Penumbra I: Falls the Shadow

by Skaldic Oresteia

Post-HBP. As Harry disappears on the Horcrux hunt, Ginny is left behind to find her own path in the war against Voldemort. On separate paths, Harry finds an unexpected ally, while Ginny faces repercussions for helping him leave. Meanwhile, the Wizarding World faces an increasingly bleak future as Voldemort unleashes a darker and deadlier power than anyone could have ever imagined.

7. 6: When the Trees Move

Author's Note: Fair warning, this chapter contains violence and some frightening imagery.

Chapter Six
When the Trees Move

"Cold be hand and heart and bone
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts his hand
over dead sea and withered land."
—J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Fellowship of the Ring"

---

"So Harry's gone off to fight Voldemort?" asked Luna serenely.

Ginny stared at her. "How did you know that?"

"Your dad told my dad that Ron had left," Luna replied. "If Ron left, then Harry left, and what else would they leave for? Anyway, you're unusually quiet. I'm sure you'd rather be with him than at home right now."

Ginny said nothing. It had come as a slight surprise to her that Tonks had succeeded in persuading her mother to allow her to visit Luna, but it was also a relief when she immediately escorted her to the Lovegoods'. Tonks now remained outside, keeping an eye out for trouble, while Ginny sat on the couch in the Lovegoods' front room, chatting with her friend after politely refusing a cup of some beverage she didn't recognise.

"What are you planning to do over the next year, then, since we're not going back to school?" Ginny asked, hoping to change the subject.

Luna shrugged. "I'll probably continue learning from the Sixth and Seventh Year textbooks on my own, and perhaps study other books. We could study together. I'd like that."

"Not a bad idea," Ginny said thoughtfully. "I need something to do, and I'm getting sick of all these chores. Anyway, it'd give me an excuse to get away for a while. I'm not exactly in the Order's good books right now, or my Mum's."

"Because you helped Harry leave?" Luna asked. Ginny started, but Luna went on, "Maybe they'll see that it was for the best."

Ginny shook her head, amused at Luna's guessing ability. "Do you think it was for the best?" she asked curiously.

"Don't you?" Luna replied knowingly.

Ginny allowed a small smile, which was all the response Luna needed. Then her smile faded as she grimly said, "They're still angry with me, though. I'm not sorry for helping Harry, even if my help was minimal, but… well, I'd hoped to join the Order as soon as I turn seventeen. Fred and George and Tonks support Harry, and they think the others will be fine with me by that time, but… I dunno. Most of the others are furious."

"Of course they are," Luna said placidly. "Harry must be acting on Professor Dumbledore's instructions. But the fact that he and Dumbledore kept some things from the Order offended them. They feel as though Dumbledore didn't completely trust them."

Ginny shook her head. "Some secrets are too dangerous for everyone to be in on. That's why they're secret. That's the nature of the thing. If they can't understand that, then they're not ready for this war."

"Quite," Luna agreed. "But since neither Harry nor Professor Dumbledore are here, they're taking their anger out on you."

Ginny snorted. "Thanks for the comfort, Luna."

Oblivious to her sarcasm, Luna beamed. "You're welcome."

Ginny managed a soft giggle, then asked, "So you think Fred and George are right? They won't object when I try to join?"

"I don't think they'll feel the same way in a year," Luna said. "They'll see sense and forgive you, but even if they don't, there are other options. You could restart the D.A."

Ginny blinked. "Funny you should say that. Hermione left me a bag of coins just before she left, and George also thinks I should do that."

"There you go, then," said Luna.

"But it's different now," Ginny said. "Half of the D.A. are underage and can hardly practice magic at home. Hogwarts is closed so we can't meet up there. They might not be too happy either when they find out Harry's gone. And anyway, they haven't met for over a year."

"One year, four months, and two days to be exact," said Luna, to Ginny's astonishment. "I'm sure there's a way to set this up regardless of the circumstances. And don't forget that it's called 'Dumbledore's Army' because younamed it that to nettle the Ministry. It had nothing to do with Professor Dumbledore, really. Their loyalty really lies with Harry more than it does with the Order, and they know you were close to him. If they know that Harry's also fighting, they'll probably want to fight too. As for them being underage…." She shrugged. "They won't be within the next couple of years. Once they're legal adults, you could always put together a second anti-Voldemort group, like the Order."

"That sounds great and all, but the Order knows a lot more about Voldemort and the Death Eaters than most former D.A. members," Ginny argued.

"Except Harry, Ron, and Hermione."

"Yes," Ginny growled, "and in case you need reminding, they're out of the picture now. Those three always seemed to know a lot more about what's going on than they ever saw fit to tell anyone."

Luna only smiled, her usual serene expression that Ginny found equally endearing and infuriating. On the other hand, it had given her some relief to be able to express her frustrations to someone who wouldn't criticise, and who wouldn't make light of anything, and she felt another rush of gratitude to Tonks for persuading her mother to allow this visit. At the thought of the young Auror, Ginny glanced out the Lovegoods' front window, expecting to see her standing watch outside, as she had been only minutes before, only now she wasn't there. Squinting out the window and shifting to her right, as if expecting to see Tonks perhaps sitting on the porch, she still saw no sign of the Auror. While Tonks had a bubbly personality, Ginny knew she took her duties as an Auror and as a member of the Order seriously, and had never known her to neglect her duties in any way. Feeling uneasy, Ginny reached into her pocket and grasped her wand, but hoped that she was overreacting. Perhaps Tonks was simply around a different side of the house.

The shifting of movement just in the edge of her view, and the sudden explosive crack outside, dashed that hope.

"What was that?" Mr. Lovegood cried from the kitchen.

Without replying, Ginny instinctively drew her wand, and Luna followed suit. They saw the flash of light at the same time. Luna cried out a warning and Ginny ducked just as a Stunning spell smashed through the window, showering them with shards of glass. Ginny felt a sharp sting on her cheek and placed her hand there, hissing in pain. Her fingers came away bloody. Swearing angrily, Ginny stood again and aimed her wand as carefully and quickly as she could, shouting, "Impedimenta!"

Outside, she saw the masked Death Eater stumble, and Luna cried, "Stupefy!", successfully rendering him unconscious. But there was another crash, and they could see several more Death Eaters approaching the house. Tonks was nowhere to be seen. Then a barrage of spells came their way, and Ginny and Luna kept low to the floor by the wall, keeping their heads covered as spell after spell smashed through the broken window, tearing apart the Lovegoods' front room and causing wood splinters and bits of furniture stuffing to rain down on them. After what seemed like ages, the spells slowed enough for Ginny to risk straightening a little to try to see out the window, but the second she did, another volley of magical energy sailed through the window, barely missing her and smashing the ceiling, covering her and Luna with plaster dust. She ducked down again.

"They can see you if you stand," Luna said in a matter-of-fact voice.

"No shit!" Ginny snarled.

"Well, there's no need to be rude."

Ginny bit back an angry retort, but even if she was inclined to say anything further, a sudden wave of penetrating cold forestalled her, causing her teeth to chatter and her breath to become a visible mist, and she heard a sound like a death rattle. At the same time, a sudden feeling of hopelessness started to come upon her, and her eyes widened as she realised what it meant.

"Dementors!" she hissed.

Luna, evidently having come to the same conclusion, brandished her wand upwards and cried, "Expecto Patronum!"

Her hare Patronus rushed out the window. The instant it did, another wave of spells smashed into the house, causing Ginny to worry that the walls or ceiling would collapse on top of them. The cold ebbed a little, but being unable to look out the window without getting cursed, Ginny couldn't see how many Dementors there were, or how many Death Eaters had surrounded the house. Clearly too many for Luna's Patronus to have made much difference. It looked bad, too much for them to handle from this position. Ginny swallowed, and then concentrated hard on her happiest memories—most revolving around quiet, joyful moments by the lake at Hogwarts only a few months earlier—and brandished her wand, not in the direction of the window, but towards the door (also smashed to splinters at this point), and yelled, "Expecto Patronum!"

Her horse Patronus erupted from her wand and galloped through the broken door and out of sight. With any luck, it would arrive at the Burrow within a minute or two, and in the meantime, they simply had to hold out. She could hear Luna's father yelling from the kitchen, possibly screaming out incantations too, though Ginny couldn't hear what. Then there was a loud smash behind them, and Mr Lovegood shrieked in pain. Ginny turned around just in time to see him fall through the kitchen door, blood leaking from his nose, and he landed in a crumpled pile in the doorway. He did not stir.

"Daddy!" Luna cried.

"Vespae!" Ginny shouted, pointing her wand past Mr. Lovegood at the masked wizard she could see climbing through the smashed kitchen window. The Death Eater howled in agony and dropped his wand, ripping his mask off and clutching his face, which had turned scarlet and was swelling up. Ginny jabbed her wand at him. "Stupefy!"

"EXPULSO!" an unfamiliar voice roared.

A tremendous bang crashed upon Ginny's eardrums, immediately as some force seemed to scoop her up and throw her across the room and into the opposite wall like a rag-doll, her head violently striking the doorframe, and she fell to the floor next to Luna's unmoving father. A ringing sound filled her ears, obscuring all other sounds, and feeling dazed, she opened her eyes to find herself seeing double, and she couldn't see or hear Luna at all. Her head felt as though it had split open, sharp pain pounding through her skull and causing her to shut her eyes tightly. She then tried to sit up, but doing so made her dizzy and nauseous. Then, just barely through the ringing sound, she heard (or perhaps rather felt) heavy footsteps approaching from the ruined door. Her left ear throbbed with every footstep, and her right ear, which felt as though someone had forced a drill through it, couldn't seem to pick up sound at all.

"You won't be selling that rag of yours anymore, Lovegood," the Death Eater said, his voice sounding muffled. His shadow then fell upon her. As Ginny's functioning ear began to clear a bit, she heard him laugh mockingly. "And a Weasel blood traitor as well! Two birds with one stone!"

Ginny couldn't focus on the Death Eater, still seeing double, but as he raised his wand, she reacted instinctively, and brandished her wand in his general direction. "Vespertilies!"

At that moment, several things happened. The Death Eater staggered back, yelling, and Ginny, her wand arm falling back to the floor, could barely see him waving his arms around, undoubtedly trying to beat back the enormous flying bogeys. At the same time, she heard her father's muffled voice shout, "Incarcerous!" and then Remus's voice: "Stupefy!" Then another shape appeared in front of her, as large as the Death Eater, but this time she heard Charlie's pained cry: "Ginny! Ginny!"

She groaned, and tried to reply, but her head was still spinning, and she couldn't lift it without feeling nauseous. Something warm seemed be running from her right ear. Charlie turned her over, and then she felt him scoop her up in his arms. She could hear confused voices around her, but the dizziness only increased, until her head fell backwards as she slipped into unconsciousness.

