Harry didn't know what he expected when he stepped into Thella's tent. He knew Americans had their own classifications of magic, though the origins of voodoo lay far from North American shores. Natives of Haiti and other precolonial people influenced Christian cults as well as Pagan, but he was less familiar with them. He suspected that what popular muggle cinema had taught him, either could not be trusted or warned that one had better respect the misunderstood practice. He vaguely remembered that it was touched upon briefly during Quirrill's term, and Lockhart had told a fascinating story about fighting off zombies, but none of that helped him now. Just because this woman had expressed gifts of clairaudience, did not mean she understood spellcraft the way he knew it. Still, he had to respect other forms of magic that apparently worked for other cultures, especially when his ignorance blinded him on the matter.

The interior of her tent encouraged him to keep his mouth shut before he judged her. It appeared to be a simple room of fabric walls. Small, but wide enough to house three large murals on either side of him and ahead. Right away, he knew it wasn't nails holding the murals to the tent walls. It was magic. It was like smelling food and spices from a land not native to his own. Immediately identifiable as a manipulation of energy and matter, but bringing an entirely new assortment of sensations that have never been put together in his mind, in quite that way. So new, it was too soon to form a liking or disliking.

A beautiful carpet presented burgeoning magnolias blossoming at his feet. Some charm caused him to smell their perfume when he noticed them. On each side of the tent, nighttime waters glistened in a swamp. Guilded boarders of custom frames, held them contained within four sides, but the murals were so lifelike, climbing lichen and long tendrils of Spanish Moss, spilled out into the room. He could smell the freshwater wetlands, mud and dry rot. He could smell black, murky water native to that space. He felt a thin breeze travel through clusters of leaning willows and crawling cypresses. Fireflies leapt out of the mural and flickered across his face and neck. The breeze that bore them, tasted of a different way of life and smelled like lotus.

Shadows of midnight blue and clouds drifted in front of a full moon. Sounds came from the scenes. He identified frogs croaking, but wasn't sure about screeching creatures that sounded far off inside the pictures. Curiosity drew him closer to the one on his right. The room's space only allowed a two foot distance between himself and the murals. He startled when something moved by his leg and splashed into the water. Thick, armored scales disappearing beneath Lilypaded flotsam told him that it was a creature he'd only ever seen in a zoo. An alligator. He knew the murals were supposed to be beautiful, but they were creepy, his brain now firmly decided. Amazing, but creepy. How did her customers not run out of here?

He heard laughter in her response to his examination of the mural. "I assure you, my average customer never sees the magic, only the paint."

Between the murals, there was a small table and three garden chairs. Like a prerequisite centerpiece, a crystal ball and tarot deck sat waiting. In a corner, stood a tall cabinet with glass doors. Lit with soft illumination from the inside, it displayed an assortment of objects, no doubt intended to look mysterious, but bordered on disgusting as Harry's eyes adjusted to the contents. There was something that looked like a giant pickle jar full of living Lamprey eels. The sight was pretty underhanded, considering those things reminded him of swimming, elongated turds with teeth. Then he saw, what he hoped was only a model, of a two-headed baby in another jar. He began to regret his decision to enter. Did her customers need such gimmicks?

She answered the unimpressed look on his face. "Such objects engage one's curiosity. They're for show, for thrills. When my customers are fascinated, is when I get the most effective information for them. They don't come to me looking for the ordinary."

He didn't need or want her explanation. "So how do we do this?" He couldn't keep impatience out of his tone. If her message was so urgent, he didn't want to waste another second on swamp theatrics.

She stepped ahead of him, to the mural behind the table. On it, sat the bayou centerpiece, a house. A rickety, Antebellum period home sitting on marshy wetlands. It was a peeling, decrepit estate with columns and two levels of terraces holding its own after a century of encroaching heat and damp. It stood behind bogs and roots that straddled the water level by two feet. Light's flickered in moss strewn windows. Shadows moved across them as if there were people inside. Somewhere on the creaky old porch, windchimes made of stretched bottles rattled in isolation. They pierced the room with their clinks. Crickets and cicadas added to the music. She pushed at the door of the house and beckoned him to follow.

