**6 Days Earlier**

There was something in the way Foster regarded the body of the boy. His silence, his bent head, the tight line above his compressed lips, told Ash that his questions could wait. Even though Foster stood very still, having halted his actions for a moment, it was the most expression Ash had yet to see him reveal.

Foster's shoulders slanted in their dark layers, imitating the slant of his mouth. His hair fell forward, as it always did when he lowered his guard. After two years, Ash could finally read something of the lost scripture that translated Foster into this world. Ash still got things wrong. He still screwed up, destroying months of progress by assuming more familiarity than Foster granted him. But the hair was his. Foster didn't care about it, so it was left unguarded and Ash could tell that its fall forward, was all the sadness Foster would let him see as he stood braced over the body on the table.

Mud and black smears covered Foster's clothing. Drying blood crusted his face and hands. A film of dirt speckled his livid complexion, and clean streaks traced through these as if his skin bore the imprint of multiple environments and conditions, all spaced seconds apart. His clothes were wet and looked heavy on his body. The coat was gone, and Ash saw that it had been removed to wrap and carry the body. It now lay beneath the boy.

Ash knew to keep quiet. They were in his basement, where he saw his patients. One minute, he was watching the news, trying to come up with the weekly dinner list his housekeeper, Reuse, required. The next, floorboards shook beneath him, vibrating as heavy equipment scraped across his basement and something moved around down there, knocking into tables and cabinets. He heard his steel trays crash to the floor and stacks of hanging files clattered from their shelves. Glass broke. He heard a mess, and he knew immediately that it couldn't be an animal. No raccoon, small enough to find its way inside, could be responsible for that much explosive energy and commotion. And no intruder was stupid enough to ransack his home in broad daylight with his vehicle sitting right out front. That meant he had a very special visitor.

Just in case, he removed one of his walking sticks from its corner and took the stairs off the kitchen down cautiously. The basement had been remodeled several years ago for his practice. It was 1100 square feet arranged into two separate living compartments. On one end of the house, where there were no windows, his office could be accessed by clients from the outside. On the opposite, a one-bedroom dwelling was rented to his housekeeper. He had intended to use the extra space for storage, but she agreed to take on his cooking if he let her move in. She wasn't a great cook, but neither was he. More often than not, she fixed him up with a plate from her mother's and spent her time secluded with books or making odd costumes for her online business.

He knew it couldn't be her. She was on an errand, her car was still gone. And her bony, one hundred-twenty pounds couldn't so much as jar a floorboard if she jumped up and down on it. She was a sedentary kind of homebody, who he doubted could make that much racket if her life depended on it.

Ash came down behind Foster, taking in the body on the table. When it came into view from the top of the stairs, he paused long enough to blink and assure himself that this was happening. Foster's presence whispered more to his sense of adventure than his concern as a doctor. But those were just the first few seconds. As Ash got closer, he saw the injuries and had to take the situation seriously.

"What's going on? Who's that?"

Without looking at him, Foster spoke. It sounded like he was speaking through a dense clog in the back of his throat. "No one. A passenger."

"Okay…"

Ash saw words moving below Foster's expression, words that could not break the restraint of his flexing jaw muscles. Foster kept his real answers submerged. Whatever he wanted to say, his lips clamped tight against a throat that still shaped what it wanted to really say. Recuperative breathing betrayed his stillness. His face cracked into division, split by a fissure of worry that started between his brows and dominated all other characteristics. Without opening his mouth, he showed that his thoughts tasted ruinous and sour, like vomit. He would not let them out.

Ash got no real answers from him and started looking the stranger over for himself. It was second-nature to grab his stethoscope even as he felt for a pulse. His body twisted to do both. His mind leapt to calculations of morphine and antiseptics stored in lower shelves. That's when he saw the missing arm. That's when he looked up at Foster again, then back to the body. This time he noticed that the boy's hair only went so far behind his head, before ending in a mangle of blackened skin and bone. The back of his head was burned down to his skull. The body lay face-up, revealing structural damage to the face, more severe burns, and a crushed humerus, amputated at the elbow. That was just the damage that Ash saw right away. It was enough. He stopped feeling for a pulse.

That's when he understood. Foster was mourning.

