O

HADES

Death

September was fast approaching, but for the first time, Hope was not looking forward to the new academic year. School meant returning to Hogwarts where the staff viewed them as children, instead of being with her family who treated her increasingly like an adult. School meant leaving the privacy of her room to share with girls who despised her. School meant not seeing as much of her friends, for Dom and Roxanne would no doubt be submerged in NEWT level coursework the minute term started.

On the last day of the holidays, Roxanne brought Hope some news that made the prospect of going back to Hogwarts a touch more inviting.

"I've got some gossip," she said in a singsong voice, waltzing out of the Lupin's fireplace and smirking at Hope and Dom, who were preparing a pile of food and drink to take down to the beach.

"From Morella?" Dom enquired. None of them had any idea how Morella Flint managed to have the inside word on the lives of every student in Hogwarts but they welcomed the snippets of news anyway.

"Yep! And guess who just broke up with his girlfriend?"

Hope shook her head with a wide yawn.

"I dunno."

"Come on, guess. I'll give you a hint. You're going to be pretty happy about it!"

"Adam? Seriously?"

Roxanne nodded, but Hope was careful not to appear too eager. She had all but given up on Adam after last term, and despite the instant flash of delight she experienced on hearing Roxanne's news, she also felt ashamed of it. She was not going to rely on a boy to bring her happiness.

"I told you," she said. "I'm not going to be his second best rebound option. He and Stella were together for a whole year, it wasn't a brief fling. I should move on."

"Yeah, but get this," Roxanne persisted. "Morella said that she broke up with him and it was because she got the feeling he likes someone else. That is definitely you."

For all her forced pride, Hope couldn't help but feel a further leap of joy at this. Maybe... next year... But she still shook her head.

"It's not definitely me. How does Morella know all this stuff, anyway? She isn't even in their house. Or their year."

"By being nosy and completely indiscreet."

"Hmm, it's a trait that's rubbing off on you," Hope grumbled. "Why don't you focus on your own relationships. Haven't you got enough going on in that department?"

"Nah." Roxanne reached over to grab a handful of chocolate frogs that were sitting on the counter. "I don't think I'm going to bother with boys at all this year, to be honest. It's much more fun to play matchmaker with you. Dom too. If I can."

Dom went bright red. "I think not," she said, taking most of the frogs back from Roxanne and shoving them in the bag.

"Oh come on! I'm great at fixing people up. You haven't been interested in anyone since Cal left."

Hope's ears pricked up with sudden interest. She had never found out what had happened between Dom and Cal, and every time the subject hinted at arising Dom changed it at once. Hope had let the matter drop, but it hadn't dampened her curiosity.

"What went on with you two?"

Dom's cheeks were still flushed with colour.

"Nothing."

Roxanne made a sceptical noise and Hope hesitated. Dom was always so evasive when it came to personal topics, and didn't take kindly to being pressed for information, but she also had a terrible tendency to bottle emotions up when she shouldn't.

Oh, and you don't?

Hope ignored the voice in her head, which was becoming more frequent as time went on, and fixated on Dom.

"Fine," Dom said at last. "He liked me. A lot. I guess I liked him back. But I told him it couldn't happen."

"Why not?"

Dom hesitated.

"He was going off to America at the end of the year, wasn't he? What was the point?"

"Is that the only reason?" Hope demanded.

Dom exhaled and shoved the last bottle into the bag with a clunk.

"No one really wants to go out with me," she said, zipping up the now full bag with unnecessary force. "They'd be ridiculed by the whole school. You know what people are like, what they would say. I couldn't face it, and there was no way I was going to put Cal through that either. Or anyone."

"Would it matter?" Hope said, mystified. "If they liked you and you liked them? Cal would never have said he liked you if it wasn't true, and I don't think other students would have dared be mean with him around. Not after he nearly got Elodie expelled."

Dom blinked at her.

"What do you mean?"

Hope had always wondered if Dom had known.

"It was him. He was the one who went to Flitwick about Elodie bullying you. That's how the teachers found out."

This was clearly news to Dom and for a second she was wrong footed. Hope tried again.

"I'm just saying-"

"Drop it, Hope." Dom glared at her. "He's miles away now. I haven't heard from him since he left, and I don't even care anymore."

"That's not the point!" Hope exclaimed. She had heard drop it from Dom far too many times. "It doesn't matter who it is. You shouldn't feel like you can't be with someone because of what other people will think. It's the people who do love you that matter, not the ones-."

She broke off as Roxanne nudged her sharply and jerked her head to the side.

Her father was standing in the kitchen doorway. Hope hadn't realised he was already back from dropping some papers at the Potter's house and was now wishing she had kept her voice down. Dom would not want the details of her personal life broadcasted for the world to hear.

"Hi Dad." Hope summoned her usual breezy attitude. "We're going down to the beach. Come on," she muttered. "Let's go outside. We've only got one more day to enjoy the weather. It'll be so much colder when we're back at school."

She gave her father a bright smile as she passed him, but he didn't notice. His eyes were on Dom instead, an odd expression etched into the lines of his face, and as the three girls reached the front door, he spoke.

"Dom, can I have a word."

Dom turned in surprise and Hope instantly felt suspicious. He had one of those looks about him, the look that always preceded a talk. She had no desire for Dom to endure some excruciating speech because of her own big mouth.

"Dad, Dom doesn't want you lecturing her," she said. "She wants to enjoy the beach."

"I'm not going to lecture her," Remus replied calmly. "I just want to talk to her for a minute."

"It's fine," Dom laughed a little, as Hope opened her mouth to protest further. "I'll see you guys down in the cove."

Not at all reassured, Hope followed Roxanne out of the door.