They entered another room. A secret room. But this time, the magic inside was not so dark and claustrophobic. On the other side of the painting, in the new room, sunlight stretched on and on. It went from spilling across barewood floors and an octagonal space of window seats, full of light an billowing curtains, to a white terrace on the opposite side of the room. It was as if they had entered the painted house and now were just steps away from venturing onto one of the terraces. Only, instead of looking out onto a creepy night, a beautiful day lay ahead.

He never made it to the terrace. Doors to it remained open, but she motioned for him to take a seat in the center of the room. This time another small table sat, but quite plain and devoid of any props. Only a white covering hinted that it held any significance at all. The cloth seemed to glow, like the curtains.

"It's just an illusion to soothe people. Only the ones who are so troubled, that they're ready to let go of harsh ideas, ever make it to this room. They require soothing."

She sat across from him. "Let's get something out of the way. You were pregnant when you fought him. Beneath all of your thoughts, you are broadcasting the fear that it has affected her somehow. It has not. Children come through their parents absolutely knowing what they're in for. They're not helpless before they get to you. They're intelligent and powerful. None of them fear a rocky beginning when they have so much ability. It is a shock, however, to have to adjust to a body that isn't as advanced. She came for you, you know. She came when you called. Your cries were your consent."

He didn't know what hit him harder, the fact that she knew he was the birth father of his daughter, that he was lying to the world, or that his child, on some level, could have an awareness of that awful night. To believe her, was to trap himself with the unthinkable. Yet he'd entered hoping he could believe her.

She tried to ease the disturbance she'd inspired. "Don't worry, now that she's here, she's a normal baby. All of us set aside our true knowledge of each other, in order to have valuable experience as humans. Some of us pick our knowing back up, some of us wait till we've let these bodies go. Your daughter will never confront you with that night."

He kept his voice under control. "Could you please just stop talking about it?"

She realized her mistake. "Of course. I don't mean to be insensitive. Everything I'm telling you, is because someone is telling me. And all of it stays between us."

Once he found his focus again, he got to the point. "The man who's not dead. Who is he?"

He had every right to test her, he didn't care how close she'd already come.

Her eyes fell away from him. "Snake? They're saying Snake, but I don't think that's right. People are surrounded by traces of all of their identities in the spirit world. We shed the names and costumes and are known by pure identity that needs no name. If you and I had no names, we would still be who we are. So names don't translate well, and he's interfering."

Close enough. "Where is he?"

Her open eyes saw nothing external, but internally, she squinted. "It's a bit strange. Your mother gives me a clear view of his face, but he snatches it away. He's performing magic. I think… I've never seen this before. He's not like the rest of the people around you. As I've said, he's not dead. No one really is, but he's very much a part of our world. In fact, he walks in both worlds, and that isn't usually done. He is influencing what I can tell you. He's hiding information. This man is not telling me who he is and he's blocking my view. He must be very powerful to be able to do that. At a certain level in spirit, there are no secrets."

Harry leaned forward. "He's aware of us?"

"This part of him is. Sorry if I'm confusing you. Everyone, at their core, is a spirit. An entity with or without a physical body. But most people have amnesia when it comes to their true self, like I was saying about your daughter's memory. So our bodies walk around oblivious to what our true selves are up to in our entirety. But this fellow is functioning on multiple levels, not just ours. In fact, just attempting to examine him like this, has triggered a reaction in his physical presence. Your mother says that he is using his stone to scry. This is how he finds you. This is how he knew you were in trouble. We're disturbing him, so Snake, the wizard, is attempting to locate the invasion of privacy that he feels. But Snake, the spirit, is already in the room with us. They are extensions of the same being. They do not want you to find him."

"But out there," he motioned behind him, "you said that he and my father come forward when I summon my father's wisdom. Does he want to talk to me?"

She sat listening. All Harry could hear were people passing by the tent. "Oh dear. Just asking that, flares emotion in him. He's very fragmented when it comes to you. Very desperate. He's not saying anything. It's obvious that he wants to talk to you, but it isn't obvious why he does not. Your mother says that his spirit is here to act as a guide for you, just as all of them are. But the fact that his living body knows so much, is allowing it to fear what you might want. She says you should let him have his secrets for now. They have all gathered here to help you. You're the one who's under attack."

"The train explosion? Was someone trying to get to me?"

