A/N: Hey y'all! Surprise! In honor of the one year anniversary of this fic being posted (and, more importantly, my daughter's one year birthday!) I'm dropping an extra chapter this week! Additionally, because it's a 2 part-er, I hope to have part II up for you on Saturday! Enjoy!

They skirted down the path, falling into a single-file line that was led by Snowdrop, whose impatience to be done with the entire excursion took precedence.

She pointed down and to their left, where the path was wider.

"That way goes to the camp."

"We just need to keep on going straight and we'll get past it," Harry directed her. "Curry looked like he was way farther away."

In the distance, through the trees, the sun was beginning to dip below the hills, and the effect was a filigree fringe of scarlet and violet, only just discernable through the new growth on the trees.

Up ahead a rabbit darted out in front of their path, which caused Snowdrop to stop in her tracks and Harry to walk straight into her.

"Why'd you stop?"

"Are you blind? Look." she pointed to a couple of rabbit kittens that were failing to keep up with their mother, who'd made her way into the shrubs beside the trail.

"The mum ran right in front of me, didn't you see that?"

Harry glowered at Snowdrop and stepped around her. He pointed a finger at his glasses and tilted his head with his eyebrows raised, as though to say the reason why his vision was failing him in the low light ought to have been obvious.

"Oh. Yeah." She at least looked a little contrite. Not enough to make him feel any better.

"Pft!" Pushing past the both of them out front, Nicky began striding forwards, wasting no more time. "I don't have the whole rest of the day. I'm not looking for another Spielberg-length adventure. In fact—remember, Potter?—you told me this wouldn't take long."

Harry decided not to comment. He gestured forward (unnecessarily, because Nicky had already begun walking, and at a far faster clip than his sister had led them), and Harry jogged a bit to catch up.

They neared the river, which was evident because the sound of water rushing by eclipsed the sound of a small forest glade alive with the first awakenings and chitterings of the nocturnally inclined residents.

"Stop," Harry ordered, grabbing ahold of a handful of Nicky's shirt. "I don't want to startle him. You should let me go first and try and get him to come with us."

Sighing and glancing around their surroundings with obvious misgiving, Nicky's mouth twisted resentfully. Before he could voice his own objection, however, Snowdrop hissed her own.

"You're not just gonna dump us back here to wait on you!"

"Yeah!" For once, the siblings were in agreement. "That's not a bad idea, but I'm not keeping Snow and me back in the woods. We're coming out, but we'll stick close to the trees."

"I'm not keeping Snow and me," Snowdrop mocked in an obnoxious tone. "You're not keeping me anywhere—"

"Shut up! I already said we won't wait in the forest, you idiot!"

"If I'm waiting anywhere it's 'cause I want to, Nicky!"

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Go sit in the river if you want. I don't care."

Harry had already begun picking his way down the moderately steep rock face as their bickering voices faded back beyond the reach of his ears, quickly replaced by the sound of violent water over rocks.

In all likelihood they could keep at it like that for an hour or more.

He squinted and shielded his eyes with one hand as he got close to the water-slicked boulders that hugged the river, standing tall like a captain on a ship who was sighting out his looking glass.

"Bloody hell…"

Curry had headed north of them, trotting, horse-like, along the riverbed with his nose pressed to the ground.

From what little research Severus had done, Cur Dog was a sighthound of some sort. Likely a deer hound, if not some breed of mutt. His nose was hardly his best tool, but apparently it was good enough for the dog to put it to use in scouting for whatever it was he was hunting.

Harry loosed a sharp whistle, using the pointer and middle finger of both hands in the corners of his mouth as he'd been taught at some point by one of the Snape men (he couldn't recall which).

Curry's head picked up and his ears pricked. He spared a glance back over his shoulder, gave Harry a long look, and then continued picking his way forwards, his long tail a pendulum swinging to the left and right as he trotted.

Somewhere, a car's horn honked for a long moment, perhaps signalling that a collision had only been narrowly avoided. He had to assume it'd been avoided, at least, as he certainly would have heard the crash.

Pity that. It might have meant more business, not that there was any shortage of clients recently. Even so, as Snape so often took pains to remind him: money was money.

