't turned evil yet as she had been nineteen when they'd first started working together but had passed her twentieth birthday in the beginning of April.

"I think the middle of the road line actually has nothing to do with the clue," Roman suggested one of their riddle talks, "The next two verses mention first and finally so my guess is that actually that line is just referring to the placement of the clue, the first is actually in the middle of the second two verses. The horse line is simply asking us for an alternate usage of the word ride, one that doesn't involve horses."

"Ride has several different usages though," Leila pointed out.

"Exactly, it's not supposed to be too easy."

"I think the second verse is talking about spirit," Leila said a different time, "The end being the end of life but the spirit survives, in fact it was believed that your Ka and Ba - basically meaning your life and personality - reunited to form the spirit after your body died, thus meeting your closest friends."

"The word for spirit - Akh - can also be literally translated as magically effective one like my original translation not the experts," Roman admitted, "Avoiding others could refer to the living since you're not one of them, solving riddles in a dead different language isn't the easiest."

"Exactly, it's not supposed to be too easy," Leila quipped smugly as she used his previous words against him, "There'd be no fun in that."

"If we're right though then we have our first part of the spell solved," Roman smiled.

"I think the first part of the third verse is referring to night and day, night falls and day breaks," Leila offered yet another time.

"Makes sense and they're both feminine in Ancient Egyptian, it would explain the sister thing," Roman agreed, "By that logic, I suspect the next line I think is referring to darkness as night would have it but the sister can't see it because she has the light of day."

"Specifically the light of the sun, the mirror of the sea is the sky because it reflects the color to give it the blue color."

"It's more specific than that, it says ring. Referring specifically to the disc of the sun not the sun itself since they believed it to be an aspect of the sun God Ra, they wouldn't make the specification if it wasn't important. They did have a separate word for it, Aton."

"Two out of four," Leila announced happily before frowning, "We think anyway."

"I don't think the last verse is a fourth word, I think it's actually referring to everything," Roman told her at an even later time, "The first two lines is basically saying if you can't figure this out then you can't use the ankh to save whatever you want it for. The Egyptian God of the dead, Anubis, had the head of a jackal so a jackal on your trail is probably referring to being near death or in a grave situation. The kind of situation where you would want to use the ankh, hearing the riddle's words is again telling you that you'd need to know this."

"Then the next line could be referring to the entire spell, not reuniting could mean not reuniting your Ka and Ba - meaning to not die - and also reminding you of the first answer," Leila realized, "The sun is referring you back to the disc and misleading you at the same time if you hadn't figured out the third answer."

"The fact 'weathering through' is in the center also stays to our theory about the first verse being in the middle. It's just a fact of finding out what 'ride' and 'weathering through' something have in common."

"Endure!" Leila called out excitedly, "Weathering through and riding out something can be classed as enduring which is... Menes?"

"Yes, to endure is Menes. So that would make the spell Akh, Menes, Aton," Roman realized and scowled, "Still leaves the last two lines though."

"Receiving the gift of Isis is obviously referring to the using the power of the ankh. Isis was the goddess of magical power and healing, exactly what the ankh does. It's perfect for her and probably why it's a gift from her because it's such a powerful form of the two things she's known for."

"And to get it you just need to say their name..." Roman mused and it struck him, "We need to combine the answers into one single spell, one single name."

"We have spirit, endure and sun disc so… Akh... Menes... Aton. Akhmenesaten."

"It'd be more contracted than that, probably more like Akh... Menes... Ton. Akhmeneston? Akh... Mene... Ton. Akhmeneton," Roman snapped his fingers in delight and shared a smile with Leila, "I'd bet that's what it is. Akhmeneton."

"Mr Potter, a word," Vipera called him back at the end of Potions class before James could file out with his friends, he rolled his eyes at the Slytherin bitch. Potions was a stupid, boring subject anyway, "Don't roll your eyes at me."