"Closer. The strike against you, is closer than that. Your daughter is like a new connection, joining you with another. The one who attacks you, is able to do so, because of that connection. Give me your hands."

He hesitated.

"I'm not going to read your palms, I'm going to read your magic."

He placed his hands on the table. She turned them palms up and her eyes traveled back and forth exactly like reading pages. "It all comes down to interpretation. Your body was quick to recover, but you're led here because you needs salts and enzymes replenished. I'll make you something that will help. Electrolytes. When you leave, stock up on them."

"Who's attacking me?"

"He's not doing it on purpose, though any wizard worth his gold, should know the effects are felt. Until you talk to him, he will allow himself to believe that he is not harming you, that it's just a dream. If you don't talk to him, you will suffer again."

"If we're not talking about the train, what are we talking about?"

"Your mother says two nights ago. You were hospitalized yesterday."

The stroke. Oh. "My mother knows about that?"

She rushed to make it okay. "Harry, there is no shame in the spirit world, not at your mother's level. She's not even your mother, she simply presents herself in a way that you can connect with and remember. We're all old souls, we've done it all. There are no secrets. We've murdered and been murderers. We've been rapists and victims. Hell, I've been a slave owner as well as a slave. How else was I going to learn what it means to those who live it and invent a life where it cannot happen again? Look at my skin. My face, my whole body is my guarantee that I will never forget again that the races are not separate. Like my face, midnight is the demarcation of one phase becoming another, hence my name, Mama Midnight. I'm young and childless, but I want to teach like a mother. I want to teach everyone who looks at my skin in horror or appreciation, what my soul knows about the illusion of control over another. Rape is no different. Same classroom, different subject."

Her words submerged him in feelings he immediately knew he had to protect her from. She aroused anger and the thought of coming to in the next second, to find irreversible harm done to her, the way he had in Rankar's office, made him suppress his anger to the best of his ability. She had no right to dredge this subject up. She had no right to know his secrets. But that, more than anything, told him that she was getting her information from legitimate sources. Maybe he should listen.

It helped when she added, "I'm not saying any of it has to happen, because it doesn't. But when we can't plot another way out, even if it's just in our minds, even if it's imaginary, then we're locked into an unalterable course. Now, I can imagine a million ways to run an estate without slaves. And I am always certain of my power, which ensures that I will never be anyone's property again."

She closed her hands around his. Warmth, and something else, pushed water from his eyes. He sat very still, feeling it spill involuntarily.

"Our spirits literally don't know how to fear these things. It's only when we're human that we learn what to be afraid of. Don't let the fact that your parents know what you're going through, hurt your heart. All they care about now, is love and they are so attuned to your love, that they are here to remind you that this is nothing that you can't handle. You're very powerful, Harry. Not just your magic, but your love. Why else do you think you're in the middle of so much turmoil?"

He had no answer, and waited for all the world, to see what hers was.

"Because you're needed where love is most needed. What happened to you wasn't an accident. You hunted the wizard who did this to you. You have programmed yourself to confront his kind. You killed his leader and you conquered his house when you divided it by taking his son's loyalty. I know I'm speaking in archaic language, but that's the hidden reality. You focused so hard on bringing this man to justice, that you sacrificed your body to do it. Now he is locked on course with you, through the blood that binds you.

"Through this connection, in order to survive it, you are learning abilities of freedom that you only dreamt of when they locked you in the cupboard as a child. Before this is over, you will learn to come and go, not just from muggle world to magic, but from physical to spirit, and back again at will. Usually people have to die before they realize this is possible. As for the child's father, your magic is infecting him like a virus. He will love, or he will die. The more he visits you in dreams, the greater your influence in his life becomes. He will never be a nice man. But you will bring him to the only justice that exists. Love.

"Very troubled magic, from ancient bloodlines, want to make a new beginning, and they have, through you. You agreed to come and do this, just as your daughter agreed to come. Just as your parents agreed to come. So many people love you, that at any given time, the spirit world surrounds you and observes you. You have fans in the spirit world. It would be distracting except that you are very focused, in spite of what you think. You can take it. It has never knocked you off course or stopped you."

His head was starting to spin. "What, psychically? So many people hate me as well."

"And they are irrelevant. They can't hurt you. You bore a wizard's child. That decision opened you up to him and put you at risk."

