As a reminder, you can find MORE of this on my SubStar (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted up past chapter 110 there... And if you guys haven't seen an update in at least a week, please let me know! I have a busy life, and I get distracted and forget things. This story(as well as ZpoW and PTaL) are supposed to be updated WEEKLY!

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NO, you aren't hallucinating! It's a bonus chapter of FwB, for the Holidays! This Saturday's should still release on time (Sunday at latest, along with ZPoW), AND I'm planning on doing more on Christmas itself! Happy whatever holiday you do or don't celebrate this time of year. :)

Chap. 87 Recuperation / A Long Rest

Harry was rather impressed by Senior Auror Proudfoot's handling of the situation. He and his partner, a witch that Proudfoot only called Savage while Harry was in earshot, had walked into a situation that most would have found astounding.

They walked into a school with a dead headmaster, who was missing a limb since anyone had last heard news of the man. The man who was the Headmaster of Hogwarts, the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, the highest court in the land and its legislative body, and the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, was dead. That those three offices were all held by one person was unusual itself, but for such a powerful and esteemed wizard as Albus Dumbledore to be dead, well...

It boded ill.

The damage done to the castle itself, visible from the outside given what Harry had seen in his brief glimpse into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, was extensive too. Then the number of... Well, Harry's mind supplied the word refugees, but he was pretty sure that was not it, injured, traumatized in some way, certainly, but not refugees. Yes, the people of Hogsmeade that flooded the castle could be described as such. But they were not refugees, if anything they were victors. The battle was over, the damage done, and there were far fewer than Harry would have suspected, given what he had quickly learned after he and Sirius had returned to the Great Hall to help with things before, well, taking a much-needed break to heal Lilith, and perhaps Ron.

Professor McGonagall had greeted them with warmth and obvious relief, until she read the expressions on their faces. Her eyes had scanned the pair quickly, and found them lacking almost at once, "The Headmaster...?"

"Gone," Sirius murmured, shaking his head slowly, "He- He's dead, Minnie."

All sound in the room had gone quiet for several seconds, perhaps two full minutes. That was what Savage and Proudfoot walked into.

Knowledge that there had been an attack on Hogsmeade, and two separate but concurrent attacks on the school itself.

Thankfully, after a quick trio of questions from Proudfoot had been directed Harry's way, he'd been left to his own devices for the time being, "What happened? Who attacked? Where was the attack?" Proudfoot was still there, speaking with Daphne and Tracey, trying to figure out where Luna had gotten to when Ginny returned from Gryffindor Tower with Lavender and Parvati in tow... but no Hermione.

Harry could still feel her, and Luna too, through the abilities he had from Lilith, He knew they were both close, but could not get a sense of danger or a lack thereof from either one. Nor, surrounded by this many worried students, could he identify their location. Too late, he realized he could probably have used that same ability to find Vicky, or Isabelle Ross, or even Theodore Nott. If he'd known he could do it in advance, at any rate.

But he didn't, he couldn't blame the Succubus, she didn't know he could do it either, until he had at King's Cross. And by then it was too late for those girls.

It wasn't like she could predict the future, or know what abilities each of them might get. In fact, she'd publicly stated quite the opposite on at least one occasion Harry could think of, and once more in a smaller, more private conversation. How could she have known? Of course a part of him felt he should feel guilty.

If only this... if only that.

But he was not the fifteen year old boy that had blamed himself for everything that went wrong in his life. A year and more of having people he cared about, that cared about him enough to work on his sense of self-worth, had taught him that. He could not be everywhere for everyone all of the time.

He was, Chosen One or not, just one person.

That stupid prophecy seemed to demand that he be at the center of the war, but that didn't mean he had to wage it single-handedly. Lilith, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, the others, they had all been force-feeding him that lesson for twelve months.

He thought he understood, at least now. He had to trust Hermione and Luna. He had to trust the teachers to protect the school. Even with Dumbledore gone, he suspected that Hogwarts would remain firm. It was the last bastion for their side, the symbol of the magical world's hope, its very future.

