Chapter 11

I feel it's very important now for me to tell my story in order. Some things just don't come out as well without the proper background. A tone should be set, an internal logic should be established, the characters and motivations should be seen to grow from seed to leaf, so that the reader's mind has undertaken the journey as well and feels the same revelations or surprises or life-changing shocks as the people in this story of my short waking life thus far. It is truly the best and most effective way to proceed.

But before I do, I want to tell you about something that happened later.

I can't really help it, you know. If everything that ever happened to you happened, say, yesterday, you probably wouldn't talk about it in order, I mean if you had gone to an amusement park and had never been to one before you might say, "Oh, we went on the big roller coaster, it was really tall, it was a wooden one, there was a smaller one too and we actually rode that one first because there was a guy in front of us in the big coaster line who had heatstroke, and there were paramedics all around, so we decided to go on the little one first, only we rode the teacup thing because it was on the way, and you know when we were leaving I'd swear I saw my cousin with a parrot on his shoulder, oh and the hot dogs were terrible…"

Or maybe you wouldn't, but I certainly would.

Ginny and I were walking in a sort of shopping mall for magic folks on a bright, cool day. Sweater weather. She'd taken me out to get a few things that a self-respecting wizard might want to have. Wizard. I was having issues referring to myself or any male magic person as a wizard, and had taken to calling myself a prestidigitator, to Ginny's piquant cocktail of irritation and amusement. In fact, it took a daily effort on my part to keep from winding her up just to see her eyes flash, her lips press together, her sweet shoulders square before the inevitable berating that charmed the pants, socks and shoes off of me. Strange image, but that's how it felt, and considering the curious heaviness I had begun feeling around her it was entirely appropriate, given the nature and location of the heaviness, to have those bits of clothing fluttering away. I had a bit of a fevered imagination where she was concerned, and I mean imagination, because I could barely imagine what I wanted from her or how to go about it, being sorely lacking in experience in that area, or my area or her area or what have you, and had been seriously thinking that a conversation with my dad was in order, because he was male too and I was his son and surely he could explain some of this. Maybe not all of it, but some certainly. He had to have experienced it at least twice. I on the other hand, for whom all things were new, had awakened and been presented with a heap of unfamiliar feelings and some unfamiliar machinery to deal with them.

She had been a fairly constant companion to me, she or Ron, and when we weren't at the hospital we were usually together. She'd been sneaking me out to the pasture behind my parents' house at night, teaching me to – well, I'm sorry, I've just remembered something else, and this is how it goes with me. So this happened before the thing I was going to tell about but after everything I've already talked about.

A few nights had passed since we'd realized Arthur had a passenger, and one evening found me lying in bed, not quite asleep yet. I was wondering whose idea it was to animate a piece of chocolate into an amphibian reptile form that actually put up a bit of a fight as you tried to eat it, and had found myself once again fairly baffled at the state of British cuisine, when there came a tapping on my window. This was only curious to me because I was on the second floor. It didn't rouse Ron, who had been my affable roommate for the week, but it did get my attention. I got myself out of bed and shuffled, sleepy and shirtless, to the window.

Ginny was sort of floating out there. She wore an impish grin that faded for some reason and then returned in force. I opened the window and said, "What time are you?"

She giggled. "Night is wasted on the sleeping," she said in a low voice.

"You're taller than I remember," I said.

"Wh - It's the broom." Five points.

"Broom."

"I'm a witch, genius. I ride a broom."

"Is it uncomfortable?"

"No."

"I mean, how do you – where do you put your – how does your - can I see?"

"From anyone else…"she muttered, "pow!"

"Sorry," I said. "What brings you to my sleepy window?"

She paused, and her face seemed to glow, pale in the darkness, and there were lots of words on her tongue, but what came out was, "That's why there's no pow."

"Hmm?"

"It's time you learned how to do this. And in the right way as well. Good enough for me and it'll be the same for you. It's in your blood, and these blood matters are best handled with stealth and underhandedness."

I pondered this, being slightly more awake than before.

"Don't think about it too hard," she said. "Just do as I say and everything will go far more smoothly."