---

When Rok Grimrook arrived at the inn to exchange shifts with his sister, a gut instinct told him that something about Hogsmeade felt wrong that morning. Initially he couldn't put his finger on it. It was cold and overcast, but that wasn't uncommon these days. If the villagers were more subdued or worried than usual, it was subtle, and he couldn't see any change in their behaviour. His sister had reported no changes in Potter's behaviour and routine, as far as they were able to observe (and even Huginn found it difficult to observe; though they knew from his reports that someone left the Shrieking Shack at least once a day, Potter and his friends appeared to be using an Invisibility Cloak and were magically destroying any tracks). Therefore Grimrook stepped into the Denlawr Moorside, wondering if he was imagining the strange, almost alarming feeling that things were not right in Hogsmeade today.

It wasn't until he had stationed himself at his usual balcony seat on the upper level of the inn, where he could view the Shrieking Shack from a distance, that he finally realised what felt off. It was extremely quiet and still—unnaturally so. When this thought occurred to him, he looked at what he'd taken for granted—the environment—and he realised that there was no sound coming from the woods, not the smallest, softest rustle of wind moving through the leaves. He therefore moved his gaze away from the Shrieking Shack and narrowed his eyes upon the trees, watching them closely. A cool breeze was moving past him; he could feel it on his face. He could hear a low rumble of thunder in the distance. But in spite of the thunderstorm building on the horizon, the trees seemed completely untouched by wind. Nor, he realised, could he hear the sounds of animals there: not a single bird cry. Nor, as he watched, did he see any animal activity; no birds taking off, no squirrels, nothing.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, watching the trees, but at length, after what felt like ages waiting for something to happen, he finally saw movement in the woods: not the gentle swaying of wind through the trees, but something else, something moving within them. Alarmed, he stood abruptly. The words and wisdom of an ancient Chinese treatise on warfare pounded in his head. When the trees move…

Then he heard the alarmed, deep-throated cry of a raven flying towards him, circling about the inn erratically, drawing his attention, and the attention of several other goblins that understood the language of the corvids. They are here.

When the trees move…

Before he knew it, Grimrook was on his feet, dashing down the creaking, wooden outdoor stairs to the balcony, sprinting down the main road of Hogsmeade, not caring who saw him; he was only determined to reach the Shrieking Shack first. It didn't matter if his sudden appearance alarmed its residents, if his actions set his uncle's work back, if his quarry realised he was being trailed; all their plans to approach him carefully and diplomatically were no longer important in the face of what was coming. They are here. Whether they came for the village or for him hardly mattered. If they were caught off guard, it might all be for nothing. They are coming.

When the trees move
The enemy is coming.

He got no further than the Hog's Head when it started.

---

In a small town about fifty miles from Cardiff, a jay fluttered onto the window sill of a café that protruded out from under a canopy, and fluffed up its feathers, giving it an odd, owlish look, and it looked out over the old cobblestone street, which was wet and slippery from the rain. Due to the bad weather and the unusual cold, the streets were rather empty and quiet, but the sound of the falling rain did not cover a loud pop down the street. The jay's eyes moved toward the sound, and its feathers smoothed briefly as it shifted in surprise. Three figures had appeared there, seemingly out of thin air, two of them clinging tightly to the arms of the third, who also had an owl clinging hard to his shoulder. All of them were quite dishevelled, and brought the smallest aroma of smoke, and were panting, as though they had just run a mile. As the rain pelted down upon them, and they took their bearings, they spotted a nearby alley and ducked inside and out of public view.

"Bloody hell," Ron gasped, holding out a bleeding arm, at which Hermione discreetly pointed her wand, muttering healing spells. "That was close! Thought we'd get crushed under that!"

"Lucky I saw those Death Eaters in the woods before the attack started," Harry said fervently. "Otherwise we might not have made it out in time."

Her job done, Hermione lowered her wand and looked around. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Godric's Hollow," Harry answered quietly. "There's a picture of this street in my parents' photo album. First place I thought of."

He could feel his heart slowly returning to its normal rhythm, and the adrenaline wearing off, leaving him feeling quite tired, but also relieved. Had Hedwig not spotted the Death Eaters in the woods, he himself might have walked right past them, concealed by the Invisibility Cloak, not realising they were there, and the attack would have started while he and Hedwig were out. He would have been separated from Ron and Hermione, who would have been taken by surprise. As it was, Harry's warning gave them an extra minute or two to pack up (thank God they had the benefit of magic to speed things up!), and to remove any sign that they had ever been in the Shrieking Shack. They had just finished when the attack started, and a curse smashed through Hermione's remaining enchantments, the most powerful of which she had removed so they could Disapparate out. Harry didn't think the Death Eaters knew they were in the Shack, otherwise they would have concentrated their focus on them; he supposed that they'd either been hit by a stray curse, or else one of the Death Eaters had thrown one in their direction merely because it was a famous landmark. As it was, the curse had blasted one wall out and set the place on fire. He'd barely grabbed Ron and Hermione and Hedwig and Disapparated them out before the roof collapsed.

"What do we look like?" asked Hermione, looking at Ron and Harry. They all had soot and grime on their faces, although the rain was starting to rinse some of it away; Harry could see a black streak running past Ron's ear. Hermione raised her wand and pointed it at Harry, then at Ron, using it to nonverbally siphon away some of the dirt. As she worked, Harry saw her run her free hand through her hair. It came away black. Seeing this, she started cleaning herself up as well.

The rain began coming down harder, and the three of them instinctively backed against the wall of the building next to them, trying to minimise their exposure to the rainfall. Hedwig, still disguised as an eagle-owl, shook water out of her feathers, hooting in discomfort.

"What do we do now?" asked Ron, drawing up his hood.

"I saw a café right next to where we Apparated," Hermione said. "Let's get at least get out of the rain."

She heard no arguments from Harry and Ron, who were both starting to shiver violently, and who looked cleaned up enough to look at least somewhat normal. The three of them therefore moved back outside of the alley and made the short distance to the café she had spotted. Harry left Hedwig on an outside table under an umbrella, and before entering, Hermione cast a discreet drying spell over them, which made enough difference that when they entered the café, they at least wouldn't leave water everywhere.

For his part, Harry had been slightly apprehensive that someone in the café might have seen or heard them Apparate into the street, but to his relief, the café was empty except for a plump, elderly woman behind the bar, whose back was to the door as she cleaned some wine glasses. She looked up at the sound of the bell that chimed when they opened the door, and she beamed at the sight of them.

"Hello, dearies," she said in a Welsh accent as she bobbed toward them, herding them to a table in the corner. "Let's get you a bit warmer. What can I get for you?"

Hermione quickly picked up a menu, printed on some cheap copy paper, that lay on the table. "I'll start with an espresso, please." She quickly glanced at the menu. "And a ham sandwich."

"I'll have the same," Harry said.

"And me," Ron added.

The café owner nodded. "Do you need more time to browse the menu?"

Hermione shook her head. The woman shrugged and began writing down their orders, directing them to choose sides of either soup or salad; still shivering, all three of them chose soup. The café owner finished writing down their orders and stowed her book back into her pocket, but then she paused and looked at Harry more closely, frowning. Suddenly wary, Harry asked, "Yes?"

"Oh, sorry, lad," she said sheepishly. "You just remind me of a bloke who used to live here. You look a hell of a lot like him. Actually, you could be his twin, except for your eyes. But he died like fifteen years ago." She then recollected herself, and shook her head before returning to her cheery voice. "But where are my manners? I'll take those orders. It will only be a few minutes."

She then left their table and disappeared into the kitchen.

"She must have met my dad," Harry said quietly.

"A lot of people around here might notice you because of that," Hermione warned him quietly. "It's a small town. Why did you bring us here?"

"I told you, it was the first place I thought of," Harry defended. "Anyway, I've been meaning to come here for months. You know that."

Hermione didn't reply, but she looked worried. Another patron entered the café, but he paid no attention to them and chose a seat just far enough from them that they might be able to converse in low voices without fear of being overheard. Harry could only hope that the bad weather would ensure that the number of people in Godric's Hollow they encountered would be minimal, and therefore, in spite of his striking resemblance to one of its former residents, their presence might go unnoticed.

---

She became conscious of the darkness first, and then of the ache in her right ear. Then she opened her eyes to find herself looking at a glass lamp hanging above her. A moment later, something dark appeared over her, and a sudden, sharp, throbbing pain shot through her skull and her right ear in particular, causing her to hiss in pain and tense up. She tied to sit up, but doing so made her head pound and her stomach turn. A strong hand pushed her back down.

"Easy," she heard George say, his voice oddly muffled but gentle. "Sorry about that. We were just adjusting your pillow. Jostled you a bit too much."

Ginny turned her head to her left to look at George, as she reached up to feel her head. Her stomach lurched unpleasantly, but she still persisted, until her fingers made contact with heavy bandages. The twins—no, George—two Georges?—stood before her, and Percy (also in double) sat nearby too. She was in the front room of the Burrow.

George then said something that sounded somewhat like a welcome back, but she couldn't quite make out the words. "What?"

Then Percy spoke too, but she still couldn't hear him. "What?" She turned her head so that her left ear was more in their direction.

George grinned at Percy. "A half-deaf red-head who's talking louder than she realises. Are you sure this isn't Aunt Muriel?"

Ginny tried to throw him an obscene hand gesture, but found that moving too quickly still made her feel nauseous, and had to make do with a mumbled, "Shove off." Then, addressing Percy, she asked, "What happened?"

"Charlie brought you back here," he answered, standing and moving so that he stayed more in the range of her left ear. "Mum and Madam Pomfrey had your skull fixed up in a few seconds, but you've also got a concussion, and your right eardrum ruptured."

"Yeah, I worked that bit out," Ginny mumbled. "Can't they fix that too?"

"Apparently it's harder to fix internal injuries, especially when it comes to injuries to the brain or delicate organ systems like the inner ear," Percy answered, "but I think they said it'll eventually heal if they 'persuade it properly'. Makes you thankful for magical medicine. Poppy says you'd be permanently deaf in your right ear otherwise."

"You and Luna did well at the Lovegoods', though," George interrupted, and Ginny could hear the pride in his voice. "Dementors gone, and two subdued Death Eaters, which left only a couple to handle by the time Dad and Charlie and Remus got there."

At these words, Ginny suddenly remembered what had occurred, and she tried to sit up again suddenly. Pain exploded in her head, and she moaned and clutched at it, while fighting down nausea. Again George and Percy pushed her into a reclining position.

"Easy, Ginny," George repeated.

She swallowed, her eyes and lips pressed shut, waiting. When the pain subsided a little and the nausea seemed to go down a bit too, she opened her eyes and asked in an urgent whisper, "Where's Luna? And her dad?"

"Luna's fine," George assured her. "They've given her a sleeping potion. But Lovegood was really badly hurt. Madam Pomfrey's with him now, but she hasn't said if he'll be all right yet."

"They're going to be staying here for a bit, and then we might move them to Grimmauld Place," Percy added. "Their house was wrecked, and anyway, it's not a good idea for them to go back there, now that the Death Eaters seem to have targeted them."

"Yeah, looks like the Order's protections for Harry weren't for nothing after all."

