Chapter Thirteen

Aberforth levitated a tray of drinks to the table where Hermione, Helen, and James were waiting. "Feels odd to have a meeting without Cedrella, Melok, and Sirius. Where is that husband of yours, anyway?" he asked Hermione.

"He is, oddly, crunching arithmancy numbers at home," she said, looking amused, "which he's been doing for the last three days since the latest came up. Cedrella I'll have to update when she and Septimus get back from holiday. It's not that urgent. Same with Melok. That said, I wanted to let you all know what was going on. For Aberforth, especially, it was fairly important that you were made aware posthaste."

"Color me intrigued," he said, sitting.

"As we've been anticipating," Hermione went on, "with the arrival of nineteen sixty approaching, the conception of certain individuals is at hand. Cedrella and Poppy confirmed that Eileen Snape is expecting just before Cedrella and Septimus shoved off, so Severus' birth is at hand. I was by Baker street last week and did confirm through a bit of spy work that Margot Evans is also expecting, so Lily Evans should also be born on schedule. Dorea Potter and Hope Lupin should be conceiving soon, and it'll be a bit after that that Mary Pettigrew conceives."

"Shouldn't Sirius' younger counterpart be conceived before any of them?" Helen inquired. "In fact, if I'm doing the math right, Walburga should be pregnant with him already."

"Ah, and here we hit the monkey wrench," she said with an amused sigh. "Walburga is not, in fact, pregnant. Orion's mistress, however, is."

Aberforth raised an eyebrow. "Orion has a mistress? Are you suggesting that in Alpha, Walburga Black raised her husband's bastard? That Sirius grew up never knowing he was another woman's son?"

"Not suggesting," she replied. "Confirmed. We already did the genetic comparison to make certain. It never occurred to us to look for it, previously, but once Sirius and I were pointed in the right direction, honestly, it made far more sense that this woman was his mother than Walburga. Admittedly, it's put poor Sirius in a bit of a crisis mode, but he'll get over it."

"So who is this mistress?" James inquired. "You're being purposefully vague."

Aberforth watched Hermione carefully as he took a sip of his butterbeer, trying to decide if she was blowing off telling them because she was concerned about how the chips were going to fall, or because she thought it was terribly funny. One never really knew with her.

"It's Minerva," she said, offering a cheeky grin.

He spit out his butterbeer, getting it all over the table. Oh. She thought it was hysterical, then. "Bloody hell," he muttered, flicking his wand quickly and cleaning up the mess he'd just made. "Are you joking?"

"No, I'm not," Hermione replied. "As such, Minerva has been brought into the fold officially. She was considering an abortion, which given the situation and her profession, does make a good deal of sense, but I couldn't allow that. Telling her the truth of who her child would grow up to be was the only real course of action. We still don't know for certain if this is an alternate timeline or a causality loop, and if it's a loop, Sirius must be born. Too many lives depend on it. Further, even if it's merely an alternate timeline, there's no real way to know how my Sirius would be affected if his younger counterpart was aborted. Would it be heading off cascade failure at the pass, or would it harm him because one could not have existed without the other? I just don't know, and therefore he must be born."

"As must you, down the line," James agreed.

"How is Minerva handling things?" Helen asked gently.

"I think, for her, it's all still sinking in," the other woman replied. "At first, her curiosity won over any real shock response, wanting to know more about the world I'd come from. After that, she lost it a bit and her and Sirius got into a row, which only highlighted how very much they are mother and son. Gods be damned he has his mother's temper."

Aberforth smirked. "See, now that you're pointing it out…"

"Right?" she asked, grinning. "It does make sense. That Sirius was a Gryffindor, especially. He's a descendant of the Ross line, for Merlin's sake. Of course he'd be a Gryffindor! What Ross isn't? That would have overruled any number of generations worth of Blacks traditionally sorting to Slytherin in a heartbeat. His gift for Transfiguration also falls in line with him being Minerva's son. He's the son of a Transfiguration Grandmaster!"

"Minerva gets to Grandmaster status?" Aberforth asked, pleased to think she'd one day achieve that.

"Oh, absolutely," Hermione nodded. "By the nineties she was a staff writer for Transfiguration Today, in Alpha, on top of being more than tenured in her post as Transfiguration Professor at Hogwarts. Over the summers she usually did three or four lectures. The one in Berlin and the one in Dublin for certain."

"Speaking of Germany," Helen interjected, "might I borrow Dobby for a lift there when we're done here, Hermione?"