"So!" Roxanne said as they approached the cliffs. She did not seem to find the situation odd. "Adam. I'm sure he likes you, Hope. He was always looking at you last term, wasn't he? Any time you speak to him, he compliments your flying. In boy talk, that's the highest praise there is. And now he's single. You've got to get in there before he ends up with someone else."

"I'm not sure how good I am at getting in there." Hope said doubtfully.

"You're going to have to try," Roxanne declared. "He's never going to find anyone half as amazing as you, so you'd only be doing him a disservice by letting him get with someone else."

It was so unlike Roxanne to pay her a serious compliment that it took Hope a few moments to realise what she had said.

"Are you finally growing a sentimental side?" she said in astonishment.

"I am capable of showing appreciation for my friends," Roxanne said, tossing her hair back as they settled themselves down in their usual spot and, with a wicked grin, pulling out a hipflask. "In more ways than one! Here, try it, it's the proper, strong stuff I was telling you about. Managed to sneak some from Dad's collection."

Hope gagged.

"No way. Not after last time. I only had three sips and the first thing Mum asked me when I got home was had I been drinking. She must have super powers."

"What did you tell her?"

"I said no but I don't think she believed me. I'd better not risk it."

"Suit yourself." Roxanne looked disappointed but didn't press her, taking a swig herself.

Dom joined them ten minutes later.

"What did Dad want?" Hope demanded at once. "He didn't embarrass you, did he?"

"No, of course not." Dom's tone was casual. "He was telling me about an article he's been working on. I asked him about it the other day."

Hope could tell this was a lie, although she didn't challenge it. Dom didn't seem upset. If anything, she was more cheerful than before and Hope had long ago learnt that certain aspects of Dom's life were too private even to be shared with her best friends. With no desire to teeter towards a row on the last day of the holidays, she accepted her story without question.

"Considering a career in Magizoology?" she enquired, eyebrows raised.

"Maybe," Dom said. "I've always found it interesting, so it's definitely an option. Not that I have to think about it quite yet."

"You'll have to think about it soon," Hope objected. "You'll be doing your NEWTs before you know it then you'll need to start applying for jobs."

At this, Dom and Roxanne exchanged looks.

"What?" Hope said, sensing the sudden tension in the air.

"We kind of need to tell you something," Roxanne said haltingly. "It's not a secret, and we haven't been keeping it from you. We only decided properly in the last couple of days."

"Decided what?"

"We want to go off travelling for a year," Dom blurted out, after another pregnant pause. "Once we graduate. Assuming the curse panic has died down. We've been thinking about it on and off for ages, but the other week we read into it properly – it's pretty affordable, and we might be able to work along the way."

Roxanne was biting her lip, her eyebrows furrowed in uncharacteristic consternation as she gazed imploringly at Hope.

"We don't want to go without you," she said. "It won't be the same and we wish you could come. It's just that if we don't do it now, we might never get a chance to, you know."

Hope fixed a smile on her face, ignoring the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "That's great!" she said. "Of course you should! I'll miss you, but you can't pass up an opportunity like that. You'll bring me back some exciting presents, I hope."

She was careful to keep her face neutral, her tone of voice bright-with-just-an-edge-of-disappointment, and she knew, by the relieved expressions on her friends' faces, that she had been convincing. But when she had said goodbye to them later that day, after several long hours spent discussing their plans and destination ideas, her spirits had sunk to an all time low, the happiness brought on by Roxanne's news about Adam now extinguished. She had been prepared for them leaving school, but had imagined that she would at least see them every month, in Hogsmeade, during the holidays, and that they might be able to come and watch her quidditch matches. Being on the other side of the world was a different matter entirely.

oOo

September

The lack of journey from King's Cross made it all the harder to get back into "school mode". The next day, Hope said goodbye to her parents and Teddy, dutifully waited by the fireplace until her allotted time, stepped into the green flames and landed ten seconds later on the floor in Flitwick's office. Flitwick greeted her with his usual affable air, ticked her name off his list and indicated that she should make her way straight up to her dormitory. Her luggage had already been sent over, for which Hope was grateful. Lugging a heavy trunk up to Ravenclaw tower would have been an effort in her mediocre state of preseason fitness.

Marion was the only one in the dormitory when Hope entered. She looked up from her unpacking and grinned.

"Hey Hope!"

"Hi!" Hope was warmly surprised to be met with such a genial smile as Oompa shuffled towards Marion to greet her. "How were your holidays?"

"Not bad," Marion replied, as she finished putting away her clothes and sat down on her bed, stroking Oompa's bright fur. "Mum and Dad are being extra careful not to catch the curse - or the virus, is what we are calling it in the muggle world. I warned them how serious it is, so we didn't get out much, but it was fine. We're lucky to have a big house and garden, so we were able to be together, just the three of us. Muggles have this program called Zoom. It's a way of speaking to friends and family when we can't see them in person."

"My grandad was talking about that!" Hope exclaimed. "He's not really my grandad, but he's as good as. He's obsessed with all muggle inventions, especially since he retired, and he was trying to convince us all that we should use this Zoom thing, and get Why-Fly in our houses."

"I think you mean WiFi," Marion giggled. "And did you?"

Hope rolled her eyes. "No because Granny Molly pointed out that we have way more effective ways of speaking to the people we want to. And she said that our houses would be too magical for this Why-Fye thing to work. Grandad was very disappointed though. He has an old computer that he got years ago and he spent ages trying to get it to start up. No luck. He's so impressed that muggles always know how to work technology, just like that."

"It's not all muggles," Marion assured her. "My grandparents can't work anything." She started telling Hope about her grandpa's escapades with his new mobile phone and Hope, laughing along with her, was starting to wonder if she might have a school friend when Roxanne and Dom left, after all. Then Elodie and Natalie entered the dormitory.