"And Tonks?" asked Ginny. "What happened to her? I didn't see her anywhere during the attack."

"Lupin took her to St. Mungo's," Percy said. "It looks like they hexed her from behind just before they attacked the house."

"Mad-Eye's sure to give her an earful about that," George remarked. "I don't think any of us were expecting them to attack the Lovegoods, though."

"But is she all right?" asked Ginny.

"She will be. She just needs a bit of spell damage sorted out, but it's fortunately not as bad as it could have been."

"And what happened to the Death Eaters?"

"At the Ministry," Percy informed her, "awaiting trial and imprisonment."

George gave her a triumphant grin. "Nice work, Ginny. Even when injured and cornered you managed to best them."

"Er, thanks," she muttered. He was making it sound a lot cooler than it actually was.

"Still, this will probably cause a stir," George mused. "The Quibbler's been a lot more popular since they interviewed Harry when the Ministry was saying he was a nutter. And since that seems such a popular topic, they've been focusing on the war lately. Of course, half the stuff they published was mad anyway, but then again, so is most of what comes out of the Prophet. People need different angles."

Percy shifted uncomfortably. Ginny's ear throbbed painfully again, and she rubbed the skin around it, wincing; this caused George to stop talking, discontinuing the subject, but an awkward silence remained. Ginny shifted her head a little, as much as she could bear with her stomach roiling and her head pounding, but try as she might, she could not find a more comfortable position, which boded ill for the next few days or however long it took her to get better.

Then something silvery shot into the room through the window and materialised in the form of a wolf. Remus's voice emanated from it: "Hogsmeade is under attack. They need reinforcements. We're gathering at the station for a counter-attack."

George swore, and Ginny tried to sit up again. Again Percy pushed her back down. "Don't even think about it," he told her sternly. "You're in no condition to even argue about going there."

"I'll go find Fred," George said, drawing his wand. "Charlie was with Remus, so he probably already knows."

Once assured that Ginny wasn't going to try to get up again, Percy too drew his wand and followed George out the back door. Ginny watched them go forlornly. She waited for the sound of Disapparation, but it didn't reach her ears; or perhaps her right ear didn't pick it up. She hadn't intended to go with them; she knew she'd be no good in a fight while concussed and half-deaf, but all the same, Hogsmeade made her think of carefree weekends at Hogwarts, and its long history as well as its central position in British magical culture, and the idea that the Death Eaters would attack it filled her with boiling rage.

Which, in her current state, perhaps wasn't the best emotion to indulge in. A strange, almost metallic taste suddenly filled her mouth, and Ginny rolled over and emptied the contents of her stomach onto her mother's rug.

---

Once plates of food lay before them and they all felt calmer after their close call, Hermione turned the discussion to the most pressing matter for them to deal with. "Where are we going to stay now?" she asked, once she'd cast a subtle Muffliato around them.

"We'll find some place," Ron said reassuringly. "Now that we're out of there, we can slow down and think of something."

"I'd like to visit the churchyard before we go looking," Harry reminded them, glancing at the woman who'd served them. "I bet she knows where it is."

They were quiet for a moment. Then Ron asked indignantly, "What did they attack Hogsmeade for, anyway? They obviously didn't realise wewere there, so it can't have had anything to do with that."

"Terror," Harry said angrily. "Nothing like an assault on the only all-wizard town in Britain, just 'cause they can."

"And there's a lot of anti-Death Eater sentiment there," Hermione added in a hushed tone. "Most of Hogsmeade's prominent and respected residents, like Madam Rosmerta, were too close to the Dumbledores."

At this, a thought struck Harry. "My God. Aberforth lives in Hogsmeade, right? Do you think he got away?"

Ron and Hermione both swallowed. It would be bad for the Order if they had to find another Secret Keeper so soon, or worse, if Aberforth had been captured. Finally, Hermione said, "I hope so. But he knows how to defend himself. He and Professor Dumbledore were in the Helvetian Paladins. He's been through stuff like this before."

"The what?" Harry asked blankly, earning himself a scowl from Hermione.

"Didn't you ever pay attention in History of Magic?"

"Nope," Harry and Ron said in unison.

Looking rather exasperated, Hermione explained, "The Helvetian Paladins were a resistance movement against the Triskelions and Grindelwald, so named because they were headquartered in Switzerland."

"Switzerland?" Ron repeated. "How did Dumbledore get involved with them, then?"

"His family spent their summers at a villa near Geneva. They had some family connections there, and he used them to help organise them." Even though she'd set up a Muffliato barrier, Hermione looked around cautiously, before continuing in a lower voice, "What's less commonly known is that Dumbledore reassembled the Paladins here in Britain after the Death Eater attacks started, and they renamed themselves."

Putting two and two together, Harry said, "And they're now the Order?"

She nodded. "They were experienced enough to seriously challenge the Death Eaters at first. Unfortunately, by then most of the original members were getting old, and none of them except Dumbledore were any match for Voldemort himself. Most of them were killed off eventually."

"Are any of the original members still in the Order, besides Aberforth?" asked Ron curiously.

"I think Elphias Doge is the only one." She sipped her water. "The point is, Aberforth's got a lot more experience fighting Dark wizards than even most of the Aurors. And from what I've heard, he's a bit… unorthodox. I imagine he's got a lot of tricks hidden up his sleeve."

---

The Shrieking Shack was ablaze, but by the time he reached it, Grimrook could tell that it no longer mattered. Hermione Granger's wards were down, but he could not hear panicked yells inside, nor see any movement except the flames. He therefore backtracked to the village, determined to find Huginn and then transport himself to his uncle's house in Baarenbrach, praying to Laelit and Oreanchar and all the gods of the Nemel-Sindrian pantheon that he'd find him there, and that his tracing methods would confirm what he could only hope was true.

Traveling to Baarenbrach proved unnecessary, however, for when he returned to Hogsmeade, he came upon a make-shift barricade formed of two upended merchant carts, behind which some of the villagers of Hogsmeade were hiding, including, to his surprise, his uncle Grobschmied, throwing goblin spells over the cart at the masked raiders further down the street, Huginn nestled on the ground next to him; however, even from this distance Grimrook could see his uncle struggling to aim well; goblins didn't need wands to throw curses, but Grobschmied couldn't stand high enough for his aim to be true without giving the Death Eaters a clear shot at him. Beside him crouched Aberforth Dumbledore and another villager, both with wands drawn, firing spell after spell at the Death Eaters. A spell sailed over their heads and past the barricade, and Grimrook dove out of the way. Once assured that it had only been a stray spell, and that the Death Eaters hadn't seen him, he crouched down and ran to his uncle's side.

"Thank Laelit!" Grobschmied said in Sindrian, utterly relieved. "I came by to check on things and walked right into this."

"Your timing is matchless," Grimrook responded wryly. As he spoke, a bright violet curse sailed over the cart, barely missing the tips of his ears, and he crouched lower, and told his uncle quickly, "There's no one in the Shack. As far as I can tell he got away, but I can't know for sure yet. Did you bring the globe?"

Grobschmied only said enough indicate that he had, before a curse struck the top of the cart, causing wood splinters to explode. They and Aberforth ducked down, and Huginn cawed in fright, but remained on the ground. "Look, I hate to break up the conversation," Dumbledore's brother said, "but I could use a hand here."

Grimrook nodded apologetically, just as Grobschmied pulled a glass sphere with an iron frame from his bag. "I need you to hold them off for a few minutes," he said. "Help Mr. Dumbledore."

"Right," Grimrook said, looking back at Aberforth. "Any idea how many there are and how many they've killed?"

As if to answer his question, a bright green curse struck just as the villager next to Aberforth rose to try to fire off more spells, and he crumpled to the ground, unmoving.

"Damn it!" Aberforth ducked down further, and Grimrook watched him check the villager, but knew even before he looked up that the other wizard was dead. Shaking his head angrily, Aberforth looked back at Grimrook and Grobschmied impatiently. "You just gonna sit there? I assume you two know magic as well as the next goblin."

"Yes, but it's a bit hard to aim from this position with just my hands," Grimrook retorted. "Or do you want me to end up like him?" He gestured at the dead wizard.

Aberforth growled in frustration. "Do you seriously expect me to be able to hold off all of them before help arrives? Albus Dumbledore may have been my brother, and you know I'm pretty damn good myself, but I'm not that good."

Grimrook hesitated. The truth was, he did have a means of fighting back, but his having obtained it—he being a nonhuman firmly under the jurisdiction of the Statute of Secrecy—was quite illegal, and he was wary of using it at a moment when Aurors could converge upon the village at any second; he'd be no use to anyone if he found himself on the run shortly after this.

"Rok," Grobschmied interjected, "just do what you have to."

Grimrook looked at Aberforth distrustfully, and then he pulled the weapon from his pocket, and began loading the cylinder. Surprised, Aberforth asked, "Do I want to know where you got that?"

Grimrook gave him a sidelong glance. "I don't know. Do you?"

The revolver primed, Grimrook stood just enough to see over the barrier, and fired a couple of shots before crouching back down. The shocked shriek of pain told the three of them his aim had been true. Grimrook looked at Aberforth, who slowly gave him an approving nod.

"Well, I won't tell if youwon't," Aberforth said. He pulled the flap of his trench-coat open to reveal a shotgun. Seeing the goblins' surprised expressions, he explained, "Far as I'mconcerned, I wouldn't be a proper bartender without one hidden under the counter."

Grimrook snorted with disbelieving laughter, and without a word, he fired a couple more shots over the cart. He saw a Death Eater crumple, and the others backed away in confusion. With his last two rounds in the cylinder, he fired again, just as one of the Death Eaters yelled "Protego!"

Grimrook and Aberforth both instinctively ducked down, uncertain of the bullet's path when it ricocheted, but when they looked up again, they saw the Death Eater lying on the ground ahead, a pool of blood draining from a hole in his chest.

"By the All-Father, did that bullet…" a surprised Grimrook began, but Aberforth suddenly pulled him back down as a retaliatory curse sailed their way, striking the cart and causing it to lurch backwards, wooden splinters bursting out towards them. There was now a hole in the cart.

"These won't hold much longer!" Grimrook warned his uncle.

"Help's on its way," Aberforth told them. "We just need to hold long enough for"—

A death rattle sounded, and Grimrook suddenly shivered. Looking at Aberforth, he realised that the old bartender's breath was becoming visible, and an awful despair seemed to creep into his heart; but knowing what it meant, Grimrook looked up, as did Grobschmied and Aberforth, to see no fewer than six hooded Dementors converging upon them. Aberforth swore and raised his wand, but the monsters were already upon them.

"Expecto Patronum!" a new voice shouted, and suddenly an enormous horned Patronus, shaped like a rhinoceros, stampeded into the Dementors, scattering them. A stocky, muscular red-haired wizard, most likely one of Bill Weasley's brothers, then joined them. Around them, they could hear the sounds of Apparation, and sounds of spellfire begin anew, but this time it was mostly aimed elsewhere, giving them a slight reprieve.

"Aberforth!" their rescuer cried. "Are you hurt?"

