Chapter XIX

No Good Deed

Hemione had chewed a nail down until she tasted blood, and near done the same to the next, by the time Luna got them back from wherever it was Sirius had them drop him off, despite it not being half as long a flight to his hideout as she had expected. When the thestral came in to land, she all but threw herself off its back, thankful for the softness of the grass underfoot as she came down on one knee.

Luna's dismount was gracefully silent, naturally.

"Where are we?" Hermione asked. Flying was so disorienting, not being able to count her steps or judge her speed.

"The main gate. It only seemed polite, after the wards wouldn't let us back in."

Now Luna mentioned it, Hermione could feel the buzz of Hogwarts' wards, humming through her bones. Usually they felt welcoming, if a little cautioning, in a motherly sort of way. In that moment, they were bristling with forceful intent, a thousand years of duty and power focused into the singular intent of keeping out.

"So, do we knock, or?"

"You most certainly could," Dumbledore's voice rang out to them, "but it may be somewhat unnecessary. Welcome back ladies; I trust your excursion was one worth taking?"

"What do you know?" Hermione challenged.

The reply was heavy with regret. "The truth, Miss Granger. The terrible truth of yet another soul I failed to protect."

"Harry told you?"

"Not Harry, no."

There was far too much importance put into those words for her liking.

"Why not?"

"Perhaps we should have this talk inside? My office is open."

"What happened to Harry?"

"Yes, my office would be best. If you would take my arm?"

Hermione reached out begrudgingly and found the silk of his sleeve, then all of a sudden her navel was sucked into her stomach and, not entirely unlike being turned through time, she was sucked out of reality and deposited back into it an instant later.

"Albus, what- oh, Miss Granger, Miss Lovegood, thank goodness!" Minerva sputtered. Hermione picked out Neville, Ginny and the twins making similar exclamations.

"Professor, what's going on? Where's Harry?"

"In a moment dear. First, are you quite alright? No injuries, no… exposure?"

Presented with a crowd of people stubbornly more concerned with her wellbeing than her need to see to Harry's, she found her worry boiling over into aggravation.

"I'll be fine as soon as somebody tells me what the hell is going on!"

"Yeah," the twins chorused, "we'd like that too."

"Calm, please," Dumbledore asked of them. "The situation is… in hand." - Hermione did not like the way Minerva scoffed at that statement - "Professor Lupin has been contained. Harry and professor Snape are enjoying Madame Pomfrey's hospitality in the infirmary."

"He's hurt!? He's… by Lupin?"

Silence was all the answer she needed, and dreaded, to hear.

"Is he… will he be…"

"That much is yet to be seen, although given the nature of his injury, it must be expected."

"Why the hell did you bring me here then? Take me to him."

"That won't be possible for some time… quarantine must be-"

Hermione screamed her frustration, because the headmaster was right and so very wrong at the same time. Right in that quarantine needed to be observed; that nobody would be allowed anywhere near the infirmary until Harry's wounds (his werewolf wounds.. Claws? A bite?) were cleaned and contained, at the very least.

Wrong in his assumption that meant a singular damn thing to her when her friend was hurting: All that kept her from rushing to the door and charging through the castle to find him was not knowing which direction the door was in, and the infuriating knowledge that by the time she found it, a certain interfering old coot would no doubt have locked it. She wouldn't have thought anything he could say would distract her from her need, until he went and did exactly that.

"We have a more pressing matter to attend. Professor Lupin, as the attacking party and as per Ministry law, is now subject to an order of execution unless exceptional circumstances can be demonstrated."

"Did you just say execution?"

"Such is the law, yes."

Images of storming the ministry and burning the seat of Wizarding Britain's legal system to the ground played in her mind. "But… but he was there to help! That is so unfair! He risked so much thinking he was going to save us, and it was my bloody fault he was out there at all!"

"Your fault? Mis Granger, you must not blame yourself that others sought to come to your aid when Black-"

"No, you daft twat! I told him to go to the lake!"

"Huh?" Ginny grunted. "How could you have-?"

"I see," Dumbledore intoned. "Well, unfortunately, that will not matter in the eyes of the ministry. The only way I can envision Mr Lupin avoiding the dementor's kiss would be to demonstrate that his actions were undoubtedly heroic, and directly responsible for the saving of at least one life; possibly more, to be sure."