Harry sighed and looked about, spotting where Nicky and Snowdrop stood back at a distance, observing his movements and perhaps still bickering. They were still visible in the low light, and when he peered down the river, he saw the flame of the butane fire illuminating the grouping of men who crowded around it, perhaps telling stories, or otherwise merely chatting.

He checked Curry's progress once more, noting that the dog wasn't moving any more quickly than he had been, before he glanced south again. On the bridge, a car was parked where it oughtn't be, the make impossible to discern from the distance and lighting conditions. He could tell it wasn't the Marina, however, as he'd have recognised her silhouette anywhere. The headlights were on, even though the door stood open, and leaned over the fencing of the bridge was a figure, short enough that he had to stand with his feet on the bottom-most rail. He sounded as though he were yelling down to the encampment, presumably enduring jeers back if the restless movement of the campfire attendees was any indication.

Harry winced to see that the flaps of Papagena Hill's tent were now moving as she emerged and entered into the disagreement, apparently willing to join in her fellow tramps' back and forth with whomever had taken exception to their being there.

He shifted nervously from foot to foot. Curry had been meant to come to him when he whistled, but the dog had plodded on ahead, as though he couldn't be bothered with Harry at that moment, and things seemed to be growing complicated at the camp. The sun was all but set, and when he glanced to where the siblings he'd ventured with kept sentinel, he found the pair of them motioning to him, and Snowdrop looking as though she was pointing to her mother. They clearly wished for him to finish his errand quickly, as he'd promised them that they'd not have to deal with the troubled woman.

If Papagena Hill were to look up and spot her daughter and son, there was no telling what she might do.

Growling softly under his breath, Harry turned to Cur Dog one more time and whistled again, piercing the twilight with the noise. Nearby, birds flew from the trees, and he heard squawks of indignation from a family of geese that had also taken flight.

This time, instead of looking back at him, Curry actually broke into a sprint, covering ground far too quickly for Harry to have any hope of following him. He had handily scrambled up the far north bank and beyond the crest of the hill before Harry could say Jack Robinson, and the boy let out a disheartened sigh to see it.

He started back at a heavy plod, his footsteps feeling leaden.

Who knew when he might see the blasted dog again... and what if Curry didn't want to come home?

He tried not to think about that as he drew near enough to Nicky and Snowdrop to hear them arguing over whether they should start back without him.

The two had taken up cover to the north side of some trees. They were exposed to Harry's vision, but should anyone from the camps look down the embankment, they'd likely not be easy to spot, which must have been their hope. They'd wished to avoid the notice of their mother, but now, with the woman loudly screaming epithets at the figure on the bridge, the siblings were impatient to leave. Especially once it became clear that whoever stood remonstrating with the tramps from the bridge had retreated and was no longer there to serve as a distraction.

"I'm going back, I don't care what either of you say. If my... if my other brother is still out looking for Potter, here, then I'm not risking it," Snowdrop told them both. She looked at Harry and scowled as blackly as she could.

Huh. It really was amazing that Harry had never noticed the familial resemblance before.

Nicky, loathe as he was to agree with his sister, found another route to take, even if it came to the same conclusion.

"I really did want to see what Cynthia was bringing home for dinner tonight. I didn't plan for the film to go any longer than it did..."

"Just say you want to leave too! Why can't you just say it?"

"We should go," Harry broke into the argument, seeming to shock them both, if their looks of twin surprise were anything to go off of. "I didn't like the looks of that argument on the bridge. And now your mum is out of her tent. Curry's run off again..." he shook his head in disappointment. "Let's just go."

They started back up the embankment, using the craggy face of the rocks to climb, and grasping onto the exposed roots and sideways lying trunks until they were clear of the rocks and were once more safe in the protective embrace of the thickly wooded glade.

Snowdrop sighed with disgust. "I can't see anything! Where's the path?"

"I think it's there," Nicky answered, pointing somewhere to their right.

"That's just a clearing, you—"

"It's over here," Harry interrupted, beginning to lead the three of them. He picked his way through the underbrush until they came to the narrow footpath. It had been freshly trodden by their own canvas pumps only fifteen minutes or so before. "See? There's a print from me. I can tell, 'cause the tread on my shoe's worn away at the toe."