"That was hardly a decision."

"You chose to carry it, instead of getting rid of it. You sealed his connection to you."

"That's absurd! That wasn't a decision. That was me trying to do the lesser of two evils."

"You didn't mean to, I'll give you that. You didn't consciously weigh the pros and cons. But you'd done all of that through your magic and your spirit, which reads energy faster than the intellect can decide to blink an eye. You crossed a line with this wizard. Magic interprets your child's genetics as a blood contract. Through that contract, her father is able to touch your spirit as if he were touching your body. It's no different than any other bond. Your magic makes it so. In his eyes, you were persistent in meddling with one of his greatest treasures. You would not be driven away. Now he has used your love to lock you in his grip. Again, he has not consciously weighed this decision, but like you, through what he wants the most, his magic has. He now sees you as a valuable acquisition."

Harry forced himself to say it. "Lucius. You're telling me that Lucius did something to cause the stroke?"

"Don't speak his name unless you want him to come to you. Because of her, he's closer than you think. People have their own natural defenses against spiritual attack. Even nonmagical folks. But your magic is wounded by the trauma that you still carry in your heart. Your mother wants to give you some help."

"Why do you keep mentioning her, and not my father?"

She dropped eye contact. This caused him to suspect that her next words were hiding something. "She's a bit of a spokes person. Her energy is the strongest, as if she has the support of all the others. As if they've taken a vote."

"I want to talk to my father."

"He can hear you."

"Does he have any kind of message for me?"

She shook her head. "Only that his love goes where you go. They're all saying that. They want to keep it very general, so as not to distract you from the point of being here."

"What is the point?"

"You need protection. We're going to make you something, using all the magic that your loved ones want to give you. Your trauma is blocking your ability to protect yourself from the child's father. Your mother suggests a bypass."

"Why did my father pick on Snape so much? Is that the real reason Snape ended up being hated and hiding his true self from everyone? Is that why he's hiding from me now, even though he's obviously obsessed with saving my life? Why would he keep saving me if he hated my father so much? I saw his memories and my father… went too far. If he saved me because he loved my mother, then by that logic, he could just as easily leave me to die because he hated my father. Why is he bothering?"

The look on her face, as she searched for the answer, was something akin to watching an autopsy. Harry had seen one online. He'd done it to shock himself into feeling again. Corpses on the grounds of Hogwarts were too close to home, and too filled with sadness. But a strangers donation to science wasn't attached at all to horror. It was a safe way to deal with feelings of vulnerability. He'd watched it, uneasy and concerned for the lack of privacy and lack of reverence. That was really the lesson in it for him. It had fascinated him as much as it horrified him to see another human being reduced to what amounted to parts and labor. On the floor of Lucius' ballroom, he'd been reduced to parts and labor. His exposure could not have meant to those watching, what it had meant to him, the corpse. He only remembered glimpses of it, but that's because he knew he couldn't take remembering every detail. His friends had seen that.

He thought he saw disgust flicker across her composure before she reeled it in. How long had she trained, till she'd learned to protect herself from emotions that didn't belong to her.

She shook her head. "Can you think of no reason why this man would bother to save you? It's the most obvious reason. You couldn't give up your child once she became real to you. Neither can he. You didn't know her, yet you kept her alive out of love. Some people would've ended her potential for the same reason. Your mother says to trust your instincts. This man helps you because he loves you, no matter what your father has done."

It wasn't enough. "I want my father to come forward and tell me why he treated Snape like that? I want to know if Snape ever did anything to him?"

"Harry, compared to where your father is now, these are petty concerns."

"You didn't see the man who's saved me time and time again, strung upside down and stripped in front of the whole school. No one fucking helped him. People kill themselves over that shit. Why did my Dad and his friends do that? If he's here, let him answer."

"Harry, calm down. Your magic is demanding that he account for himself. It is aggressive and you are opening energies that respond aggressively. That opens the door to something that isn't love."

"Answer me."

"Your father is somewhat quarantined. He can draw near you in love. But he is not as adept at it as your mother. She's a powerhouse and that's why they appoint her to speak for them all. At the human level, he admits to making mistakes. At his core, he admits nothing."