"How are you intending to achieve that?" Minerva quizzed.

"It is already done, in a sense. Our esteemed professor rushed to the aid of these mere children, to defend them from the ministry's most wanted mass murderer. From what Weasley and Longbottom have said already, he broke up a most tense meeting between Black and Potter."

"But… but Black isn't… he's innocent," Fred or George contested.

"Not in the ministry's book."

Minerva was next to take exception to the plan. "Albus, you cannot seriously mean to condemn the man to even more persecution?"

"I cannot see another way to protect Remus, nor a way to clear Sirius' name. at least in this way we might save one of the two from unjust punishment."

That was when Hermione remembered what was currently sat safe in Luna's pocket. Who. "Fuck."

"Miss Granger, please do refrain-"

"Fucking fuck." She ground the knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other, like she crushing something between them. Maybe a small mammal? "Shite. God damn fucking shit! Why? Why do I bother? Why do I even fucking bother?"

"Hermione, what is-?"

"The rat. Luna, the rat?"

"Oh, yes. Here he is."

"Miss Lovegood, why do you have a rat-"

"Scabbers?" Ginny and the twins quizzed.

Even Dumbledore was confused. "I must confess to not following…?"

"It's Pettigrew. Peter Pettigrew; the death eater who actually sold Harry's parents out. I captured him; I was going to use him to prove Sirius' innocence." Hermione had to stop to take a few deep breaths. "But now… now that's pointless, isn't it, because we're throwing Sirius under a freaking bus to save Lupin!"

The room was full of confused mutterings when the headmaster addressed her, quickest to get over the revelation. "The capture of a death eater is far from pointless."

Suspiciously quick?

"But it is!" she asserted, ignoring for now the question of how much the headmaster had already known. "What are we going to do with him? We can hardly hand him over to the ministry, that would ruin everything else and undoubtedly get Lupin executed. And you're not going to do it, are you? The great Albus Dumbledore, leader of the light, you're not going to… you're not… it doesn't have to be you, does it? Anyone could…"

I could get rid of the rat problem. One spell… not even a big one… not so hard to kill a rat. She fingered her wand, absently noting how it almost burned her skin, her magic arcing restlessly across the infinitesimal divide between wood and flesh, witch and wand. Not hard at all; simply find the nerve. Did it before; did it for less. One little spell…

She didn't recognise her own voice when it left her throat. "Give me the rat, Luna."

Don't use his name; easier if it's just a rat.

Luna did not hand her the rat, though she did squeak like one. Hermione could understand why; the room was growing uncomfortably hot - no doubt Dumbledore pulsing his magic as a threat against her actions. It will take more than that to dissuade me, old man.

"Miss Granger, I will not allow-"

"Then you do it!"

"That will not be happening."

She had to give it to him, his intimidating tone was impressive. It would likely have worked on a less furious witch.

"So what? What are you going to do? Incarceration? Where? For how long? What if he escapes? Or would you let him go, after what he did? Maybe offer him a teaching position; have two death eaters on your staff!"

"You needn't concern yourself with-"

"Answer her." McGonagall's interruption was cold and hard. "Answer her, and make it a good one, or so help me I may just save her the burden by doing it myself."

The sigh he replied with was a stark reminder of how old the headmaster was; how much he had seen and survived already. That he had not learned from such a life only strengthened Hermione's resolve to ignore his wisdoms.

"There is no other choice, Minerva. Lupin's life is more important, and we must not lower ourselves to-"

"Feartie!" Minerva shrieked, and Hermione heard something shatter. "Spout yer nonsense at those who've time fer such mince! Lily Evans was the most wondrous girl I ever had privilege tae teach, and I'll not stand by an' see her memory defiled wit' yer incomprehensible mercy! Is this how ye intend tae wage another war, Albus? Are we tae bring out the stunners once more, while friends fall bathed in sicky green? Have you learned nothing? Is the blood on those hands washed away, or care ye not enough to notice? Do ye sleep sound at night, Albus Dumbledore, or do ye still hear their screams?"