But they were not fighting a defensive war alone, not anymore. The stories that trickled in from the mouths of the wounded inspired Harry, as it seemed he had inspired so many of them.

Like at King's Cross, the people of Hogsmeade had fought back.

And they'd won.

Some stories said the Death Eaters numbered in the hundreds. Some just ten. Likely, Harry knew it was somewhere between those extremes. But they were dead, all of them except the one he had learned a certain black-haired, gray-skinned female vampire had whisked away at the end of the Death Eater's last stand.

He helped with triage, even used the limited first aid spells he knew to help with some of the wounded. He had spoken, and more importantly listened, to everyone who had wanted to talk to him. Most wanted to thank him for standing up to the Dark, for reminding them that they could, and showing them how to do it.

It had been... hard.

He had not wanted to see their bleeding, scratched, or burned faces, or their missing hands, or any of it, not while the people of Hogsmeade thanked him.

But he knew why they did. The same way they would have thanked Dumbledore if he had been alive to do so. The people looked to him to lead them, and, for perhaps the first time, Harry felt he was truly up to the task. He did not want to. He hated that the duty fell to him.

But he would not put it down, nor relieve himself of that burden. He would not let the innocent bystanders become victims.

So he kept his face resolute. Kept his back straight, and shoulders back. The tears... he did not hide those. He did not hide his emotions at all, but let them flow freely as he commiserated with, encouraged, or consoled the long stream of people that wanted a few moments of his time after such a life-altering event for so many.

The whole while, Ginny stood on his right, while Ron kept Lilith company, in the quarters he had been assigned this year, in case she awoke. It had the side benefit of keeping those who would see his new abilities to a minimum. But it also gave the ginger time, they hoped, to figure out how to reverse the transformation, if that was even possible. Hermione, after all, did not seem to be able to turn off her own Succubus Rune-granted abilities, but Ginny could.

Proudfoot and Savage questioned the teachers, and the people of Hogsmeade, most of whom reported that they'd already given statements at the scene, and slowly, the situation became more clear.

Professors Flitwick, Burbage, Vector, and Hagrid had, alone, held the gates of the school against a small team that, judging by Savage's invective commentary on hearing the news, would have been equivalent to an elite Hitwizard attack team sent to eliminate priority targets. Dumbledore himself, McGonagall, Harry, and a few others were all floated as possible goals, and at least one of the two Aurors had muttered something about all three being an option.

Hermione and Luna, both with red-rimmed, slightly swollen eyes, walked into the Great Hall hand in hand about twenty minutes into the interviews, but they could do little more to assist. Harry wasn't worried though, they seemed alright, if just as emotionally worn as he was. The innocent victims needed his attention, and theirs, more.

He could wait, for now.

At something like eleven-thirty that night, the all-clear was given to the students in general, but it was far too late for most of them to do more than sleep anyway. Classes were, predictably, canceled for the next week to give both the students and faculty a chance to process what had happened, and worse, what could have happened. Mind Healers were recommended for many if not all, but by and large, Harry and his friends were also not instructed in any particular thing by the staff.

It seemed that Minerva McGonagall, now acting Headmistress, had learned that Harry and his cohort did not particularly need instruction to be useful.

For that, he was grateful. A nagging or even commanding, demanding, voice would have been a bit too much after his emotionally and physically trying day.

So when the all-clear was sounded, Harry was the first among his many friends present to make his way out and down to the quarters.

Everyone who had comforted him at some point in the last couple of days since his and Dumbledore's mission to the Gaunt Hovel was there, most of them willing and able to do the exact thing they had done before: just be there, with Harry and the others. Providing safety, warmth, and the comfort of their presence not just to him, but to each other.

One by one, everyone who had been involved so far in the more intimate acts of Harry's recent life, excluding Katie, made their way into the former 'dungeon' turned Harry's bedroom, where Ron (who was still plated in his new chitin armor, though the crack seemed to have miraculously healed part of the way) had placed Lilith's comatose body.

Each had been given simple instructions: Without jostling her broken wings, put the fluids of their sexuality on her. Semen, squirt, it made no difference. Even a kiss, so long as lust was involved, would do. If they could do it on a visible injury, or near the breaks in her wings, so much the better.

Ron had told Harry he'd already jerked off, and even used Lilith's hand once, three times to try and kick-start the process, but it hadn't seemed to do much good. Lavender had been the first of the newcomers, then Pansy, Luna, and Hermione, then Ginny. Daphne and Astoria had gone in together, and the blonde had been very red in the face when they returned, which made Harry quite curious as to what had happened, but he did not feel it appropriate to ask. Hannah and Neville had gone in last, and their stay had been among the longest, with both looking quite tired but pleased with the resolution, even if the blonde probably hadn't gotten her customary anal creampie at the end.

Then it was his turn.

What he found should have been erotic in itself: his lover, his Succubus, glistening with fluids from the passion of his friends, however muted or strange it might have been to use a broken, beaten body as a source of eroticism. It should have been a turn-on. He should've been aroused just seeing her, he usually was.

But Lilith was still unconscious, barely detectable through their bond. The bond was still there, functioning, but just as diminished in that strange way as it had been before by whatever the vampire had done. Just as strong, but it was as if the channel had been narrowed, or now had more resistance to the current of power that once flowed through it freely.

The scent alone, semen and squirt and sweat and more, would once have spiked his libido. It should have, Harry could feel it trying, could feel his body wanting to react as it normally would have. Somewhere deep inside him, the distant, dormant part of him that he considered a sister of sorts, Iris, wanted the same thing. But it was muted. Warped. Not broken, just... twisted, out of place, and out of sorts.

Like him.

Like Lilith's wings. Like the Succubus herself.

In the common room of the quarters, which was packed to capacity and then some, he knew his friends were doing the same thing with each other that he had been doing with them. Helping each other. Talking through it. Reasoning out what went wrong, what they could have done better, and what would come next.

But here, in this room devoted to sex, where a Succubus lay in her natural form on his bed, Harry could find little in him to do it.

He wanted to, and desperately. He wanted to cover Lilith in the semen she needed to recover. He wanted her up, and healthy, and... whole.

But for the first time since he was fourteen and looking at Fleur Delacour in her swimsuit before the second task, he had a hard time getting an erection.

Instead, Harry found himself on his knees, his forehead touching Lilith's, with one of her clawed, too-large hands held in both of his, "Don't go," he murmured, wishing he still had tears left to cry. Maybe they would help, if the fluids of his friends had not.

"I don't... I don't want you to go where I can't follow. I love you, you know. As much as Hermione, or Ginny, or any of the others. You're my friend, my partner. I- I don't want you to leave me. Any of us."

The words were simple, heartfelt, and Harry's voice was raspy, hoarse from too much talking already so that by the time he murmured them quietly, it almost sounded like sandpaper on soft balsam pine. He could not say any more, he had no words to represent what Lilith meant to him. But their Bond worked both ways, and he knew without a doubt that, even diminished as it was, she felt it. Felt his feelings, felt his love for her, just as he felt hers.

Yes, their relationship had started on lust alone, on a contract, an arrangement of services. But she had quickly become more than that. So much more.

"I love you," he whispered once more, and pressed his lips to hers. It was not the first time they'd kissed sideways from each other, or the first time he had done so in her true form, but it was the only time those had been concurrent. How had he not noticed the particular dry ripple, so tiny it was barely noticeable, in her mouth as he did so?

Then her hand tightened, just a little.

He felt... better, just a little, as some of the empty channel, the wide riverbed with a tiny trickle of water flowing through it, filled with renewed flow, "You're still in there, aren't you? I can tell. You want to come back, but... what? Are you scared?"

Nothing, there was no reaction. Harry sighed.

"She's gone, the vampire. Dumbledore did something to her. He's... he's dead, too. I need you, Lilith."

Another tiny, infinitesimal squeeze, and a slightly larger current. Even combined, it was just noticeable from the flicker it had been since... whatever the vampire had done to her. But it was enough to make a difference, at least to Harry.

Things were not hopeless. Not with the Death Eaters, or the people of Hogsmeade. Not the students, or the school. Not even with one Horcrux, the lost-and-found Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw, hopefully destroyed, as Hermione and Luna had told him not an hour before.

They were certainly not hopeless with his friends, with people to support him, support each other.

Yes, he still would have work to do. At least two Horcruxes remained to be destroyed. But he knew how to do it. He had a couple of methods now, if it came down to it: Fiendfyre, and the Sword of Godric Gryffindor. Or, come to think of it, the corpse of a Basilisk that Dobby had not yet removed from the Chamber of Secrets.

Speaking of which, Harry thought, then said aloud, "Dobby?"

With a pop, the elf appeared, beaming "The Great Harry Potter, Sir, calls for Dobby?"

"Yes, I- I need you to do something for me, my friend," Harry said quietly, hoping the elf ignored the Succubus' nudity. He seemed to be doing a fine job of it, anyway, though once his eyes had widened as they drifted that way before being jerked back to Harry.

"Anything, sir!"

"Go to the Chamber of Secrets, and do... well, do something to protect the Basilisk. I don't want anyone, Aurors, Professors, Students, or anyone else from getting to it and accidentally poisoning themselves. Or elves."

Dobby's smile, if anything, grew wider, "Dobby will see it done, Harry Potter! Dobby knows just the magic to use to keep everyone from getting to it, until the Great Harry Potter, Sir, deems otherwise!"

Then the elf was gone, leaving Harry with a soft smile, still holding Lilith's hand.

He had friends, a family all his own. Lilith was part of it. He loved her, was in love with her. And he would not, could not, let her waste away.

Without releasing her hand, Harry stood up, then finally had to let go with one of his to undo his trousers. It took a little effort to fish out his dick, but once he had, it wasn't that much work to tug himself to full hardness. Once he had, Harry smiled, "Alright, Lilith... I know you won't mind this. You like it when I use you, don't you? Open that pretty mouth, beautiful, it's time to get started..."

As passion went, it was not Harry's finest hour. Or even three.

But by the time dawn came, Lilith had regained much of her color, and her wings had mostly straightened out. Harry himself was well and truly exhausted, having worked himself to no fewer than twenty-seven orgasms in six hours for the Succubus' benefit.

Even if it had felt great each time as usual, Harry knew this was not about him.

But when he saw Lilith's demonic form smile, with their bond almost back to where it had been, he finally curled up with her in his arms and allowed himself to take a very long, very well-deserved rest.

Albus Dumbledore's funeral was a grand affair, one that the entire Student body of Hogwarts was allowed to attend, along with the staff, a great many important figures from the Ministry of Magic, the ICW, and, of course, the Headmaster's last living relative, his brother, Aberforth.

Harry remembered the man from the previous year well, as it had been in his bar, the Hog's Head, that Dumbledore's Army had been organized.

Harry, with Ginny and his circle of friends on his right and Sirius, Remus Lupin, other members of the Order of the Phoenix on his left, filled half of the closer, more intimate seating arranged for Dumbledore's many admirers to attend.

Honestly, afterward, Harry would have preferred it if he were able to stay at Hogwarts and reflect rather than attend. While he was certain Albus Dumbledore was, in fact, the great man, and great wizard, that the several speakers had painted him to be, that was not how Harry had known him.

Yes, he was a great wizard, arguably the greatest that had ever lived, and almost certainly the greatest of modern times,for all he was quite aged and old-fashioned. A man to rival Merlin himself, some might have said, and in fact, the current Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour, had said as much in his own speech.

But Harry had known him as a teacher. A man who loved learning, and imparting knowledge to others. A scholar, a gentleman, and a wise, kindly grandfather.

A friend.

Not some hero of myth and legend, a world-shaking figure that had shaped politics and policy alike for a century or more. He was not, to Harry, the man who had defeated the only Dark Lord said to have ever been greater than Voldemort in power, Gellert Grindlewald.

He was Harry's friend, his mentor. And he was gone.