"No. Can't say the same for the rest of the village," he griped. "What the hell took so long?"

"Look, I don't know how long it takes a Patronus to travel hundreds of miles," Weasley retorted. "But we're here now. Percy and the twins are coming, and Mad-Eye and Sturgis and Kingsley are already here. The Aurors will soon be here too. But you should get out of here. You know that."

"Yeah, I do," Aberforth grunted. "Doesn't mean I have to like it, though." He looked sadly at his pub, and at the burning buildings nearby, and then Disapparated with a loud snap.

Charlie Weasley looked at the two goblins, and Grimrook hurriedly stowed away his revolver, though he was sure the wizard must have seen it. If he did, however, he didn't comment, instead saying, "Thanks for your help. We'll take it from here."

Grimrook nodded, and looked at Grobschmied, who was staring at the little glass globe with a concerned frown. Speaking in their native tongue, he asked, "Have you had any success finding him?"

Grobschmied looked back at Grimrook with a worried expression. Gathering up Huginn, he said in an urgent voice, "I think they're in Godric's Hollow. And they're in trouble."

---

When they left the café, it had stopped raining, but Harry still kept his hood up. He looked at Hedwig, now perched on top of the umbrella over the outdoor table, and led the way down the street, keeping his eyes on the pavement, and looking at no one who had ventured out of doors now that the storm seemed to have let up. A glance backwards told him that Hedwig was slowly following them. He, Ron, and Hermione didn't say a word to each other, except at the start, when Harry directed them to keep their wands at the ready, just in case. Eventually, as they passed a row of half-timbered houses, and Harry began looking around either for the churchyard they'd been directed to, or the wrecked house where his parents might have lived, the former loomed into view. It was a medium-sized, gated cemetery by a little church built just on the edge of the village. As they walked through the churchyard kissing gate, Harry saw a vicar accompanying an elderly couple to one of the gravestones.

Seeing the number of graves, Ron grumbled, "It'll take ages to find them."

Hermione shot him a withering look, but Harry didn't really hear Ron. He felt as though by entering this graveyard, he had just stepped over a threshold from which there was no return, as though by going to see his parents' graves, he was taking another step towards embracing his fate. A sudden wave of fear washed over him, not of the graves themselves, but because even though he'd already set out to find the Horcruxes, even though he'd already crossed the Rubicon, somehow this made where he now stood in the world that much more real. Finding the right graves, however, was another matter. Not wanting to risk exposure by spending the afternoon searching, Hermione led them over to the small headstone where the vicar stood with the Muggle couple.

"Excuse me, sir," she started.

The vicar looked up. "Good afternoon," he said, smiling at her, before looking at her companions. When his eyes fell on Harry, his eyebrows twitched. He then turned to look at the couple behind him; the wife had knelt by the grave of a long-dead infant daughter and laid a rose on it.

"If you need anything else, Mrs Fulton, you know where to find me."

The couple thanked him, and then the vicar drew Harry, Ron, and Hermione away until they were out of earshot. Once they were a fair distance away, he looked at Harry and said quietly, "I thought you would come here sooner or later. You look just like your father."

Harry tried not to show his surprise. "You knew him, then?"

"Oh, yes. I knew Lily and James quite well." He then looked at Ron and Hermione curiously, and they introduced themselves.

As the vicar shook all their hands, he introduced himself as the Reverend Mr Thomas Hughes, and then asked Harry, "You are here to visit them, then?"

"Yes," Harry said, "but I don't know where their graves are."

"Follow me," Mr Hughes said, nodding to an area of the graveyard near a grove of trees. As they walked, he, said, "I've had to guide many of your parents' friends to visit this grave, and occasionally people sight-seeing, although on one occasion I had to chase away one wizard who tried to carve his initials into the grave."

Harry stopped, too surprised to be indignant at this. "You know about"—

"My late wife went to Hogwarts. She was Muggle-born." He chuckled fondly. "Your parents, your father especially, found the idea of a man of the cloth married to a witch very amusing."

Harry and Hermione smiled at this small piece of humour. "I bet they did," Harry said, imagining what Sirius must have had to say.

"And it is a bit unorthodox of you to be so accepting of it," Hermione added.

"Isn't it, though?" said Mr Hughes, smiling. "Took me a while to wrap my head around it, I can tell you."

He made more small talk, usually reminiscing on Harry's parents, or on life in Godric's Hollow, before he stopped after leading them down what seemed like the last row of headstones in the churchyard, and pointed towards a grove of trees just beyond.

"They're over there," he said.

"Thank you," Harry said, stretching his hand out. The vicar shook it, smiling.

"It was a pleasure to see you again," he said. "Last time was when you were only fourteen months old." He then leaned closer, and added quietly, "I've prayed for you every day since your parents died. I don't know how things stand now, but I know that you can overcome this."

Harry swallowed, and he again thought of his parents and the bleak future that lay ahead, but feeling very moved, he said, "Thank you."

Mr Hughes accepted his gratitude with a nod and walked back towards the church. As they watched him go, Hermione remarked, "That was surprising. But also a relief. I didn't want to Obliviate him."

Harry wasn't paying attention. He turned back towards the grove, and before long he spotted a single marble gravestone just visible by the little cluster of trees, and he slowly started to move closer. Initially he glanced back in the direction of the church, but seeing that Mr Hughes was gone, he looked back at the tombstone and stopped when he got near enough to read the inscription:

James Potter
19 January 1960 – 31 October 1981

Lily Potter
8 November 1959 – 31 October 1981

Harry felt a lump lodge itself in his throat as he read his parents' names over and over again, and this time he did nothing to try to swallow that lump. Hermione and Ron hung behind him, allowing him a bit of time and privacy, which he was grateful for. He didn't want to break down in tears there, especially knowing that they couldn't remain too long, but still, while he had never known them growing up, the people in the grave before him were probably the two most important people in his life.

But Harry wasn't able to dwell on his parents for more than a minute before he heard a footstep to his right, and he looked up sharply. His eyes narrowing, he squinted into the grove for a minute, looking for anything that might have made the unexpected sound, anything not right. Then he saw a movement that seemed out of place, the movement of something he was sure was there but he couldn't quite see… the movement of a man Disillusioned.

"Down!" Harry yelled, dropping to the ground just as a volley of spells passed over him forcefully, singeing his hair. Harry then stood again, his wand out, as the two masked Death Eaters emerged from their hiding places, their magical camouflage dissipating, and their wands raised.

Fury swept over Harry like no anger he'd ever felt before, at the realisation that the Death Eaters, the lackeys of the monster that had murdered his parents, had evidently been standing watch over their grave, or had put in place some spell to alert them to anyone visiting it, in hopes of catching him right where they were buried. Without thinking, Harry shot a Blasting Hex at one of them, just as Ron and Hermione moved into combat too. The Death Eater dodged Harry's spell and flung another curse at him, but missed. A moment later found Harry battling one Death Eater, and Ron and Hermione battling the other. The combination of the three teenagers' skills, and the two Death Eaters' ferocity made them fairly evenly matched at first, but Harry was quick to assess his opponent's skill, and at his first opportunity, he hit the Death Eater with a Jelly-Legs Jinx, causing him to wobble and collapse, his legs unable to support his weight.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry snarled, and the Death Eater's wand flew out of his hand. At the same time, he heard Ron likewise Disarm the other. With both deprived of their wands, Harry moved closer to his, his wand carefully aimed at the cowering Death Eater's heart.

"How dare you?" he roared in rage. "How dare you?"

In his anger, sparks flew from his wand, hitting the Death Eater's face and causing him to quail, raising his hands as if to plead for mercy; but Harry was too angry to spare him any compassion, and he raised his wand. But before he could utter—or even decide upon—an incantation he felt suitable for the cowering man before him, Harry felt the air suddenly turn cold, and just as suddenly the entire vicinity seemed to grow darker, significantly darker, until the overcast afternoon sky was as dark as a starless night. Harry didn't take his eyes off the Death Eater, but uncertainty began to stir within him. It felt like the approach of Dementors, but Harry had never known Dementors to visibly darken the sky so dramatically, and this cold felt different, external and internal, as though a strange numbness had set into his mind and soul. At the same time, the entire churchyard became utterly quiet, so that he heard not the smallest sound of wind, or of insects, or of birds, or even of activity from the village. It was silent, that is, until Harry saw the eyes behind the Death Eater's mask crinkle from grinning, and he began to laugh coldly. At the same time, the gap between the trees and the tombstone seemed almost to ripple, like the shimmering effect of heat, and then a third wizard stepped almost out of nowhere wearing robes of soft black leather, his hood completely drawn over his face. But he wasn't a Death Eater; at least, he wasn't dressed like any Death Eater Harry had ever encountered. His robes were adorned with silver chains and insignias, and he wore an iron girdle emblazoned with a strange mark of four crooked lines stacked on top of each other, some with a curve in the middle, others with crossing or perpendicular marks, in what appeared to be some kind of foreign script.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione all raised their wands, but the wizard, ignoring them, stretched out his left hand, in which he held a black glass sphere, and the moment he laid eyes on it, Harry sensed a kind of energy radiating from it, or perhaps a calling, commanding his attention, drawing his gaze. He was transfixed as the newcomer raised the sphere higher and higher, his sleeves sliding down his raised forearms to reveal an intricate pattern of black and iridescent gray tattoos, until he held it just above eye level. Then the wizard released it, as if to drop it; but instead of falling, the sphere remained suspended where it was, and the wizard raised both his tattooed arms above his head. At the movement, Harry broke from his trance and instinctively raised his wand again.

He was completely unprepared for what happened next.

He didn't even get the incantation out of his mouth before the sphere began to spin, dark, arcane energy emanating from it, and immediately the edges of Harry's vision darkened as an abrupt, suffocating feeling of paralysing fear cascaded over him, an irrational terror he couldn't control or explain, so sudden and so crippling that he couldn't even think, let alone attempt to understand what was happening. It was worse, far worse, than the effects of Dementors. It was an aura so dark that he began to forget what light even was, what happiness or peace were, as a shadow began to seep into his very soul, and he fell to his knees, his wand slipping from his fingers. The black orb spun faster and faster, a bluish-black flame radiating from it, as the sorcerer began to chant in an unknown language, his voice deep and penetrating and yet unnervingly soft:

"Teroper d'alghroth ptrôn cantorgin na tol arkher teropra. Magû Voetiantu alghronitha spaisina teroperan."

As the sorcerer chanted, the tattoos on his forearms began to move and break apart and move aside, revealing on both arms the same four crooked lines as those on his girdle, which began to glow a fiery red. An inky black circle seemed to swirl around the glowing tattoos, before turning the same blazing colour, and from that circle fiery tendrils ate their way up the sorcerer's arms in a strange, swirling pattern.

Harry only became vaguely conscious that the Death Eater before him was back on his feet, the jinx suddenly negated; at the same time the other Death Eater had also got back on his feet, and then both grabbed their wands and engaged Ron and Hermione in battle again; but they left Harry, still rendered utterly helpless, to the dark sorcerer who still continued to chant:

"Teroper d'aghroth mtras cantorgin na tol arkher teropra. Magû Voetiantu alghronitha spaisina teroperan."