"What would you have me do?" Albus shouted back, his trademark calm and low menace vanished both. "There is no good choice here! An innocent man is condemned either way, and that is a burden I will shoulder as I must, but I will not see further innocence lost in the name of revenge! We must show ourselves to be better than they are; we must hold ourselves to a higher mark. We must, or for what are we fighting?"

The room grew hotter still, seemingly at pace with Hermione's emotions. Rage. Call it what it is: Rage.

"It must be so nice," Hermione fumed, when she had finally collected her thoughts together into something she could put words to, and hardened them against the silvery tongue of the man before her, "so nice to have the luxury of riding your high horse to the battlefield. You lord it over the rest of us, directing us about like pawns in your game, but from all the way up on high, how could you possibly understand? How would you know what it is like to be one of us? To lay broken on the field; to be confronted with your own powerlessness? Lecture all you like, Albus Dumbledore, but do not ever presume to dictate to me the reasons why I fight. Do not dare tell me the standards I am to hold myself to, when you cannot understand that we little people are fighting to survive! Pettigrew is the enemy; he tried to kill Harry; he will do so again; and I Will Not Allow it!"

"You would kill this man in cold blood?" he asked, meeting her anger with his saccharine, uncomprehending disappointment. "Truly? And damn yourself in the act?"

To protect Harry? She knew spells which would do it. Her clandestine research had been rather informative in that regard; there were so many ways magic could end a life. The mechanics of it all were so simple, the logic undeniable: The man in front of her was a threat to her and Harry and their friends. He would cease to be a threat were he dead. One minus one equals zero.

So why would her hand not move? Why had she not yet killed the man? The rat. Don't call him a man.

Easier to do the deed if the victim is dehumanised.

Victim? No victim here. Just a rat. Nothing more than a rat.

Do it already.

Do it.

One spell, one thought, do it do it DO IT!

Her wand tumbled from loose fingers to clatter on the floor of the headmaster's office.

"A wise deci-"

"Shut up. Shut up and get that thing away from me, before I remember my conscience and do it with my bare fucking hands. And think on this: If he ever causes trouble for me, or Harry, or anyone we care about; if whatever you do with him does not remove him from the equation entirely; it will not be only his life I consider forfeit."

Minerva gasped. "Miss Granger, you cannot threaten-"

"So mote it be," Dumbledore interjected.

"Albus-"

"Leave it, Minerva. She has every right to her anger. There was a time I felt the same fire in my veins; a time I would have done anything for… the ones I loved. It is a child's burden to learn to temper such emotion, and an adult's duty to shelter them as they do so. I will prove to you, Miss Granger, that there is a better way. I will not dismiss the faith you place in me, nor the terrible pain of placing your friend's wellbeing in the hands of another. Especially one who has, to your perception… erred, in the past."

That's one way to put it, you old coot.

"Now," he continued, lifting his voice to false joviality and clapping once, "what say I get this criminal somewhere safe, so we can get to hammering out what we're to tell the Minister, who has just this moment entered the wards of our school."

Dumbledore's fizzling presence vanished with a soft pop and, in its absence, Hermione realised the source of the room's magical swelter was not the headmaster.

I should learn to control that better.

Or else let it off the leash, the devil on her shoulder murmured.

"I am NOT leaving him on his own for a month!" Hermione screamed at the matron blocking her path, her blood still boiling from Dumbledore's machinations and the soul-dirtying company of the minister.

"A month? Goodness, I should hope not. He only need be quarantined three days."

Three? "But, it was twelve last time… Until the moon?"

"Ah, but lycanthropic infection is only transferable so long as it is unstable within the host," Pomfrey reminded her - she knew that, now she was calming down enough to think about it. "Once it takes root fully and stabilises, it only resurges during transformative periods. The full moon. It is therefore counterintuitive, but entirely accurate, to say that the worse a victim is afflicted, the sooner they may leave quarantine, as the infection completes more rapidly."

Hermione preferred her anger to whatever cocktail of feelings was punching her stomach in its place. Anger felt useful; promised to get things done. Sadness - for it was sadness - was only sad.

"Harry is bad enough to leave in three days?"

"In three days' time, Mr Potter will either be fully infected, or have miraculously escaped. Though it would be foolish to bet upon the latter."