"You say that a lot, don't you," I said.

"Back door, Potter, five minutes," she said, and with a rush of air she was gone.

I stopped by my bed and pulled on a shirt that was lying there. It smelled like someone, probably me.

Hell, yes, I thought.

She met me with two brooms in her hands. She looked like she meant business, and I felt like she was going to tell me to sweep the pasture or something. No, maybe not – there was that mischief again, and I heard something from her that is in my memory very clearly now.

If a thing is worth doing, it's even more worth it if you are a little wrong in doing it.

Or something like that.

She gestured with her head towards the pasture and I walked with her into the dark, under trees that were graceful and sheltering during the day, but at night became the ceiling of a dark cathedral, into which one might steal secretly to meet a mysterious beauty, and I was really on board with that. She was shorter than I, surefooted and silent, slipping between narrow tree trunks, her hair shining as her pony-tail bounced, as though someone were carrying a torch.

"Your father was a brilliant flyer when he was at school," she said, her velvet voice wound through crackling leaves. "He was a star Chaser. That's – a position he played on the school Quidditch team. Chasers are the ones who try to get the quaffle through one of the other team's three rings, and this requires a very skilled flyer – and your dad was the best in his year, maybe in all of his time at Hogwarts –"

My brain was feeling a little put upon. Chaser, Quaffle, Quidditch, Hogwarts. I had been having the feeling of great velocity over the last few days, as many things had sped past me without any time for me to grasp or understand them. There was a part of me that struggled to make room for things, to file them away or incorporate them into my life - I'd already had a few ridiculous moments where I made a reference to something that I didn't fully understand or mis-applied to my current situation. But there was another part of me that wanted to just let things blur. I was tired of new things, and I kind of wanted to leave everything behind, outrun it all, escape.

When I tuned back in it was to a pair of warm brown eyes.

"That's where I'm taking you," she said.

"Hogwarts?"

"No," she said, a little amused, a little irritated, but then those resolved into an intensity that I could barely stand up to. "To outrun it all."

What I remember about that night mostly is the smack of the wood in my palm as the broomstick leapt to me, the moon through a distant citadel of clouds, her hair partially covering her face as she turned to me once, laughing as I rose behind her – and the cool air in my face as I discovered for myself the second most wonderful thing in life.

When finally we hovered together, gazing down at the house and grounds of my parents, and as I marveled at how natural it felt to be here quite some distance above it with this … this perfect beauty, quick and strong, thoughtful and fiery - I thought that in the future when I felt I wanted to be alone that would mean alone with her. Her face was silver in the darkness, another moon, improbably close. She looked out into the night, energized but at peace.

"I love this," I said. Words were clumsy, but they were what I had.

"I know."

"We snuck."

"What?"

"We … sneaked out. This was something we could have done during the day, but you wanted to wait until night."

"Yes," she said. Then, after a pause "Would you rather…"

"No, no. I wouldn't rather have anything other than this. I mean, this was perfect, you were perfect, everything is… Ginny, it's more beautiful than anything, almost. I was just wondering about why we're doing this in secret."

Her eyes flicked at me, then away. "Secrets…secrets are good things sometimes. They make you aware of the rest of life, because you see the world at one remove, if that means anything. They give you perspective. There's what everyone else knows, and then there's what you know. I don't know, maybe this isn't making any-"

"I understand," I said.

She paused, not yet looking at me. "Maybe you do. It's the way I learnt to fly a broom, only I was by myself. I would nick one of the brooms from the shed and practice when I was a little girl because my brothers wouldn't teach me. They teased me unmercifully about flying, but I think they just didn't want me to do it because they didn't want me to get hurt or something. Bit silly, really, because I'd be more likely to get hurt if I were rubbish at it. So anyway I surprised them all when I started school and became the youngest Chaser ever on the Hogwarts team. They couldn't figure out how I'd gotten so good at it under their noses. They still don't know, as far as I'm aware. The only person who had any idea, I think, is Lily."

"How so?"