"What? Can't your kuya buy you a new pair of shoes?" Snowdrop asked, her voice dripping both sarcasm and scorn.

"They still fit alright," Harry defended, feeling slighted on Severus' behalf. "Sev'rus said he'd get me a new pair if I got a hole in them or if they're too small. And he said he'd definitely buy me new ones for the new school year," Harry finished, only barely restraining himself from adding 'so there.'

"You mean you only have one pair!?" She continued to needle him, looking disgusted as she inspected her dirty—but new—white plimsolls. "Gammy always makes sure I have new shoes—"

"I have a pair for Mass," Harry argued. "They're too nice for school and the shop."

"I only have one pair," Nicky shrugged. "I bet if I wanted, Cynthia would buy me another, but who needs more than one pair of shoes?" He asked, rhetorically. The answer was clear from his tone of voice. Only a girl would care about something stupid like that.

"You've got a pair of wellies at Gammy's house," Harry put in, just to be contrary.

Nicky shook his head, which Harry could barely make out in the dark. "Those aren't really mine. I share them with you and sometimes Hill. Gammy has lots of pairs of boots for whoever's around."

They'd made decent headway up the path, and Harry estimated they must have been at least half the distance back. Everything looked different in the dark, of course, but he could have sworn that just up ahead was where the mother rabbit had interrupted their initial trek to the river.

Behind him, he heard the scuffling of something small moving through the brush on the trail and then the improbable sound of Nicky screaming (like a girl, which Harry didn't think the other boy would appreciate hearing) behind him.

"Bloody hell," he cursed again, glad that Severus wasn't there to hear his turn toward vulgarity. "What is it now?"

"A r-r-rat! I s-saw a r-rat!"

Snowdrop snorted as all three came to a stop. "How could you have seen a rat? I can't even see Potter's glasses, and they're big enough that you could aim a rock at them—"

"Hey!"

"It was t-there," Nicky struggled, backing away from the spot he pointed at until he bumped into both Harry and Snowdrop, causing the three to crowd into a giant mass. "I s-saw its tail!"

"I bet it was just a rabbit again." Snowdrop pushed her brother away from her, causing the older boy to stumble. "And don't touch me, Henderson—"

"That's it, let's go," Nicky declared, pushing past both the other children as he began striding up the narrow footpath.

He didn't make it four steps.

Crashing through the dense shrubs came the large body of a four-legged beast, panting and snorting loudly enough that Harry was amazed they'd not heard him before.

"Curry!" He reached a hand out, hoping that the dog might smell his familiar, friendly scent and calm down. "Come on, boy—"

Curry darted past the three of them, his stride not dissimilar to that of a thoroughbred being driven forwards by a relentless jockey. His sprint nearly knocked Harry down as he brushed past, and Harry had to grasp at the rough bark of a nearby oak to right himself.

"Come back!" He struggled to his feet and started after the dog, gaining on him simply because Cur Dog was struggling not to trip over the exposed roots and stones that littered the path.

Before the dog could disappear again, Harry launched himself onto the hound's back, looping his thin arms around the mongrel's thick neck and allowing himself to be drug a few feet through the dirt as Curry tried to give chase to whatever it was he'd decided to pursue.

Finally, sensing he'd lost his momentum, Harry heard the dog whine, and could feel him slowing into a trot that then came to a full stop.

"There, there," Harry carefully removed his arms from Cur Dog's neck, stroking his head and shoulders to try and calm the tired beast. "It's me! You remember me, don't you?"

He'd miscalculated. Although Curry treated Harry to a doleful look that spoke to recognition, no sooner had Harry removed his hands from the dog's shoulders than did Curry take the opportunity to sprint off into the darkness beyond the path.

"NO!"

"Give it up, Potter," Snowdrop called, some twenty paces away now, back where the short scuffle had begun originally. "He's not coming back! He wants to live out here!"

Staring out into the black nothingness, Harry felt his hopes of reclaiming his beloved dog dashed against the reality that Cur Dog did indeed seem utterly disinclined to come back with them. Even in the warm, early summer evening, he felt as though the ground beneath him was growing cold.

Perhaps it was just the frigidity of his disappointment.

"I... I'm coming back with dog biscuits next time," he declared, standing and brushing dirt and small pebbles from the seat of his shorts.

"I don't care what you come back with next time, so long as it's not me."

Harry's fists clenched at his sides upon hearing Snowdrop Hill's latest unnecessary interjection. He felt his fury flushing his cheeks, only strengthened by his disappointment. "SHUT UP, SNOWDROP!"

"Shhh, shh, shhh!"

Harry and Snowdrop's bickering ceased as Nicky held a finger to his lips and shoved at his sister until she was standing a foot off the path proper. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Snowdrop whispered back, impatience colouring her tone.

Harry finally reached the other two, rubbing his palms where the skin had abraded from contacting the path. "What is it?" he hissed.

"I hear twigs crunching, don't you? Listen," Nicky whispered, daring to cover both his sister and Harry's mouth with a palm each.

Collectively, they strained their ears until they did indeed hear the approach of something large enough to disturb the detritus on the path ahead.

Snowdrop shoved her brother's hand from her face and hissed, "You don't think it's her do you?"

"M-maybe it's one of the others?" Nicky answered, sounding unconvinced. "There's at least half a dozen..."

A soft, high-pitched voice split the darkness, sounding uncertain and worried, to boot. "Harry? Harry are you there?"

"That's Ms. Tibbons!" He gasped. He made to push himself away from the trunk of the tree he'd been gripping and step forward onto the footpath.

From behind him a hand gripped him by seizing the material of his shirt in a death grip, preventing him from moving into the woman's line of sight.

"She's prolly been sent by Severus! You said they were like together, didn't you?" Nicky mouthed, just loud enough that Harry could hear him. "If you show yourself, she'll find all of us, and we'll all be in trouble—!"

"Oh, all of us? Instead of just me?" Harry whispered back, rolling his eyes.

"Well, yeah..."

"You never get in trouble any way, no matter what you do, and I don't care what happens to Snow—"

Snowdrop emitted a strangled gasp of outrage. "Hey!" She cried, too loudly.

"Is someone there? Harry? Please come out! Severus is really really worried about you—!"

They heard a loud crash and cursing coming from their teacher, which was surprising enough that Nicky raised his eyebrows and made a face to express being mildly scandalised as he mouthed the word "Wow..."

"—goddamned shoes!" They heard the sound of something flying through the woods beside them. Some small object.

Harry winced. She'd said the bad one. The one Severus didn't like at all, and which saw the man blanching with regret and shame whenever the older wizard let it slip by accident, himself. (Which actually happened rather often).

Snape hated it so much that Harry wouldn't have been surprised if he'd someday come to learn that Severus felt the need to visit the confessional every time the curse crossed his lips. The degree of his antipathy for the word was second only to that epithet the man had once called Harry's mother. Mudblood.

"Probably he's not here..." she cursed some more, and Snowdrop giggled upon hearing it, her hands pressed into her mouth as the three children listened in on their school teacher throwing a fit to herself.

Feeling a bit of pity for his teacher, who probably was out looking for him out of genuine concern, Harry shook his head to the other two.

"This is stupid," he announced. He brushed Nicky's hand off of himself and resumed his stride toward the foot path, crashing through some low bushes as he did so and undoubtably signalling to Ms. Tibbons that she wasn't alone.

"Har—"

"It's me," he affirmed, before she could finish. Then, feeling churlish and uncharitable, he looked over his shoulder. "And Nicky, and Snowdrop—"

"Shut up, Potter!"

"She probably heard that," Harry answered. "You said it loud—"

Snowdrop let out an aggravated little scream and followed Harry out of the thickly wooded area, pulling leaves from her hair when she emerged and glaring first at Harry and then at their teacher, who stood looking at the pair with her mouth open in a small 'o' of surprise.

She looked a mess. Her own perennially teased hair was mussed about her face, probably from the higher-up branches grabbing at it, and she stood shoeless on the path, with one, long run in her stockings going up her left leg, from her big toe to her knee, and dirt caked on her shins from her fall.

"You coming, Nick?"

The trees beside them sighed a put-upon sigh before they parted to reveal the last member of their outfit. He glared at Harry.

"I'm never going to Bluebritches with you again, Potter. And don't call me 'Nick.'"

Harry felt a stab of regret at that pronouncement, but he figured it may have been offered in the same vein as many of Severus' passionate oaths. Uttered in the heat of anger, and then conveniently forgotten.

It was always best, Harry found, to simply act as though it had never been said in the first place. Doubtless he and Nicky would find themselves in the old cinema again. Probably as soon as they were released from whatever punishment would be visited down upon their heads for having wandered off to the cinema without permission in the first place.

"That's all three of you?" Tabby sighed, shaking her head at them. "There's no more kids hiding out in the trees, are there?"

"No, Ms. Tibbons," Snowdrop grumbled. "I was only going to try and find them though! And then Potter here insisted on going to the river 'cause he thought he saw his dog! I wasn't gonna' leave him and Nicky on their own when you and... and er... the others went out to look for him—"

"You shouldn't have left the shop, Snowdrop," Ms. Tibbons scolded, shaking her head so that little bits of blonde frizz briefly obscured her features. "If your father and brother had known that you were missing too they'd have been very very concerned."

Snowdrop muttered something too low for them to hear, but Harry figured it probably wasn't very nice at all.

Ms. Tibbons sighed and looked out into the darkness beyond, her face barely visible for the pale light of the partial moon above. "I bet there's no use in looking for my shoes... let's just get back to the road. The shop's not too far to walk to from here. I suppose we'll wait there for Severus to come back, otherwise I'm not certain how to let him know I've found you lot."

"When we get back, can I call my Gammy?" Nicky asked, finally seeming at least a bit contrite.

"You'd better," Ms. Tibbons scolded, indicating that they ought to start marching. "We'll be making calls to Mrs. Hill, and to your parents too, Nicky. Not a good way to start off your summers," she shook her head, disappointment dripping from every word.

"Where did the two of you go?" She inquired, as they crunched along the path. The woman kept wincing with every step as pebbles and sticks bit into the soft flesh of her unprotected feet. "You can't have spent hours just at the river—"

"They went to Bluebritches," Snowdrop tattled, sounding resentful. "It's not the first time either—"

"Hey!"

"They go, and there's a boy in the box office that lets them see the films that aren't rated for them—"

"Shut up! She went too, Ms. Tibbons! Snowdrop came with us once to see Die Hard!" Nicky yelled, his voice traveling far.

Harry nodded, even though he was at the back of the group and no one saw. "Yeah, she's just mad she wasn't invited!"

Ms. Tibbons glanced around at the both of them, looking as though she were caught between amusement and irritation. "I ought to tell you that that's terribly mean to exclude your sister, Mr. Henderson, but none of you should have been sneaking off to the cinema to see those sorts of films. Miss Hill, perhaps you should consider yourself lucky, in that case."

"Why?" The girl pouted and slumped over as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm gonna get in trouble anyway."

"Only because you chose to leave the shop on your own and come looking for them, when you knew that all of us were already out looking. What if you'd not found them? What if then we'd lost you instead?"

"I knew they were gonna go to the cinema," Snowdrop argued, refusing to accept defeat. "Either they were gonna be there, or on their way back."

Finally having had enough, Ms. Tibbons turned to glare at the unrepentant girl. "In that case, you should have told one of us to look at The Bluebritches, instead of letting us all go off looking in different places."

They walked in silence for several moments after, all lost in their thoughts.

"I really wish I had thought to bring the torch from my boot..." Ms. Tibbons complained. "Ow!"

All four stopped. Ms. Tibbons hopped on one foot for a moment, evidently having trod on something painful.

"What's... this is my shoe!" She proclaimed, holding up the object she'd tripped over and examining it in wonder. "I didn't think I threw it this far..."

"You didn't throw it in that direction either," Nicky added, sounding uneasy.

Harry examined the tree line, his eyes passing over the stout trunks from right to left...

(To be continued in Part II...)