The Mage raised an eyebrow. "He's a Magnus Elf, Helen. You don't need to ask my permission to make use of him. Going on a hunt?"

"A contact of mine said there's been a sighting of a Wampus near Friedburg," the Head of the Sanctuary confided. "It must have been imported. The poor thing will do more than a little damage locally before getting killed if I don't extract it."

"They're native to the Appalachians, in North America, aren't they?" Hermione asked, puzzled.

"Indeed," Helen replied. "Ergo my concern. While the woods in that part of Germany may be similar, and the Wampus might be able to survive on similar enough game, ultimately it is a different ecosystem and the local human population won't know how to handle it if they were to run across the creature. It belongs back in its natural habitat."

"We'll need to assess how domesticated it has become, Helen," James cautioned. "If it was truly imported to Germany, then it's distinctly possible that its time in captivity has made it unsuited for the wild altogether."

"Agreed," the Head of the Network replied, "which is why I'd intended to have it shipped to your facility in London for evaluation before determining a long term course of action."

"We really need to get that Sanctuary in Berlin established," James grumbled.

"Even if Berlin was already up and running," Helen said, "It's only slightly closer to Friedburg than London. That said, having teams stationed in Berlin full time would allow for more oversight, and I wouldn't have to travel over the continent to track down a rogue Wampus."

"Oh, don't fuss," Hermione teased. "You love the hunt. Admit it."

The other woman smirked. "Perhaps. Now, shall we get back to Minerva? What's to be done about the dear girl?"

"Beat her senseless for being stupid enough to get involved with a married man?" Aberforth suggested.

"Beating a woman who is with child is ill advised," James mused. "A firm talking to wouldn't go amiss, however."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "She's young, and in love, gentlemen. Cut Minerva some slack. Besides, it wasn't as though I hadn't wanted to draw her into the circle of trust eventually, anyhow. This just saves me the trouble of working out how. Speaking of circle of trust, Aberforth, what's the update on Keating?"

"For a Ravenclaw, he's a sneaky git," Aberforth admitted. "If I'm guessing right, he's all but gotten you figured out, and he's simply choosing to sit on that information. When you decide to confront him is up to you, and Ravenclaws are certainly known for their patience so you do have some time, but I wouldn't advise going too long. While I don't anticipate he'd go to Voldemort with his speculations, and I think your feelings about Albus are clear enough that he'd even hesitate to go to my brother, that does not mean he wouldn't find someone to confide in, if for no other reason than to have another person to bounce his thoughts off of."

"Wouldn't he come to you?" Hermione speculated.

James shook his head. "Unlikely. He'd not go to anyone he suspected was already inside your circle. That rules out Aberforth, Cedrella, Melok, and Minerva, as you're well known for being friendly with all four of them. I'd anticipate him going to someone within your family, who he'd expect to have intelligence on you, but who he doesn't think you have specifically confided in. He'll be looking for information to further support his theories, not for anyone to confirm them."

"Unwitting accomplices, in other words," Hermione said with a nod. "That makes Arcturus and Cor likely targets. Possibly the Potters. Bella if he's got the ethics of a troll and is willing to cajole information out of a child."

"Cajole?" Aberforth laughed. "All the twat would need to do would be to give your little captain cling-on some chocolate and she'd be pouring out every bit of information she'd ever gleaned."

Hermione smiled a bit. "Alright, alright, I get the point. I'll start formulating a plan for talking to Keating, or at the very least for giving him enough breadcrumbs to stall him. I hesitate to bring him into the fold, honestly. It's not an issue of trust, it's just that the more who know the whole story, the more likely Voldemort finds out. We've kept this group small with good reason."

"Keating is an Occlumency Master, same as me," Aberforth assured her. "He was at Hogwarts the same time I was, and while he wasn't a Slytherin, he took up my old Head of House on lessons just the same. Bloody overachiever. Some things never change."

Minerva stood outside the hospital wing, staring at the door. She'd been staring at the door for probably the last fifteen minutes. She knew she needed to go in, knew she needed an exam, but she also knew that once she did this, it would be real. The pregnancy would no longer be something in her head she could hide from and if she tried hard enough, pretend wasn't happening. It would be real, on paper, and the chips would begin to fall. She'd have to officially tell Albus, and officially tell Headmaster Dippet, and while Hermione and Sirius had assured her that they would support her through this no matter what, she didn't like the idea of taking charity, and wasn't sure if by the end of today, she would still be employed.