The orb was now spinning so fast that it and the blue energy radiating from it had now become little more than a blur, and the ground beneath Harry's feet began to tremble, but his mind was still in a black fog, terror spreading through his form like a poison, keeping him low to the ground, his eyes fixed upon the sphere, his whole frame shuddering violently. Great cracks in the ground appeared beneath his feet, but still Harry could do nothing but gasp for breath. Then the sorcerer threw his head back, his hood falling to reveal a pale face with blank, empty eyes, and he shrieked into the blackened sky, "GIDRONGAR KAL NA INTATHU THAIA, ENTOL INROAN VOESIATH!"

There was an almighty crack as the sphere suddenly exploded into white-hot energy, and some force seemed to lift Harry off the ground and throw him backwards, as the soil suddenly blasted outwards from the grave, raining down upon him. At the same time, the inexplicable, unnatural wave of terror seemed to ebb away, and Harry, suddenly feeling capable of doing so, seized and brandished his wand, scrambling to his feet, and looking ahead wildly.

What he saw nearly caused him to drop to his knees again in complete shock. He could clearly see the sorcerer standing unmoving on the cracked grave, and beside him—it was like the best dream and the worst nightmare at the same time. Harry's heart pounded, because it couldn't be true. It simply couldn't be, and yet there they stood, their faces calm and serene, almost ethereal, and showing no sign of decay, as though the years under earth had somehow preserved them. On the one side, Harry's eyes met a pair of green eyes exactly like his, and on the other side, he saw dark untidy hair and glasses. Both of them were holding wands, which had been buried with them. Stunned, amazed, and overcome at seeing the faces that had hovered in his dreams and had smiled at him in the Mirror of Erised, Harry's wand hand quivered, and he unconsciously began to lower it.

"HARRY!" Hermione's voice shrieked from what seemed like miles away, muffled and oddly distorted. "HARRY, LISTEN TO ME! THEY'RE NOT YOUR PARENTS!"

But there was a crack which Harry barely noticed, cutting Hermione off as one of the Death Eaters threw a deadly curse at her, which she barely evaded; but Harry, still entranced, saw nothing of this, or of Ron's fight with the second Death Eater. The woman standing beside the fiery, tattooed wizard looked at Harry with an odd, scrutinising expression. Her eyes, lips and brow then contorted into an utterly hostile expression, and she raised her wand.

The trance was broken, and snapping out of his dazed state, recollecting himself, Harry also raised his wand, but not before Lily Potter's voice viciously snarled, "Crucio!"

A burning onslaught of agony took the place of the onslaught of terror he'd felt only seconds before. Harry bit down on his tongue hard, tasting blood, as fire seemed to run through his veins and bones, tearing at each and every cell in his body. His muscles seized up, and when the white-hot fire gained in intensity, Harry opened his mouth and screamed into the darkness, feeling nothing except pain, seeing nothing except the red mist that seemed to rise up around him, and hearing only his own piercing cries. Somewhere in the midst of that pain, he felt a vicious blow to his side, and then another, over and over again, driving the breath from him, but still he screamed. A cold hand closed around his burning throat, and squeezed hard, so hard that he could no longer breathe, cutting off his screaming. Acid seemed to bubble in his lungs and throat, burning him, trying to break through his closed trachea, while at the same time the Cruciatus Curse strengthened in intensity, and the red mist got darker and darker.

And then, just on the edges of his awareness, he thought he heard a sharp pop, then another, then a third. The pain stopped and the hand released Harry; something very heavy suddenly dropped on top of him, pushing what little air was left from his lungs. At the same time the burning pain that had started in his chest grew to such sharp intensity that he couldn't even attempt to draw breath, and his vision darkened to complete blackness.

---

Ron was aware that even as he stepped forward and back and zigzagged between the gravestones, keeping moving while still firing spells at the Death Eater, fighting as hard and fast as he had ever fought, that the strange dark wizard standing on the Potters' tombstone had animated and commanded the Inferi to torture his best friend, and had to force himself to look at his opponent and not at the remains of the Wizarding World's most famous couple as they savagely attacked their only son. But he could hear Harry's awful screams, and fear fell upon Ron like he never knew, a terrible realisation that if he and Hermione didn't stop their opponents quickly, there was absolutely nothing they could do to save him.

It had to be a dream, he thought wildly as he dodged a hex that blasted apart another headstone. It just had to be, because he could not understand how such unspeakable terror and cruelty could exist on the face of the earth. Then Harry's screams abruptly stopped, and Ron, in mid-dodge, afforded himself just enough time to look at his friend. To his horror, he saw the corpse of James Potter on top of Harry, his hands tightly squeezing his throat, even as Lily Potter's corpse held him under the Cruciatus Curse. Harry was convulsing violently, and his face—contorted in agony and his mouth open in a silent scream—was slowly turning blue.

"HARRY!" Ron screamed helplessly, but he couldn't take a single step forward before the Death Eater shouted "Confringo!"

Ron leaped out of the way barely in time before another tombstone exploded with the force of a bomb. He managed to keep on his feet, touched only by clods of dirt and specks of marble dust, and he whirled around, his wand raised, now more determined than ever to stop this, here and now. Before he could get the incantation out of his mouth, however, the Death Eater suddenly jerked forward, dropping his wand. He then raised his hand to the back of his neck, and then stumbled forward and fell to his knees, a dart visibly protruding from the back of his neck. Without thinking about where the dart had come from, or who had shot it, Ron seized the opportunity to blast the Death Eater with a Stunning Spell, and without another thought, he turned to run to Harry's rescue.

But then an unfamiliar voice shouted, "Weasley, watch out!" At the same time, there was an earsplitting pop, and Ron saw the sorcerer at the tombstone suddenly crumple to the ground and stop moving. Ron expected the Inferi to also drop dead at the fall of their master, but to his shock, they continued their attack, totally unperturbed. Incredibly, he felt even more afraid, because their continued reanimation shouldn't be possible after the death of their animator. But then there was another bang, and suddenly Lily Potter's corpse dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Ron had just enough time to register a bloody hole that had appeared in her forehead, before there was a third deafening bang, and James Potter also dropped, collapsing on top of Harry, a similar hole appearing in his temple.

Ron stared at the motionless Inferi just as Hermione ran forward towards Harry, her Death Eater likewise rendered unconscious. Then a terrible shriek met his ears, and he looked back to see Hermione doubling back in shock as two swirling, screaming, black gaseous masses seemed to leave the corpses and dissipate. Once they were gone, Harry lay unmoving under his father's corpse, and Ron and Hermione ran forward and shoved it off of him.

"Oh my God," Hermione moaned over and over again, feeling for Harry's pulse.

Ron, meanwhile, unsure what to do, looked around for their rescuers, turning back towards the entrance of the graveyard, where he saw the unexpected appearance of two goblins: one was elderly, and held a long-pump-action brass instrument (which he assumed was what had fired the darts), and beside him stood the largest goblin Ron had ever seen, lowering—to his surprise—a Muggle gun. They also hurried forward to examine Harry. Hermione had both hands on Harry's sternum and was thrusting his chest inwards, over and over, counting as she did.

"One, two, three, four five…"

Then, to Ron's shock, Hermione tilted Harry's head back and opened his mouth, before lowering her own mouth to his.

"Hermione!" Ron exclaimed, shocked. "What"—

But before he could say another word, the older of the goblins laid his hand on Ron's shoulder, even as Hermione leaned back and pressed her hands on Harry's sternum again, pumping inwards.

"Let her work," the goblin said quietly. "It's called CPR."

"Sorry?"

"His heart stopped," the goblin explained. "She's trying to restart it. But she'll also need"—

But he stopped talking as Hermione jabbed her wand at Harry's sternum and cried, "Commoveo!" Harry's body suddenly convulsed violently, but Hermione paid this no attention. Instead, she started thrusting her hands into his sternum again.

"Thank Laelit she knows that spell," the younger goblin said. "He would be as good as dead otherwise."

Ron watched her work for another minute, as Hermione went through a cycle of breathing into Harry's mouth, thrusting her hands into his chest, and shocking him with that spell, before the full situation finally caught up with him. Recovering enough to speak, he looked at the two goblins and asked, "Who are you? Both of you, who are you?"

The older goblin gave him a slight, respectful bow. "Benedict Grobschmied, at your service." He nodded at the other. "And this is my nephew, Rok Grimrook."

Ron frowned. The name sounded familiar, but he wasn't quite sure where he'd heard it. Harry convulsed again from Hermione's Commoveo spell, and he looked back at her helplessly. But then she let out a cry of relief, backing away from Harry, and to Ron's utter relief, he realised that Harry had started breathing again; but his breathing was shallow and irregular, and he did not awaken. Grimrook pocketed his revolver and bent over Harry with a frown, as Hermione proceeded to examine a bloody spot in the side of Harry's shirt. Then the goblin squatted down next to Hermione, and carefully pulled up the shirt. Ron and Hermione both inhaled sharply in horror. Harry's side was black with bruises, and his ribs were pushed inward, obviously broken. The skin had broken, and his whole side was covered with blood.

"Great Oreanchar," Grobschmied breathed.

"He needs a Healer immediately," Grimrook said urgently.

"He can't go to St Mungo's!" Hermione said desperately. "It's too public, and we don't know who we can trust!"

Grimrook and Grobschmied looked at each other, and from their determined expressions, Ron could see that they had come to a silent agreement about something.

"Cecilia's in Aelyn Dionn," Grimrook said quietly. "She's awaiting word."

Grobschmied nodded grimly. "Get her on him right away. She can keep him stable. Then find Feidlenid. I don't know if Cecilia has the skill for something this serious, but Feidlenid does."

Grimrook didn't answer. Instead, he pulled a thin metal bracer from his pocket, which he proceeded to slip around Harry's wrist.

"And send Menger here," Grobschmied added.

Grimrook looked at him and again nodded, before he took hold of the bracer and snapped his fingers. There was a flash of green light, and both he and Harry vanished. Ron rounded on Grobschmied.

"Where'd you take him?" he demanded.

"To help." Grobschmied looked completely unfazed by his angry outburst. "Mr. Potter's condition is very serious. He needs a bed and the care of more than one Healer. We know two who we can trust, and one of them is as skilled in the art as any of the St Mungo's healers. Rok simply took him to them."

Ron said nothing, a little mollified, though he was uncomfortable. Harry's survival was priority, but he wasn't yet ready to trust these two strangers—goblins, no less—who had appeared out of nowhere and apparently illegally carried Muggle weapons. However, before he could make up his mind about them, one way or another, a raven fluttered from one of the trees and landed on Grobschmied's shoulder. It croaked at him, and the goblin stroked its feathers affectionately. Grobschmied then pulled another bracer from his pocket, and gestured for Ron to take it.

"This will send you both along once I activate it," he said. "It's similar to a Portkey. Just hold onto it."

