Chapter 45: Last one down?

For disclaimer and author notes please see chapter 1.

1989-08-02 13:00 UTC, Kithurst Close

Sirius returned from the trial just about lunch time. He was disappointed, and looked it.

"What happened? She didn't know anything?", asked Remus. He had a job to do tonight for a client, so he was relaxing for now.

"No", grumbled Sirius. "Amelia spent a fair bit of time with her yesterday morning. Despite her best efforts, even with truth serum, she didn't categorically know anyone else who was involved except Malfoy. He was pretty much her only contact, and he's beyond asking now. Maybe we should have asked him more questions while we had him on the stands, but we had already gotten so much out of him, it was hard to imagine even more coming out".

"I also think a big part of it was everyone being so disgusted at what he was saying they just wanted to get him out of their sight. Permanently!"

"I guess", sighed Sirius as he sat down.

"Did she explain why she did it? How long had she been planning it? Although that should be impossible, since we did not know until a couple of days before the party that we would be applying for a temporary floo connection".

"Exactly. This was very clearly a spur of the moment thing - she said so under truth serum, plus it fits all the facts. Motivation is another story; apparently she blames us for Dolohov's death".

"Dolohov? Is he her cousin or something? Why would that bother her?"

"Well, Amelia saw no need to make this part of the record - no need to make her innocent husband feel borderline-cuckolded on top of everything else - but apparently she had long had a crush on Dolohov. Of course truth serum is not conducive to reasoning and debate, so no one bothered to remind her that he was the aggressor."

He switched gears from the frustrating subject. "Harry not back yet?"

"No, I think they're having some other kids over from the school; seemed like an impromptu party. They just met when they all went shopping this morning and decided on-the-spot that lunch would be at the Grangers!", laughed Remus.

"I'm glad he's having fun. I have no clue what his life will be like when he starts Hogwarts".

"Didn't Hobby tell you? He's going to be shadowing him all through. He also intends to liberate the map from the twins to help".

"Is he going to claim to be one of the marauders?"

"Probably", grinned Remus. "The important thing is, he will make sure there are no surprises. And you know elves are plenty in Hogwarts - no one will find it unusual to see one more".

"Unless Dumbledore recognises him".

"Hence the map".

"Remind him the portraits and ghosts are also problematic. They may not recognise him as anything different from the other elves, but if they see him constantly reading a map, they will report it".

"He says that's no problem. He knows some room where he can hide out, and no one will find him. That'll be his base. Anyway, enough planning for something that is still two years away".

"Speaking of Hobby, where is he?"

"He's with the kids, but staying out of sight".

"He's getting bored isn't he? He's come close to the end of his self-imposed task, there are very few death-eaters around, we're just scraping the bottom of the barrel right now. Not at all a challenge anymore!", said Sirius.

"Yes. Though I would not under-estimate the bottom of the barrel - isn't that where Edgecombe came from?", cautioned Remus.

"Which brings us nicely back to the disappointing trial today. How do we find others? You know, I think it'd be simplest if Hobby just hangs around the place at random times, listening in on conversations".

"That'd be creepy", said Remus. "Though if it's the only way..."

"It's the only way to find out who may be a problem. But unless they do an Edgecombe, we still won't have enough for a trial, far less a life sentence. So they'll come back at some point, and if by that time we have forgotten about them, well, then... bang! ...they get us from behind. Figuratively speaking".

1990-02-25 09:00 UTC, Kithurst Close

A few months had gone by, and finally it was time for the first set of tests to be run.

Pandora, now that she had met both Harry, and his guardian, and that too a lot earlier than she was originally planning, had buckled down to her theoretical and practical work with gusto. She was determined to get her friend's son free of this problem. And while she was not sure if Dumbledore had a hand in her death in the other timeline, at the very least the old bastard deserved to be kicked in his nuts for ignoring Harry's problem completely - and possibly even attempting to manipulate that unique circumstance in some manner detrimental to the little boy.

As a result of her new-found additional enthusiasm and inspiration, her remaining research had gone faster and she had called Sirius a couple of days ago asking him if he could bring Harry in the following Sunday.