But as Harry stared at the white marble tomb, in a quiet cemetery in Godric's Hollow, strangely close to his own parent's graves, he could not focus on the words of the important, powerful, witches and wizards. Not even Amelia Bones, who he respected a great deal.

No, his mind turned again and again to the Dumbledore that he knew. The teacher who had been forced to become a savior, and a hero, and a leader.

They had on- no, twice- spoken of the similarities between Voldemort's life, and Harry's own. Being orphans, raised by people who feared and hated them. Even their looks were similar enough.

But at the funeral, Harry felt more akin to Dumbledore. A person who had no wish to lead being forced to by circumstances and the will of others. A person destined, according to some, for greatness, because the need for it had been thrust upon them.

Harry hoped, truly hoped, that he could rise to the barest of fractions of what Dumbledore had on his own occasion.

He wanted Voldemort dead for so many reasons. He would see it done. Dumbledore's loss was just one of many. And frankly, not all that unexpected given his age.

What they had learned in the last two days since the attack had been impressive. The now-legendary Headmaster had not only used a chained series of instantly-conjured Portkeys to send what had become of Theodore Nott straight into the sun, but the linked effect of whatever kept both Nott and the vampire near-impervious to damage had backfired.

Vampires did not do well in sunlight.

Nothing they knew of did well when literally bathed in the power of a star, even for the fraction of an instant that Nott had taken to disintegrate and break the link.

That backlash had destroyed Malfoy Manor, and killed what the Ministry touted as 'dozens' of Death Eater terrorists.

The overheard, or leaked, information coming out of Slytherin, according to the Carrow twins, was that the number was likely in the sixties, with many more injured, as a meeting had been scheduled for not much later in the day after the attacks.

The Ministry had been hit too, but their own defenses, bolstered by Amelia Bones' quick response to Susan's warning, had held off the twenty Death Eaters there at the gates. Most had ended up escaping, but a few were currently being questioned, and not all that kindly.

The one true loss their side seemed to have suffered was when the Dementors had shown up in Brighton, apparently seeking out Minister Scrimgeour's family.

Fortunately, they were on holiday due to the difficulties in the United Kingdom, and only one security wizard and the family cat had been victims of the attack.

It seemed, if one used only cold mathematics, a fair price to pay for the losses the Death Eaters and Voldemort had suffered.

But Harry was not done with that, not yet. He had not yet truly begun waging war himself. Lilith had hampered Voldemort, and Dumbledore had been the one to hamstring his forces.

Now, it was Harry's turn. He had the summer to plan.

By the time school started again, he wanted to be ready. He would not just be attending school...

He would be leading the war effort, from the front lines, if need be. And he knew, without needing to ask, that his friends would be behind and beside him.

His- Their sixth year was not yet over, but the Death Eaters had far more wounds to lick than his side did. The Death eaters would recover, in time, and would be faster, stronger, and more ready. He only hoped enough of them made it through the summer to see what was in store. Not because he wanted their fear-mongering and bigotry to last any longer than it absolutely had to...

But because he wanted to deliver his own brand of fear, first.

Voldemort and the Death Eaters had attacked students twice in the last six months. They would not dare do so again, not if Harry had his way.

When the funeral finally ended, Harry was among the only ones with a clear expression and eyes. It was not surprising to him, at least, that he was the one guiding Ginny and Sirius, and thus the others, toward the exit of the cemetery. He paused only briefly at the monument to his parents' sacrifice, and did not glance at the ruin where he had been born.

"Let's get back to Hogwarts," he told his friends as he conjured a long rope for Sirius to enchant as a Portkey, "It's time to finish healing Lilith and get back on our feet. There's work to do."

"Healing Lilith, huh?" Sirius tried to tease.

Harry only grinned and nodded, "Yes, and another orgy after that, probably. We've a lot more Runes to apply once she's back at full strength."

"Yeah, sure," Sirius laughed, "I bet."

"It's true," Hannah, who happened to be walking near them with Neville's hand in her own, "We all help with those these days. I've got a set myself."

Sirius could only stammer, "How many girls are you shagging, pup?!"

"Not enough," was Ginny's giggling reply.