Harry pushed his intention to speak to his father into her. He spoke through clenched teeth. "Tell me why you did that to him! That was evil, and I didn't come from evil. I want to find Snape and make it up to him."

At first, Thella's surprise sent her back in her chair. He was trying to force his demands into her, to get to his father. When her eyes darkened, so did everything else in the room. She looked at him the way an adult looks at a child who has accidentally killed its pet bird. How to explain the unexplainable? The death part was easy. The part about why it was wrong, was not. Entire muscle groups shifted in her face, which lost its oval, feminine characteristic, and became rather set, square and grimacing. It took Harry a moment to realize that his father was using her body to the best of his ability, to respond. The voice that manipulated her vocal chords, was not that of a woman, but of a man who had no other vocal chords to speak with. The sound of James Potter's voice hit Harry's ears in alarming strangeness and familiarity.

"Hello Harry. My son."

Harry felt his soul fall one way, and his brain another. The two could not process what was happening. The room kept pulsing from light to shadow. Every time it went dark, Thella's face became his father's face. The light in her eyes, became his father's identity. It didn't mesh. They were two substances that refused to mix.

Wasting no time, James leaned forward and took Harry by his wrists. His strength was that of a man three times Harry's size. His grip jolted Harry's magic.

"That wizard is far more than Snape," he hissed. "I saw him for what he was. There were no mistakes. He was one of the greatest adventures of my life. He still is. I came here to do what I did to him. I wrestled with an angel and I won. They do not give up their power without a fight. I lost my human life, but I won so much more. I regret that for no one. Your mother. Severus and I. All of us. We set a time and place. We kept it. No appointment is ever missed. And Harry, you're no different. You are orchestrating this from an entirely different level. Live by my example. Take what matters to you the most. It's your turn. It's the only way to get what Severus knows into the magic of this world. Your daughter exists because of what I did to Severus. There is now new magic in the world. I didn't back down. I will never regret that and you shouldn't either. I love you, but you must not judge spiritual things by human standards. They are incompatible."

Thella's hands released him and her body fell against the back of her chair. Frozen to his seat, Harry couldn't decide whether to help her or to insist that the last blast of spoken words from his father, wasn't real. His bruising wrists insisted that it was.

"Harry… I'm sorry." Her breathing was short. She brought her hand over her heart and he looked around for something that could aid her recovery. "Water…" She motioned behind him. A corner nook held bottled water, a bowl of protein bars, and stacks of plastic storage baskets. He grabbed the water and scooted his chair closer. She looked exhausted and sweat dappled her brow. He sensed that she hadn't expected that to happen any more than he did.

"I tried to hold him back," she said, taking a sip. "You mustn't think that that's the true state of your father. That's like a recording he's left behind. You tapped into it when you got angry. It was the only part of him that could speak to you then. It's a lower perspective. It's something he was going through when he was alive. Trust me, he's beyond that now."

"He seemed pretty convincing to me."

"Never talk to the spirit world without love in your heart. This is what determines the quality and response that you get. You could get the best of him, or the worst of him. Everything we do and feel during life, is able to continue emitting signals of its own, even after we've gone. They're called thought forms and people mistake them for hauntings and unpleasantness all the time. They can act independently, but they're usually limited until they get passed their emotions. You were too angry to meet him in love, and he was too beyond your anger, to give you a clearer representation of himself. So you got the part of him that you were the most upset about. You tuned right into it and it came out. This is how we make decisions, unknowingly, all the time."

"Did that hurt you?"

Her head nodded in reflex, but she answered, "I'll be fine. It's a shock, is all. He tried to say that both of them are working on challenges and simply chose each other as worthy opponents. Everyone does this. In one life, one might be the predator. In another, the other will play the part of the prey. Often, the dynamics will shift between man, woman, and child. You are not to feel guilty for your father's mistakes towards the one called Snape. That's his name. They were tag teaming before you were born and they will continue to do so. It is their game and your idea of justice is not going to deny them their drama. In spirit, there is no right and wrong. There is only experience. Humans, who feel helpless, fear that, and so deny their true selves. We try to live in right and wrong divisions, but we only set ourselves up for disillusionment."

Fine. He couldn't deal with that just now, but fine. He found the experience draining him and was ready to be done with it. He wasn't going to be fit for a lecture. "At least tell me this. Did Snape have anything to do with the train explosion?"

