[A/N: Following up on Chrysicat's question from an earlier chapter, my headcanon about wandlore is that wands, especially the bloodthirsty Elder Wand, can only be won from their owners if there's genuine Killing Intent on the part of the person who takes them. Otherwise, the Disarming Charm would have been described very differently in the books due to its massively OP affects. Unrelated: I think Remus has spent enough time on the fringes of the Wizarding World by now that he would know what a telephone was, which is why he doesn't get confused by something Sirius does later in this chapter. Poor Neville has no idea, but he's too embarrassed and shy to ask.]

A moment later, Harry, Hermione, and Sirius returned from the depths of the children's section in the far back of the shop. Harry and Hermione both looked profoundly sad in a way that Luna had never seen on anyone her own age before, but before she could ask them what had happened, Sirius spoke up.

"Moony?" he asked, disbelief in his voice.

"Padfoot?" Remus responded.

"Uncle Moony?" Harry asked.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing here?" Sirius asked. "Where have you been?"

"I…" Remus fell back against the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf behind the desk and put his hands over his face. "I'm sorry."

"I needed you!" Sirius shouted. "The Prongslet needed you!"

Remus's only response was to start sobbing.

"It was the books," Luna said. She nearly flinched when everyone but Remus turned to look at her. "He said he talked to people named Mary and Reg, and they said they'd been following Harry, but what they really described was what was in those books."

"Those bloody books." Hermione's hair frizzed out even further than it usually did. "Those bloody stupid books. Is Lockhart dead yet?"

Harry threw his arms around Hermione from behind. "Yes, he is. It's OK, really."

"No, it isn't! You could have had a decent childhood instead of a God-damned parade of horrors but for that vain, exploitative arsehole!" At the last word, the cash register on Remus's desk popped open its cash drawer and began spitting up random numbers up on its analogue display.

"But I might never have met you," Harry said.

The witch in his arms froze for a moment before sinking slowly to her knees, crying quietly all the while. Harry followed her down, still holding her. Luna sniffled and felt a few tears fall at that, and Hestia and Sirius seemed to be crying, too. Neville looked sad, confused, and supremely awkward.

The silence held for at least a minute before Harry finally spoke. "I feel like I should be mad at you, Uncle Moony." The boy was still focused on the witch in his arms and wasn't even looking at Remus. "I'm not, though. I have a wonderful family now and great friends. I don't want anything to be different. It's just…did you ever care about me at all? I mean, I guess you didn't help murder my parents like Wormtail, but you didn't exactly lift a finger afterward, did you?"

Remus flinched again at the comments, though Harry couldn't have seen him do so. "I was on a mission for Headmaster Dumbledore on the Continent when your parents died, Harry," he said. "I didn't learn what had happened until the spring of 1982, and when I came back to Britain, Headmaster Dumbledore warned me that my condition might make it dangerous for you to be near me. I thought Sirius had been the Secret Keeper, so there was nothing left for me in the UK. I occasionally checked in with Mary and Reg, but that was it."

"Your condition?" Harry turned around just enough to see Remus with one eye.

"I'm a werewolf, Harry," Remus said.

"There really are werewolves?" Harry asked.

Remus blinked. "Um…yes. At the full moon, I lose control of myself and become a vicious monster. I have to hide in a locked stone room. Some of the more violent ones choose to embrace the wolf and run free, murdering and sometimes infecting others like I was infected when I was young."

"That's pretty awful," Harry said. "Do you have any books about how to protect yourself from bad werewolves like that? If so, I'd like to buy all of them for Hermione."

For the first time in several minutes, Hermione looked up from the floor, a fond smile on her face as she gazed at Harry.

"I think we do," Remus said, "but several of them are used copies of Gilderoy Lockhart's Wanderings with Werewolves and I feel like I should probably burn those now."

"That seems like a waste," Harry said. Hermione raised her eyebrows, but before she could say anything, Harry continued, "they'd probably make good toilet paper."