Ron and Hermione both looked at it, but did nothing. Ron was gratified to see that Hermione looked as nervous and uncertain as he felt.

Seeing their hesitation, Grobschmied smiled and reassured them, "If we were in league with Lord Voldemort, would we have stopped the attack?"

Ron blinked in surprise at his use of the name, but Hermione said in some confusion, "I suppose not."

"Well, then." He held the bracer out again for them to take.

Ron and Hermione glanced at each other, and too came to a silent agreement. Harry was the priority, and it was perfectly obvious that if he didn't receive professional medical help, he would either die or be incapacitated for months, if not years; and while they didn't know what the goblins intended, they had to take it on faith that they would indeed be of help to him. They had no choice but to trust them. Ron therefore accepted the bracer, and Hermione too grasped it. Grobschmied let go of it and stepped backwards, raising his hand to snap his fingers.

"Aren't you coming?" asked Hermione.

"Later," the elderly goblin said. "The site needs to be cleaned up. I'm going to set up an illusion to make the place look undisturbed, and then keep watch over these"—he looked at the Potters' bodies and the dead wizard who had reanimated them—"until we can do more."

Before Ron and Hermione could say anything else, he snapped his fingers, and they vanished, just like Harry and Grimrook did.

Benedict Grobschmied remained where he was. For a moment he looked from the bodies to the unconscious Death Eaters, getting his bearings, and then he gave a low croaking sound to the raven, which cawed in response and took flight, fluttering to the top of a tree where it kept watch. Grobschmied then raised a fist and muttered an incantation. There was a strange rippling noise around him, and confident that anyone looking at the graveyard would see and hear nothing out of the ordinary, he turned his interest to the dark wizard that had reanimated the Potters' bodies. But as he bent over the wizard's corpse, there was a poisonous hissing sound, and the body seemed to disintegrate in front of him, vanishing in the wind, leaving a spot on the ground devoid of grass.

---

Ginny drifted in and out of sleep as her concussion, with some assistance from Madam Pomfrey's concoctions, slowly became more bearable, but in her waking moments, she heard nothing from the battle at Hogsmeade, and wondered if it was still going and how serious it was, and if her brothers were all right. Occasionally Molly woke Ginny up to check the progress of the restorative potions, and to ensure that there were no further ill effects from her head injury; then, as evening set in, Ginny felt her mother shaking her shoulder, and her gentle whisper, "Time for your next potion, dear."

Ginny opened her eyes and winced at the headache, but allowed Molly to help her sit up, and down the potion. Ginny grimaced at the taste and wiped her mouth with her sleeve, but her mind was on more important things than foul-tasting medicine.

"What's happening?" she asked.

Molly made no reply. Instead she put the potion bottle away and gave Ginny a glass of water. She took it and sipped it a little, washing out the bad taste, and then looked at her mother pleadingly. "Mum, everyone's gone off to Hogsmeade. Please, I need to know what's going on."

"I'm not hiding anything from you," Molly finally told her. "I just don't know what's going on myself. We had Remus's Patronus here twenty minutes ago, asking for Poppy's assistance, but since then, nothing."

Ginny looked back at her water, unable to do anything more than give an accepting nod. But her worry increased, especially when she took note of how much darker it was outside; it must have been at least several hours. For the next few minutes Ginny slowly drank her water, knowing she should lie back and get more sleep once she was done, but at the same time, she was afraid of missing something crucial. She therefore sat there, waiting for what seemed like hours. Then, as Molly started to head back towards the kitchen, the door opened and Fred and Charlie came in. Charlie's clothes were burned, but it was the sight of Fred, and the bloody splatter all over his clothes, that made Ginny audibly gasp.

"Fred!" Molly shrieked, rushing forward with her wand out.

He waved his hand at her impatiently. "Mum, it's not my blood."

Brought up short, Molly sighed with relief, but nonetheless cast a spell to clean the hideous stuff from his clothes and hair.

"Are you all right, though?" Ginny demanded. "Is it over? Where are the others?"

"One at a time, Ginny," Charlie muttered, sinking into a chair and uttering a sigh of relief to be sitting down. "Yes, it's over. Yes, we're all right, and that includes Dad and Percy and George. We'll be right as rain by morning."

"But where are they?" asked Molly.

"All over the country, really," Charlie said. "They're helping the Aurors. It's a disaster."

"All over the country?" repeated Ginny uneasily. "What the hell happened?"

"They didn't just target the Lovegoods and Hogsmeade," Fred answered solemnly. "Since this morning they've attacked about a dozen other villages and households. The targets were mostly Muggle-born or Half-blood, but the Death Eaters also attacked their neighbours."

"How many?" asked Molly in disbelief.

"About eighty people are dead so far," Charlie answered. "Most of them Muggles, but we lost quite a few of our lot too. And a lot of people are in St Mungo's."

"Alicia Spinnet managed to hold off the Death Eaters until the Aurors got there," Charlie reported, "but they got her older brother. Justin Finch-Fletchley's entire family was killed. So were the Cootes."

"My God," Ginny said, closing her eyes in sadness and horror. Ritchie Coote was one of her classmates, and one of the Beaters on the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

"Angelina Johnson was also attacked," Fred added, now sounding very shaken, "but she was able to take out the Death Eaters before help arrived."

Ginny looked at him, relieved, especially for him. He and Angelina were fairly close, and she knew that he would have been extremely upset if she'd been killed or injured. But her relief was short lived when Charlie added, "They also wrecked Dean Thomas's house."

"Is he all right?" Ginny asked in alarm.

"He and his family left the country over a month ago," Fred assured her. "The Muggles who live there now fortunately weren't home."

Ginny exhaled. However badly her relationship with Dean had gone, she didn't wish him ill.

"Remus said that they also attacked Little Whinging," Charlie said. "Apparently they razed the Dursleys' house to the ground and killed half the people on their street. Arabella got out all right, but most of Privet Drive is gone."

"There probably will be more attacks before the week is out," Fred added grimly.

Ginny stared at the pair of them, trying to process all this. Her emotions ranged from numb shock to disbelief, as she took account of every attack they'd mentioned, and a glance at the living room clock told her that it had only been a few hours, some of which must have only been the aftermath, not the actual fighting. The last time she'd encountered Death Eaters, there hadn't even been half a dozen of them, and the year before, in the aftermath of the fight in the Department of Mysteries a huge number of Death Eaters had been sent to Azkaban, enough that the remaining Death Eaters had proceeded the next year with caution, which wasn't consistent with what Charlie was now telling her.

"Since when were there that many Death Eaters?" Ginny demanded. "They'd need a lot to attack and kill this many people in only a couple of hours! Especially with the Order and the Aurors coming after them!"

Charlie and Fred looked at each other, but Ginny knew that there was no point in them brushing her off this time, and she could see that they knew it too. Molly shook her head vigorously, but Fred, paying her no notice, informed his sister, "The Ministry covered up a mass breakout from Azkaban. A big one. It wasn't just convicted Death Eaters that got out. By the sound of it, they've been indoctrinating their inmates."

"Without the Dementors there, it's easier for them to do a lot of things unobserved now," Charlie explained. "When they broke out, they took almost all the other prisoners with them. Those that didn't join the Death Eaters outright were almost certainly placed under the Imperius Curse."

Ginny frowned suspiciously. "When was this breakout?"

Her brothers hesitated. "It was weeks ago, right before Dumbledore's funeral," Charlie finally admitted.

Ginny stared, stunned that the Order and the Ministry had managed to hide something this monumental for so long. A minute later she stammered, "Is this why the Order's been so paranoid lately?"

"Partly, yes," Charlie said quietly. "There's also been something strange going on with Inferi that the Ministry can't"—

"Charlie!" Molly said sharply.

But enough had been said. Ginny sat up straighter with some effort, and said furiously, "And you couldn't be bothered to tell any of us this?"

"You're not in the Order," Molly said defensively, throwing Charlie an irate look. "It was on a strictly need-to-know basis."

"That's a load of horse shit!" Ginny snapped. "And now Ron and Harry and Hermione are out there running blind!"

Molly turned scarlet. "Now do you understand why we were trying so hard to protect him and you, all of you? Now do you understand why we were so upset when he left? Why I refuse to sit back and wait for news of their deaths to reach me? I don't care what Albus wanted, they can't traipse around the country fighting Death Eaters with this going on!"

"Nothing's changed, Mum, except for a heightened risk, and if Harry had known, he'd be better prepared for it!" Ginny shouted. "Don't dodge blame if he gets hurt or killed in an attack because you withheld critical information for some stupid 'he's too young' kind of reason! Oh…!"

She groaned and clutched her head as a sharp pain shot through her skull.

"Look, can we yell at each other later?" Charlie interrupted. "Ginny needs rest."

Molly softened, and Ginny allowed herself to lie back, though she was still fuming. Then, after a few awkward minutes, the former finally asked, "How bad was it at Hogsmeade? You didn't say…"

Charlie and Fred both looked downcast.

"Eleven of the residents are dead, twenty in St Mungo's, and half of them are unlikely to survive the night," Charlie informed her. "It was a vicious attack. There were at least a couple dozen Death Eaters and hundreds of Dementors. About a dozen people have been Kissed."

He was clearly making an effort to keep his expression neutral, but something in his voice boded ill. Ginny hadn't missed it, however, and knew, as soon as Molly spoke, that she hadn't either.

"Who was it?" she asked, her voice quivering. "We lost someone in the Order, didn't we?"

"It was Mad-Eye," Fred told her miserably. "He was hurt and disarmed, and a Dementor got him before he could yell for help."

"Oh God," Ginny breathed in horror.

"It set the Aurors off, though," said Charlie. "He's still very respected among them. They started fighting as fiercely as the Death Eaters, and that's when we gained the upper hand. At least Azkaban has a few new prisoners now."

"But Hogsmeade was wrecked. It's mostly gone now. And we lost Madam Rosmerta."

Ginny closed her eyes, and clenched her fists, trying to quell the fury that rose up inside her. The shock and disbelief at what had occurred returned, and she demanded, "What the hell prompted this? Voldemort's had nearly two months since the breakout! Why now?"

Molly flinched at Ginny's use of Voldemort's name, but Charlie exchanged another look with Fred, before answering, "We think it's because Harry's come of age. We're not sure if You-Know-Who's aware that Harry's left the Order, but he knows Harry isn't legally restricted in any way, and maybe he thinks that makes Harry more of a threat, or at least more of a wild card. He probably thinks Harry's joined the Order. I don't know. These attacks coming so soon after his birthday can't be a coincidence. A lot of the people they targeted have some connection to him: fellow students, Quidditch teammates, neighbours from Privet Drive…"

"He's probably trying to goad Harry out of hiding."

Charlie nodded at Fred's words. "I hate to admit it, but if that's true, then it's probably for the best that Harry's gone." He glanced at Ginny as he spoke.

"Yeah, if Harry had been here today, he probably would have been the first to go off and fight," Fred speculated, "which undoubtedly was exactly what You-Know-Who wanted."