She paused, as if this required a completely different approach. "No, not in any harmful way."

"Then who is responsible for it?"

"I will answer, but we must get to the protection. There can be no more questions after this. You can come see me another time."

"Okay." She was right, that was best. Something about feeling how unyielding his father was, dislodged his foothold on his own integrity. He'd felt as if the strength coming from those fingers, were trying to speak to him in ways that words could not. There'd been a more urgent message in their grip, but Harry was too rattled to decipher it. How can right and wrong simply not matter to anyone? Surely, the Universe wasn't that heartless. Surely, better answers lay somewhere else. And that wasn't the man he'd loved and put on a pedestal. That energy had felt completely different.

He quickly added, "How did Snape know that I was in danger, in the first place?"

She listened to the answer being given to her. "As I've said, he scries. He's made a point of using salenite instead of obsidian. So many lower energies use obsidian for easy power. He's learning that he prefers gentleness. He catches glimpses of you. He struggles to piece them together. He saw that you were on the train when it went up in flames. He made a point to be near you until the event had passed. He didn't cause it. No one person caused it."

He waited. "Death Eaters?" He didn't know if she knew the term.

"Larger groups. That information is covered by false layers. False governments. There is no direct route to it, it is concealed by generations of deceit. One party thinks another is to blame. They are all deceived. Those deaths were but a chess move towards swaying the opinions of weaker people."

"So no one's trying to kill me? No one's willing to risk other lives to get to me?"

"Your name figures in their plans, but they do not value your life. They knew you were on that train. Your death was advantageous, not critical."

He registered his fear and kept going. "Will they attempt it again?"

"Your level of influence, and your love of nonmagical people, makes you an enemy to them. If you had no power, you would be quite safe. They're only concerned with threats to their magic. They have technology and magic that lets them see future timelines. This is where I must stop and tell you how to protect yourself. Give me your hands again, we're going to make a talisman."

"Can you at least give me a name, an association? I can pass the information on."

Impatience and pity crinkled her brow. "I'm being given something very disturbing. We're talking about world governments hidden behind world governments. Authorities have no authority. When they want to incite people to act, they manufacture catastrophes that inspire helplessness. They try to turn parties against each other to construct more advantageous power systems. They run this planet like a business. Nonmagics are cattle to them, and you must not disturb their cattle. The only way out of their influence, is to cultivate your own love and peace. Millions of people change their minds about taking airplanes and trains, or turning a corner, or switching lanes in traffic, everyday, and they escape the influence. People are not helpless. The same spirit that is in constant contact with your mother, is in constant contact with everyone. How close you are to love, centered securely in it, or raging outside of it, determines how clearly you receive the pure message to switch lanes or to not board a train. This is how we all make our choices."

The sheer concentration of her information, pushed his head back. More than words went into his mind and he felt his brain attempt to swallow the chunk he'd been given. It went down with resistance. When he fought to reply, she held up her hand. "No more."

She took his hands again. He let her.

"I need your blood. Only a pinprick."

He waited for her to produce a wand, but found himself amused by the digital diabetic meter that she used instead. American magic had evolved differently.

Before he could ask why, why resort to the likes of a talisman, she answered. "I know what you're thinking. Movies and TV have made talismans tacky as hell. I still remember that rerun of The Brady Bunch. But the spirits around you want to contribute. The only way they can have influence on the physical plane, through their magic, is by using the magic in your blood."

What the hell was The Brady Bunch?

"We'll need the highest level of magic that we know. Love. I know I'm throwing that word around too much, people underestimate it. They don't really know what it is or how it works. There are some cultures that actually use it as a technology. Those are practically invisible to cultures like ours."

"Then what is it? How does it work?"

"It's so great a thing, that everything is made from it. It can take anything, transform anything. It existed before mankind invented words, and none were ever invented that could describe it accurately. So I'm not going to attempt to describe it to you. You know it well enough. When you look at your daughter and light up from her happiness, you know you're in the center of it. You literally cannot feel that joy and fear anything else at the same time. This is where your mother stays, and this is why the others gather around her. She's a stable portal to you."