Luna and Neville shared a giggle while Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Anyway," Harry said, "I still would've rather been with you than my mum's sister. They were awful. With you, I'd only have been in danger one night a month."

Sirius smiled. "Harry, you are absolutely your parents' son. James is the one who convinced Peter and I to become animagi so we could keep Moony company during the full moon, since animagi are immune to werewolf infections while they're transformed. And Lily figured out Moony's Furry Little Problem in Third Year and would take notes for him each full moon, though we didn't find out she knew until Seventh Year."

"Wait…nobody else knew?" Harry asked. "He missed every day on the full moon and you called him 'Moony'! You might as well have put a big flashing 'Werewolf!' sign on him."

"Ah," Luna said, "you forget something, though. Most wixen are so convinced werewolves are all brutish and violent at all times that they simply could not imagine someone like Mr. Lupin exists. He hides in the blind spot of their prejudices."

Neville shrugged awkwardly. "It's a fair cop in my case, I suppose. Gran always told me werewolves would as soon eat you as look at you."

Hestia cleared her throat and blushed. "The parade of mediocrities who taught us DADA at Hogwarts told me much the same."

"They couldn't have been that mediocre," Remus said. "That was some fine wandwork earlier."

"Wait, what?" Sirius asked.

"There was a bit of a misunderstanding," Remus said. "I ended up tied up for a bit, but there was no harm done."

"I'm really sorry about that," Hestia said. "And, for the record, some of that was training with Sirius. I learnt silent casting at Hogwarts, but Sirius has been helping me with spell chaining and rapid target acquisition."

"Truly, no harm done," Remus said. "It's good to see Sirius has kept his skills up like that. I admit I had some doubts when James chose you to be Harry's godfather rather than Frank, but you've clearly grown into the role and turned into an impressive man."

"Sirius is a great godfather!" Harry said angrily.

"It's alright, Pup," Sirius said. "If anyone deserves to have reservations about my fitness for that role, it's Remus."

Remus shook his head. "That was a long time ago. The important thing is that you were there for Harry, not something you did when we were both stupid kids."

"We were all stupid kids," Sirius said. "We had no business fighting in a war, but there was no one else to do it."

"That's the truth," Remus said. "At least we won, thanks mostly to James, Lily, and Harry."

"Yeah," Sirius looked away. Luna nearly jumped backward when the number of wrackspurts around his head tripled in the space of a single syllable.

"Sirius?" Remus asked. "What's wrong? I'm sorry I brought up James, but it was only to thank them."

Luna took a hesitant step toward Sirius. "Sirius Black, please don't lie to us."

"I'm not lying," he said quickly. "I didn't even say anything."

"Yes, you are," Luna said. "You're so focused on taking care of Harry and Hermione that you never have many wrackspurts, but you got them all of a sudden there. You're lying about something."

"Wrackspurts…wait, Pandora's?" Remus asked.

Sirius nodded.

"Of course," Remus said. "Luna, when did Sirius lie to us?"

Luna took a quick glance at her friends. Sirius had a studiously blank look on his face, Hermione was frowning, and Harry subtly shook his head. She felt sick. She knew what the honest answer to Mr. Lupin's question was, but her friends had never hurt her and had even gone out of their way to make her feel safe and cared for. Maybe she shouldn't have said—

Neville cut off her train of thought. "It was when Mr. Lupin said Harry's parents won the war for us and Sirius agreed. I don't know why he'd disagree, though. Harry's awesome and all, but it wasn't like he personally defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as a toddler."

A vise of fear clamped down on Luna's stomach as she took Neville's statement to the conclusion he hadn't reached yet. No one said anything until Hestia once again connected Neville's dots for him.

"Sirius, you spared no expense to have me install wards at Hermione's house," the witch said. "After we finish cleansing Grimmauld Place, I've got another contract to install similar 'money-is-no-object' wards at the Tonks' house. The children are learning duelling from you and training in hand-to-hand combat. I never put those together because I thought the war was over, but that's what you were lying about, isn't it?"