For however progressive the world had become, allowing women to become part of the professional world and stand on their own two feet, an unwed mother was still very much frowned upon. If a woman got to be in the family way outside of marriage, the man who put her in that situation was expected to do right by her, and if he wouldn't or couldn't, that was viewed as poor judgment on the woman's part more often than it was seen as poor judgment on the man's part. After all, it wasn't like the man could fall pregnant. For him, there was no consequence, short of a child he could choose or choose not to acknowledge. Potions could prove beyond all doubt that a woman's offspring belonged to a specific man, but by law, if the man didn't claim the child, the child was a bastard and the shame of the mother. Period.

Her father and mother would be livid when they found out.

Somehow, the thought of facing her parents made Minerva far more at ease with the thought of facing Poppy Pomfrey, and with a deep breath she pushed open the door to the Hospital Wing, scanning the area for any immediate sign of students. With a sigh of relief, she saw nobody, only noting the light on in Poppy's office. In fairness, it was after supper at this point and short of an accident, the students really should be in dorms by now. She took a steadying breath and rapped on the open door to Poppy's small nook. "Have a minute?" she asked.

The older woman looked up. "Of course," she said with a smile. "What can I do for you?"

"I've been feeling a bit under the weather," she said softly. "I'm fairly certain I know why, but before I submit to the guillotine that will be talking to Albus and the Headmaster, I thought I'd come see you for official confirmation."

Poppy raised an eyebrow as she stood. "What do you suspect?" she asked as she ushered Minerva toward one of the nearby beds.

The Scottish Witch sat, and looked up to the Healer who'd become something of a friend. "I…" she paused. "Short of this being a nightmare, I believe I'm pregnant."

The other woman stared at her for a moment, blinking slowly. "Shite," she finally let out. "Unless you've secretly gotten married?"

Minerva let out a weak laugh. "No, I have not."

"Then I go back to shite," Poppy said, sitting beside Minerva. "I presume you've already cast the spell to confirm pregnancy. What do you need me for?"

"To confirm that it's viable," Minerva admitted, "before I speak to Albus and the Headmaster. I don't want to put my head on a chopping block if it's likely I'll miscarry, or whatever else. My life… my future is on the line here. I need to know for sure this is happening."

"You could terminate," the other woman pointed out. "Regardless of viability."

"If it's viable, I won't be able to bring myself to make that choice," Minerva admitted, thinking about Sirius Black, and about how if this pregnancy was happening, she knew full well she couldn't live with herself if she terminated the baby who would one day grow up to be a man she was proud to know, who was fighting to pave the way for equal rights. Temporal paradoxes be damned, knowing what kind of man her son could grow up to become, if given the chance, took the idea of abortion off the table for her.

Poppy nodded, and stood back up, urging Minerva to lay on the bed. Then, she began flicking her wand around a bit, checking on this and that, smiling absently off and on as various readings registered in the air in front of her. "Well," she finally said. "It seems that congratulations are in order then, Minerva. You're nearly ten weeks along at this point. Healthy and strong. I'd expect nothing less from a Ross, to be honest. Who's the father? If I'm going to be caring for you, I need to know for medical records. This is completely confidential. I won't say a word to anyone. Not even Albus or Armando."

She sat back up. "Orion," came a soft admission. "Orion Black. Yes, I know, it was the height of stupidity to take up with a married man."

"I shan't judge, Minerva," the Healer replied kindly. "However, for the well-being of yourself and your unborn child, I do hope you have the good sense to distance yourself from Orion from this point forward. He may be the father, but he's in no position to step up as such, and for that reason him being in your life at all is nothing but trouble, for both of you. It's not just your emotions he'll be toying with anymore. Besides, didn't you and Hermione…"

Minerva groaned, regretting that she'd confided in Poppy about her night with Hermione at this particular juncture. "Don't remind me," she grumbled. "It was awkward enough before her bloody grandson got me pregnant. For the love of Merlin, I dearly hope he never finds out about what happened between Hermione and me. At least she was kind enough not to bring it up when I told her I thought I was pregnant."

Poppy winced. "How'd that go?"

"She told Sirius," the Scottish woman deadpanned. "He was as noble as a bloody Gryffindor about it, assuring me that regardless of how Orion handles things, that my child will be a welcome part of the family and so forth."

Minerva left out the part about how he'd had a bit of a temper tantrum regarding temporal paradoxes first. Poppy didn't need to know that bit.