"And there's no way I could see him before then?"

"in his current state? One drop of blood; one fleck of saliva; that little could be enough to infect you. I do not think he would want that for the sake of a little comfort."

She had to agree, but still: "Well, how are you able to tend to him?" she challenged.

"With great difficulty, and a considerable number of exceptionally tricky spells which, before you ask, I am barely comfortable relying on for myself and as such will not be casting on you."

Hermione toyed with the idea of demanding the matron do it anyway, but it was probably for the best that logic won out. "Fine. You'll give him a message?"

"Of course."

"Tell him I got the rat, but old twinkle-eyes is playing his games again. And please remind him I don't care what affliction he has, any more than he cares about mine."

"I have no doubt he already knows the latter, but I will pass it on all the same."

"Thank you."

Poppy considered rejecting that thanks - it was, after all, only her job and duty to patch up the likes of Mr Potter, much as she complained about his frequent presence. Her work was thankless, as no thanks was needed - or in many cases, enough. But the girl before her didn't need any more rejection in her life, and certainly did not deserve it.

"How anyone conflates the girl standing before me with a 'dark witch', I cannot fathom. You are too caring by far for that."

Miss Granger took a great deal of time to consider her response, her mouth moving through a dozen possibilities before she voiced one. "That might be the problem," she hissed at last, before turning on a heel to storm away without any farewell.

Poppy watched her go, surprised as ever when she turned perfectly around a corner she couldn't see, and wondered if it wasn't so much the witch unerringly navigating the castle's corridors, as Hogwarts quietly orienting herself about the witch.

It is not, she mused, the darkness of a witch, which may compel solid stone to move from her path.

Harry tried his best to ignore the strange tension in his hands; the itch of his wounds seeping through his body and the pain potions both; and the fact he somehow no longer needed his glasses to read, as he composed his letter to the Minister. Pomfrey had explained it all, twice, but Harry still couldn't quite get his head around it. The logic was sound, yet the moral implications went beyond anything he had dealt with. Matters of life and death were supposed to be black and white, weren't they? Save the victim, defeat the bad guy, try not to get killed in the process.

Not… this mess. Not writing a letter to support the false charges against your godfather, in order to save the life of the werewolf who put you in a hospital bed. Not lying to the DMLE on the suggestion of your headmaster, and in the process covering for the traitor responsible for your parents' deaths.

If this was the way adults dealt with life and death situations, Harry would prefer to stay a child, thank you very much.

It didn't help that he had to spin his tale without telling a single direct lie, in case it came to veritaserum in court. It didn't help that the person he would have relied on to help him craft such a piece of literature wasn't allowed anywhere near him for another twenty six hours and eighteen minutes, when the letter had to be finished in five to be decontaminated and sent out.

Decontaminated. Like it had been touched by some sort of… freak. Is that all I am now? Harry Potter, the Freak? Was Vernon right all along?

He cast his eye over to the window; the one plastered on the outside with parchment to spell out her message: 'Only scars!'

Not a freak; only scarred. It was hard to believe; hard to remember when the silence of the infirmary had him imagining things in the dark, and when the potions were wearing off so he could feel the alien itch coursing through his veins; hard to hold on to, save that she believed, and that was enough.

He returned to his writing with renewed vigour, and the hope his words would be worth half as much to Fudge as hers were to him.

Hermione scrambled to her feet, letting the charmwork she'd been using to pass the time collapse, as the door to the infirmary creaked open.

"Miss Granger?" Pomfrey called out softly.

"Yes, yes I'm here. Can I…?"

"He is ready for visitors, yes."

Hermione hurried to the door, but found a hand and a soft word kept her back a moment.

"I have yet to run the complete set of tests," Pomfrey whispered, "but I'm sorry to say… he is going to need his friends more than ever."

Only scars. It is only scars. No matter what anyone says. Thirteen nights a year and some scars.

"So, what happens now? Will he be allowed to stay at Hogwarts?"

"The headmaster wishes to speak to the both of you about Harry's future; he will be here shortly."

"No rush," Hermione spat, well past concealing her growing derision of the man. He had not spoken a word to her since the meeting with Fudge, where she hadn't let slip a single word she didn't have to utter, for fear the truth might come out in its place.