When it came to telling Harry, the adults knew enough not to keep the macro level details secret from Harry himself. Hobby was especially insistent on this - far too many times (he had said) he had been left out of the loop, often causing problems, and one-time an actual, honest-to-goodness, disaster.

As for Hermione, well, as everyone knew by then, if you told Harry, Hermione would know soon anyway so you may as well tell them both together.

It then fell to Sirius, with Penny as backup (and Hobby hovering around the periphery) to tell them.

The conversation proved to be interesting, in more ways than one.

The kids did not, of course, know anything about horcruxes. But it could not be denied that Harry had a scar that occasionally troubled him, that would not heal as expected, or at least would not stay healed, occasionally bursting out and bleeding a bit before settling down again. So the topic was not difficult to broach.

"Harry, Hermione, there's something we need to talk about; could you please join me in the living room after breakfast?" asked Sirius.

The kids were almost done anyway so they rushed through what little was left. ("What do you think this is about?" whispered Harry. "Do you think we are in trouble?" To which Hermione replied "It didn't sound like it. In fact Sirius appeared a tad nervous. Maybe they are in trouble with us!" giggled Hermione).

Sirius started in without much preamble as soon as they walked in and settled themselves down. Harry's nervousness was eased when he pulled him onto his lap. If he had been brought up normally, a boy of this age would have squirmed at this, but Harry was - despite the last few years - not yet ready to give up or take for granted such affectionate gestures.

He did smile a sheepish smile at Hermione, who grinned back and sat down next to him and Sirius, on the side facing Harry. Penny was in the seat opposite. (Normally she would be the one with Harry on her lap, but this time she felt it was good to have Sirius do this). Hobby was also around, but the kids did not know, and he was keeping himself invisible.

"OK there is something we need to do today, but I don't want you to worry about it OK?" said Sirius.

"That's the best way to get us worried, Sirius", said Hermione calmly.

Sirius face-palmed, then resumed. "Has your scar been hurting you more of late?" he asked Harry.

"A little. Just barely noticeably."

"Well, we have been worried about that scar for a few years now, and - even though we did not know this till last year some time, it seems Aunt Pandora had been working on the problem for some years now."

"OK", said Harry hesitantly. Simultaneously, Hermione asked, "What do you mean 'worried about it for a few years now'? Is it something bad? Why would you worry about a scar, even if it wasn't healing properly? None of the medical texts in mom and dad's office indicated anything serious."

Without pausing for breath, she turned to Harry. With a somewhat apologetic look, she said "Look I didn't want you to worry. After the third time it happened, I read up on what could be the cause. I ruled out low platelet counts and nutrition problems - that may have been true in 1986 or 1987 but not anymore. I thought it might be hemophilia, but then you had that other wound when you fell off the bike and it healed up pretty fast, so I was confused again. So I just assumed you'd been scrat-"

"Hold on, Hermione! I didn't understand many of the words you used there, I'm sure only adults - and doctors at that - could have!" said Harry. "But thank you for caring so much!" He gave her a big smile, and she returned it with a faint blush at the thanks and the praise.

Sirius cleared his throat. Lately, the kids would often just take over the conversation, and then continue it among themselves, often seeming to forget the adults were in the same room!

"Pandora needs to run some tests on it, that's all".

"OK, why? What's so special about this scar, except Harry probably scratches it once in a while".

"Umm, I'm sorry Mione, I don't!"

That appeared to throw Hermione off. Evidently she had been depending on that as the most benign explanation. She now turned a much more worried face to Sirius. "Tell me Luna's mum knows what's wrong and how to fix it!"

"She will be running some tests today, tests that will confirm or disprove some theories she has been working on for some time. After that, we will know for sure".

"Well then let's go, what are we waiting for?" she asked anxiously.

Penny dropped a hand gently on the girl's shoulder, causing her to look up.

"That's planned for this afternoon, dear", she said. "Meanwhile, it would not do for either you or Harry to get worried about it. Please calm down", she said. She gave a short nod towards Harry - so short and brief that only Hermione caught it.

One look at her friend and she forced herself to calm down. He was, as he had every right to be, even more worried about what was going on. They were each other's support, so if she fell to pieces, that would not help him at all.