At these words, Ginny glanced at Molly, whose face had turned rather pink. She could tell she was still angry, but this thought, which they all knew was true, had left her confused. But Ginny said nothing, not even to express her agreement with her brothers. Given the tension between her and her mother, that had nearly given way only moments before, it probably was best if she didn't speak up. Still, she worried about Harry's reaction when he heard about the killings, and could only hope that Ron and Hermione would know how to handle it. He wouldn't take it well.

---

When Menger Gadlak finally arrived at the Godric's Hollow cemetery, he found Grobschmied bending over James Potter's body with a sober, contemplative expression. Running to join him, Menger asked, "Is it safe to remain here?"

"I've put a perception barrier around the area and a Muggle-repelling spell," Grobschmied said. "It doesn't appear that anyone saw what happened here, and right now nobody outside the churchyard can see the damage. Not unless they already knew about it."

"Right. Good." Menger looked towards the church, and the vicarage behind it. "But surely the vicar might have heard what was going on out here. Or at least one of the villagers. Magical skirmishes aren't exactly quiet."

"It appears that somebody Silenced the area, I'd estimate a twenty or thirty-yard radius around the Potters' graves. They also might have used a similar illusion spell to hide what was happening."

Menger's brow furrowed. "I've never heard that Death Eaters bother with any of that when they attack in Muggle areas."

Grobschmied looked at Menger intently. "You think this to be the work of the Death Eaters?"

Confused, Menger looked at the unconscious wizards still lying on the ground beside Grobschmied. "Are these not Death Eaters?" he asked, kicking at one of them.

Grobschmied swallowed. "How much did Rok tell you?"

"The gist of it," Menger said, but something in Grobschmied's voice made him apprehensive. "He said Mr Potter was ambushed here, and that the Potters' bodies were reanimated and forced to attacked their son." He shook his head in revulsion. "Depraved, but a creative act of terrorism, to say the least."

"Then he didn't tell you that it wasn't these louts who reanimated them?" Grobschmied asked.

"He said he killed the one who did. Where is that body?"

Grobschmied pointed at a spot of bare earth by the Potters' cracked gravestone. As Menger looked at it, he noticed that it was in the rough outline of a human form. "The body evaporated moments after Rok shot him," Grobschmied explained.

"Interesting. Not a practice I'd associate with the Death Eaters myself."

"Exactly." Grobschmied seemed to look around warily as he spoke. "Silencing the area in advance, destroying the bodies of dead followers…. By the looks of it, this was meant to be something more cloak-and-dagger than mere terrorism, but it went badly wrong. I imagine the idea was for Potter to be found dead at his parents' graves, but the manner of his murder unknown. Or perhaps they were planning on using the Potters' bodies, the son included, to launch more deceptive, insidious attacks on the Order of the Phoenix."

Menger grimaced at his colleague's speculations. "Perhaps the Dark Lord's changing his usual tactics."

But Grobschmied was shaking his head vehemently. "The wizard that reanimated them wasn't a Death Eater," he said adamantly. "Can't have been. Certainly Death Eaters animate Inferi, but an Inferius shouldn't be capable of using magic at all, let alone a curse as powerful as the Cruciatus Curse. If I hadn't seen it myself…" His voice trailed away, but instead of withdrawing into his quiet contemplation, Grobschmied moved closer to Lily Potter's body, pulling a small metal instrument from his pocket that was the rough size and shape of a snuffbox. He then nudged the corpse with his boot. When nothing happened, he used the toe of his boot to slowly turn her face upwards, so they could see her features.

Noting the bullet hole in her forehead, Gadlak asked in surprise, "Grimrook shot her as well?"

"Yes." Grobschmied pointed at James Potter's corpse. "And the other."

"What for? Killing the wizard reanimating them should have done it."

"Yes, that's what we thought," Grobschmied said, "and he did shoot the wizard first. But when that didn't stop the Inferi, he shot them too."

Menger blinked in confusion, unsure what to say.

"But there's more to it than that," Grobschmied continued. "Look at her. She's completely without flaw. There's no decay. Lily and James Potter have been dead for sixteen years. There shouldn't have been much left of them to reanimate."

Menger shrugged. "Sometimes wizards cast preservation spells on their dead. It's traditionally the accepted practice, from what I understand."

"Yes, but undertakers were forbidden from magically preserving bodies by Ministry decree after Tyrell Urswyck used Inferi to terrorize Ministry employees back in the 1890s," Grobschmied reminded him. "I was just a child back then, but I remember the to-do about it. People thought it was barbaric to let their dead decay, and undertakers thought they'd lose their businesses."

"I know, but a lot of people disregarded that law, for that exact reason."

"That changed with the rise of Voldemort and the Death Eaters."

Menger reflected that the nature of this latest attack certainly testified to that, but something still didn't add up.

"Even if the Ministry neglected to enforce it after that started," Grobschmied slowly continued, "the Order of the Phoenix would have ensured that no such preservations were put on the Potters' bodies, to prevent this kind of thing."

"Then how did this happen?" asked Menger, now understanding the depths of his disquiet.

The other goblin looked at Lily's face again. "It's a perfect reconstruction. That wizard somehow pieced their bodies back together, probably from their dust and the soil."

"And their magic?" asked Menger. "How did he manage that?"

Grobschmied bent down and held the little instrument over Lily's body, moving it up and down. He then looked at it, where a little inscription had appeared on the surface, and with a dark grimace, he handed it to Menger. "Read it. It's got the exact same results I got from the other body."

Menger took the instrument and looked it over. He paled. "That's impossible."

"Apparently not."

"But it's showing very strong traces of magic throughout her body, indicating the recent presence of a magical core. But that's only consistent with someone who only just died!"

"Exactly," Grobschmied said. "Which means that he not only perfectly restored their bodies, but somehow built a new magical core inside them. And they somehow remained animated even after he was killed, which was why Rok had to shoot them as well."

Menger swallowed. "It's almost as though…."

But he couldn't voice the thought. It was too terrifying.

"Almost as though that sorcerer actually brought them back to life, yes." Grobschmied straightened and backed away from the corpse, looking grave and impressed. "That is fearsome magic. Something much more sinister happened here than simple Death Eater terrorism."

Menger inhaled deeply, and his face went impossibly paler. "But if it wasn't the Death Eaters, then who was it?"

"I wouldn't like to guess, Menger."

They stared at each other urgently. But then a voice called out to them, pulling them away from their awful realisation.

"Menger! Uncle Grobschmied!"

They looked back toward the kissing gate, and saw Grimrook coming towards them. Once he joined them, Grobschmied quickly asked, "How is he?"

"Feidlenid and Cecilia are looking him over now," Grimrook answered, "but it's too early to tell if he'll pull through."

Grobschmied nodded gravely. Menger was still staring at the Potters' bodies, very shaken, but he looked up at these words. "Who's Feidlenid?"

"One of the Laelitian priestesses of Aelyn Dionn," Grimrook said. "She's a friend of ours, and she'll keep silent about this. We can trust her."

"You're sure of that?"

"Positive."

His certainty was enough to convince Menger, who then looked at Grobschmied, wondering what to do next. One of the Death Eaters moaned and moved a little. The goblins looked at him in alarm. He wasn't quite awake yet, but he was clearly stirring. Without a word, Grimrook moved to him and kicked his head sharply, knocking him out again.

"So," he said grimly, "what do we do with these two?"

Menger growled. "Personally, I'm all for feeding them to one of the dragons back at the bank."

Grobschmied shook his head. "Killing them would draw a lot of unwanted attention too soon."

"We can't have these Death Eaters revealing our involvement to Voldemort or to anyone."

"I darted them from behind," Grobschmied said. "They won't know who took them out. And the third wizard is dead, obviously, so…"

Menger grinned. "Tie them up and leave them somewhere for the Order of the Phoenix to find?"

Grobschmied nodded. "Think you can get it done inconspicuously?"

"Consider it done. It might give the Order a bit of warning that the Dark Lord can now do this. Assuming they don't know already, that is."

The raven, still settled in the tree above, cawed loudly. Grobschmied looked upwards, and then back at the Potters' bodies. Apart from their presence, nothing appeared amiss.

"What do we do with them, though?" asked Grimrook, worried.

"I think that should be their son's decision," replied Grobschmied.

"But we can hardly leave them here," Grimrook pointed out.

His uncle agreed. "Would Feidlenid be willing to look after them for the time being?"

Grimrook hesitated. "I think she'll do it, although I don't know how willing she'll be once she learns what happened. But I've got a basement where we can keep them." He looked around. "In the meantime, I think we should clean up this site. The Order might glean some information from these Death Eaters, but other than that, I don't think anyone should know what occurred here today."

---

The first thing Harry became aware of was the darkness. He seemed to be lying on a grassy hillside—at least there was a certain cool softness beneath him—but he was in a black fog, and he couldn't seem to move. His head was pounding mercilessly, but he couldn't lift his hand to massage it, nor could he even groan. He felt as though he were drowning in darkness, trying to draw breath in the fog, but doing so was difficult, spreading his energy thin. Even feeling fear or desperation was too exhausting. Then a terrible scream of rage penetrated his slowly waking mind, and his head pounded harder than ever:

—My Lord, please! Please forgive me!

—Crucio!

Harry heard a different scream, this time one of agony, and just as suddenly, an inexplicable wave of anger erupted from somewhere inside him, a burning, unparalleled fury.

—How did Potter escape that ambush? How did he subdue two Death Eaters and a Sha'etemmin? TELL ME!

—He must have had assistance, my Lord! Please! I don't know who helped him!

The screams grew louder, and his headache increased to incredible intensity, but he remained powerless to do anything, even to attempt to alleviate his own pain, except wait and listen. He became increasingly aware of a dull—perhaps not so dull—ache that seemed to spread throughout his body, but especially in his chest and head.

—His heart has accelerated. Fetch that potion.

Then, out from the darkness opened a pair of blood-red snakes' eyes, staring at him with such rage, such hatred that every aspect of his essence seemed to freeze; but he couldn't understand. The haze that filled his mind blocked out all thought, and Harry couldn't comprehend the anger, the terror, or the pain; he could only be aware of darkness and those terrible eyes.

—Na sei dan siin mokhsir losaan?

—His scar? What about it?

—An sei varh, dal galth, end... how do you say…? Infected?

—Now that you mention it, it is rather hot to the touch, and a bit swollen. … Looks like it's also emitting quite a lot of magical energy. Lach sha'imiil.

The eyes blinked, and then closed, leaving Harry alone in the darkness.

---

When he began to wake up again, Harry no longer seemed to drift in that horrible, painful fog; it was still dark, but a different kind of dark; it was softer, calmer, and as he became more alert to his surroundings, he became conscious that it was evening or night, and that someone nearby was snoring. When he tried to move, however, there was a sharp burst of pain in his chest and head, and he realised that his entire body was aching so badly that movement seemed impossible, his eyes tightly closed and his face contorting in an effort to manage the pain. He managed to emit a groan, however, and the snoring abruptly stopped.