"What did you want, Professor?" James asked, putting as much effort as he could into sounding as if he cared.

"I actually wanted to talk to you about your grades in this class, its OWLs this year and you're not doing well in this subject. Quite frankly, you're flunking. You'll be lucky to scrape an A with your current level of work."

"So?"

"So, you need to put some more effort in," Vipera told him seriously and James was proud of himself for not rolling his eyes again, "I'm willing to help you but you'll only improve if you want to and if you try as much as I do, it's a two way street. Potions may not be your easiest or favorite subject but this class is important. Even if you don't want a career that direct involves potions or potion-making in any way, getting a decent NEWT or at least an OWL in it is required for quite a lot of jobs that you wouldn't expect. I don't know what your career plans are but you really need to think about it, it's better to start now then to have to cram a few months down the line when you realize it's necessary after your career advice session. Give it some thought, James, because I can't help you unless you want to help yourself."

"Okay. Can I go now?" James commented dismissively, Vipera gestured for him to leave and he gladly did so. Stupid Slytherin bitch, like he needed her crappy subject or her lousy help. It was right on par with History of Magic for how much he gave a shit, although it was mildly more interesting but only because it was competing against Binns.

"Hey, Potter!" a voice called and James topped to turn to the angry speaker, the Seventh Year Slytherin Kyle Nott. James held his head up, he wasn't afraid of Kyle anymore. And Kyle was alone, it wasn't like he had any friends with him. Although neither had he. James could take him though, he could do that easily. Kyle was just a loser, "So I finally got it out of my sister that you're the asshole who cut off her hair."

"So?" James scoffed, trying to sound like he didn't care and wishing he had his friends to back him up.

"So, I don't like people fucking with my siblings!" Kyle yelled before composing himself, "And as a side note, really, do you have no honor at all?! You go after a girl, who is two years younger than you?! Even I only go after people in my year or below now, I have some kind of decency and I'm a Slytherin! The bloody 'bad' ones! It's wrong and what even fun is it going after people too young to fight back anyway?! What is wrong with you?! And to go after my sister?! Did you think I wouldn't notice she lost her hair?!"

"Stupe-" James tried to curse while Kyle was distracted ranting but even ranting, Kyle was faster and the older boy disarmed him nonverbally before he could finish the spell. James went to move for his wand but Kyle hit him again with a non-verbal body-blind that sent him falling to the cold stones with a painful smack on his back.

"Don't try curse people two years above you, you moron," Kyle chided him with a shake of his head before smirking cruelly, "And now for your punishment."

James was completely helpless as he was stripped to his underwear so Kyle could draw on 'LOSER' in big letters with bright red paint, Kyle then proceeded to give him a painful wedgie and hang him up by his underwear from an arch. Probably using magic to keep him there. And it wasn't an out of the way corridor either, it was a main corridor in the dungeons that led to the Slytherin dormitory.

"Consider this a warning," Kyle told him with a sadistic smile that James wanted to smack off his face, "Mess with my family again and I'll do a hell of a lot worse to you, regardless of how much younger you are because if you want to cross that line then I'll be right there with you. Smell you later, skid marks."

On that note, Kyle just walked away and left him there. Still unable to move from the spell, he couldn't even alter his expression to one of humiliation or call for help. Stupid Kyle, he picked on the other Nott's more than just shaving his bitch sister's head but the great protector brother had failed to notice. He tried to think of that to cheer himself up, it only lasted until the students came. Slytherins he usually picked on walking by, some pointed and laughed, others called out taunts, the brave ones threw things at him and others just pretended they weren't smiling as they walked by. Sadistic little bastards enjoying his humiliation and pain, it was like First Year all over again. James was suddenly glad he was immobile because he was afraid he might cry, laughter cut like knives into his cold flesh and he wanted the dark dungeon to swallow him up so he wouldn't have to helplessly hang their like a lost puppet.