"Not here," Sirius hissed.

"No," Neville said. "That stupid war cost me more than anyone else in this room except maybe Harry. He and I both deserve answers about it!"

"Harry knows." Luna's insides twisted up as she spoke. She could tell where this conversation was going and desperately didn't want to get there, but each word spoken brought them inexorably closer. "He knows and didn't want us to know."

Neville spun around to face Harry. "But…why? I thought we were brothers!"

She put her hand on Neville's shoulder and prevented him from walking toward the other boy. A gentle restraint, one she knew he could throw off easily with his muscle, though she somehow knew just as clearly he would never do that to her. "Harry has always tried to protect Hermione and me," she told him. "I'm sure he'd want to protect you, too."

"Protect me from what?" Neville turned to look at her as he spoke, then his eyes widened. "Luna, are you alright?"

"No." Luna shook her head. "I'm not, and neither will you be in a moment." Her vision was starting to blur around the edges.

"I'm sorry!" Neville said. "I didn't mean to upset you! What did I do? I'll stop!"

Luna shook her head again, but Hestia responded before she could say anything. "It's not your fault, dear," the older witch told him. "It's Sirius's, for allowing this speculation to continue. Sirius, tell the truth right now and stop scaring the children."

The black-haired man looked at her and, for the first time since Luna had first met him, the weight of those years in Azkaban showed through on his face. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Sirius…" Hestia's voice faltered.

"We can discuss this later," Remus said. "There's no reason to scare the children."

"Yes," Neville said, "there is, and I want to know what it is." As he spoke, he moved next to Luna, put his left arm around her shoulders, and rested his right hand on his new wand. "Harry, I know you want to protect us, but you're my brother and I want that to mean something. If there's something out there, I don't want you to protect me from it. I want you to tell me where it is so we can both go blast it into small enough pieces that it won't hurt anyone else, because that's what brothers should do."

Harry smiled a little, but was clearly trying to suppress it. "Neville, that's awesome, but…you don't understand what you're getting into here. You…you never feel safe anymore, no matter what anyone does for you."

"The people who put my parents into St. Mungo's for the rest of their lives are still alive in Azakaban," Neville said, "so I don't feel safe anyway. Tell me."

"Voldemort is still alive somehow in spirit form and we can't figure out how, and he may be able to find himself a body at some point."

Luna heard two gasps behind her from Hestia and Remus, but Neville only set his jaw. "Fine. I have unfinished business with that arsehole."

"As do I." Harry reached out his hand and Neville shook it. "We'll finish it this time."

"That 'we,'" Hermione said, "had better include me, Harry Potter. This is as much my fight as yours."

"And me." Luna's voice wasn't as firm as she wanted it to be. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified, but He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would never let someone like Daddy keep publishing a paper and Daddy would wither and die if he gave it up. He'll come for us soon enough, regardless."

"Being terrified," Hestia said, "is a completely reasonable reaction to this news. How do we know He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is still alive?"

"Because I saw him," Sirius said, and told them the story of a horrifying night in May.

When he finished, Remus raised his eyebrows. "You did an incredible job protecting them, Sirius. Thank you."

Hestia took a deep breath, apparently to steady her nerves. "What kind of magic was that? How could a piece of You-Know-Who's soul attack you…and how did you stop it?"

Sirius shrugged. "You never ran across soul magic in your studies? My parents made Reggie and I learn the basics so we could defend ourselves if someone attacked us. They wanted us to learn some of the darker stuff, too, but I refused. I don't know if Reggie took them up on it. That stuff's dangerous. Sure, tearing off shreds of your soul to power spells gives you a huge boost, but there's less you there afterward. Eventually, you're just a shell of your former self."

She stared at him. "I…I've only heard whispers of soul magic in the darkest books I've read. What in Merlin's name were your parents teaching you as a child?"