"I think she saw me once. I was nine. I'd plowed into a bush and fallen off the broom, and was walking back to the shed when I saw the back door close and through the window I could just see her head move past. I think she saw me fall, but when she knew I was all right she let me be. She let me handle it.

"It's one of the reasons I love her so much," she finished.

These women. They were killing me.

•

So anyway, she and I were walking together, looking in shop windows and pausing for questions and answers, and I had just thanked her again for taking me out, and generally helping me make sense of everything, and especially for teaching me to fly in secret. I'd said it was beautiful and exciting and that I was glad she had been the one to show me, that it wouldn't have been right with anyone else. She'd said after all I had done that she should be thanking me, and so she did, by kissing my cheek, suddenly but tenderly, like she'd been waiting for a chance and here it was, best grab it. Her scent was dear and close, and I felt for a moment like a shirt on a line, fluttering in the wind.

Then I heard a strange sound, like a cough or maybe a choke, and came back to myself. There was a tall, lanky young man in black robes of some expensive fabric standing a few feet away, beyond a barrel and some crates that were occupied by something that twittered and snapped, alternately. He had strangely pale blond hair, like the color had been drained from it in a way that was not without pain, and he had an unflattering sneer on his face as he eyed Ginny. The sun washed him out, and his skin looked pallid.

"That's just disgusting," he said in a flat voice. "Bad enough someone's making even more Weasleys, now it's happening out in the open."

Ginny spun, furious. "What's disgusting is that you could show your face in public, Malfoy."

"And why should I not?" he returned, his head angled upwards a little, as if he wanted her to see something up his nose. "Pure of blood, wealthy and handsome, scion of one of the better wizarding families – I have nothing to be ashamed of. I can't say the same about you, but of course you have no shame, you and this –" I'd stepped beside her – "this person here. I wonder if he knows who he's gotten caught up with –"

For some reason, the glamour charm I had been using to smooth over my forehead had begun to bother me, so I dispensed with it.

That turned out to be the thing that made him stop talking. It was all nonsense to me, but his voice was a little tedious.

His eyes widened as he stared at my forehead.

"You – you're – but you're H – him!"

"He," I said.

My grammatical correction was beyond him at the moment. Many things were fighting for control in him. I was more concerned with Ginny's tension at his presence, and her wand at her side.

Eventually the gabby army won him over. "But surely you must realize… who she is? There are families and families," he said. "She might prove to be a diversion right now, but surely you know you can do much better."

I really couldn't make any sense of what this fellow was saying. "How so?"

Ginny gave me an unreadable look but said nothing.

"It's really a question of status, isn't it?" he said smugly. I didn't know what the smugness was for. "In the house of my father you can have any woman you want. They all come running when one is wealthy enough. There's no reason to settle for whatever comes along."

"Wh – settle how?" I asked. Still way out at sea here. She'd just kissed me. She was beautiful. She was Ginny. What didn't he get about this?

He began to cultivate a small frown. "You're from a prominent family. And you're famous. And everyone knows that the Potters have money. Any woman would throw herself at you for a chance at that…"

He was still talking, but I had to have a moment. Any woman would throw herself at me for money? That wasn't true. And she wasn't interested in money. And why had he been disgusted by her kissing me? Maybe I should tune back in, was he saying anything helpful?

"…whatever you want her to, whether she likes it or not, because you are who you are…" he rambled on, and I took another moment away to think – it wasn't as if his voice was compelling in any way. Okay, what do we have? This weird guy is disgusted at a kiss, thinks money is really important, seems to be trying to say Ginny isn't good enough for me, which is, well, stupid, and telling me I should be at his dad's house where women who want money come and do things they don't even like…

Oh! He was just confused. Probably not his fault. I thought I could help.

"…attractive enough for a quick one, if you can stand the hair color –"

"Consensual," I said.

"What?" Ten points from a stranger.

"Consensual. That kiss," I said as I gestured to Ginny, who was a bit bemused.

"I beg your…" he said.

"It's a thing that happens when the interaction is consensual," I explained. Surely he would understand now.