Nodding her thanks to Penny with a smile, she turned to Sirius. In a much calmer voice, she asked, "What exactly is this scar, Sirius?"

Pushing the boundaries of what they had decided to tell the children, Sirius replied. "It may be some dark magic, Hermione, and once we find out what it is, we can get it removed".

"Why wasn't it done till now?"

"We didn't realise it could be-" - he was going to say "bad" but stopped himself in time - "dark magic. But now Pandora is helping, we'll deal with it, no matter what it is".

Hermione, recognising that any further questions would go back to making her - and Harry - worry, wisely stopped.

It was a sign of how worried Harry already was, that he did not notice the absence of the usual Hermione-barrage of questions.

1990-02-25 13:00 UTC, The Lovegood Home

"Pandora, you said last year at Harry's birthday party that you and Lily had already determined that Voldemort had made other horcruxes. But in my timeline, even Dumbledore was not sure of it until the diary was used to open the chamber of secrets. How did you know?", asked Hobby.

"Aah yes I did say that, didn't I? Well, we all may hate Dumbledore for a lot of things, real and supposed, but he's no dummy. So - if he failed to figure this out - I don't blame you. The plain fact of the matter is, people always under-estimate the unspeakables. We had access to some questionable Egyptian magic that would scan a given area - like a whole country - and tell us if there were any horcruxes there. It was expensive to run, took a heck of a lot of magical power, and was never completely accurate, but it was a decent starting point."

"So how many did you find?"

"I wasn't privy to the details; just the high level picture. In fact, I don't think the device could tell who the horcrux belonged to - by all accounts, no one had ever attempted something so foolish as to do this more than once, so it may well be that the ancient Egyptians who designed it, did not even think of that possibility".

"So how did you guys guess he made more than one?"

"Well, we run that scan about once in twenty years - it's that hard to do, honestly. If the count increases from the last time we ran it, we know someone created some or brought them in from another country. In the last reading, which was just before Luna was due, well... unless we had several dark lords who kept themselves hidden and completely out of the limelight, it was a safe bet they were all the same guy."

"Why the heck couldn't you run it more often?"

"All I know is that it was not possible? I'm not part of the group that handles that magic, sorry Hobby!"

"Hmm... Anyway, what are we doing now?"

"Now, we wait for Sirius to bring Harry in, so I can run some preliminary tests. Remember I developed all the theory for this over the past several years so who knows if I screwed up somewhere! Luckily the test to see if my theory holds is quite simple and safe for Harry so we will know for sure."

An hour or so later, the large-ish room that served as Pandora's "lab" was crowded beyond belief. Apart from Pandora and Xeno, there were Sirius, Remus, Nick, and Penny. Harry of course was present, and Hermione had insisted on coming along - she had been holding his hand since morning.

No one noticed little Luna, standing quietly behind one of the chairs. Harry, Hermione, and Luna had spent almost an hour catching up, and Hermione had filled Luna in on what she knew.

Luna, in turn, had some thoughts - mostly from quietly listening in when her mother was discussing things with either one of her old colleagues, or - more often - with her husband at breakfast or dinner. Pandora never went to great depths but there was enough.

The upshot of all this would, very shortly, be seen by the adults!

Harry had been asked to sit in a special chair. To Hermione it looked vaguely similar to one of the dentist chairs her parents used for their patients, except it wasn't reclining so much. It didn't have most of the pneumatic equipment (electrical equipment was out of the question anyway), but curiously, there was a pipe of some kind. It could be a suction hose, or an air/water nozzle - Hermione was not sure. Unlike in muggle equipment, looking at the other end did not tell her anything - she didn't know enough about runes yet to figure that out.

As Pandora approached Harry, a gentle smile on her face, she saw that Penny was on Harry's right, her hand on Harry's right shoulder, in a comforting "I'm right here" grip. Hermione was on his left, his left hand held in both of hers. Sirius was at his head, ruffling his hair.

If anything, all this attention was causing Harry to grow even more nervous. Sure, Hermione, Penny, and Sirius were all people he loved, and who loved him, but having all of them focus on him at the same time was not inspiring any confidence in whatever was going to happen.