"Really disturbing stuff," Sirius replied. "Some of those books suggested that the voids in your soul attracted other things that might want to fill them, things that don't exist on our world anymore and never should again. They had names, but the books had spells on them to make the reader forget the name after a few minutes in case that could summon them, too."

Hermione's jaw dropped. "The books prevented you from learning?"

"Yes," Luna said. "My father once put it to me like this: think of our world as an island in an infinite void. The more you know about the entities that roam that void, the brighter you shine to them. If one of them were ever to find you, the best you could hope for is that you would instantly cease to exist."

"That's the best case?" Neville asked.

Luna nodded. "Some sages, like Enoch the Watcher, speculated the concept of damnation was developed by proto-necromancers who accidentally contacted the soul of someone who'd been taken by one of those entities and slowly digested. Soul magic used to be more common before the risks became more well-known."

"What she said," Sirius said. "Luna, how in Merlin's name do you know all of that?"

"Mummy likes studying forbidden tomes and Daddy occasionally fights with her about it," Luna said. "And sometimes she leaves stuff around."

Hermione shook her head. "That's terrifying. I never thought simply knowing something could be dangerous. How has Voldemort—"

Everyone twitched except for Harry.

"Not shattered his soul or been eaten by extradimensional abominations yet?" Hermione continued, oblivious to her audience's discomfort. Luna wasn't sure if she envied Hermione's ability to ignore such things or worried about it.

"My understanding is that time moves differently in other dimensions," Sirius replied. "All of the books I read described their approach as a gradual process. Regardless, it's pretty much a guarantee that if he does manage to come back, he'll be a deranged shell of a man rather than the ruthless chessmaster he once was. Still powerful, of course, but mad as a hatter and probably prone to ludicrous, grandiose schemes."

Hestia set her jaw. "Sirius, after we finish cleaning out Grimmauld Place, can part of my payment be access to the library? I want to learn whatever magic is necessary to finish what Benjy started and ensure those boys don't have to fight He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

"You can have that for free." Sirius turned to a practically vibrating Hermione. "And no, Hermione, you can't help her. I am not exposing an underage witch to those books."

"But…but…books. For Harry," Hermione said.

Sirius mimed picking up a telephone. "Hello? Doctors Granger? It's Sirius. Would you mind if I let your daughter read books that erased part of her mind for her own protection and were like catnip to extradimensional soul-eating abominations? Uh-huh. Uh-huh." He mimed putting down the phone. "Hermione, what's the diameter of one of those dental drills they use?"

"Dental drills?" Remus asked.

"Muggle method for getting rid of a cavity," Hermione replied. "You use a very hard drill to drill out all of the damaged tooth tissue and enamel, then fill it with gold. They're one point six millimetres in diameter."

Sirius nodded, then mimed picking up the phone again. "That's not going to be big enough. You're going to need at least one of those drill bits you use to drill large holes in a wall. Yes, a cement wall. No trouble at all, you too. Ta!" He mimed hanging up the phone again. "Your parents told me they'd take one of those dental drills to my John Thomas if I let you anywhere near those books, but I told them they'd need a larger drill if they were going to do that. They appreciated my honesty."

Everyone just stared at him for a moment. Luna felt her cheeks heating up, and she noticed a blush on Neville's, too, even though his brows were furrowed in confusion. Hestia's blush was so bright it reminded Luna of the setting sun. Remus and Hermione had their jaws open, completely speechless. And Harry…

Harry started laughing so hard he fell over.

Remus sighed. "I'd say James had better taste when he was Harry's age, but I'd be lying. That's one of the reasons you two got on so well."

Hermione glowered. "I'm never going to be able to think of those books again without…that, thank you very much."

"Mischief managed." Sirius said with a roguish grin.

"You…you…" Hestia sputtered, "you did that whole awful joke just to make Hermione less likely to want to read those books?"