Missing skin disfigured half the person's face. He glimpsed two ribs protruding from the right side before Foster covered them. Ash reminded himself that Foster never asked anything of him, not even when Ash wanted him to. The fact that he had barged into Ash's home unannounced, carrying this kid, and seeking medical resources, could be waved away. Ash wanted to help, but suspected the thing to do was to stay out of his way. Let him have the room. Keep quiet and be grateful that Foster was too absorbed in the boy to object to his presence. Yes, it was Ash's home. But his resources were Foster's resources. Whatever happened, Ash counted on Foster to remember that.

The boy lay on Ash's medical table. He wasn't really a boy. His physiology, what was left of it, told Ash that he was between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. But the way Foster stood over him, hovering with shadows flickering across fixed displeasure, delegated the unconscious youth to a much younger status. Foster had concealed the boy's semi nakedness with one of the sheets that Ash kept sealed in plastic bags, in the shelves below the table. They were kept, not merely clean, but sterile, on the off chance Ash would need to perform surgery in his basement. Reuse changed them regularly, though they'd seen no use in over a year. Not since he'd had to reattach a neighbor's severed tendon.

Now a sheet hid most of the trauma that Ash could see. At that time, he hadn't known about the train explosion. He guessed that the shredded clothing, the burns, and the missing limb, were the result of a car accident involving reckless speeds. He'd certainly seen that too many times in his career.

Foster's thick speech took him by surprise. "The shield wasn't stable. He was thrown from it."

Ash waited. These nuggets of information, whether he knew how to apply them to Foster's life or not, were valuable glimpses. If he gained enough of them, he might be able to piece something of Foster's reality together. He didn't know if the other was speaking to him or simply out loud. Foster's eyes never left the boy.

"I had to save him." A thread of hair-thin instability lined Foster's voice with coppery grading. It took Ash a moment to realize that this was his attempt at an explanation. "I left those still alive, where they'd receive help, but I had to save him. The fire was too great. I couldn't free all the bodies. There were too many. Too many injuries. My magic…gave out. I brought him here."

Before Ash could stop himself, he answered in an equally reverent tone, "You did the right thing."

He wasn't at all certain that bringing a corpse from a crash site to his home, was the right thing. But if Foster needed supportive words, he would give them. This was a side of Foster, he hadn't seen until now. He didn't know what was going on, but very fact that this man was speaking from, what looked like a state of shock, had Ash waiting to see what would come next.

He realized later that Foster was the first to arrive at the wreckage. Ash himself received a message hours later, that the nearest hospital, Mayo University, was asking for his assistance in transporting survivors. He took the call as footage of the train unfolded on the news. By then, he believed Foster. He knew he could take his time. He had no doubt that Foster had saved as many people that could be saved.

Ash dared to step closer to the table. Foster's pupils sharpened, turning on him. Ash stopped. Thinking quickly, he asked, "How can I help?"

Foster's mouth went hard, then dour. "You can't." He began unbuttoning and removing his outermost shirt. "He needs my marrow."

Ash blinked, unsure how to respond to that. Foster leveled his true meaning at him. "Let me work, undisturbed."

It was on the tip of Ash's tongue to insist, "Let me watch," but he knew those were too many words, and too intrusive at the moment. He stepped back. His eyes fixed on the sight of Foster slipping free of his layers. He removed his vest, revealing a high collared shirt that had once been stark white, but was now soaked through with watery looking blood.

Ash struggled not to suggest driving the boy to the hospital, or calling the authorities, sensing the futility of it on so many levels. By the time Foster pulled out of his sleeves, revealing more bare skin than Ash expected to see, he didn't care about the boy on the table. That kid was as good as dead. If Foster needed to think that he could save him, then Ash would let it play out.

Ash had seen Foster's body before. But a man in purpose and motion, was very different from one lying still and medicated. Foster handled his body the way he handled his business, brusque and efficient. In motion, his bare skin conformed to taut flexibility that boasted of a mature man's torso and midriff. The subcutaneous layer between muscle and skin filled out soft places down his arms and stomach, disappearing into his trousers. His upper arms and chest held an appealing roundness to them, but looked dense with underlying hardness. Ash memorized the details and said nothing as he watch Foster produce his wand.

Respiratory distress, secured airways, pleurodesis, and cardiac monitoring, were terms that died in Ash's throat as he diagnosed what he saw, out of habit. Those terms were useless to Foster, and useless to the young man, even were he lying in a state-of-the-art facility. Beneath fevered raw tissue, which Ash's instincts wanted to submerge in cooling therapy, the peculiar grey of hypostasis could be seen on the forearm and lower torso where there were no burns. The boy's heart wasn't pumping.