"I don't…"

I was feeling a little sorry for this man. He was a little clueless. I went over to him and placed my hand on his shoulder. "You see," I began, "I didn't pay her to do anything. Right? So it's different than what you're used to at your father's house. Ginny's not the kind of person who can be bought – and honestly, I can't imagine what kind of woman would be like that. Probably not a happy one. We like being together, and she was letting me know."

His head was shaking a little, and his cheeks had gone a little red.

"Surely someone's kissed you without money being involved?" I said. He was really weird. He looked kind of upset.

I had a brainstorm. "Oh, wait – you offered Ginny money and she turned it down, right? Ohhh! So it's not that she's not good enough for me, it's that she's too good for you!" Wow. I sure was glad to have figured all of that out.

He made a snarling sound and backed away from my hand, reaching into his robes for his wand. His hand made it half-way back up before the wand slipped from his fingers, clattering on the cobblestones. It was during one of those curious lulls you sometimes hear in a public place, so its sound was loud and echoing from the tall buildings around us.

He looked at it blankly for a second, then lunged for it and scrabbled to pick it up, pointing it only in my general direction before once again it fell and bounced on the street, this time rolling into the gutter and some muddy-looking fluid.

He stared at me, wild-eyed and a little out of breath. There was really something wrong with him. Muttering, his mouth moist from a bit more spit than strictly necessary, he very gingerly picked his wand up, cradling it in his hands, and began slowly to walk away, pausing every few feet to drop it and pick it up again. We watched him go.

Ginny then turned and looked at me for a moment. Not long enough to hear anything, just a look.

"That boy," she said, "needs to stop thinking with his wand."

She was laughing a moment later. I was still confused, but not entirely.

•

So there's a reason I took a sideways ramble into all of that, but it's uncertain to me now. It'll come to me. All the cars in my train may arrive at different times, but at least they all arrive, and that wasn't the caboose or anything – more like the dining car. In any event, it was a long day restoring that sitting room to its former state. The Weasley men spent an inordinate amount of time talking about how to go about it before Hermione, who had to return to work for a few hours, barked at them as a group for being a headless committee instead of men of action. This stirred their sense of masculinity long enough for them to take some marching orders from my mother, who had them vanish first the rubble and then themselves from her parlor.

Luna wandered out a few minutes later after accepting a hug from me. I was new at it but practice was good, and I liked her. There was a lot to her, and she was brilliant and a little weird, and she was my first friend ever. At least that's how I thought of her, and when I said so to her after hugging her she smiled sunnily, a special thing on her ordinarily peaceful and inscrutable face, she said, "Ginny was mine, and somehow I feel that I've returned her favor."

Ginny also had to leave to go to the hospital and look in on Molly, or her body anyway, so she went upstairs to her rooms, leaving me and my parents standing in a mostly empty room with a dark circle on the ceiling. A series of spells from both of them had diminished it somewhat, but it was still present as a dark brown center with gradations of color ending in the original white of the plaster.

"It's beautiful in its way," my mother said, looking up at it thoughtfully.

"Wouldn't exactly fit on the fridge, would it?" my father said.

"Let's keep it," she said, reaching out for his hand without looking and taking it in hers. I really liked that. She knew where it was - he was waiting for her. I was somehow deeply happy to know that I came from this. "I know it's sentimental, only… Deasil, you know I'm a little jealous of Ginny getting so much of your time." She looked up at the ceiling again. "And energy."

"I'm sorry, I…" I thought for a moment, trying to make sense of my feelings, and then gave it up as a bad job. She was my mother, she would understand. "It's been a lot to take in, and I'm not used to you yet." This came out quickly, and more bluntly than I liked, but there it was. "There's something about her that makes it easy, I guess."

My mother looked at me knowingly, and I felt naked. "I can imagine. It's probably easier to talk to someone you're … attracted to than to parents you never knew about, yeah?"

Right in one. "I need to spend time with you both," I said, "and right now it feels like when I'm looking at the world that we're all sort of looking the same direction, or… well, what it really is is that I feel a little unable to kind of … see you. There are so many things happening and I'm not sure…

"Look, I like you, so much, and like is not the right word and I want to feel like I'm of you, but I don't feel like I've earned it, like I belong completely. It's like the thing I want and the thing I have aren't in the same place yet, even if they're the same thing."