"It doesn't work as well if you call attention to it," Sirius said.

"But…you mean that was parenting?"

Sirius nodded. "I'd like to think so."

"Sirius," Harry said from his position on the floor, "is the best godfather ever."

The older witch put her head in her hands. "I'm not sure what's worse: the possibility that Harry's wrong or the possibility that he's right."

Remus nodded sagely. "He gets that from Lily."

"Alright, everyone," Sirius said, "this trip has gotten way off-track. Neville, I'm afraid we won't have time to get you ice cream now. Can I owe it to you later?"

"Of course," Neville said. "I'm just glad I got my own wand."

"That's not fair!" Luna tried not to pout. "Neville was very brave today and deserves pudding."

"I don't think I was brave at all," Neville mumbled.

"I don't disagree with you," Sirius told Luna, "but we're out of time. I'll bring him something good tomorrow."

"Good," Luna said. "Goodbye, then, Neville. It was lovely to meet you."

Neville blushed and looked at the floor. "It was nice to meet you, too, Luna."

"Congratulations on your new wand, Neville!" Hermione gave him a big hug.

Harry patted him on the back. "Yeah, mate, congratulations!"

"Thank you." Neville pulled out a wand box and stared at it longingly before handing it to Harry. "I'm going to miss it. It really feels like part of me now."

"I understand," Harry said. "We'll take good care of it and give it back to you on the Hogwarts Express."

"You won't forget, will you?" Neville asked.

"I'll really try—"

Hermione reached over, plucked the wand box out of Harry's hands, and put it carefully into her purse. "We will absolutely not forget," she said.

"Definitely," Harry said. "Hermione never forgets anything."

"I'd believe it," Neville said.

Luna nodded. Harry was a lovely boy, but he was still a boy. Best to leave this task to a professional. But…"Neville, why can't you keep your wand?"

"My Gran wants me to use my Father's wand," Neville replied. "But I can't get it to work well and Sirius and Hermione said it's not likely to ever work for me. I'm not going to tell her I got this one today."

"I'm sorry," Luna said. "She must have an awful lot of wrackspurts."

Neville looked confused, but before he could respond, Remus said, "I'm sorry, too, Mr. Longbottom. Your father was a good man and I think you're going to be a good man one day, too, but you are not and will never be him. You're going to be your own good man, a mixture of your father and mother that will make both of them proud. Don't forget that."

The boy stood a little straighter. "I won't, sir."

Behind him, Hestia seemed to have accumulated at least half a dozen wrackspurts in the space of a minute, but she was keeping her expression neutral. Mostly. Luna suppressed a sigh. Sirius was going to have his work cut out for him helping her with those.

"Remus is right," Sirius said. "Harry, if you're willing, I can set up a meeting with you and Remus sometime so he can tell you more about your parents. He knew your mother better than I did, so I'll bet he has some great stories about her."

Harry shrugged. "Sure, if you think he'd be interested."

Luna had to fight the urge to wince at the pained expression that flitted across the man's face at Harry's comment. Hermione's eyes narrowed and Luna was almost disturbed at the satisfaction written in them, at least until a few memories clicked together.

Hermione, screaming and cursing about Lockhart's lies, referring to Harry's childhood as a "parade of horrors."

Harry, telling her "I grew up with my aunt and uncle until the Grangers rescued me."

Remus, looking horrified when she told him Harry had grown up with a woman named "Petunia."

That look in Hermione's eyes wasn't sadism or delight. It was vengeance for the childhood of the boy she clearly loved, and Luna hoped nobody else ever gave Hermione cause to look at them like that. It could get messy.

Luna also wondered if she could ever love someone that much, that violently. Love that strong was almost terrifying, but at the same time drew her like a moth to a lamp. She could see why poets she'd found on her father's bookshelf wrote about getting lost in feelings like that, taking great gulps of the very thing in which they were drowning.

She felt like she shouldn't want that, but she did. Very much so.