He's dead.

He's on the cusp.

The skull is burned. The brain does not survive those temperatures or the shock.

Only a spot. The burns are not consistent. He could come back.

Ash tried to mind his own business. He tried to insist that the boy was already dead. All the evidence pointed to that and he was going to give Foster all the time he needed to realize it. But Foster stood there with his bare skin and his stick, and it just felt like some sort of grief hysteria. Truth be told, it felt like a ritual and it riled the scientist in Ash, who'd taken an oath. It pissed him off that Foster's friendship was so important to him, he'd risk doing nothing as this young man's life slipped away.

Even if the boy is dead, are you going to let him go without trying? Just to stay out Foster's way? What kind of a doctor are you?

That did it. Ash couldn't wait to see what Foster was doing. He sprang into action, woefully aware that he wasn't staffed or stocked to treat this level of trauma. He had no chest kits, but he knew he could puncture through the boy's ribs and attempt to drain the blood that was pressurizing his lungs. He'd just have to use a catheter to keep it open. That wouldn't guarantee his breathing, but it was the place to start. He went for the morphine. His body jerked in split-decision, insisting he scrub himself as well as prepare an antiseptic field. He blurted to Foster, "I don't suppose you know CPR?"

Foster's eyes cut to him briefly, but returned to the young man as if he hadn't heard Ash. Ash cursed, splashing from a side bathroom and slipping on water as he hastily tore open a disposable syringe. He blamed Foster's theatrics for making him crazy and steadied his hands over his sterilized instruments.

He was about to ask Foster to cover himself in one of the paper masks and gowns laying in packets, in a drawer, when the lights went dim. At first they flickered, before casting the room in shadows. A refrigerated medical cabinet and submerged lighting beneath the shelves, were the only illumination for a moment. The cabinet's timer went out, leaving even less light, and Ash exploded with a stream of profanity.

Foster never looked up. His gaze went to his wand and what he instructed it to do.

Ash didn't know why his backup power wasn't kicking in. He stomped off in search of the electric box and skidded when his foot went sliding with one of the trays Foster had knocked to the floor earlier. He landed on his back, with Foster and the boy behind him. It was as fast as a grease fall, so violent and surprising that it knocked the breath out of him. He felt his body spin without opening his eyes. In the absence of all control, he told himself that he was not meant to save that boy. Something just didn't want him to even try. The fall jarred him so hard, he waited for signs of pain before opening his eyes. He was too old to be falling like that. Instead of jumping up, which he could've, he decided to play it safe and rolled over, looking up in the dark at Foster.

The first thing he noticed, was concentration illuminating Forster's face. It was dark, and yet there was light. He squinted. He tried to focus on little movements all around him. The dark was moving. There were little streaks, like flashing needles, racing through the dark. They lit up, intermittently, creating razor streaks that burned bright for one split second, then dark again. They moved all around him. Ash looked down at his arms and hands and saw the tiny fractions of lit threads, disappear through his skin and appear out again, as they moved to Foster.

They were real because they cast shadows on the floor. Their shadows made a crawling, microbial pattern, similar to the shadows cast by heat waves. Even the shadows moved towards Foster. As he watched the pattern, he saw that floor was different around the table where Foster held his wand. A line of glowing tiles marked the diameter around the table. If Ash had to come up with an explanation for what he was seeing, it was that somehow, Foster was pulling all the electromagnetic energy from the air and directing it into his wand. He was creating his own light source.

But that didn't explain everything going on, if it explained anything. And Ash needed explanations desperately. Especially when he saw Foster use his wand tip to open an incision into the arm he held over the boy. Ash felt pressure build in the room. His ears popped as he steadied himself to his feet, reaching towards the table to stop Foster. They were separated by only a few feet, yet Ash felt he was reaching across an invisible field of air so dense, it was almost impenetrable. Objects could've stayed afloat in it, like fruit suspended in Jell-O. He didn't understand any of it.