"You awake, Harry?" he heard Ron ask.

Somewhat startled, Harry opened his eyes. An orange, flickering light, that of a candle, dimly illuminated the room, or wherever he was, but he could only see a blur. He thought he saw a quick movement, and then heard footsteps moving away.

"Hermione!" Ron called out. "Harry's awake!"

Harry tried to move, but again burning pain shot through his whole body, and he tensed up, until all he could do was weakly moan, "Hurts."

"Oh, right."

A moment later, Harry heard the clinking of somebody sorting through glass bottles, and then Ron's voice, much closer, said, "For the pain. Bottoms up."

A second later Harry felt something cold and hard touch his mouth, and he smelled the pungent smell of a pain-relief potion; he'd had enough of them during his time at Hogwarts that he'd recognise the smell anywhere. Nonetheless, he parted his lips and allowed Ron to tip some of the potion into his mouth. Harry swallowed, and almost immediately the pain started to ebb away, allowing him to relax a little. Then, with an exhausted grunt, he tried to sit up, but his arms and back shook violently. A moment later, he felt Ron pull him into more of a sitting position, supported by his pillows, and hand him his glasses.

"That's better," he sighed in a hoarse voice, before putting his glasses on and looking up to take in his surroundings. He was in bed, in a small room that, though cleared of dust and cob-webs, was obviously run down and in need of restoration. The wallpaper was peeling and he could smell mildew. On the wall opposite he could see a portrait of a goblin, just barely visible in the candlelight. An assortment of potion phials and bottles stood on his bedside table, and also on a long, narrow work table (also holding a variety of herbs and tools) that had been set up under the window. He then looked at Ron, who was standing at his side, wearing an expression—made starker by the dim light—of relief and fear rolled into one. Before he could say or ask anything, however, Hermione ran into the room through a creaking door at the opposite corner.

"Oh, thank God!" she breathed when she saw Harry awake and sitting up a little. "We were so worried! How do you feel?"

"Alive, at least," Harry said tiredly. His throat felt very raw, making it difficult to speak. Glancing around the room again, he swallowed, trying to ease the pain in his throat, then asked, "Er, where are we?"

"Some old abandoned house," Ron answered quietly. "There wasn't a lot of time for the goblins to explain it."

"Goblins? What goblins?" asked Harry, bewildered.

"They saved our lives," Hermione explained. "They then brought you here and got a couple of their Healers working on you."

"Strangest lot I've ever met, though," Ron remarked.

"This house belongs to their family," Hermione continued, "but it's been abandoned for years apparently. They said it's safe enough for you to recover in, as long as nobody knows we're here, and we seem a little distant from the settlement, so"—

"Slow down, Hermione," Harry interrupted, feeling more confused than ever, "and tell me again…." He paused, swallowing, and then tried again. "Tell me again, how we ended up here, what goblins have to do with it, and why I'm hurting all over."

Hermione swallowed, and asked nervously, "Harry, what's the last thing you remember?"

Harry looked aside and thought back, trying hard to remember. It was raining—no, it has just stopped raining—and he'd just spoken to a vicar… and they were standing in a graveyard. Godric's Hollow. They'd gone there—why had they gone there?—because they'd barely escaped a Death Eater attack in Hogsmeade, and because he'd wanted to see his parents' graves… and then he remembered. Unbidden, an image of his parents' bodies rising from their grave appeared in his memory, their expressions serene at first, but then vicious and hateful as they turned on their own son. Harry felt the blood rush from his face, and he looked away, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the headboard of his bed. He then reached up and rubbed his eyes under his glasses, trying force back tears. Once he felt more in control, he looked back at Ron and Hermione. They were watching him in concern.

"What happened?" he finally asked. "How did we get here?"

"The Inferi attacked you," Ron explained. "We couldn't do anything. The Death Eaters were fighting me and Hermione, and we couldn't help you. They almost had us."

"They were just about to finish you off when the goblins showed up," added Hermione. Harry noticed that she stifled a small sob, before she continued, "They took out the Death Eaters first, and then the Inferi and the wizard who reanimated them."

"But what were they doing there?"

"I don't know, exactly," she admitted. "but they stopped the attack and then brought us here."

Harry shifted uncomfortably. Ron and Hermione both looked as pale and shaken as he felt, and he suspected that it wasn't only because of what the Death Eaters had done, causing him to wonder just how close to death he'd come. But they seemed to find some solace in talking, and so he massaged his throat, trying to ease the pain, and asked, "And where is here, exactly?"

"It's near a goblin village," she said. "I don't know exactly where, though."

"And how long have I been here?"

"Two days, mate."

Harry stared at him in disbelief. Before he could respond to Ron, however, a soft knock drew his attention to the door, where he saw a young gobliness watching them quietly, her fist still raised to the doorframe. He noticed with mild surprise that she was wearing a stethoscope and held a device he knew Muggle doctors used to test blood pressure.

"I heard Mr Weasley say that Mr Potter's awake," she said quietly. "How is he?"

"He's taken his pain potion," Ron reported.

The gobliness approached Harry, who stared at her with a mixed feeling of curiosity and reserve. He watched as she placed the blood pressure cuff on his bedside table, and began to put on the stethoscope. Harry looked at Ron and Hermione uncertainly, and Hermione said, "Harry, this is Cecilia." She then looked at the gobliness and added, "Sorry. I don't know your last name."

"It's Grimrook, Miss Granger."

Harry started. "Grimrook?"

She nodded. "I believe you met my brother at Gringotts." As she spoke, she placed the end of the stethoscope on various areas of his chest, listening closely.

"That's where I heard that name before," Ron muttered to himself.

"Does he know I'm here?" Harry asked after a moment.

"Of course. He's the one who brought you here. You owe your life to him." Harry wondered if he could possibly be more surprised. But Cecilia didn't give him time to react before she said, "Your heartbeat is a little irregular, but better than it was before." She then picked up the blood pressure gauge and wrapped the cuff around Harry's arm.

"And you're the Healer taking care of me?"

"Yes, although my role is mostly to monitor you," Cecilia told him. "The other Healer, Feidlenid, is more skilled than me, and she deserves the credit for most of the work." Seeing Harry's still-wary expression, she added, "She's a priestess, one of the clerics at the local temple to Laelit. They're all trained as medi-goblins, and she trained me as well. And don't worry. She knows to say nothing of your presence here to anyone."

Harry wasn't sure he felt reassured, but deciding that his health was the more pressing matter, he asked, "And what happened to me, exactly? I felt like hell when I woke up."

Cecilia's cordial expression turned grave. "Five of your ribs were broken, and you have subcutaneous contusions to your ribs and abdomen, although those are easily treated. Your neck is also badly bruised, and you'll likely have a hoarse voice for a few days, but that ought to correct itself with time." She glanced at Ron and Hermione, and then explained quietly, "Your overall condition, however, is much more serious. You were held under the Cruciatus Curse, though no one's entirely sure how long. You also suffered from severe oxygen deprivation, from strangulation. The two combined caused you to go into cardiac arrest."

Harry stared at her, shocked. When he made no further response, Cecilia inflated the cuff and placed the drum of the stethoscope on his forearm, watching the gauge closely. A moment later, when she took the cuff off, looking somewhat worried, he stammered, "Will I be all right?"

Cecilia was quiet for a moment as she removed the stethoscope and hung it around her neck. "You may have a weak heart for a while," she admitted, "but fortunately the condition was reversed quickly." She nodded at Hermione. "Your friend here knew both CPR and the correct spell to shock the heart into beating again. My brother then brought you here, and we stabilised you, but you must take it easy for a while. At best, the effects of the curse will weaken you further. At worst"—she looked at him seriously—"your heart could fail again." Seeing his alarm, she added, "I don't think that will happen, but your pulse is still irregular, and your blood pressure isn't where I'd like it to be. So you must take it easy, for as much time as your body needs to heal."

"But will it have… bad effects, long term?" asked Harry in consternation. He remembered a neighbour from Privet Drive who survived something similar, a heart attack or something of that nature, but had been debilitated ever since.

She hesitated. "I can't make any guarantees, Mr. Potter. Not yet. But the early treatment, restorative potions, and the fact that you're still very young, means that with time and proper care, I think you'll make a full recovery." Seeing Harry's obvious relief, she added, "When? It's hard to say." She then looked between the three of them sternly "For the time being, it is inadvisable for him to go anywhere, and if you want your presence here to remain secret, then it is equally inadvisable for any of you to leave the property, which ends at the fence outside. Besides, some of the villagers would not take very kindly to the presence of humans in the area, regardless of who you are."

Harry nodded. "I understand. And thank you. If you hadn't turned up"—

"Thank my Uncle Grobschmied and my brother, not me," Cecilia cut across him. "They're the ones who stopped the attack. I wasn't there."

Harry nodded, determined to do just that someday, although since they knew he was there, he supposed Grimrook might come by and check on him himself. Then, wanting something to talk about, he looked around the room again, and asked, "So what is this place, exactly?"

"My parents' old house," Cecilia said. "They died many years ago, and now my brother owns the property, but it hasn't been in use for many years. It's near Aelyn Dionn, which is one of the goblin communities in the forests of the East Midlands."

"And you're sure it's safe for us to be here?' asked Harry apprehensively, glancing at Ron and Hermione. They didn't look as nervous as he felt, but he supposed they'd had two days to get used to being here.

"The house is a little distant from the rest of the village," Cecilia answered. "And we've put up enchantments to hide that there's anyone here. Right now Feidlenid is the only resident of the village who knows you're here, and I assure you, she can be trusted." She then placed another potion-filled phial on his bedside table, along with a shot glass, and instructed them, "Fill the glass to the mark every two hours, and I advise swallowing it quickly. In the meantime, I promised I'd inform my uncle and brother of your progress." She glanced at her wristwatch as she said this. "I don't think they'll mind being woken up at this hour." She then handed him a small phial. "Dreamless sleep potion," she told him. "You'll start to feel tired again soon, and you should take it as soon as you do. You'll wake probably at around eleven tomorrow."

She then left the room. Harry still felt very weak, and sure enough, his exhaustion was starting to creep up upon him again, but he still felt wary and perplexed enough to ask Ron and Hermione, "What's this about?"

"What do you mean?" asked Hermione.

"These goblins. Showing up at Godric's Hollow, taking me here…"

"I don't know that it's about anything," Hermione admonished.

But Ron was in complete agreement with Harry. "Hermione, don't you think it's weird that they happened to be in Godric's Hollow at the same time we were? Especially since one of them already knows Harry?"

"I don't know. Maybe they have a connection there. It could be a coincidence." But she looked troubled too.

"Don't get me wrong," Harry said wearily. "I'm glad they turned up, or we'd probably all be dead now. But it's just… strange."

He eyed the sleeping draught Cecilia had given him, and sniffed it; almost immediately he became dizzy, but he recognised the smell to match Madam Pomfrey's draughts. For now, that was enough for him, so he obediently swallowed it. He then sank back into his pillow. His exhaustion deepened, and try as he might, he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer.