[A/N: I wrote some new scenes and reorganized my in-progress chapters, and now this chapter won't be a cliffhanger after all! Not much, at least.]

"Wait just one moment," Hestia said firmly. "I am not going to just stand here and try to catch stray spells on my Shield Charms while you demonstrate the children's duelling skills to their parents."

"Oh," Sirius said. "What are we going to do, then?"

Isaac and Miranda shot each other an inscrutable look before turning to Sirius. "Sirius," Isaac said, "how do you keep yourself safe while you're training the children?"

"Um…by catching any stray spells on my Shield Charm," Sirius said. "It's good training for me, too, and they don't know any really dangerous stuff."

Miranda sighed. "Why is literally nothing about the Wizarding World safe?"

"Magical healing," Hestia said. "Most people don't worry too much about injuries and some of them…" she held a hand up to Sirius's face and flicked his nose, "...are also plonkers."

"We're careful not to aim at him," Hermione said. Harry nodded.

"We can do better than that," Hestia said. "Dobby?"

The elf popped up wearing bright orange children's galoshes, a toga made of an old pillowcase, and a Phrygian cap. "Yay! The whole family is being here! Do yous have lots of work for Dobby? Dobby is tired of not being tired."

Miranda's eyebrows shot up, but Hestia just forged ahead. "Dobby, do you know that hideous nightstand in the guest bedroom on the third floor?"

"Does yous means the one with the centaurs and merpeople—"

"Yes," Hestia said quickly. "Please wait until the children have turned around and then bring it down here."

"Awww," Harry said. "We were curious about that one but you've kept the door magically locked."

"I most certainly have," Hestia said in a tone that brooked no argument. "And how do you know I've kept the door magically locked?"

"Um…" Harry paused for a moment.

Hestia ignored him and turned to Hermione. "I don't believe Harry is even close to casting an Unlocking Charm yet, but you, young lady…"

"Humph," Hermione said. "We wanted to know what you were hiding from us. It sounded interesting."

"I'm disappointed in both of you," Sirius said. "There are some doors in this house that stay locked for good reasons. We don't want either of you sneaking into a room and getting hurt."

"This was just the nightstand," Harry said. "It's not going to hurt us."

"Not physically, at least," Hestia muttered. "How did you know it was just the nightstand, though? We could have used that room to store more dangerous things, even the books that discuss the…um…Innominate Entities. Harry, would you want Hermione getting her hands on those books?"

"No." Harry looked down at his feet.

"And Hermione, would you want Harry to get in there and accidentally touch a sword that could set him on fire?"

"Of course not!" she said. "You don't have any of those in the house, do you?"

"We're pretty sure we don't," Hestia said, "but that doesn't mean we didn't at one time."

Sirius thought for a moment. "I think that sword actually stuck itself to your hand and started drenching your skin in acid until you cut your hand off," he said.

"Oh, right," Hestia said.

The rest of them paled, even Miranda, which was no small feat.

"Do you see what I mean?" Hestia asked. "Now, I want you to promise me that you won't try to sneak around in here anymore."

"I promise," Harry said.

Hermione nodded. "I promise."

"Thank you," Hestia said. "Now, go stand on the far end of the duelling room while we set up the safety barrier here."

As soon as the children turned around and walked away, a nightstand popped up in front of the adults, causing the four of them to jump.

"Oh, right!" Hestia said. "Thank you, Dobby."

Miranda glanced at the nightstand and her eyebrows shot up. "Good Lord!" she said.

Hestia could tell the exact moment Isaac saw it, too, because his eyes widened and his cheeks pinked.

"It's…um…something, isn't it?" Sirius asked. "It's probably best if no children ever lay eyes on that thing again. My family is screwed up enough without this kind of help."

"It does make good raw material, though." Hestia waved her wand and the nightstand began to flatten out."

"By the way," Isaac said, "you did very well with the children just now."

"Thank you," Hestia said, doing her best not to lose focus on the transfiguration she was performing. "I learnt that from being a Prefect and watching you two."

"That's kind of you to say," Miranda said. "I think you're going to be a great mother one day."

"Oh…um…thank you." Hestia was glad she was slightly in front of the rest of them so they couldn't see her blush. Unfortunately, she did flub the Transfiguration a bit and have to recast her spell, but only Sirius would have noticed that.

"I think she will, too," Sirius said, his tone warm with affection and just a hint of teasing.

She flubbed the Transfiguration again and cast the spell yet a third time. He'd known that would happen, the prat. She would get him back for that statement later.

And possibly reward him, too. The two weren't mutually exclusive.

About thirty seconds later, she'd completed a freestanding piece of glass about seven feet high by seven feet wide that flared out at its base for stability. "There we go," Hestia said, and held her wand up to the glass. "Impervious. Infragilis. Vis ferri." She lowered her wand again. "That should hold up to anything those kids are likely to be able to cast."

"Nice work," Sirius said. "I admit that's probably safer than my approach."

She turned around and arched her eyebrows. "Probably?"

"Definitely." Sirius gave her a peck on the lips, stepped around the barrier, and strode to the other end of the room.

"Alright, kids, I think your parents are safe enough now," Sirius said. "Let's show them that you really can defend yourselves."

The children both nodded firmly.

"Please keep in mind that I haven't given them a full course in Defence Against the Dark Arts," Sirius told Hermione's parents. "I wanted to get them in a position where they could defend themselves effectively, not pass their Ordinary Wizarding Levels. That said, these two are extraordinary. They've already finished reading their entire Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts textbooks, so I didn't have to spend anywhere near as much time on theory as I would with normal students their age."

Harry grinned and Hermione blushed.

"Instead," Sirius continued, "I asked them to demonstrate each spell a few times. I didn't want to spend time teaching them to be perfect at a spell, so I wanted to focus on the spells that came naturally to each of them. In Harry's case, I also showed him a Second-Year spell that his mother was unusually good at, and he turned out to have an affinity for it, too."

He gestured with his wand and a dozen mannequins appeared in the room. "We'll start with Hermione. She doesn't have the same reflexes that Harry does, so I've taught her to play to her strengths. In time, those will include a formidable spell repertoire that will allow her to keep opponents off-balance, but at the moment she's best at memorization and timing, and I've been training her to keep moving while she fights. Hermione, will you demonstrate?"

She nodded, took a deep breath, and ran down the length of the room at a fast jog. As she did so, she aimed her wand to her right and wove it through the air, casting a steady stream of Freezing Charms, Impediment Jinxes, and Knockback Jinxes. She was panting by the time she'd hit six of the mannequins (using a total of a dozen spells) and Sirius called a stop to her attack.

"Thank you," he said. "You've done a great job and I don't want you to exhaust yourself."

"Are you sure?" Hermione asked. "I didn't get them all."

"You could run rings around most Second Years," Sirius said. "I'm sure. Get some rest."

She nodded and walked over to her parents, who both gave her a huge hug and pulled her behind the barrier.

"Harry's a bit different," Sirius said. "He has better reflexes, but needs to work on his precision. So I've been testing him by putting him under more active pressure. Just so you know, all of the spells I cast at him will be Stinging Hexes. They'll feel like no more than a pinch if they hit."

"Maybe a bit more than a pinch," Harry said.

"Then don't get hit," Sirius said without missing a beat.

Harry grumbled, but took a ready stance.

Sirius walked over to the mannequins and stood just to their right. "Go," he said, and loosed a Stinging Hex at Harry.

The boy dodged it and nailed a mannequin with a Freezing Charm. He dodged two more Stinging Hexes, failed to cast a Disarming Charm, dodged another Stinging Hex, then hit another mannequin with a Disarming Charm and sent it flying. After that, Sirius picked up the pace a little until Harry was getting off about one successful spell for every three of Sirius's. Harry's accuracy wasn't as good as Hermione's, but she hadn't had to contend with return fire. The occasional stray hex hit Hestia's barrier, but she was pleased to see that it held without damage.

About a minute later, Sirius called it quits when the final mannequin went down. Harry immediately put his hands on knees and began panting.

"Nice work," Sirius said. "Harry, I know you're probably frustrated right now—"

"You think?" Harry said in between pants.

"I promise you that at least half of your classmates are not going to be able to fight like that by the time you graduate," Sirius said.

Hestia noticed that Sirius had chosen not to mention the incident with the Severing Charm. That was probably for the best in the current company.

"OK, OK," Harry said. "I just feel like I'm so far behind compared to you."

"I've been doing this for longer than you've been alive, Pup," Sirius said. "Give yourself time."

"The bad guys have been doing it for longer than I've been alive, too," Harry replied.

"That's fair, but you have a crucial advantage over them: you know they can fight well, but they don't know that you can." Sirius turned back to the Grangers. "Any questions?"

"That was extremely impressive," Isaac said. "Is that sort of thing taught at Hogwarts?"

"More or less," Sirius said. "The school teaches theory and basic self-defence, but doesn't have formal instruction in combat like this."

"I see," Miranda said. "So you basically took a hedgehog approach to teaching them spells, rather than a fox approach?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Hestia asked.

"It's an old fable," Miranda said. "The idea is that the fox knows many tricks and the hedgehog but one. It's just that the hedgehog is very, very good at its trick."

"That's a good way to put it," Sirius said. "There are lots of spells Harry and Hermione don't really know right now, or just know the basics of. The ones they do know, though, are enough to win them fights against older children or unprepared adults."

Hestia nodded. "That's my experience of Hogwarts students, as well. I did exceptionally in Defence Against the Dark Arts and I'm nowhere near Sirius's level. Realistically, I'm not even sure I could have taken on Harry and Hermione simultaneously when I graduated."

"That must have been a lot of work to get to this level," Isaac said. "Great job, both of you."

"I agree!" Miranda said. "I hope you'll be able to take it easy from now on, though, and focus on some less-violent but still useful spells. Magic seems truly wonderful and I don't want you both to focus on only the destructive aspects."

"Don't worry," Sirius said. "I was just planning on teaching them basic household Charms until they left. They'll be useful in school and for keeping their rooms clean while they're there."

"Thank you," Miranda said.

Hestia stared at Sirius, but said nothing. He'd agreed to that request far more easily than she'd anticipated.

Later that evening, after the children had gone to bed and Miranda was reading in her own bed with her husband, she whispered to him, "Do you remember that nightstand from this morning?"

He turned to her, surprised. "Yes. It was quite…memorable."

"Um…I have to be honest, it was waaayyyy hotter than I was anticipating," Miranda said.

Isaac blushed. "I admit, I wouldn't have thought that sort of subject matter would be quite so…"

"Same here," Miranda said. "Isaac?"

He raised his eyebrows.

"Fuck me."

As he rolled her over, she once again thanked her lucky stars for having such an obliging husband.

The stroke of eleven the next morning found Sirius and Hestia back in the Black Library. (The stroke of nine would have found them elsewhere, repeating the activities that had caused them to oversleep in the first place.) Sirius looked at the results of his Indexing Charm and nodded to Hestia. "This one mentions Soul Magic, too. 'Seeing the Unseen' by Nicodemus Plunkett."

She returned the nod and wrote it on a bit of parchment. "Got it. Your family has a frankly terrifying collection of books on Soul Magic, do you know that? How did none of you become Dark Lords?"

He shrugged. "We were wealthy and powerful. Why would any of us need to become Dark Lords? We were close enough as it was and enjoyed living in luxury. Sure, Dark Lords get lots of power and minions, but they also tend to live on the run in hideouts or, if they're lucky, draughty castles full of nasty critters both mundane and magical."

"Somehow, that's even more terrifying," Hestia said. "How—"

She was interrupted by the floo bell. "Oh! Sirius, were you expecting a caller today?"

"No, I wasn't," he said. "Let's go see who it is."

"Alright." Hestia carefully put down her quill so as not to get ink on her list and hurried after Sirius into the floo room. Only a careful observer would have noticed they were both walking a little funny. Hestia had been mildly put out with him for messing up her transfiguration work the previous day…and extremely pleased about the manner in which he'd done so. That particular combination meant they were both a bit sore and short on sleep that morning.

"Good afternoon!" Remus said from the floo fire as they walked into the room.

"Moony!" Sirius said. "How have you been?"

"It's been an interesting few days," he said. "Would you mind if…oh, I'm sorry, Miss Jones. I didn't see you there. I don't wish to interrupt your work."

"My…um…cursebreaking work finished awhile ago," she said. "I'm around full-time now."

Remus raised his eyebrows at Sirius.

"What can I say?" Sirius said. "She even broke the curse on my heart."

"That was absolutely terrible," Remus said.

"It was pretty bad," Hestia agreed.

"Oi!" Sirius said.

"Moving along," Remus continued, "may I come over with an old friend from the Order? We need to discuss something."

"Sure." Sirius tapped the runes next to the fireplace and a rumpled-looking Remus stepped out, followed by a tall, stately witch he vaguely remembered…and who also seemed suspiciously rumpled.

"Welcome to my home," Sirius told her. "My name is Sirius Black, and this is my girlfriend, Hestia Jones."

"Thank you." The witch nodded politely. "My name is Emmeline Vance. I was in the Order of the Phoenix many years ago with Sirius, though our paths didn't cross much. I'm an Auror now."

"It's nice to meet you," Hestia said. "Remus, it's good to see you again."

"Likewise," Remus said. "Sirius, we need to talk about the Prophecy. We know, and we want to help."

"A prophecy?" Hestia asked incredulously.

Sirius stared at him. "What in the name of Merlin's filthy pants are you on about?"

An hour later, after Remus and Emmeline had finished explaining Remus's fake employment at the Ministry and the battle in the Department of Mysteries, Sirius took a deep breath and sighed. "I guess that's why the kids got so into martial arts and DADA training," he said. "But how did they find out? And how did the Carrows find out?"

"They claim the Dark Lord told them personally," Emmeline said, "which no one in the DMLE believes. The horrifying part is that it's probably true."

Hestia nodded. "Which means he's closer to obtaining a body than we thought, and may have already done so. Regarding the children, I'm not sure. I think they started getting more interested in that after our trip on Luna's birthday, when I met Remus."

"I think you're right," Sirius said. "That day sticks in my head because that was our first big fight."

Hestia blushed.

Sirius smiled at her and continued, "The only weird thing I can think of from that day was that they seemed traumatised when I went to find them in the back of the bookstore. They said they'd talked with Gwendolena and she'd passed on afterward. Do you suppose she said something about the Prophecy?"

"Wait, Gwendolena passed on?" Remus asked. "That's why I haven't seen her for months!"

"I'm sorry," Sirius said. "I got distracted by our confrontation afterward and didn't think to mention it."

"Confrontation?" Emmeline asked.

"Sirius was rightfully upset with me for not speaking up for him when was sent to Azkaban without a trial," Remus said. "He was right; he deserved more from me."

"Oh." Emmeline looked down at her feet. "I'm sorry, Sirius. You deserved more from me, too."

"I've come to terms with that," Sirius said firmly. "This is about Harry, not me."

Remus sighed. "I agree. Do you think we should bring him to hear the prophecy? If Old Mouldy, as Harry calls him, wants to know the Prophecy, then hearing it is going to put a target on the back of anyone who does."

"He already has a pretty big target on him," Sirius said. "On one hand, it'll be easier to protect him if we know, but on the other hand, it'll be harder to keep it a secret." He sighed. "The problem is that we have no idea what it says, so we can't judge whether to keep it."

Hestia raised her hand. "What if one of us listens and then asks someone else to Obliviate the knowledge from their mind if they don't want it?"

"Capital idea!" Sirius said. "I'll listen to it. Hestia, can you Obliviate me if I ask?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "I only know basic Mind Magics. I'd feel better if someone with more experience did that. Remus, can you?"

"Remus hasn't studied them much, either," Sirius said quickly. "Emmeline, have you?"

"I have," she said. "And don't worry, I know about Remus."

Sirius's eyebrows shot up. "You do?"

"She guessed quickly," Remus said.

"Good," Sirius said, packing several different meanings into the single word. "So we'll have Emmeline Obliviate me if I ask."

"Yes, but I suspect you won't want to," Remus said. "The only person who seems to know the full prophecy is Albus, and he's made such consistently poor decisions about Harry that I'm assuming we'll want to know it…and possibly publish it in the newspaper."

Sirius and Hestia laughed, but Emmeline just looked confused. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"It's a long story," Sirius said. "Harry will tell you if and when he's ready. Let's just say that Albus made some very poor decisions about Harry's life and leave it at that. Harry is safe now and that's what matters."

"But…oh, Merlin." She put her head in her hands. "That's why Albus dropped off the face of the Earth, isn't it? I…I don't want to believe it."

"I didn't, either," Remus said. "I owe him so much, and now I despise him."

Emmeline took a deep, shuddering breath and sat up again. "Fine. Sirius is right. Harry is the important thing here, not how I need to re-evaluate everything I thought I knew. I'll arrange a trip to the Department of Mysteries for us and Harry."

"And Hermione," Sirius and Hestia added simultaneously. Sirius continued, "she's Harry's best friend, a muggleborn witch, and possibly the brightest child born since Lily Evans Potter."

"This is some very dangerous information sought after by Death Eaters and possibly their reincarnated leader." Emmeline raised her eyebrows. "You want to bring a muggleborn witch not yet in Hogwarts with us?"

"You don't understand," Sirius said. "If you try to exclude her, Harry will flat-out refuse to go with us and then the two of them will break into the Ministry together and find it themselves."

Hestia nodded. "That sounds about right."

"And Merlin help anyone who gets in their way," Remus said. "Poor Eric is still recovering from his ordeal and I don't want to put him in their path."

"You're serious," Emmeline said.

"No, I'm Sirius," Sirius said.

Hestia leaned over and started banging her forehead into Sirius's shoulder.

"You learn to stop saying that word eventually," Remus told Emmeline.

Emmeline sighed. "Anyway, you're all absolutely sure you want to bring this Hermione with us?"

"I'm positive," Sirius said.

Hestia nodded emphatically. "I watched her manoeuvre Director Ragnok into having a goblin who tried to kill Sirius put to death. Trust us."

"What." Emmeline stared at her.

"Wait, what happened?" Remus said. "Sirius, are you alright?"

"I nearly wasn't," Sirius said, and gave them a short summary of what happened with the horcrux and the goblins.

Hestia chimed in with her perspective, too, and concluded by saying, "And that's what we were doing when you came over: indexing all of the books on Soul Magic in the Black Library so we could get to work on them and keep them away from Hermione until she's older."

"Oh." Emmeline fell weakly against the back of the chair in which she was sitting. "So you two nearly got used as a casus belli by greedy goblins, but it's alright now because a witch who isn't in Hogwarts yet talked the ruler of the goblin nation into murdering the subordinate who tried to kill you. And now you're researching nameless things I've heard only rumours of in the Darkest books I've ever read while trying to keep that same little witch from accidentally summoning one of those nameless things by researching them too much. This is all perfectly normal and everything is fine."

"Pretty much, yes," Sirius said. "One thing: don't keep calling them the same thing. We cycle through different ways to refer to them, like the 'innominate ones' or 'unidentified research projects.' Harry made up a whole list of ways for us to refer to them that I can Duplicate for you if you'd like."

"That doesn't make it better." Emmeline turned to Remus. "Can I just hide under a bed now? I don't think I can deal with anything else."

"I'd…um…recommend against that," Sirius said. "Hestia and I have this place mostly cleaned out, but I can't promise the giant spiders haven't come back in some of the guest rooms."

Dobby popped up next to where Sirius and Hestia sat on the couch, wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt, jean shorts, rubber galoshes, heavy-duty oven mitts, a full-face mediaeval young boy's bascinet with the face guard up, and carrying a short sword with a black blade as if it were a two-handed longsword. "Don't worry, Master Dogfather!" he said. "Dobby is spending an hour a day murderising spiders. All of the third floor guesteses bedroomses are clear for Mr. Wolfy's Vancy, and Dobby goes to clean out Regulus's room now!"

The elf slapped down the faceplate, raised his sword in salute to Sirius, and popped away again.

Emmeline stared into the empty space where Dobby had just been. "What the fuck, Remus? What the actual fuck is happening in my life now?"

Hestia leaned over and patted the other witch's knee. "It's alright. You get used to it."

"Are you sure you have a relationship and not just an epic case of Stockholm Syndrome?" Emmeline asked her.

"Oi!" Sirius said. "I was the one who was locked up all of those years, so if anyone is Stockholmed around here, it's me."

"Wait." Hestia frowned. "What does that make me, then?"

Emmeline turned to Remus. "Why are they fighting over who gets to have Stockholm Syndrome?"

"Oh, right," Remus said, "you said you didn't really know Sirius while we were in the Order. This is actually pretty normal for him and I'm glad he's found someone so well-suited to him."

"She really is wonderful," Sirius said, shooting Hestia a broad smile that she happily returned.

"Alright." Emmeline nodded firmly. "So I'll pretend all of this is completely normal until I either believe it or lose my mind and stop caring."

"I think that's a good plan," Remus said.

Hestia nodded. "It worked for me."

"I spent a full year pretending to be a stray dog in Hermione's neighbourhood," Sirius said. "After you do something like that, all of this seems pretty normal."

Emmeline sighed. "I guess I can't argue that."

When Remus and Emmeline finally returned to her flat after lunch (Dobby had insisted on making them all a Japanese lunch of simmered beef and burdock over rice, despite no one being quite clear on how he'd learnt to cook Japanese food), Emmeline sat down on her sofa and stared at her ceiling. Remus sat down next to her silently for a few minutes before speaking.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

"How can you bear to see him?" she replied. "He's polite, and he's happy we want to help young Mr. Potter, but he will never forgive us. Each time I looked at him was a reminder that I did something that can't be forgiven."

"I know what you mean," Remus said. "It hurts so much, but running away from pain ended up making my life and Harry's life far worse in the long run. This time I'm staying."

"Damn it, Remus, I partied and drank after He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named disappeared that night. I trusted Albus that Harry was safe. I'm furious with him for lying to us and furious with myself for believing him."

"I am, too," Remus said. "I don't understand how a man could be as kind as he was to me and as callous as he was to Harry."

"I don't, either," Emmeline replied. "Part of my job is understanding motives, and I don't understand this one at all. That worries me."

While Harry and Hermione were brushing their teeth the next night, she whispered "Midnight."

Harry nodded, surprised. He didn't think anything had happened that day worthy of one of their night-time discussions, since Hermione had seemed just as interested in a visit to the Hall of Prophecies that Friday afternoon as he'd been at the time. He still made his way downstairs at midnight, though.

Hermione awaited him on the sofa when he arrived, so he sat down next to her. "What's wrong?" he asked her.

"I was thinking some more about the trip to the Hall of Prophecies," she said. "I don't like it."

"You don't? Why?" Harry asked. "You were as interested as I was earlier."

"I've had second thoughts," she replied. "Mr. Lupin didn't say much about it, but it sounds like he and Miss Vance were in real danger there. I know those Death Eaters are in gaol right now, but what if others come?"

"That would be bad," Harry agreed, "but we'll have Sirius, Hestia, Remus, and Miss Vance all with us. That's a lot of firepower."

"True, but you will be an amazing target right then," Hermione said, tapping her right index finger in the air to emphasise 'amazing.' "There's a prophecy orb in there only you and Old Mouldy can pick up. If anyone else wants it, this will be the perfect opportunity to get it."

"I see what you mean." Harry frowned. "Do you think we shouldn't go?"

"No, but I think we need to take some extra precautions," Hermione said.

Harry's frown deepened.

"What's wrong?" Hermione said. "You're the one who snuck a wand to school. I thought you'd jump at this idea."

"It's not that. I was kind of hoping you'd talk me out of this."

"Really? Why?"

Harry sighed. "I'm already this Master of Death person. Now there's a prophecy that I had to pretend to know about, too? I feel like my whole future is closing in on me. Do I even get to decide who I am anymore?"

"Oh, Harry!" Hermione threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. "I'm so sorry. I didn't think of it like that."

"It's OK." Harry hugged her back, clinging to his one lifebuoy in an increasingly complicated world. "I was thinking about that tonight after I went to bed."

"We don't have to go." Hermione kept hugging him tightly as she spoke.

"I can't just hide from it forever," Harry said. "Besides, I had an idea..."

There was silence for a moment, with just the sound of crickets outside.

"Hermione?" Harry asked.

"Now I'm the one who's nervous," Hermione said.