As he watched, his ears filled with deafening silence. Air density cut him off from the auditory world. Foster calmly allowed his blood to pour the length of the boy's body. His lips spoke words that Ash couldn't hear. Under normal circumstances, the force Ash used to lunge his body, would've propelled him across the table, tackling Foster to bring an end to his reckless behavior. But in the dense field, his strain got him as far as the tiles, which were one color inside Foster's circle of illumination, and another in the darkness outside of it. Ash crashed in slow motion, through the silent, invisible barrier that Foster had drawn.

When he did, he found he could hear and move normally again. He had to pick himself up off the floor. Before he could question the sound of chimes he heard, he looked up to see that Foster was no longer without his shirt. He was covered in a dark garment that ran the length of him, patterned in gold threads that caught and reflected light back from its pitch folds. His hair was longer and his sleeve exposed a searingly pale arm, now gaping as he gently rolled the bone inside of it. Ash saw it move. The incision, from the top of his triceps all the way to his wrist joint, widened itself to accommodate the room needed to roll the head of his humerus free from its socket. Ligaments and veins appeared to let go of it freely.

Ash was so absorbed by the sight, he forgot to notice the state of things around him. His medical room was gone. Instead of tiles, the floor lay awashed in black, watery movement under his feet. Tones vibrated from beaten discs of metal ringing in soft harmonics. They hung on pendulous stalks above his head. Their source disappeared into stars. Walls were replaced by Vaulted arches that led to paths carpeted with light and shadow. One minute, an antique couch, luxuriously upholstered in something resembling black satin, appeared next to him. In the back of his mind, he knew his grandmother would've called it a fainting couch. Its cushion rippled, as if proving that it was indeed soft and not a shimmering, impossible illusion. The invitation to sit lasted only a second before the couch took on a new guest.

The man had sun-weathered skin, but his beard and hair were silky white. He wore a white leisure suit and a Panama hat. His dentures chomped on his pipe. "Watch closely," Ash's deceased grandfather told him. "This wizard. He's a good match."

The vision and the statement were as senseless to Ash as the sight of Foster's bones, all three holding together, as they lifted in one dripping piece, out of the incision. The radius, ulna, and humerus, connected at the elbow by collateral ligaments, dislodged from Foster's arm, leaving Ash unable to fathom how the boneless arm stayed aloft as it did.

His grandfather laughed and slapped his leg.

"Grandad?"

Sammual-Payu Hastings stretched his leathery face into the grin that Ash had not seen since he was ten. He took off his hat and dabbed at his forehead like it was the heat of the day on his boat. "You watch him," he instructed his grandson. Ash turned back to Foster, whose face showed no pain, no shock, only deep concentration.

As if practicing obedience, Ash watched the bones hover over the boy's body. As his eyes adjusted, other things came into view. The outline of a eye socket sparkled faintly where the old one had been destroyed. It was a grid, a blueprint. It glistened like blue quarts in all the areas where the body had suffered injury. Clusters of fine, pin-dots, burned bright blue and swarmed around the boy's head. They grew out of his crushed arm and shaped themselves into a forearm, wrist, hand and fingers. Ash also saw them through the rib puncture. They lit up the entire inside of the abdominal wall like blue fireflies swarming inside the cavity. The brighter they glowed, the darker Foster's hovering bones became, until it was clear that the sparks were drawing their power from the bones.

Ash turned back to his grandfather, to make sure he was seeing this too. But the man was gone, leaving Ash no choice but to witness this on his own. Blue sparks sizzled into activity, emitting a light that turned Foster's complexion with it. Ash got the impression of feeding piranha. Trillions of tiny lights worked together to weave new tissue where there was none. At their core, he saw forms taking shape. He saw groupings of complex tissue and wondered if rapid cell division was happening at all or if this was magic. He knew what it was, he just couldn't make himself accept it.

When Foster's bones were dry and resembled nothing more than brittle charcoal disintegrating onto the boy's chest, Ash freed himself from his shock enough to rush forward. When he did, calling Foster's name, the wizard looked up at him. Something behind his inscrutable gaze intensified. Ash followed it behind him, expecting his grandfather to have returned. But behind him, lying outstretched on the floor, still on his back from where he fell, wasn't his grandfather. It was his own body lying there, unaffected by the fact that he was looking down at it.

Now, not only could he not formulate any effective question around his surprise, he couldn't even think. His mind split into erratic helplessness. He tried to speak. He tried to ask Foster to help him understand. Foster's boneless arm lowered. The incision was already sealing itself up. The hand holding his wand raised to Ash. The last thing Ash saw, was something close to pity and compassion, marring the wizard's face. Brilliant white shards struck him through his eyes, to his brain, rendering all of it meaningless.

When Ash awoke, he was lying on his bed. It was one of those slow waking processes, where he wasn't sure if he wanted to come back or not. Shadows cast across his walls told him the sun was setting. Television noise, along with the tickle of frying liver and onions, told him Reuse was cooking in the house tonight. He lay fully dressed on top of the covers. He dug his phone out of his pocket. Five hours had passed. Seventeen text messages and twelve voicemails all wanted to know if he was okay. Was he on his way to the hospital? His assistance was needed with transporting victims of the local train crash. Mayo University Hospital was two hours away and he should've been on the road hours ago. Instead of returning the calls, he sat up, wiped the fog from his eyes, and forced his legs to move in the direction of his basement.

Passing from the dining room to the kitchen, he caught sight of the television. Reuse sat with her back to him, her skirted legs hanging off slightly. She must've felt his presence. She turned, her thin hand covering her mouth. "Isn't it awful? They don't expect to find all the bodies."

On the screen, an aerial shot of the wreckage showed emergency crews dwarfed by collapsed girding and steel frames. Teams of trucks lined roadside, waiting to get close enough with their hoses to have any affect on the fires that were still burning, still tossing toxic plumes into the air.

Still groggy, Ash found himself annoyed as well as curious. "Did the hospital try to get in touch with you? I never heard my phone."

"Oh, yeah," she sat up straight. Crumbs fell from her mouth as she brushed them off and hurriedly explained, "About that. It was Foster's idea that I turn your phone off. He said that the hospital would think that you were needed, but you really weren't. He said you'd been helping him and not to let anyone disturb you until you got up on your own."

Ash kept his expression professionally empty. He hoped she saw a polite smile, instead of what he was really thinking. Ms. Reuse Wintry wasn't an overly conscientious person. It would not have occurred to her to put the lives of train survivors over Foster's instructions. She also didn't scrub bathtubs or like to answer the phone, even though he was paying her to do so. Her saving grace was the fact that she kept his home clean in all other respects, fed him edible meals, and flashed an array of stockinged calves so colorful and patterned, that not knowing what she was going to wear from day to day was a source of entertainment at the worst of times. She wore no make up, but compensated by keeping her best features adorned. Today's selection was yellow and green plaid, conforming over her, surprisingly thick, toes all the way up over her knees. Her skirts never revealed more than that. He didn't bitch about the bathtubs, she didn't criticize him for staring. Deal. When it came to Foster, they tried to maintain the same civil arrangement.

If Foster had said to let him sleep, then what choice did she have? Speaking of, he grabbed his keys and headed for the basement. "Don't expect I'll be back till morning."

She made an agreeable noise. "Thought so. You have fresh clothing packed in your back seat. Foster won't mind taking your dinner with me then."

Of course he won't, Ash smiled. Because Foster is a man, apparently, when it suits him.

It would've been nice if Reuse behaved, even a little, as if Ash were her employer, and not Foster. He thought about being a smartass and throwing the question over his shoulders, "And what are his wages like?" But he knew he was only taking his frustration out on her. Far more pressing matters awaited him in the basement.

He took one deep breath before diving down the stairs. The lights were on and no sign of the power outage was present. Even the trays had been cleared from the floor and drawers put back into their shelves. Scattered files sat neatly in their places. With each step, he peered at the table coming into view. His steps slowed, taking in Foster's back to him. The boy was still on the table, but covered up to his neck. Foster was seated in such a way that he might've been asleep. He might've been praying. Ash couldn't be sure. The stairs creaked, and Foster still didn't look up.

Ash cleared his throat, glancing around the room. So that was a hallucination? A bit stronger than the acid he'd tried in his twenties. Back then, he'd only sat in a bar watching his skin melt painlessly off of his arms while his friends passed hooch. At no point did his dead granddad make an appearance. And while he couldn't quite remember their conversation, he got the feeling Sammual-Payu Hastings approved of this wizard.

Foster had to know that he was standing there, waiting for a response. He was dressed again, in the same clothes he had removed. But something was different about him. Ash zeroed in on his left arm, to see if he could move it. Nothing on Foster moved. Not his eyes, not his breathing, nothing. He knew that Foster could hear him, even if he wasn't responding. Was five hours long enough to mourn the boy?

He wracked his brain trying to come up with a plausible excuse for having a dead body in his house.

He gave in. "So what happened?" Maybe Foster would deny it. "What'd I miss?"

As expected, Foster granted him nothing. At first Ash surmised it to be the silent treatment that Foster wielded like a weapon. Then he noticed how grey Foster's complexion was. His lips parted and it was as if the weight of his jaw sent his head forward, pulling the rest of his body with it. Ash caught him as he slipped forward from his chair. "Wait, wait!"

He realized Foster was trying to stand, and couldn't. "Hold on, I've got you. Don't try to get up."

When Foster didn't argue with him, on a dime, Ash's concern went from prying the dead boy away from him, to monitoring Foster's vital signs. "Say something, Foster."

Foster lifted his face. His words were barely above a whisper. "Don't move him."

Ash shook his head. "It's been five hours. He's gone. If I don't report him, it's going to raise more questions than I can answer. I'll say… I drove near the wreckage and found him. I'll say, he had a pulse and I thought I could save him. I'll say whatever it takes, but you have to let him go with me now."

He pulled easily from Foster's grasp, noticing how Foster clutched at him with only his right hand. He took the left lapel of Foster's coat and pulled it away from his shoulder. Several things clicked at once. Foster's left arm was folded uselessly in his lap. Ash reached out tentatively and lifted it by the sleeve. Foster winced and pulled back as his arm lolled over the side of his leg. His painful expression sobered Ash to the realization that Foster was now wearing the coat he'd carried the boy in. His clothes were clean. The sheets were clean. The floor was clear of blood, mud and grime that had dripped onto it. Streaks of blood had dripped down the sides of the table. That was gone too.

Ash backed away from Foster, allowing his body to slump forward. Foster appeared to keep his head raised with effort that made his face tremble, shaking perspiration loose from his hair. "You must not move him. Not for a whole day." His lips curled around his words. "It will take that long for his body to set."

Ash kept backing away. His rear hit the table behind him, shaking it on its locked castors. He quickly turned, seeing what he'd refused to see upon coming down the stairs. The boy had a face. A complete face. With smooth skin where the fractures had been. His hair spread thick and healthy all over his scalp. It connected with the pillow in dark tufts.

Ash stopped himself from touching it, from feeling the back of the cranium to make sure. Instead, he took hold of the sheet and tore it back from the rest of the boy's body.

Sick with the inability to deny what he saw, he shook his head at the new limbs. They lay, unapologetic and real and pulsing. It wasn't just the sight of seeing new, flesh and blood, limbs where there hadn't been any before. It was having the new skin outlined for him. It was as if the tissue contained liquid light running through its newly formed vascular structures, and appeared lighter in tone than the rest of him. It was like seeing magic learn to be blood and learn to be bone. Ash was seeing the magic as it learned to come to life and to blend smoothly with the boy's other functions. He'd seen Foster's magic before, but not like this. Not come to life and thriving in complete imitation of human biology. He removed the sheet completely. Translucent, frosty skin covered the rib damage and the entire abdominal area. Paper thin white toes, told him that the boy had also been missing a foot.

Ash had so many questions. He could find words for none of them, as he stared at the newly formed foot. He lifted his hand and came close to touching the toes, before hearing Foster hiss, "No. Not for twenty-four…" Foster tumbled forward. Ash abandoned the boy and caught him before his head hit the floor. He wrestled Foster back into the chair and told him to hush. "Let me look at your arm."

Foster jerked his body away, using his shoulders to twist out of Ash's grip. His right arm made a feeble attempt to hold Ash back. "It will heal," he insisted.

"For god's sake will you just let me help you?" It took pinning Foster to the floor, no easy feat even in his weakened state, before Ash could reason with him.

"All right. You've fixed him. You've proven that he's going to be okay. He's asleep over there. He's safe and I'll look after him. I promise. Now that I know he's alive, he's not going anywhere. Now please, let me tend to you. You must've given that kid everything. Tell me what you did."

He knew that Foster was too weak to really talk. He wasn't trying to get him to talk. He was trying to get him to let go. Tiring Foster out by fighting him, by keeping him excited, risked shock, but seemed to be working as Foster's resistance grew less and less. Ash stalled by talking about the vision he thought was a hallucination. "I saw my dead granddad. I saw my body. You're going to have to explain that to me."

Foster's eyes were nearly closed by the time Ash got a sedative into him. He opened them just as the needle was going in. The strength he used to clutch the doctor by his throat, startled Ash.

"Don't move him." These were Foster's final words before his head collapsed against the floor.

Before heading to the hospital, Ash caught Reuse setting two places at the table. "Foster's having a bad spell," he told her. "Can you look in on him? He's in his old bedroom."

Reuse didn't have to be persuaded. She was the one who'd pointed out Foster's peculiar iron deficiency two years ago. "Wizards like that use all their iron for their alchemy. They keep very little for their bodies." Because of her interest in witchcraft, her insight was helpful.

Now she looked at him, going silent with the duty entrusted to her.

"He's been through something." He bent to her. "Don't let him leave. Give him the benzodiazepine if you have to. I'll be back as soon as I can."

True to his word, Ash did not attempt to move the boy. He monitored his vitals and observed progress when he wasn't assisting at the hospital. New skin adapted coloration from the old. Parts of the boy's jaw had been baby smooth after Foster's transplant. Within forty-eight hours, his pours took on the shadow of a youth with the ability to shave.

When Ash wasn't observing the body, he was sitting by Foster's old bed, mystified at the miracle of growth he was seeing. The muscles in Foster's arm lost their tone, but gained structure at their core. Just to be on the safe side, he put the entire arm in a cast, hoping immobility would aid in the healing.
He knew that Foster would remove it as soon as he could.

The greatest challenge turned out to be sneaking the boy back to the wreckage once Foster decided he could be moved. It had to look like he'd never left the site. It had to look as if his skin had never been cleansed and his clothes discarded. Though Ash was nowhere near the kid's build, he allowed Foster to use an old undershirt of his, and jeans, to approximate torn and filthy clothing. They were rinsed in muddy water, dried, scorched, and draped loosely over the boy. Foster forced the kid to sleep through it all. He removed his cast, as Ash anticipated. He said his arm was weak, but functioning. After he apparated with the boy, in the middle of the night, he returned an hour later, and promptly put the cast back on himself. This confirmed Ash's suspicion that Foster was in pain and needed more time to recover.

**Present Day**

Harry stared up at the wayward stacks of columns that structured Gringott's entrance. He had put off returning here for over a year. No longer. Gobblins were the only people he knew who specialized in Equity Magic. Their meticulous records of bloodlines, contracts, and which treasures belonged to whom, made them expert detectives when it came to tracing and reading magic. Their culture sat on secrets of discernment that rivaled any seasoned auror. They were recognized as a persecuted race and their methods were protected by law. So Harry had to be there. He had to go inside, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do. After the incident with the dragon, with Griphook, the wards knew him there. They were customized to recognize him. He could still enter, but once he did, every employee and security guard would know it.

They say you should always go with your first hunch. That meant tracing his steps to the Goblin bank and dealing with all the formalities he'd left sleeping in the dark after the war. Those creatures had great memories and unforgiving intelligence. They never forgot what you did to them, even if you were trying to save the wizarding world from a tyrant. Goblins calculated how they could turn their tragedy into a profit, agreed on a truce, and smiled their jagged teeth at you. Their friendliest smiles showed what their bite could do to you if you ever gave them a reason to.

They would never forget the breech of their establishment, the magic used against them, or the deaths of their own. In their stories, Griphook was forever cheated out of his rightful treasure, the Sword of Gryffindor. His intention to claim the treasured artifact had justified his actions. No one died until Harry's friends set lose the dragon. Their own dragon was used against them, and Voldemort's bare feet tracked the blood of Goblin corpses down the length of their polished floors. All for the sake of capturing the great Harry Potter.

No. Harry didn't want to dig into his vaults unless he had no other choice. That was partly the reason he'd procrastinated coming with Draco to apply for a house elf.

Gringotts was a place where one had to trust creatures that aroused one's defenses. Being experts in archiving, safekeeping, and preserving treasures, they were finely tuned to suspicion. They invited your patronage with one eye and dared you to cross them with the other. One always had to meet them prepared to withstand potential resistance. Time spent focussing on the soft easiness of his daughter, had ruined Harry for the likes of hardcore goblins and guilt he probably deserved.

He'd spent his whole life facing ugly situations and having to fight his way through them. He had a new respect for uncomplicated, gentle things that couldn't fight if they wanted to. Sweet, helpless people. Things that had no egos and nothing to hide. Children, animals, innocent things. It made him miss Hedwig's snowy, brilliant company. The last thing he wanted to do was look another accusing goblin in the face. But it was time to confront the truth head on.

They didn't even allow him to approach any of the clerks. Once he stepped through the door, no lights flashed, no alarms sounded. But two security wizards blocked his path. Instead of addressing him, they waited for the Goblin manager to walk up from behind. The little person carried a black board, devoid of paper or any writing instrument. He ran plump fingers down the front of his suit and smartly extended his hand to Harry. "Mr. Potter! So good to see you. Todrick, at your service. What brings you to our fine establishment today?"

Harry tried not to show his relief. Leave it to Goblins to hire the most human-looking among them, to greet the most troublesome customers. It worked to diffuse most of the tension, most of the history. The bank didn't want any more trouble than he did. They were two opponents who respected the magic of the other. That did not mean they had to like each other.

Harry got right to the point. "I need to retrieve an object from my vault." He made an effort to show respect. "Sir."

"Of course. Would you be so kind as to follow me?" Todrick inclined his head slightly before turning.

He escorted Harry past the queues, past the stares of the other customers and clerks, and off to a little room whose door was concealed in the wall before hand gestures made it visible. Harry stopped short when he entered the room. It resembled an interrogation room at the Ministry, with only a table and two chairs. The room was meant for privacy, yet Harry knew he was being monitored from behind the walls. He took the seat offered to him.

Todrick asked, "Would you like to retrieve the object yourself, or do you give consent to have it brought to you?"

"You can bring it. Please." Harry knew that every word out of his mouth was being monitored for contractual intention. If his statements registered a certain score, they could be deemed as binding and documented in his records.

"And does Mr. Potter have his identifier?"

"I do." Harry fished in his pocket for the paper he needed. He'd gotten it from the bound book of his documented assets and belongings currently being secured. He and Draco received updated books every year, which grew thicker and thicker with each magical addition or subtraction, monetary or magical, recorded to his accounts. Draco's financial volumes required a library of shelves.

Unfolding the paper, Harry thought he saw Todrick's eyes anticipating the number.

"The object that I wish to see, is number 807A-2001-GGSS-RED-81."

Todrick's expression went unchanged as he waved his hand over the table. The number appeared in gold leaf and stood visible beneath the surface of the varnish, before dissolving. "Thank you, your possession will be with you momentarily."

Todrick took two steps back, trained to put distance between himself and a client's treasure.

When Harry looked from him, back down to the table, the object was already there. His heart fluttered a little, not quite ready to see the little box again. It was a case, made of deep green glass and he'd not laid eyes on it in two years. The size and shape of a cigar box, it bent the light and reflected elegant craftsmanship. Silver snakes were mounted at each end and functioned as handles. He remembered noticing the detail that went into their scales, the emeralds that glistened in their eyes, and buying it on the spot. He hadn't been looking for it. He hadn't needed it. But it was perfect for his last parting gift from McGonagall. She'd given him a flat tin of Snape's ashes. The rest, she intended to store in an undisclosed location on school grounds.

When he'd first approached her after the funeral, he didn't know how she would react to his request. It was a strange request. But if anyone understood why he wanted a sample of the remains, it was she.

She'd told him. "Professor Snape's remaining family do not acknowledge him, so I have no qualms about giving you these." She shook the urn without touching it and used her wand to dump a small portion of its contents into an antique pill tin, which bore the image of a black peacock. Harry had smiled gratefully and thanked her.

Now he raised the green lid, removed the tin from its bed of black velvet, and placed it in front of Todrick. "I need to have this analyzed. I'll pay top dollar for your deepest inquiry. And extra for an Oath of Truth."

Todrick lost his pleasant smile upon hearing the last. "You do not have to pay for the truth, Mr. Potter. We are always honest with you."

"Yes, I agree, and I don't mean to offend you. But I believe someone else might've used a very legal Privacy Clause to keep certain information from showing up. I dare to risk your offense because I need to get as much information on these ashes as I can. I want you to test any traces of magic left. Tell me, this time under oath, if these are the actual remains of Severus Snape."


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