"You don't know how to have this," my mother said, and her voice was sorrowful, and I heard how sorry she was about all of this and how she wanted me not to feel the way I did, and it wasn't pity exactly, it was something else I wasn't familiar with.

"We'd like to help you get used to it, " my father said. "It won't be right away, we know that, but we're not in any hurry. We have all of the time there is."

"But I want to hurry. Is that…I mean, I want to … want all of this, and I feel like I should, but I can't make it real yet. But you're both what I, well I was going to say imagined but I haven't imagined it, it's just that you feel very right but I really don't know anything about anything, so what do I know?"

"Are you getting this, Lil?" he said.

"You know I am," she said, a little wistfully, "it's right up my street." I was struck in a strange way by the feminine nature of that term, or how it sounded feminine to me, I mean masculine metaphors seem more, I don't know, external and pokey and intrusive given our masculine metaphorical equipment, or maybe that's just a maleness thing, but there it is, and the street image was homey and womanly and it meant something to me. For a moment my mind flashed to an awareness that she had carried me in her womb for nine months, given birth to me, helped to name me and taken care of me. It felt a small step nearer to being mine than before.

"Yeah, more of that," I said. "That's the stuff."

"Curable by time," she said simply.

I believed her, which felt wonderful.

•

My mother, my sleeping brother and I were in the kitchen together watching my father make me a sandwich. It was a while after lunchtime and catching living rooms on fire is hungry business. And I would have made it myself, but I didn't know where anything was, and besides, it was the first sandwich my dad ever made me, and this is an important thing. Outside of the realm of chefs, there is a firmness, or even a firmament-forming aspect, to the nature of food prepared by fathers. It's more like a house than a sandwich. It's constructed. There are tools and materials. It's like a log cabin built on a hilltop by one bull-headed, bloody-minded man, who was laughed at by the people in town, they called him crazy, but this was a monument to something that he had no name for, a statement of his will, his ability to make and fashion something meaningful from rough and disparate elements.

I think there was turkey on it.

"I think we should talk about your magic," my mother said.

"Okay, what about it?"

"Well," she said, choosing her words, "it's a little unusual. Very special, actually. It's like you."

"Errr…thankyouwhat?"

"What I mean is," she said, smiling, "it's very personal. Very much you. It's not formalized like what we do most of the time, except when we do it by accident."

"Accidents," I said, looking at my feet, "tend to collect around me."

"Well, that's not a bad thing," she said. "Most of magic is like that."

"How?"

"Okay, let's say you want something to happen in the mu - sorry, the non-magical world, like for instance you'd like for your sandwich to fly over here –"

"Not 'til it's done, love," my father said quickly.

"Right, sorry, okay, then, that apple. If you want it to be over here, you have to go get it. Or get someone else to hand it to you. Because it's highly unlikely that it would just fly over and land in your hand."

I remembered a moment in a diner. "Well…all right, but I … go on, sorry."

"Quite alright. The difference between you and someone who doesn't do magic is that for you, it's quite a bit less unlikely. Or maybe it's better to say that it's merely unlikely, but you have a little say in that as a magic-using person. When you cast a spell, you're taking that event from virtually impossible to matter-of-fact. There's a bubble of probability around every object, every molecule, every atom and particle, and with the right spell and a bit of willpower, you collapse the bubble and things – Accio! - come your way." As she said the word and waved her wand, the apple leapt from the counter and smacked into her palm.

"But that wasn't an accident," I said. "You meant that."

"But what's an accident? In this instance it's an unusual event, an unexpected event. Something that should not have happened, give what the nonmagical world expects. If a non-magical person witnessed it, they might think, 'How could that have happened? Apples don't do that. That was impossible. That person couldn't possibly have meant for that to happen. It must have been a freak accident.' And so on. But accidents aren't impossible, or even unlikely depending on how you think about them. They're just things that someone wasn't expecting, or things that are highly unlikely from their point of view."

"Well, I wasn't expecting any of this, and you weren't expecting me, " I said, feeling a bit thick, "so I must be a bit of an accident."

"No," she said, and her voice was round and low, "you were never an accident. You are a product of will in every way. Firstly, because your father and I love each other and wanted for you to be here – we meant for you to come. And secondly, because your will was what allowed you to fight the memory charms and become the mysterious and delightful man you are. No accident."

That thing that I never had, the phantom limb I never possessed, was tingling, painful, but I knew it was there, somewhere. It was all I felt like I could ask for, and maybe all I could take to feel this much of it. Fortunately my mind had an escape route planned. "How come I don't use a wand?"

"Do you want one?"

"Well…no, but yeah. You know, everyone else has one."

She folded her arms and eyed me appraisingly. "And just because everyone has one, you need one too?"

I swallowed. I remembered a boy I saw in a store a few days ago, whining about a game that he wanted because everyone else had one, and felt for a moment a bit childish. I was opening my mouth to defend myself when I saw that she was smirking at me. Shortly thereafter a grin burst out from her like a sail unfurling, and she said, "I used to practice saying things like that, knowing that someday I'd have to say it to one of my own children."

I would have to watch out for this woman. Her presence then, as it would often be, was sharp, like citrus, but sweet as well.

"You don't seem to need a wand, do you," she said, shifting my brother slightly. "What I meant by formality earlier was that most of us use wands to sort of put a frame around magic. The wand is a conductor, it has properties like an antenna, and it allows us to focus our magical intent, along with spell words that also focus our minds on the desired result. You, on the other hand, seem to make things happen around you because you feel a certain way, or you need something."

"Or they just happen, from my point of view. I didn't notice it for a while. I was just fitting in with the moment, kind of being a part of things. Making something complete, I think. Except for…"

"For what?"

"The duffel bag. No idea about that one. I don't think it completed any big picture. That was, well, maybe that was an accident."

"I doubt it," she said, looking at me oddly.

"What?" I lost ten points.

"Right to him, James," she said.

"What on earth are you talking about?" I said, taking a bite of my sandwich.

Oh.

It hadn't been there a second ago.

Dad was still finishing the one he was making, but I was devouring its exact duplicate.

He said, "I'll just have this one myself, shall I?" I really liked him. He wasn't rattled by anything. He had a very even temperament, and it would take a lot to throw him. I felt a great respect for him, a natural respect that comes from understanding and seeing how someone is, no matter what.

But I really did want that sandwich he was making.

"To address the other thing you said, about accidents collecting around you?" he said, turning his shoulders slightly as if to shield the sandwich from me, his first-born. "Think of a winning streak. It's a lump of probability surrounding an athlete or a gambler. Things go their way. Maybe it's difficult to think that about your situation – I wouldn't blame you if you didn't agree. But you have to consider that things –"he looked around to indicate "-are certainly going your way now."

The fireplace roared in the next room, and a voice called out, "Lily, James, is this a bad time for visitors?"

"It's Dumbledore," my mother said to me. "Do try not to ignite anything else, my darling."

"Oh, all right, but he'd better not start anything," I said as we left the kitchen, pausing only as I grabbed my father's sandwich off of the counter. Oh my, it was good. As it would turn out, Ginny was right about things made sweeter by a bit of impropriety. I began to think in a sort of casual way about how it was worth it, especially to me, having had no memories to speak of, to really enjoy the things I experienced, to fill myself up with good things to be made from. Like that sandwich. I really enjoyed the idea of that sandwich becoming part of my bones and muscle, especially because it was made by my father. And maybe that was the point of telling those other two things before continuing in order, because they were special moments to me, whether intimate or goofy or clarifying, and because whenever possible I try to have my dessert first.

Dumbledore was removing ash from himself with his wand when we entered. I noticed two things about him. The first was that his other hand was blackened and shrunken, and I supposed this was his sacrifice he'd mentioned. The second was that he was entirely hairless from his neck up.

I guess he'd realized whom he was dealing with.

"I'd like to say that makes you look younger," I said. Just to set the tone, I guess.

"If nothing else," he said, "it's made me realize that when I smile, the back of my head frowns."