"Well, that's something, at least," the Healer replied with a smile. "That said, Armando usually goes over medical information on Wednesday evenings. While the details won't be available to him, he will see that you were in for an exam, and likely ask questions. I'd advise you beat him to the punch."

She stood. "I'll go speak to Albus first. How he reacts will inform how I approach the Headmaster. If your uncle is disinclined to work with an unwed mother, I'll just submit my resignation to Dippet. While I know it's not Albus' call at this point, he'll be Headmaster before too long, and I'd rather not spend the next few years in a hostile working environment if Albus is unwilling to see past this. If Albus is alright with it, then perhaps he can put in a good word with the Headmaster."

Poppy nodded, seeming to agree with the wisdom of Minerva's plan of action. "I'll have prenatal potions sent to your quarters. Not something I normally need to order here at Hogwarts, but you said Hermione already knows you're pregnant, so she won't question when I add it to the next order list. I'll figure out how to get you some in the next day or two, even if it's not from her. She usually needs more notice."

Minerva sighed. "If she's not available to brew that quickly, ask your father. I gave Hermione permission to tell him I was pregnant. No doubt by now he's itching to lecture me about my idiocy. I think I'll avoid the Hog's Head for a few weeks until he's cooled off. Merlin knows he won't set foot in Hogwarts if he can avoid it."

Poppy chuckled. "Too true. I'll give him a buzz this evening. As much as yes, he'll likely want to lecture you, it's probably more because he'd have hoped you wouldn't have made the same mistake he and my mother did. They were unwed when I was born, you know. Worse, they were only sixteen when I was conceived. My mother's parents wouldn't allow them to marry, either. He wanted to do right by her, but they didn't approve of him. It's not that he doesn't understand, or that he disapproves. He just cares, and hoped for better for you."

"And likely didn't want me to know that about him," Minerva remarked.

"It's not like you can't do the math yourself," Poppy pointed out. "Father was born in eighteen eighty four. I was born in nineteen oh one. That's public record, and easily obtainable for a Hogwarts Professor. In any case, my uncle isn't much for late nights, so you best get to him before he gets to bed. Check in with me tomorrow sometime and let me know how it went, alright?"

"Will do," Minerva promised, hugging Poppy. "Thank you."

With that, she was out the door and making her way down to Albus' office, which adjoined his quarters. Encouraged by how well Poppy took things, she didn't hesitate in knocking on his door.

"Come in!" he called.

She stepped inside, pausing a moment as a wave of nausea hit her, bracing herself with her hand on the wall. "One moment," she requested softly.

"Are you quite alright?" he asked, sounding concerned.

The nausea passed a moment later, and she moved over and sat across the desk from her mentor. "Just feeling a bit sick to my stomach. That's actually part of why I'm here."

"Are you ill, Minerva?" Albus inquired, leaning forward and giving her his undivided attention. "Have you been to see Poppy?"

"No, not ill," she replied, laughing a little as she met his gaze, determined not to be a coward about it and look at the floor when she admitted her indiscretion to him. "I have been to see Poppy, however. I just came from there. Albus, I'm pregnant."

He was silent for a moment, just looking at her with a mixture of surprise, concern, and confusion. It was a long, tense minute before he spoke. "The father?" he inquired.

"I believe it's best if I keep that to myself for the time being," she said softly. Telling Poppy had been one thing, but Albus was not bound by medical oaths to keep his silence, and until she and Orion had a chance to speak, and until Walburga was aware of what was going on, she couldn't risk word trickling down about the pregnancy through other means. "For Merlin's sake, I haven't even informed him yet."

"Is there a possibility of him doing right by you and your child?" he asked delicately.

"Not in the slightest," she admitted, shaking her head.

"A married man?"

"Using your powers of deduction will not get me to tell you who he is, Albus," Minerva snipped, "however, yes, he's married, so no, there's no chance in hell he'll be marrying me. Even if I'd be inclined to accept him were the offer there."

"You know, Minerva," Albus said, eying her curiously, "some time ago I had a conversation with Hermione Black, in which she said the oddest thing to me. She told me that - at all costs - I was to keep you close. I have no way to gauge if she has some sort of Sight and knew this particular instance would arise, but I find myself inclined to follow her advice regardless. I agree with her assessment of you, my dear, in that your future is one to be nurtured. Any child of yours, regardless of who their father may be, will be a welcome addition to Hogwarts when the time comes. I'm certain I can manage to teach Transfiguration full time once again for a few months, should you require some time off towards the end of your pregnancy and directly following the birth. I will leave you some time to decide how you want to handle the logistics of not announcing a betrothal to accompany your pregnancy. However you wish to do so I will support you, regardless of what sort of fuss I'm sure the Board will kick up. Trust me, Hogwarts has endured far worse scandals."

She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, and mentally thanked Hermione for preemptively advocating for her. "What about the Headmaster?" she asked. "He could fire me, and be more than right to do so. I was going to go speak to him after I leave here."

Albus shook his head. "Leave Armando to me. I'll speak to him. Keep in mind that he supported his unwed sister and her child when the more socially proper thing to do without have been to encourage Agatha to remarry and remain the wife at home with her child. Instead, he facilitated her ambition as a career woman, and ensured a stable future for her Squib son. He's not above going against the grain of social expectation, and to be perfectly frank, my dear, he was pulling out his hair with stress several years ago when we found you to fill the Transfiguration post. I do believe I can convince him that it is better to endure a bit of scandal and maintain a competent, already in place, Transfiguration Professor, than to attempt to replace you this late in the game."

"You manage that, Albus, and I will owe you a very large stash of whatever Muggle sweet you are currently trending on," she promised.

Her mentor's eyes twinkled. "Have you tried Pixie Sticks, Minerva?"

She laughed. "Albus, that's nothing but sugar!"

He looked enormously pleased. "I know! It's it fantastic?"

Minerva left Albus a few minutes later, and made her way back to her quarters. She Floo'd Hermione to let her know how things had gone before crawling into bed. "So now I need to figure out where to procure Pixie Sticks," she concluded.

Hermione laughed. "Albus and his bloody candy. I'm glad he took things well."

"I don't know he'd have taken things half as well as he did if not for you," Minerva admitted. "He said something about you telling him, ages ago, that my future was to be nourished. What was that about?"

Hermione smirked. "I'm sure he thinks I'm a Seer, now. Lovely. Essentially it boils down to this. You know full well that Albus and I don't get on, right?"

"I know you don't care for Albus," Minerva countered. "I think he'd love to get to know you better."

"Hard pass," the other woman replied. "Essentially, regardless of my feelings toward Albus, I have seen his relationship with you in two different realities, and you do make for a dynamic duo. It's not sexual in the least, nor do you have a Kinship bond or a harmonic or anything of the like. It's just… you're very good friends, who temper one another very well. You reach him in a way few others in his life ever have, and he reaches you in a way few others in your life ever have. It's a relationship I'd not want to rob you two of, just for the sake of being petty, so I've encouraged it."

"What are your issues with Albus anyway, now that you can actually be honest with me on the subject?" Minerva inquired.

Hermione got a wistful look on her face. "There will be a little boy born just a few months after your son. James Potter. When he grows up, he'll marry a girl called Lily, and they'll have a son called Harry. Harry Potter is, or rather will be, my brother through Kinship. We were in the same year at Hogwarts. Harry was subject to a prophecy during our war, citing him as the downfall of Voldemort."

"How old was this Harry when all of this happened?" Minerva asked.

"He wasn't even born yet when the prophecy was spoken," the other woman replied. "It hung over his head all his life, and led to the death of his parents. He was then sent to live with his mother's sister, who was a Muggle who hated magic. Albus was the one who made the decision to send Harry there, deciding it was better Harry grow up away from the fame he'd know if he remained in the Wizarding World."

"That's not unreasonable," the Scottish Witch said, thinking that she might have made the same call.

"No, perhaps not," Hermione conceded. "It's not unreasonable unless the home you send the child to is an abusive one, and your Deputy Head warns you even before you leave the child that it's a bad idea, and you leave him anyway. Then, it's neglect. It's not unreasonable until that child comes back to the Wizarding world ten years later, and it's clear as day he's abused at home, and you still send him back to that place, to those Muggles, every single summer, to be beaten, starved, and emotionally tormented. That doesn't even account for the fact that Albus put Harry through test after test - putting him up against Voldemort himself when he was only eleven years old - to build him into the perfect fighting machine so that Harry could one day win the war for the Order."

"Bloody hell," Minerva let out. "It's a wonder you don't hex Albus with all that. If he'd done all that to my brother… shite."

"I restrain myself with the knowledge that Albus will never have that sort of power in this timeline," Hermione replied, "and by reminding myself that this Albus never did those things. The Albus I knew died a long time ago, in the war."

The Scottish woman let out a ragged breath. "You're a better woman than I, Hermione Black. I'm not certain I could keep the two people separate - if I could look at someone in one timeline and not see who they were in the last. How do you do it?"

"With great difficulty," came a soft admission.

Helen Magnus was ten kilometers west of Friedberg, Germany, and had been tracking the Wampus on foot for the last eight hours. She was fairly confident that it was another kilometer ahead of her up the hill, but that assessment came into doubt when she heard a twig snap behind her, and she turned on her heel, gun drawn.

"Easy there, ma'am," a young man said, rifle in one hand, but both it and his free hand upright in a show of surrender. "Didn't mean to startle you."

She'd seen the American troops stationed in Friedberg, but was surprised to see a lone soldier this far away from barracks on his own. "Are you lost, Sergeant?" she asked, quickly identifying his rank.

"Naw," he said, shaking his head. "Something got into our food supply a few nights ago. The boys scared it off with gun fire, but I offered to track it down. Sort of a special skillset, as it were."

Helen put one hand on her hip, irritated at this… this… cowboy for thinking he was going to track and shoot her Abnormal. "Do you have any idea what it is you're even tracking, young man?"

He took off his helmet, dark hair falling forward over his face a bit before he pushed it back. The Sergeant looked vaguely familiar, if she was being honest, but Helen couldn't place him just now. He offered her a crooked grin. "All due respect, ma'am, but I could ask you the same thing. What's a woman, a Brit at that, doing out here all by her lonesome anyway? You MI6?"

"At one point," she said, offering a wry grin. "Worked with those chaps during the second world war."

He frowned. "You can't be that old, lady."

"I was definitely old enough to have seen action in the second world war," she reported, beginning to move off. "Long story. That said, Sergeant, I really need to get back to what I was doing, and you really need to get out of here. This is no bear or wolf you're tracking."

The dark haired man just jogged to catch up to her. "I know that. It's a damn Wampus. What the hell one of them is doing in Germany, I have no idea, but I know one when I see one for sure. So if you're that old, but still look about my age, you've gotta be a Witch then, right?"

Helen stopped short. "Are you a Wizard?"

"Well, yeah," he said, shrugging. "Went to Ilvermorny. Why the hell do you think I know what a Wampus looks like?"

She evaluated him for a moment, and then decided it didn't hurt to have an extra hand along if he did know what he was getting himself involved in. "I'm not a Witch. I'm a Squib. That said, I have unusual longevity because of experiments I participated in involving Vampire blood. I head a world wide network of Sanctuaries dedicated to the protection, preservation, and containment if need be of creatures which bridge the gap between Muggle and Magical, or when the various Ministries are simply not doing their jobs. My name is Helen Magnus. You are?"

He shook her offered hand. "Sergeant Presley," he said, introducing himself. "Elvis Presley."

Her eyes widened as it all clicked in place. "I knew I recognized you from somewhere! Bloody hell. It's a pleasure. I like your music."

He blushed. "Thanks, although I'm just here to serve my country, same as any other man. I'm not interested in special treatment. The only reason I don't have any other men with me on this op is because I'm the only Wizard in my platoon, and I didn't want to risk any of my men getting hurt because they don't know what the hell they're getting into. It was the first time I pulled the fame card to get my way, to be honest."

She smiled. "It was a good call. Fame has its uses. God knows I've learned that one along the way. Being Head of the Sanctuary Network has made me popular in both the positive and negative manners, if you know what I mean. The Abnormal community has its own little underworld, and black market dealers will kill for what they're looking for, particularly the rare potions ingredients."

"I can imagine," Presley said with a nod. "I've always liked creatures. Life's simpler around them. They don't want anything from you other than to be treated decently. No ulterior motives, no financial motivations, no jealousy that can't be fixed with a good belly scratch…"

Helen laughed. "You and I are going to get along just fine, Sergeant Presley."

He grinned. "I think we just might, Miss Magnus."

"Ah," she said, raising her finger pointedly. "It's Doctor Magnus, if you intend on formality. Or just Magnus. Many of those who work with me refer to me by surname. Or, if you're feeling bold, you could just call me Helen."

"Don't know you well enough for all that, ma'am," he said, putting his helmet back on. "Wampus is about a kilometer up this way, I think. You coming, Doctor Magnus?"

Checking her footing before trudging up behind the noted young soldier, Helen smiled to herself about the connection made. To think, she'd been irritated about having to go to Germany.

PLEASE REVIEW!