Hermione and Pandora both realised this at the same time. Recognising that look in each other, they both decided to shoo away one person.

"Penny, could you move over a bit please, I might need room to work here", said Pandora. Simultaneously, Hermione turned toward Sirius, and - fixing him with a gimlet eye - moved him away. Luckily Sirius understood, and merely smiled at her while moving further away. Hermione calmly took his place, and - just to let Harry know - bent down from above his head so he could see her.

Brazenly (for her anyway) she then dropped a quick kiss on his forehead. Sirius and Remus stared in shock, expecting Harry and Hermione to blush brightly. When neither of them blushed, they were left wondering: was it the seriousness of the situation that made this not a blush-worthy kiss, or had at least this kind of a platonic-looking kiss happened before? (They asked Hermione later, but she just stared at them, narrowed her eyes a bit, then walked away without even answering! Damn, she knows how to make us feel two feet tall!, thought Sirius)

Pandora started her explanation, in a calm, soothing voice, addressing Harry directly.

"Hi Harry! You seem to be a tad worried, but I can tell you we're not actually doing anything right now. Right now, all I want to do is run some tests to see if my theory is right. Once I run the test, I can decide what we need to do. Actually, my test may even tell us we don't need to do anything, which would be great".

"But if we don't do anything, I'll have this scar forever, and it's not like it's a normal scar. I know this is something bad, you don't need to hide it from me. Sirius already told us you were all worrying about it for some time now."

Luna came forward just a bit from where she was not-quite-hiding. "And I've heard enough to know that my mother was in danger", she said to no one in particular.

"How in the world did you find out about that, sweetheart?" asked Pandora.

"I heard you and dad talking one day".

Pandora face-palmed. She smiled apologetically at Harry, and went over to her daughter to give her a hug. When she turned back to Harry's chair, Hobby moved closer to Luna and gave her a sideways hug. "Don't worry", he whispered. "I'll make sure there's no danger for your mum".

"But we still want to know what precisely this scar is and what you plan to do before you start", said Hermione, in a tone that said "and you'd better not hold back anything!"

"Let's all sit down then", said Penny, "and discuss this calmly". She looked at Sirius and Pandora, got a nod from each of them, indicating they were happy to trust her to tell the kids what could be told.

"Yes, there is a dark curse inside Harry's scar. Yes, Voldemort is not dead, and if he comes back, that dark curse might... wake up, in a manner of speaking".

"What would it do if it woke up?" asked Hermione.

Hobby answered. "Nothing major - mainly headaches, visions, and possible possession. But I fought it off OK".

This down-playing did not sit well with Hermione, but she realised that if Hobby was doing the down-playing, there must be a reason. She and Luna looked at each other, and apparently decided to pipe down until they heard more.

After a few moments of quiet, Harry spoke. "Let's get the test over with".

Smiling at Harry, Pandora approached his chair. She had spent years designing this, and working out the runes on it. She charged each of the protective barriers (which, together, looked like a curved head rest made of three pieces joined seamlessly, and was even cushioned. She pulled up a sheet, with more runes stitched on it (this must have taken quite a lot of time, thought Hobby), covering Harry from his feet all the way up to just under his chin, then set to work.

After a few chants, she started smiling, which made everyone feel relieved. She made a few more sweeps with her wand, when an image floated up. Only she could make out what that image represented, but she smiled even more and stopped her chanting and turned around.

In a puzzled but happy voice, she addressed Sirius and Penny. "This is a lot easier than I expected. It seems I will be able to remove it right now. No danger of any kind. We can just pull it right out. I even have the receptacle ready".

"What kind of a receptacle is it?" asked Hobby.

"It's runic, of course - almost everything I do is with runes, unless it's charms. It's designed to hold a so-" - and Sirius coughed loudly and almost violently to stop her.

Harry, Hermione, and Luna once again looked at each other, and once again decided to let things go. For now.

"OK, I can then take it to the veil room and pop it in", said Hobby.

Hermione was frantically beckoning to Hobby, and they, along with Luna, went into a huddle at Harry's chair - where he was still sitting.

After a few minutes of whispered conversation, they all turned around.

Hobby spoke for all of them.

"Call Dumbledore. We want him to see this while it's happening".