He didn't know why entirely, but this felt immensely satisfying. It brought more comfort than thinking his mother wasn't at rest because he'd messed up his life and that she had to worry about him being attacked. Could he really trust that rose-tinted perspective? Even if it ran the risk of not being true, it should've been. It was a better alternative and there was no real reason that he had to settle for less. He wasn't sure if he believed in Heaven, but if there was one, then his mother deserved that version of it, where pain couldn't touch her anymore. Not even his pain, no matter what she saw from her vantage point.

Thella pricked the back of his hand and was now using a pestle and mortar to mix it with a series of powders and salts she'd pulled from her little stack of storage boxes. Some of it looked surprisingly like flour and dirt. The mixture formed a clay and she molded it with her bare hands. At one point, she turned her back to him and said something under her breath, but she turned back to him and finished the process by letting it heat in foil, over a simple tea candle.

How in the world did she function without a wand? Would this be classified as a derivative of wandless magic? Would the masters at Hogwarts concede that her methodology was equal in craft to their own?

He forgot these questions when she told him, "Your mother had no doubt in her mind that her love could save you. She did not consider using it to save herself. You were her only priority that night. Her time was up. Besides, she has been able to help you far better from that side than if she were still on this level. The same concern for you, comes from the other man as well. Snape. Love is where your family comes to, to meet you. That's where we all meet in our truest forms. Even your enemies. If you can access your love, in that second only, you can have no real enemies. This will help you."

She removed the clay from the flame and they both watched it harden as it cooled. "Your magic will keep it from breaking. Sleep with it. Wear it." She had fashioned it into an irregular doughnut shape and now cut a leather string from a spool hiding among her boxes.
It looked like a flat, pale brown Cherio to Harry, the size of a quarter. He let her slip it around his neck.

"The intention within it, is nothing but love. When you feel insecure, when you feel under attack, rub it and summon the love that you know is there. It's just a very powerful physical reminder. No one really needs such a thing, but until you feel more like yourself, you could use some help and there's no shame in that. Above all else, ask for protection as you sleep. Stop taking the pills, you need your dreams."

He stopped trying to look grateful and thought about what she was saying.

"Dreams have all kinds of functions. They cleanse. They broadcast what's coming, and what you need to do to avoid or benefit. They rebuild what the day destroys, your connection to your love. They even let you test alternatives without physical repercussions, so that when the physical decision comes, you are ready for it. So you see, no matter what influences lay waiting and unfriendly, you have everything you need to steer clear of it, and to remain powerful within yourself. Everyone does. More than anything, this is love. We can lose our way, but we can find it again."

He decided that he'd gotten more than she'd promised. He tried to offer some sincere words of thanks, but felt her nudging him towards the room through which they had come. "Your lecture is in less than an hour. They're looking for you. The green tent is the largest, straight ahead. I'll be there in the floor seats. Look for me."

She thrust him into the evening air and he wondered how much time must've passed. It was still daylight, but dimming to that surreal blue that colored everything once the sun was gone. Crowds had thinned, but the rides and vendors were still going strong. He assessed his body, his mind, his focus. How did he feel behind all of that? He touched the talisman. An electric signal leapt from the thing to his fingertips. It buzzed against them and he let that sensation unfold, spreading to his palm and down his arm. His body translated the signal. It flung away his exhaustion and showed him a laughing little girl with hair glowing in the sun and a smile glowing even brighter. His. He'd done that. Nothing else mattered but that.

Anyone looking at him, might be in confusion as to why he stood their grinning ear to ear, for no obvious reason. But he wasn't. The talisman worked. It flooded him with love and his mind translated that into the spirit of his daughter. He didn't just see it, he was living it. No wonder spirit was so different from flesh. No wonder it wasn't afraid of anything. No wonder, it didn't register fear the way humans do. With this kind of love, it had nothing to fear.

He took off in complete faith that his feet would find the right tent on time. By the time he saw it looming ahead, he realized he'd forgotten to pay Thella for her service to him. That was okay. She promised to come to the show. His magic bristled. He'd pay her then. His mother had sent the Voodoo lady to him. His mother, Lily, was whispering through her love even now, that something was going to happen and he'd have need of a young woman posing as the mother of all mothers. Mama Midnight.


A/N: If you're reading this story, I would love to hear from you. :-)