I took that in, and meanwhile was struck by something. It wasn't that his hair was gone. I knew it was there. He was hiding it. This told me that he wanted people to feel something, maybe sorry for him, maybe to not take him seriously. Well, he was about to be poking around in Arthur's head for Molly, and I didn't have a good feeling about that, or him.

"Albus," my mother began, "we were –"

"Come back when you're serious, and when you aren't hiding something," I said abruptly. She looked at me curiously, before glaring at Dumbledore. He initially looked quite angry. I mean I was moving to get between him and my mother and brother before I knew what I was doing. The thing that I found the most alarming was that he transformed that expression into that of a child, caught being naughty. For someone who was supposed to be a great and powerful wizard, he seemed really unbalanced.

"Never mind all that caught-out little kid stuff, either," I said, and I looked him right in the eye. "You've made mistakes before that cost people their lives. Acting like a child will not get you out of it. And that first one never would have gotten that far without your help. So maybe you should work with people instead of trying to impose your will on them. Your record is crap right now."

"What first one?" my mother asked, backing up a little, shielding the baby.

"Grindelwald," Dumbledore said softly. Finally he stopped looking like an old man trying to be young. His eyes seemed to focus on something far off, and then he shook his head. When his gaze returned to mine he looked like he was trying to bring the full effect of a great wizard who had defeated another great yet evil wizard to bear, or that he smelled something funny. Probably the first one, but it sort of rolled past me, as if he were trying to bang a hole in my armor but I didn't have any, or like trying to catch smoke with a fishnet. When I settled my feet and looked back at him, he actually looked surprised.

"You've been different for a little while, haven't you," I said. "It wasn't long ago. Like there's a weight on you, like a mist, and you've been unable to get a hold on yourself. What's happening to you?"

He was silent for almost a minute. My mother had moved back and my father had moved forward, waiting.

When he spoke it was almost chatty-sounding. "There's nothing you can do for them," he said. "Too many cooks spoiling his broth, you see. Now that you've seen it, it must be broken, but you can't do that – I probably couldn't if I tried. No way out, no way back, and no way for them to survive together. In fact - " He almost giggled. "Neither can live while the other survives."

"You're done here," I said. "Whoever you are now."

Apparently someone who's not themselves is easy to spot once you've seen it. I considered myself to be very experienced in this arena. If you're lucky you can even be prepared when they're about to do something bad, like bring a wand up and point it at you. But I didn't know what I could do about it, I didn't know any spells or anything, and the only magic I did was kind of useless, I mean I had no defenses, he was going to do something bad, no stopping it, he would have to do something really stupid for this to –

And he dropped his wand, just like that. Soft sound of its impact in the carpet the only sound in the room.

Wow, I thought, that was lucky.

He seemed to think the exact opposite. He looked at his hand incredulously.

When he bent over to pick it up, this funny thing happened. The rug jerked, and he wound up losing his balance and falling over backwards. My father moved forward, my mother backed out through the door, Dumbledore's feet rose in the air, and with a dull crack the back of his head struck the floor. He gave a strange, nasal cry, glared venomously at me, and vanished.

The rug shook itself, turned around three times and settled down into stillness. I was considering petting it at the moment, but it was wrapped around the abandoned wand.

"Where's Arthur?" I said.

"I'm not sure," my mother said. "Somewhere in the house."

"I think we need to get him and Molly together so we can get them apart, and I think we need Luna and Hermione, and maybe soon?"

"How are we going to help them now?" she said.

I sighed. I'm not really a man of action. More a man of profound inaction. Navel-gazing, wool-gathering, spacing out. But here it was.

"Maybe I can do it," I said.

•

A/N: I know this took a while – life has intruded once again. I think there's something sort of paradigm-shifting about the fact that we have a term for what happens outside of the glowing screen – "IRL".

Yes, it jumps around. It's form as character. I want the reader to know things in a special order, because some things are less important in my story than they are in the JKR books and I wanted to get them out of the way. I also feel that if things are told out of order then the events themselves can be seen more clearly, and the way they interact can be more special.

And if you're wondering what happened to Dumbledore, well, I've told you.