"I instructed him to give the two of you ten minutes alone, but he was most insistent that things be sorted as quickly as possible."

"So…?" Hermione voiced, listening out for slippered footsteps.

"So I will admit him in ten minutes' time, to assist me with the tests." Pomfrey's restraining hand left her arm. "Go on."

Hermione was all too happy to obey, rushing into the infirmary, finding Harry's bed by some combination of instinct and sixth sense, without bothering to think about how that could be. She bumped into a curtain screen and yanked it aside, wincing at the clatter it made, not for Pomfrey's benefit but because she realised in the echoing noise that Harry may well be trying to rest. That his hearing might be more sensitive than it used to, too.

"What did that curtain do to you?" Harry asked with a weak, raspy voice.

"Got in my way," she quipped back, letting force of habit take over for her frontal lobe as it reset itself on hearing his voice again. Not that she had missed his company or anything. Not that his voice shouting her name had been the subject of several dreams the past three days.

"Remind me not to do that. I'm beat up enough as is."

"How are you feeling?"

"Wolfish."

"Harry!"

"Over the moon?"

"Please be serious."

"Don't want to. Not yet. I just… I just wanted to be normal. That's all. Was that ever so fucking much to ask? Was… Sorry. You don't-"

She plastered a smile on her face. "It's ok, Harry. I understand."

"Yeah, I guess. Say, where's Luna?"

Something in the way he asked after their friend made Hermione feel… inadequate?... for the brief moment it took her to shove her intrusive emotions aside and focus on Harry's.

"She has a lesson I believe."

"Damn. But you don't? Isn't it arithmancy right now? Or was it magical creatures… I never figured your timetable out."

Hermione coughed nervously, and did not explain that she was at that very moment attending both arithmancy and care of magical creatures. Keeping the secret hurt more and more by the day. It had never got easier, not since the first day she eluded such a question. And once again, she had to deflect his attention.

"Doesn't matter. I'm here for you."

"Thank you. Heh. Look at us. Life really screwed us over, didn't it?"

"I have to admit, it does seem to have won the first round."

"When do we get to bloody its nose back?"

"Well, first I have to teach a good friend of mine not to wrestle with werewolves. Then he needs instructing on the proper way to handle a dementor, and after that-"

"Alright, alright, I get it, I suck at this."

"No, Harry, no. You just… We're kids. We aren't meant to be good at this."

"You seem to be."

"Is that why I'm the blind one?" she scoffed. It never ceased to amaze her, or endear him to her, that he so easily overlooked that about her.

"Doesn't count, you were a firstie."

"So were you when you blew a basilisk's head apart."

They shared a snicker at that. It felt defiant and hopeful coming from her throat; it echoed back off the walls of the empty infirmary as a sad, nervous thing, lost in a sea of despair.

"This school is a death-trap isn't it?" he sighed. "Think we should transfer? What was that French school called?"

"Beauxbatons. But-"

"Yeah, that's it. Wonder when they last had a student die. Or a professor. Or a five-x on the loose."

"1984; a boy was run over by an Abraxan."

"Why do you know that? No, wait, you read it somewhere."

"My parents did, actually. They subscribed to a load of wizarding papers, soon as they found out I was a witch. Wanted to understand the culture."

"Your parents? Man, that makes me wish-"

Whatever his wish was to be, it was drowned out by the last voice Hermione wanted to hear.

"Harry, my dear boy!" the headmaster called out as he strode into the infirmary, followed by Madam Pomfrey who was glaring daggers into his back. "It is so good to see you awake."

The interruption of the first proper conversation he'd had with anyone in three days was not welcomed, and did nothing to help Harry's irritability. The frown it put on Hermione's face was more damning.

"Headmaster," he replied, letting his voice drop low and… and yes, that was definitely a growl rising unbidden from his chest.

Hermione's acknowledgement made his sound pleasant by comparison. That the headmaster let such profanities against him and his honour go unanswered had Harry wondering just what had passed between them in the time he was admitted.

"Miss Granger, as much a pleasure as ever," was his only rebuttal. "But Harry, lad, how are you feeling?"

"Shit," he answered, inspired by Hermione's bluntness to speak his own. Poppy scoffed, but couldn't hide the smile from her eyes.

"Quite," Dumbledore said as he summoned and took a seat, giving Harry the impression that would have been his response no matter what was said. "Bu if you will indulge me, I'm afraid we must discuss your situation in some detail."

"The tests, Albus," Poppy asserted.

"Of course, matron, of course. This is why I never became a healer, you know," he said to Harry, leaning in like he was confiding some dark secret. "Never had the patience. Always another mystery to solve, puzzle to crack. No rest for a curious mind."

"You may talk to your heart's content once the spell is working," Madam Pomfrey prompted.

The headmaster needed no more incentive, producing his strangely knotted wand in a seamless motion to run it across Harry's body. It lingered uncomfortably above his afflicted thigh, and similarly a moment too long over his forehead. Dumbledore frowned with the effort, muttering under his breath, and then his magic blossomed out to form a barely visible shroud around Harry. Judging by the way Madam Pomfrey started to manipulate the field, fixed in concentration, he assumed the magic worked.

"Now, first of all, Harry, let me put your mind at ease. Your place at Hogwarts next year is assured. With Professor Lupin's nature revealed there is no reason to hide that Hogwarts has accommodated victims of lycanthropy several times in the past, and will continue to do so. The power to accept or reject a student on such grounds lies entirely with the headmaster, regardless."

That was one weight off Harry's mind. One of many.

"And the student reaction?" Hermione questioned, taking the words from Harry's mouth.

"Unfortunate as it is, that will not be anything you have not handled in the past. Every opportunity will be taken to remind your peers you are the heroes of this tale, and others before it."

"Yes, because you've been so proactive against bullying in the past."

"Ah, but I will not be the one handling these matters. Professor McGonagall has, quite ardently, volunteered herself for the duty. I believe her exact words were: It shall be a cold day in hell before I see that boy sleep another night in a closet. You truly have brought out the fire in that woman."

"Speaking of sleeping in closets, what are we going to do about the summer?" Hermione interjected. "I'm terribly sorry Harry, but I'm not sure I can invite you to stay like last time; we don't have proper access to any of the magical support you will need."

"We could work around that, right?" he asked, not caring that so much desperation showed in his voice.

Hermione shifted uncomfortably. "I think… I also think if you came to stay this summer, my parents would assume you're my boyfriend. Which could be… awkward."

"So what? I go to the Leaky all summer? Or do I show up at my uncle's door and beg to be let back in? Am I back to living in a cupboard because the other option is too 'awkward'?" he spat. He didn't mean to be so angry with her, but it came out all the same.

"No! No, we are not sending you back there! Never! We just need to come up with something else, that's all."

She left a pause, 'looking' to Dumbledore at her side, inviting him to back her up.

"It pains me to say, but you would be safer with your relatives."

"Safe? In what world is that safe? How many more-" - Harry tensed as he saw where her words were going, but she caught herself with a hand to her own mouth - "No. That is not an option."

Harry lay back in his hospital bed as the two of them devolved into some heated argument about blood wards and his mum's sacrifice and burning his uncle's house to the ground, one which he barely followed as the noise of it all was bringing on a killer headache. Or maybe that was the stress. He appreciated Hermione fighting his corner, but Merlin, did she have to be so forceful about it? Dumbledore was a reasonable man, wasn't he? A blundering fool, potentially dangerous in his negligence at times, but he hardly needed shouting at. Right?

A glance at Poppy, and the way she rested her hand on Hermione's in a silent show of support, disabused him of that notion. Whatever it was had transpired the past few days, his best friend's tolerance for the headmaster had run completely dry. If he trusted her judgment, that meant his had as well.

Yet he couldn't help rankle as this argument was still a result of her not wanting her parents asking a few awkward questions. Easily answered questions at that; no, she isn't my girlfriend. Still only best friends. Yes, she risked her life for me, again, but that's just us, you know? And besides, I think I'm interested in someone else.

Easy.

Oh, also, I turn into a ravenous, magic-resistant, supernaturally strong giant wolf once a month, and I will try to rip your face off when I do. Same bedroom as last time?

He really did hate how right Hermione could be sometimes.

His funk was broken by a pair of brilliant blue eyes appearing over him, staring right through his.

"Luna."

"You remember me," she breathed. She appeared to be buzzing with some sort of eagerness.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"No reason. But it gladdens me every time you do."

Then she was hugging him. After three days of the matron being so careful not to so much as brush against him, it felt nice. The person doing it may have had something to do with that feeling as well.

"Miss Lovegood, what did I tell you about physical contact with my patients?" Pomfrey chided.

"That I mustn't under any circumstance, save an urgent emergency," she recited - whilst not letting go.

"And the emergency here is?"

"Harry was upset."

"A good friend in a bad way," Dumbledore chimed in with an indulgent chuckle - his debate with Hermione seemingly on hold. "Was there ever a situation more urgent?"

"Well, leave him be now, before your presence interferes with the magical field."

Luna pulled back with a sheepish grin aimed at Harry, linking her hand into his as she did so. The matron took one look at that linkage and, with rolling eyes, let it be. She was waving her wand over him, without explanation, when Hermione's started buzzing.

"Oh! Oh, the time. I… have to go."

"Somewhere to be?" Dumbledore asked lightly.

"Yes, and I cannot be late. Sorry, Harry, but… I'll be back soon."

"You only just got here," he lamented, wondering what she had found that was more important than him. If that thought was a little too selfish, he didn't care.

"I know, I know," she said, backing toward the door. "Sorry. Luna, don't let the headmaster talk him into anything I wouldn't approve of."

Then she turned and practically ran from the infirmary, throwing up a glittering matrix of magical shields before her. Harry watched her all the way, and tried not to let her sudden absence hurt as much as it did.

"I don't need babysitting," he grouched, daring Luna with a hard stare to disagree.

"What wouldn't she approve of, Harry?" Luna replied, implicitly agreeing with them both.

"We were discussing summer plans, since apparently I can't stay at hers again."

"Ah. That would explain things," she said, tapping a finger to her chin. "Not to worry, Harry; you can come home with me. We don't have a guest bedroom, but daddy did reinforce the basement to hold rampaging wilderpixies, should we ever catch one. It would hold a werewolf every bit as well, I should think."

"But, your dad? What if he says no?"

Luna batted her eyelashes outrageously. "Daddy never says no to me."

That was how, all of a sudden, the prospect of a summer not with Hermione went from depressing to exciting. Then Poppy finished her scan and, with a frown Harry didn't like one bit, twisted everything on its head once more.

"That may not be necessary. The infection has stabilised as we thought, but…" - she swung her wand across his thigh again - "I can find no holding trace of dark magic in the wound. Or anywhere else I would not expect it, given your history."

"What does that mean?"

"It means, Mr Potter, that you have by some miracle purged the curse from your body. As for your ongoing condition… I cannot recall any victim of lycanthropy succumbing to the infection whilst repelling the curse. I would think, theoretically… but then… hmm. Yes. It is the infection which powers the transformation, altering your magic to accommodate your new nature, but it is the curse which triggers it. Without the dark element, your magic has no way to recognise the moon's influence."

He tried to give her a look to convey how little that meant to someone with his level of healing knowledge. Fortunately, it prompted her to continue.

"I cannot say for certain, but there is every chance you will not turn come the moon. Any moon."

"Moon sickness?" Dumbledore inquired, leaning forward.

"Of a sort. There will be changes even so - you have experienced some already, Mr Potter - but you may have avoided the worst of it. Possibly. How, I cannot say, unless-"

"You may be right, Poppy, but might we save our theorising for another time?" Dumbledore butted in. "Harry appears tired, and I fear we have kept him from his rest long enough."

Harry couldn't argue with that; trying to follow all the thoughts in his head was exhausting. Processing them all was going to take more effort than he had in him. The news was fantastic (Potentially? Comparatively?) but laced with a tinge of disappointment; a niggling frustration that his best friend hadn't stuck around long enough to hear it. If she had, would she have changed her mind about the arrangements? Who knows? She isn't here to ask.

Luna was there though, so he concentrated on that; on his hand in hers; and on a blossoming daydream of a blessedly long summer.

A/N:

Fuck this chapter. I have rewritten so much of it, so many times, and it's still a fragmented mess. Oh well.