And then the boy came along, the First Year he tormented relentless. His face hadn't healed yet from the beating, at least someone else was suffering. The boy froze and looked at him with fearful eyes but a face full of pity, he went to move on multiple times but kept coming back. The barbarous brat was probably enjoying seeing him like that, James would get him. James would make him pay for that. As soon as he wasn't stuck hanging there in humiliation, Kyle had positioned him so he couldn't even look away in embarrassment at the people passing by nor could he try shift himself free of the gnawing pain between his legs. Finally, the boy sighed and withdrew his wand. If James was capable then he would've balked, the little psycho was actually going to curse him while he was helpless?!

"Wingardium Leviosa," the boy cast and James felt himself lifted painfully by his underwear then lowered to the ground, if he could then he would've given a relieved breath at finally feeling the pain wash away, "Fin-Finite Incantatem."

James didn't expect the First Year's counter spell to work as it was a little above that skill level but it did, James found himself free and able to move again. He scrambled for his wand and magically got rid of the paint spelling out that he was a loser, the boy handed him back his clothes and James snatched them furiously as he changed. His anger increasing with every second, he'd been saved by that pathetic boy?! The Slytherin he despised, it was almost as humiliating as what Kyle had done to him.

"What the fuck did you do?!" James demanded when he was finished, rounding angrily on the small boy.

"Helped you," the boy told him steadily but seemed confused by James' reaction, "I felt bad for you, you do stuff to me like that and I know what it feels like. If I just left you there then I'd be as bad a bad person as you are and I don't want that."

"I'm not a bad person!" James roared and the Slytherin flinched as he seemed more nervous.

"And erm... is there maybe, please any chance you can leave me alone since I helped you and all?"

James's hand had curled into a fist before he realized it, colliding with the Slytherin's face perfectly and sending him spiraling to the ground. The boy tried to raise his wand but James tore it from the weak grasp easily as he lashed out with another punch as he straddled the boy, hitting him again. And again. Anger flooding him at the audacity of the boy, humiliating him further just to suck up for protection. Pathetic, worthless, selfish, coward! His blows rained down on the child until he was abruptly pulled off magically, for one terrifying second he thought he was Kyle but it wasn't. It was Vipera.

"It's not what it looks like, I'm the victim here!" James protested who looked at him incredulously, the Slytherin sat up with a broken look on his bloody face.

"You're the one beating an eleven year old," Vipera pointed out.

"Kyle Nott attacked me! He-He painted loser on my chest and hung me up by my underwear, everyone was laughing at me! Punish them!" James demanded of her but she didn't look like she believed him, he turned angrily to the boy, "Isn't that right, Slytherin?!"

"Yes!" the boy yelped fearfully as he flinched, which made it seem even less credible because now it looked like he was just saying what James wanted out of fear. The little bastard was doing it on purpose, he coughed and spat out a tooth into his shaking palm. James glared at him.

"You're coming with me to see the Headmaster," Vipera announced and shook her head in disgust.

"This isn't fair!" James shrieked, "You're just being biased and defending your house instead of seeing the truth! Elwood will side with me, my Father will hear of this! They'll have your job, you back-stabbing bitch! I'm the victim here! Kyle attacked me! Why doesn't he have to see the Headmaster?! You scum hole shadowy serpent pieces of shit are just everywhere! Just wait until you're locked up!"

Vipera didn't even seem to know what to say to that, she just took him to Elwood. Elwood didn't believe him either, no one but the Slytherin - Byron - would vouch for him and his word was worthless. He'd already removed the all-important evidence, they were so focused on pandering to the stupid Slytherin instead of dealing with the real crime. He lost thirty-five points for Gryffindor and was put on two weeks of detention, Kyle didn't get in trouble at all. Where was the justice? Was the world just against him? Byron would fucking pay for getting him in trouble, the manipulative little bastard had probably planned it all along. And Vern. He would never be in this mess if his worthless cousin wasn't getting it on with a Slytherin. His life just sucked.