"Come on, we're going for a walk in the grounds," Elodie said imperiously. "Not you, Hopeless," she added, throwing a scathing glance at Hope.

"Like I'd want to come," Hope bit back. Marion, as she always did during their exchanges, seemed embarrassed, but followed her so called friends out of the dormitory.

Hope sighed and flopped down on her bed. She shouldn't be surprised, and she certainly couldn't be offended. She hadn't ever made an effort with Marion, except for that brief period during her second term at school, and it was much too late to make amends now, even though she was starting to realise that Marion might have been happy to turn down Elodie's friendship, if Hope had only approached the issue in a rational, tactful way.

Like Teddy or Dom would have done.

But she hadn't. She had turned on Natalie and Elodie, left the situation hanging with Marion, and the two of them had cohabited in a courteous but uncomfortable limbo ever since; not quite enemies, definitely not friends.

There was nothing she could do about it all these years and months later. The damage was done, and Hope was far too proud to make an effort now because Dom and Roxanne were leaving. She was going to have to manage as best she could, when the time eventually came for her two best friends to graduate Hogwarts.

O

One crisp morning in the fourth week of term, Hope meandered down to her Care of Magical Creatures lesson, late as usual, but not troubling to pick up her pace. The rest of Ravenclaw house were already there as she approached, and the last few Slytherins were slouching over.

Hagrid stood waiting for them.

"Gather round!" he called. "Come on Hope, hurry up! Right. Bit o' an unusual lesson today." He beamed round at them all and Hope felt apprehensive. From what she had heard from her family, Hagrid's teaching methods had improved ten fold since his first days as a professor, but he was still prone to springing odd, unpleasant or downright terrifying creatures on his classes every now and then. She couldn't see any monsters in sight today, to her relief. In fact, everyone was crowded round an enclosed paddock that contained nothing at all.

"First off, can anyone see anything over there in the field?" Hagrid waved one of his giant arms behind him.

Blank expressions greeted this question, apart from Cadmus Flint, who tentatively put up his hand.

"Are you going round the twist?" Elodie demanded. She had never seen reason to treat Hagrid with the respect she showed other teachers. "There's nothing in that field."

"You can have five points from Ravenclaw for that, Carmichael, and be grateful it isn't more," Hagrid grunted. "There is sommat in that field. Sommat called thestrals."

Hope knew all about thestrals, even if she couldn't see them. She kept her hand down as Hagrid asked the class for explanations on these unusual creatures, before offering them more detailed information on the Hogwarts herd. Cadmus's face was growing paler as Hagrid talked. He stared at a spot in the distance, his eyes moving slightly, fixated on something none of the rest of them could see.

O

"What's up?" Dom asked, briefly looking up from her books, as Hope joined her two friends in the courtyard at break.

Hope slumped down next to them.

"We've just done thestrals in Care of Magical Creatures. Was pretty grim."

Dom nodded in sympathy. "I remember doing them. They're interesting, but it's so heavy."

"It's a weird thought, isn't it," Roxanne mused, casting aside the book she had been reading and turning to Hope. "Especially when you think that all our parents and most of the teachers can see them, after the war. No one could see them in our year though."

"No one?" Hope stared at her, surprised by this.

"No one in Slytherin or Ravenclaw. We had those classes together. There might have been in Hufflepuff or Gryffindor, I suppose."

"Not Morella?"

"Morella?" Roxanne repeated, confused. "No. Why do you ask?"

"Cadmus can see them."

Roxanne was quite shocked at this.

"Cadmus can see thestrals? Are you sure?"

"I'm not likely to mistake Cadmus for someone else, am I? He's doubled in size this holiday."

"No - I know. Weird though. Morella's never mentioned that."

Hope shrugged and half heartedly pulled out some homework to be getting on with. She was behind already. "Maybe she doesn't know."

"Surely you know if your younger brother sees someone die?" Roxanne persisted.

"Maybe she didn't tell you." Hope wasn't in the mood for one of Roxanne's wild theories on an issue that was bound to have a simple explanation.

Roxanne was not convinced. "Maybe. She tells me most things though, as you know. Far too much information. She's the worst gossip in the world. Tells me all kinds of family secrets that she definitely shouldn't. I'm sure she'd have said at some point over the last few years if she knew."

"Could he have been pretending to see them?" Dom suggested, flicking through her copy of Advanced Defensive Strategies.

Hope thought back to Cadmus's stricken face. "No," she said. "He wasn't lying. He could see them. I'm certain of that."

oOo

October

Tonks was coming to the conclusion that being infected with the Narcoviral curse was incredibly tiresome. Being sectioned off in the quarantined area of the office was bad enough, particularly as Bentley, recently confirmed positive, was now confined to their side as well, and with him came his bad temper. She couldn't take part in the more interesting assignments, which would lead them into muggle areas, therefore was stuck with office duty and paperwork most of the time. And despite no one being sure of how the curse was transmitted from wizard to wizard, colleagues gave her a wide berth and shrank back whenever she spoke to them. One side of her couldn't blame them. The other side of her wanted to slap them all for their unsubtle revulsion to an issue that was entirely out of her control.

"I wish they wouldn't make it quite so obvious how keen they are to get out of our company," she lamented to Harry on the first day of October.

Harry grunted in reply, distracted by other matters beyond the trivial reactions of their paranoid colleagues. It was then that Tonks noticed a MoSS parchment lying on the desk in front of him.

"What's the matter?"

"I haven't told the team this yet," he said, drumming two fingers on top of the grey paper. "Hoping to hold off for now, but they'll have to find out soon enough."

Rarely had a pronouncement sounded so bleak.

"Christ, what now?"

"There... have been four reported cases of wizards infected with the Narcoviral curse dying suddenly in the last month. Two in North America, one in China, one in South Africa."

She digested this information before replying.

"Because of the curse? Or from a separate cause?"

"We don't know yet. The evidence at the moment points to them displaying similar symptoms to muggles who are ill just before they died, which indicates that it is caused by the curse itself. In all cases they were alone overnight and died before treatment could be made available. You can read the report if you like. Higgs collated it this morning."

He slid the grey document over to her and Tonks skimmed through it before throwing back her head and growling at the ceiling.

"For fuck's sake. If this lot get wind of that they won't want us in the same building."

"Which is why I'd rather not tell them yet. Hysteria is not going to help the cause."

Tonks was contemplating how long Harry might be able to avoid informing his team of this new, unwelcome development, when a puff of smoke appeared in the air above Harry's desk and a letter tumbled down onto its surface.

"Another MoSS update?"

She could already tell that it wasn't. It was on pale parchment for one thing, not grey. Harry had already read it and snorted in disgust.

"It's for you. From Savage."

"Savage?"

She had barely given their former superior two thoughts in the madness of past months, and was not enamoured with his renewed presence in her mind now. Her expression matched Harry's distaste as she read the memo for herself.

Tonks. Signs point to a rogue boggart in the abandoned barn up on Box Hill. Should be sorted ASAP before it migrates to Muggle dwellings in the next village.

"Is he being serious?" Tonks expostulated. "Box Hill is right near his house. He can't go and deal with it himself? A boggart? Something a thirteen year old Hogwarts pupil could tackle?"

"Standard Savage though, isn't it?" It was indeed. There former boss had always been pushing work onto other people, Tonks especially, no doubt because he'd worked with her the longest. The two had ended on bad terms anyway because of the circumstances surrounding Greyback's death, and neither Harry or Tonks were altogether surprised by his passing of the buck now.

"Patch it off on one of the juniors," Harry sighed, but she shook her head.

"Nah, it's fine. I'll go. I do need an outing, to be fair, and Box Hill is far enough away from the village. I'll take Dan with me. He's getting cabin fever cooped up with Bentley all day."

"Alright. If you say so. Be careful."

O

Dan Gunnar was indeed delighted to have a practical assignment to partake in, however trivial, and so he and Tonks were off within the hour.

The barn that Savage had specified stood dilapidated and damp, its state of ruin evident even from the bottom of the hill. The door hinges were all but disintegrated and the door rocked back and forth even without a breeze. Tonks, assessing it, wrinkled her nose in heightened consternation.

"This is an odd place for a boggart," she said. "They like small, dry spaces. Not drafty, cold barns." For the first time, suspicion washed over her. Sending a memo to the Aurors to sort out a boggart was a new height of laziness even for Savage. Was this a boggart at all? And if it wasn't, what was lying in wait for them?

"We need to be careful," she breathed, turning to her colleague. "This doesn't feel right. If this is a Boggart, what will it turn into for you?"

"Snakes," Dan said at once. "No question."

"Noted. Mine will be my family. Ill, dead, suffering, you get the picture." She didn't like dwelling on that notion. "If we get in there and come face to face with anything other than that, it's a trap, understood? I'm going in first. I'll disillusion you - but come in straight after me. If it is a trap, don't hesitate. Leave me, go back to Headquarters and raise the alarm. Got it?"

He gave a stout nod in return, features set, and Tonks tapped his shoulder with her wand and set the disillusionment charm to work. Then, heart hammering, she led the way up the hill, hearing Dan attempting to stifle his heavy breathing beside her. She paused at the door, letting both their heart rates settle, then pushed it open, inch by inch, wand aloft.

A pale, waxy face loomed out of the darkness and Tonks, recognising him, stood frozen in shock for several seconds, stunned at how he could possibly be here in front of them, after months of fruitless searching and world wide surveillance operations to track him down.

The Crow.

His white face split with a triumphant smile as she took a step towards him. He did not even speak, jabbed his wand towards Tonks and sent a wave of blue light crashing over her. She started, the shock of his appearance having lost her the upper hand in any upcoming duel, but the spell had no effect on her, and he did not send another. Mind now racing at a million miles an hour, Tonks could tell that Dan was either too shocked to remember her orders to raise the alarm, or reluctant to leave his colleague and mentor now that he'd seen the extent of the threat. It would be on her to take the lead and she had seconds to act. Even as she contemplated, Dan had sent a silent disarming spell speeding towards their opponent, and The Crow's wand flew out of his hand.

The idea was fully formed in Tonks' mind before she had consciously thought it. A silent stinging hex that twisted to the left then doubled back and hit The Crow square on the arm. He hissed in pain, groping for his wand on the floor with one hand, his other coming to collide with the painful welt now branded on his arm.

"Now we leave," Tonks bellowed at Dan, deliberately shouting as loud as she could, reaching out and managing to grasp his disillusioned wrist on the second attempt. "Follow our orders. You know the plan. Let the tracker do its job and we get out of here." And before he could reply she had attached a vice like grip on his arm and dragged him away. They collapsed on the tiled floor of the apparition zone outside the Auror department seconds later.

"What- what did you mean?" Dan was still catching up with events, as Tonks slammed her fist on the immediate alert panel and the siren blared through all rooms within the department. "What were you talking about, what plan? What tracker? Why didn't we-?"

There was no time to explain to Dan. Their colleagues were congregating even as Tonks fought to catch her breath.

O

"No trace anywhere," Harry told her, two hours later. In the immediate aftermath of their encounter with The Crow, twelve had scoured the entire area around the abandoned barn, without results. That team were now back in the office, and Harry had just had the report in from Hughes and Cromwell that the neighbouring villages were also devoid of any trace. The MoSS had been alerted, as had Kingsley. For now, the encounter would be kept from the public to avoid panic.

Tonks was feeling shaky and nauseous, which she supposed was down to shock of the events of the day. She had just finished talking Harry through the details of how she had pretended to cast a tracking charm on The Crow before retreating.

"I've no idea if it will do any good," she said. "He might see through the bluff but it was all I could come up with. If he thinks we're tracking him, he might lie low for a bit - I guess was my thinking."

"It was an ingenious move," Harry assured her. "Better than what I could have done with three seconds notice."

"Dan was great too," Tonks said at once. "Disarming charm you'd be proud of." She coughed. "Bought me those three seconds." She coughed again, and then again. "He's going to be a fantastic Auror. And-"

The rest of her sentence was lost as her breath caught completely in her throat and she rasped. This time, it took several hacking coughs before it steadied.

"Sorry."

"You alright?" Harry asked, sitting up straighter, now concerned. "You didn't have that cough this morning."

"I'm fine," she assured him. "Just had a - a shock I guess. Besides, that barn was horribly damp and mouldy."

"But you were only in there a few minutes." He was looking at her more carefully now, eyes roving over her pale face and bloodshot eyes. Tonks knew she looked a sight, having studied her reflection in the bathroom mirror twenty minutes previously.

"You don't look well."

"It's the shock, I told you. Coming face to face with The Crow will do that to you. As I'm the only person so far to have done that you can't exactly say I'm wrong."

Despite the attempt at humour, breathing normally was becoming more difficult even as they spoke. The nausea was still coursing through her. A surreptitious touch on the back of her neck told her it was both burning hot and clammy from sweat. Harry was no fool.

"What happened when you were there?"

"I told you already."

"Not what happened to The Crow. Or Dan. What happened to you? Did you get targeted with anything? A jinx? Contact with a substance?"

"No! I mean, OK he cast a spell right at the start - this weird blue light that washed over me. It didn't do anything so-"

Harry was already on his feet. "You're telling me this now?"

"It didn't have an effect."

Furious disbelief crashed over him.

"Oh Tonks, really? After the last time you got hit by a spell that "did nothing" and all you went through?"

Her angry and hurt retort was lost in another coughing fit, and she bent double. This time, several spots of blood hit the floor as she retched. Panic was now evident in Harry's voice.

"You're going to St Mungo's. Right now. I'm coming with you."

o

o

Hope was falling even further behind with her homework, as the teachers piled them with OWL preparation essays, and she found that she was struggling with the practical elements of class as well. A few days after Hagrid's thestral lesson, she stood alone behind her bench in potions, endeavouring to rescue a disastrous warming concoction, leafing through her book and adding ingredients haphazardly as she tried to figure out where on earth she had gone wrong. Try as she might, it would not cooperate, and eventually, with the surface of her potion spitting violent red sparks and half the class's attention fixed on Hope, rather than on their own work, Professor Leppard came over to inspect.

She stared down her long nose into Hope's set face.

"Miss Lupin, what is this?"

Hope tried a joke to mask any feelings of inadequacy.

"I think it would warm anyone up, don't you?" She forced a don't-care expression and smiled up at her teacher.

Leppard's nostrils flared, but there were a couple of sniggers from the neighbouring desks and Hope felt heartened, until the potion gave a loud bang and a giant cloud of acrid, black smoke emitted from the depths of the cauldron.

Professor Leppard muttered something and vanished the entire contents of the cauldron, then looked down at Hope in exasperation.

"You are nothing like your brother, you know."

Hope's already forced grin slid from her face. Professor Leppard had made similar comments before. Hope knew only too well that she was never going to live up to the impressive legacy that Teddy had left behind him, but surely it was unfair, not to mention unprofessional, for teachers to point out their student's lack of similarities to their infinitely more intelligent, more popular and more successful older brother, in front of the rest of the class.

"Anyone could have told you that," Elodie said to Natalie in a staged whisper that everyone could hear.

Hope managed to refrain from retaliating as she might have done a couple of years before, but she did thoroughly enjoy the mental imagine of pouring the molten contents of Elodie's cauldron over her self-satisfied little face until it melted off.

Before more could be said about Hope's lack of prowess in the subject, the dungeon door opened and the whole class turned around. Professor Flitwick was standing there, visibly harassed.

"Sorry to intrude, Professor Leppard, but I need to see Miss Lupin. Hope, come with me. Bring your things."

Perplexed, glancing over her shoulder to check that pouring boiling potion over her nemesis had been a figment of her imagination – it had indeed; Elodie's smug, unblemished face leered back at her - Hope put her potions book in her bag and followed her head of house out into the corridor.

"Professor?" Alarmed by Flitwick's serious face, she tried thinking back over the past weeks. Was there a misdemeanour she had forgotten about? It was highly likely - her mind was such a disorganised mess at the moment. But Flitwick's voice was soft, sympathetic even.

"You need to come to my office, Hope. There's someone here to see you."

Hope's sense of foreboding increased as she followed him up the stairs and along the corridors without a word. Flitwick pushed open the door to his office and Hope's heart rate accelerated as the man in the room turned a serious face towards her.

"Harry?"

He came forward to greet her, his face devoid of its usual smile.

"What are you doing here?"

She hadn't meant to ask so bluntly, and worried that she may have sounded rude, but Harry just put a kind hand on her shoulder. "We need to go to St Mungo's," he said. "Your mum's in hospital."

The walls of the office closed in around her as she stared back into his intense green eyes and said the only word that sprang to mind.

"Why?"

"I'm afraid we don't know exactly what the problem is," Harry said. "Something happened today at work. She's being treated now and we've let your dad and your gran know where to go. We thought it best to get you as well, so you know what's happening."

For all his tactful words, Hope wasn't stupid. If her mother's condition was serious enough to warrant taking her out of school and bringing her straight to St Mungo's, where visitors, she knew, were limited to urgent cases only, then there was a chance that she might not-

Her mind couldn't finish the thought.

"How are we getting there?" was all she could ask.

"Portkey." Harry indicated the glasses case on the desk. "Whenever you're ready."

In a daze, Hope made towards the desk, catching her professor's eye as she did so.

"If you need anything we'll send it through," Flitwick said at once. "I'll be thinking of you all."

O

The Portkey deposited them none too gently at the hospital a few seconds later. Harry, with the poise of Head Auror, stayed on his feet, but Hope crashed down onto the white tiled floor. He held out a hand to pull her up and she tried to orientate herself. She had never set foot in St Mungo's in her life. They had arrived in a generic waiting area, no one else in the vicinity. Her father and grandmother were hurrying forwards.

Hope hugged both of them and they turned to greet Harry, having clearly arrived in his absence.

"Any news?" Harry asked. Remus shook his head.

"She's being treated in the private room down there. Healer Phennah came out ten minutes ago but didn't give us any details. Just said that it's serious and they're doing everything they can."

"What happened?" Andromeda urged. "Teddy said an incident at work?"

Harry motioned that they should sit down on the hard backed chairs lining the wall. He himself paced in front of them, and, with his habitual lack of preamble, launched into the story about the memo that had arrived at the Ministry.

"I wasn't even suspicious," he said. "Savage was always passing the buck. And the location was near where he lives, and you know we get rogue boggart callouts every few months or so. I didn't even find it odd that he sent a memo, which is quite an outdated way of alerting the Aurors nowadays. Savage always was old fashioned. It sounded like a simple enough job, so we had our usual moan about him and then I sent her off with Dan Gunnar, the trainee."

"Which is what anyone would have done," Remus said, detecting the note of guilt in Harry's voice at once. "Are we to take it the memo wasn't from Savage at all?"

Harry nodded, furious with himself. "I should have gone with her myself," he said. "Or sent more people. I'm such an idiot."

"Harry." Remus spoke over him firmly. "How many times have you told me not to beat myself up about something that isn't my fault? How could you possibly have known it wasn't really from Savage. It sounds completely in character - Dora has been complaining about him for as long as I've known her. And why on earth should a whole group of senior Aurors go to sort out a simple rogue boggart?"

Harry acknowledged this with a twitch of the head, although his face did not soften, and he explained about Tonks and Dan arriving at the barn and coming face to face with The Crow.

"Did they catch him?"

Hope knew the answer to the question purely from the sickened expression on Harry's face.

"Unfortunately not. Tonks ordered their retreat, which was the right thing to do. A full team went back immediately, but he'd gone."

Harry looked from Remus to Andromeda, to Hope, and then back to Remus.

"She didn't tell me," he said, a pleading tone in his voice now. "She didn't tell me straight away that he'd hit her with a spell. If I'd known I'd have sent her here to get checked out, you know I would have done." But Remus and Andromeda both shook their heads, refusing to accept his continued self blame.

"Of course she didn't tell you," Andromeda murmured, half to herself. "This is Nymphadora we're talking about."

Remus passed a hand over his forehead, massaging his temples with forefinger and thumb. He was very pale. It was the full moon tonight, Hope realised suddenly. Of all the terrible timing.

"So what happened then?" he said, focusing on Harry with apparent effort as his eyes screwed up against the bright lights of the hospital. "How did she end up coming here?"

"We were debriefing, and she looked awful. Pale, shaky and she kept coughing. That's when she admitted she'd been hit with a spell that didn't have an immediate effect. So of course I made her come here. I brought her myself, but by the time we got here she was in a pretty bad way: burning hot and unable to breath properly. She collapsed in the entrance bit and the healers took charge. Teddy was here already, thankfully, so I left him to tell you two and I went to get Hope from school."

"Teddy's here?" Hope interjected, looking around. "Where?"

"In the room with her," Remus supplied. "He's not strictly allowed, but he is a member of staff. The Healer wasn't keen but Hestia and Jessye are being consulted about her condition, and they persuaded her."

"Hestia and Jessye?" Hope felt a drop of optimism at the sound of the names, two people she knew Teddy held in the greatest of esteem. "Will they be able to help?"

"Possibly. We think it's related to the curse, and they have been researching it, with Teddy's help, for the last six months."

"It must be related to the curse," Harry agreed. "With The Crow involved. The question is what."

What indeed. Harry said nothing more. What else was there to be said?

"All we can do is wait," Remus murmured.

He looked in so much pain, but whether physical or emotional, Hope couldn't tell. His jaw was clenching as he sat there in silence. Unbidden into her head sprung the vows, spoken a year ago.

I will love you always.

Not now. Not for as long as I live.

Please, Hope thought, begging whoever might be listening. Don't make him go on without her. Don't make us go on without her.

O

After an hour of near total silence, Healer Phennah came out into the waiting area and addressed the four of them.

"We're not entirely sure what's happening," she said. "The levels of magic in her blood are dropping, and given that she is afflicted with the Narcoviral Curse, that is a problem. However, we have stabilised her. We've given her breathing assistance and her unconsciousness is currently induced and controlled while we work out the next steps. You can come in. I'm not supposed to allow visitors so soon after admission, let alone this many people, but," she glanced at Harry as he stood there, radiating silent authority, "under the circumstances…"

They followed her into the room. Teddy gave Hope a brief hug, then turned his attention back to the tiny instrument that Hestia was holding. His friend Jessye was at the back, leafing through some papers.

"Well?" she said to Hestia, as the machine emitted a small bleep.

"Fifty-five as well," Hestia replied. "Still dropping."

"How?" Jessye muttered, frantically rifling the papers in front of her. "How can it be this low?"

"What's wrong with her?" Hope whispered. Her mother lay on the bed, completely still, her face white, a blueish tinge to her lips.

Jessye's face held nothing but compassion as she looked directly at Hope. "We believe it's the curse," she said. "As you probably know, a lot of wizards have been carrying it for months now without it doing them any harm. Your mum tested positive in the summer, which wasn't a problem until now, as long as she was kept away from muggles, but while her MDI is this low, it is going to affect her own health. The symptoms are consistent with those experienced by muggles, but they are taking hold with far more speed, as her levels of magic drop sharply."

"But why are they dropping?"

Jessye appeared quite helpless.

"We don't know," she said. "There is no precedent for them being this low on a recognised witch or wizard, nor to drop this fast, not in all the research I've done in the last four years."

"And - and you can't bring them back up?"

"We're working on it," Jessye said gently. "Doing everything we can."

Andromeda had seated herself beside the bed and was stroking her daughter's hair. It was brown with the odd streak of grey, no trace of colour at all.

Remus sat down on the other side of her and Harry tactfully retreated to the corner, but Teddy was standing stock still, his eyes darting between the machine in Hestia's hand and his mother. Then he spoke.

"We can give her the muggle cure."

Healer Phennah, who had been tapping her wand on an oddly shaped, metal instrument by the door, rounded on him.

"What?"

"It's what he's done. The Crow. Whatever spell he used has caused her MDI to drop, which means she's losing her powers. The more it goes down, the more the curse will take hold and the more severe her symptoms will become. You've already said that will happen. And I know you're trying to get the MDI back up to a point where it will stop causing her harm. But we don't need to get it up that quickly if we can cure the illness itself. We have a treatment for it, right here in this hospital. We have a cure, already proven to work on non-magical people, that would start fighting her symptoms within minutes!"

Hope raised her head in time to see Jessye exchange an odd, meaningful glance with Hestia, but the Healer was staring at Teddy with pure incredulity.

"Mr Lupin, you know as well as I do that the cure is under the tightest security measures possible. I do not have access to it. Even if I did, I would lose my job for suggesting that we give it to a magical patient. I'm sorry."

"But it would work."

"There is no guarantee of that. Your mother is a witch, one with exceptionally high levels of magic, I should add. You know what that means."

Hope knew what it meant too. Teddy's words were clear in her memory. The cure would use the individual's magic against them... The curse would fight it to the bitter end... And the body wouldn't be able to handle it.

"Yes, if she were at full health. But fifty-five?" Teddy said, incredulous himself now. "That's nowhere near enough magic to trigger the harmful effect of the cure. And by the time her MDI is up again it will be too late for a negative reaction."

"Our readings could be wrong."

"The readings aren't wrong, and you know it. That's the third test you've tried and they're all coming back the same."

Hope had never heard Teddy speak like that to anyone, harsh and defiant, but Healer Phennah did not rise to his tone.

"And if they are wrong?" she enquired calmly. "Or if they are correct but her magic levels spike suddenly? Giving her the cure would kill her."

Teddy's eyes flashed with steel.

"At this rate, not giving it to her will do the same thing."

"Teddy."

The single word from their father seemed to collect Teddy and stop him from retorting further, but Hope's breath caught in her throat. Andromeda continued to stroke Tonks's hair, her fingers shaking, her eyes not leaving her daughter's face. Teddy turned back to Hestia and for a second Hope felt like the walls were closing in again, as they had done in Flitwick's office. Harry's hand was there suddenly on her shoulder, steadying her, grounding her, and she was grateful for it. She tried to breath deeply.

"Please," Teddy implored the room at large, his voice calmer. "Consider the facts. Her morph's gone. The MDI readings are plummeting. And as they do, her symptoms get worse. That's what The Crow's spell has done to her, it's the effect he intended it to have, and we need to fix the consequences instead of focusing on the cause, before it's too late."

"Mr Lupin," Healer Phennah said again. Her voice was kind but firm. "You are a valued member of staff at this hospital. You are not, however, a registered healer on this ward. You are not a healer at all, for that matter. In this room, you are a patient's relative, and you would do well to remember that. It is well known that a temporary drop in MDI is a common side effect of magical trauma, shock or injury."

"That would be by a tiny percentage. Not by this much. It's not a side effect. It's the main effect."

The healer was still shaking her head.

"There is no spell on this earth that can rid a witch or wizard of their magic."

Teddy was beside himself.

"Until this year there was no curse that could spread round the globe killing muggles, sparing wizards and bringing everything to a standstill, yet here we are. Please! It makes sense. It makes so much sense. A second curse. To dampen all magical ability and allow the virus to take hold of those who already have it in their system."

Healer Phennah sighed. "It doesn't make sense. You aren't thinking clearly - which is understandable given the circumstances. But The Crow wants to eradicate muggles, not wizards. I can assure you a curse of that nature would take years to create, possibly as long as the Narcoviral curse itself. Who would spend all that time producing a thought-to-be impossible spell simply to take down a select few people, when they would need to be infected in the first place and when all it would take is a well aimed killing curse to do the same job? It doesn't make sense."

Harry was the one who spoke.

"It does if its intended use is blackmail," he murmured. Teddy looked towards him in silent gratitude. "This is Strike Two, the planting of the tainted cure all over again. Tonks is an example The Crow means to use as proof that he will stop at nothing. And she isn't the first victim. Four wizards have died in the last two weeks, struck down by sudden symptoms. I would bet good money they are the same symptoms Tonks has now. Teddy is right. This is another way to force our hand, to widen the divide between muggles and wizards. A threat to make our leaders choose. Stand aside and continue to let him kill countless muggles, or allow our own kind to die instead."

The healer pursed her lips. "Listen," she said. "You have all had a shock and you are grasping at wild theories and while you do, we are wasting time. Auror Potter, I would like to remind you, that for all your rank and authority, I am still the only healer registered to this ward. And it's irrelevant. We can't access the cure, regardless of its potential effects. Therefore we need to work with what we have. Miss Laurier, bring those papers and come with me to the potions store."

"I'm sorry," she added, her voice softer again. "We're doing everything we can, Teddy, I promise. We will leave you to have a few moments with her and we will be back as soon as we find something. Sound the alert if there are changes, you know the drill."

"No!" Teddy pleaded. "Wait. You have to listen to me!" But the healer had gone. Jessye followed, exchanging another glance with Hestia before she did so.

Hope approached the bed and touched her mother's hand with her own trembling fingers. It was ice cold.

Hestia checked her instrument again.

"Fifty-four."

Teddy blanched. Hope looked between the two of them anxiously.

"How- how long-" she couldn't finish the sentence.

"It's difficult to say," Hestia said. "It's been falling since she was admitted, but not in any predictable fashion. And we don't know at what point-" She trailed off as well. The uncertainty in her voice terrified Hope more than anything else had so far. Hadn't Teddy himself told her that Hestia was one of the calmest, most collected people he knew? There was no mistaking the helpless concern in her dark eyes right now.

"There is still time," Teddy insisted. "Time to find a way to recover her powers, as we've realised what's happening. But every minute counts, and even if they do find a way to bring them up, it won't be instantaneous. There could be lasting effects. Permanent damage. And she'll still have the damn thing in her blood, ready to strike if the magic levels drop again. The cure should never have been locked away. We may already have a safe one right now if they'd been willing to take the risk of studying it further."

There was a pause. Then, after a moment's hesitation, Hestia came forwards a couple of paces and held out her hand to Teddy. There was something between her thumb and forefinger.

Four pairs of eyes watched in shock as Teddy held out his hand automatically in response, and a tiny syringe fell into his palm. He stared at it for a few moments, uncomprehending.

"What's this?"

"The cure. The Crow's one."

"How the hell did you get that?" Remus, who had only said one word since entering the room, was staring at his old friend, thunderstruck.

"I've had it for three months now."

Remus gaped at her.

"So it is true. Some did go missing. And it was you? You took some of it, before it was sealed away?"

"Why?" Teddy breathed.

Hestia shook her head. "I'm not going to explain here. It's too risky. But I've had a sample of it on my person ever since. To me, there was no other option. It was The Order's mentality. It was Moody's mentality. Now it is mine. Constant vigilance. Prepare for every outcome. I had a feeling that we would need it at some point."

Teddy looked down at his mother again. Even Hope could tell that her condition had worsened since they had entered the room. Purple circles were appearing under her closed eyelids.

"You believe I'm right?" His voice shook for the first time.

"I do." Hers was scarcely more than a whisper. "But Teddy, you know there are unknowns. There are always unknowns."

Teddy nodded, his eyes quite wild. Hestia was still speaking.

"And if they find out what you've done, you know what the repercussions will be. You'll need to inject it into her right arm. Do it where her birth mark is, so the trace goes unnoticed for now. It's a correct dosage, administer it all. Vanish that needle as soon as you're finished."

Teddy nodded again.

"I can guarantee you a few minutes," Hestia said quietly. "Nothing more."

Remus got to his feet as Hestia left the room. His face was now stark white.

"Teddy, they will realise what you've done in the end. You could lose your job. You could lose everything. And if it doesn't work..."

"It will work," Teddy said. "I - I'm-" He didn't finish the sentence. He couldn't be sure. Everyone in the room knew that.

There are always unknowns.

He steadied himself.

"Dad, this is unprecedented, so we don't know what the long-term effects will be. But it won't be good. Even if the MDI stops falling, these symptoms could cause lasting, irreparable damage. Some muggles are still suffering, unable to lead the life they did before, even though they supposedly recovered from the illness months ago. For Mum it could easily be worse because of how quickly the curse took hold of her. She could be incapacitated for life. She - she would never want that. Would she?"

Father and son stood facing each other, locked in a private battle of wills, and Hope could have been a thousand miles away in that moment. What a terrible decision for Teddy to have to make. Leave their mother to suffer death or permanent incapacitation, knowing he might have saved her, or run the risk of being the person who ended her life. Try to cure his mother but risk losing his job, never able to pursue his lifelong goal of curing his father.

"Mum's been putting her life on the line for the last twenty-five years to make our world a safer place," Teddy finished. "And this-" he glanced down at the vial in his hand. "May be her only chance right now. Is there even a choice to make?"

Remus Lupin's gaze shifted from Teddy's set features down to the lifeless form of his wife, his face a blank mask but his eyes anguished. He looked at Andromeda, who gave a tiny jerk of her head, tears glistening on her long lashes. Then he turned to Harry. A frisson of understanding passed between them.

"Get her out of here."

Hope, thrown by the terrible break in his voice and confused as to who he was talking about, realised too late what was happening.

"No!" She tried to shrug off Harry's hand but he was too strong for her. He caught her easily round the chest and pulled her towards the door.

"No," Hope struggled further. "No! Please. Please. You can't. I have to be here too. I-"

No further sound came from her mouth. The charm had been cast by her own father. Her eyes burned as she stared at him, too shocked and betrayed to try and fight her enforced silence. He had already turned away.

Harry opened the door and pulled Hope down an empty corridor to the left as she fought soundlessly and fruitlessly against his strong grip. The last thing she saw before the door closed was her father kneeling beside his wife, Andromeda on the other side, each of them holding one of her hands, while Teddy approached the bed, his face chalk white, the little syringe held tightly in his fist.

OOO