The Unknown Witness

Once Hermione's parents had recovered from the shock of their newly decorated kitchen and become enamoured with Ron when he made them a cup of tea, the threesome were finally left to their own devices. Harry felt exhausted after their clean up operation, but nevertheless, Hermione was desperate to get on. She awarded their hard work with a glass of lemonade and a tour of her abode, a perfectly charming little cottage in the daylight hours with authentic Tudor beams crossing the ceiling at regular intervals. It was so authentic in fact that Harry had been amazed by the million tiny holes made by an ancient woodworm. Ron showed he was truly his father's son when he became fascinated by his first contact with an electric kettle, followed shortly by the wonder of Hermione's hi-fi system. The way Ron's eyes had widened in delight upon the sight of these everyday objects and Hermione's matter-of-fact reactions made Harry's heart feel light as a feather. It was as if just the company of his two friends and their typical antics were enough to lift the cloud of depression that normally darkened up the vast amount of the holiday spent at Privet Drive. He felt, for a moment, content.

Harry had never been exactly sure what to expect from Hermione's home life. It was a topic she'd simply never brought up. He supposed that once inside Hogwarts ancient walls, the Muggle-born was anxious to concentrate on her brave new world, absorb all it had to offer before she found herself stranded with the Muggles and unable to show off her talents. He often felt the same way, but for an entirely different textbook of reasons. Hermione was simply restricted by her momentous desire to remain loyal to the rules. Her wand was still on display atop her dresser; polished to a kind of perfection only she could ever achieve. It was as if she wanted to be faced with temptation, merely to appear stronger by saying no. And as for the rest of her room, it certainly made for an interesting observation.

It was feminine: the traditional peaches and pinks melded into a single entity, natural in their presence but somehow forced in their inclusion. Harry got the sense that she was not totally comfortable in her surroundings. This was possibly indicated by the stiff way she sat on her bed, pushing herself up onto the corner shyly as Ron perched on the end and himself in the wicker chair in the corner, his knees hunched up tightly into his chest. It was almost as if the room reflected a Hermione of the past, a Daddy's girl now all grown up leaving her baby tones behind. Indeed the crammed and overflowing bookshelves tended not to match the décor, a number of scruffy works presenting her natural progression from the soft tones of Austen to the harshness of Wells, Burgess and Orwell's 1984. Even then they tended to be the older volumes, totally contradicting the crispiness of the room with their peeling covers and yellowing pages. They were obviously well loved and read, bulging with their overwhelming intellect. However, Harry had to smile when in amongst their volumes he spotted a few children's favourites: The Hobbit, Alice through the Looking Glass, The Famous Five. Adventurous. It was obvious what she longed for. She wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing.

However, it was the magical books that seemed to have precedence in the pecking order. Hogwarts, A History, had pride of place on her bedside table, well thumbed for ease of reference with her schoolbooks piled alongside. They seemed to be an easy-to-reach alternative to a sleepless night, dog-eared pages visible at regular intervals. She began to tidy them absently while the boys looked on. She straightened up to address them both, her thinking cap placed firmly upon her frizzy mass of curls she let run wild upon her shoulders.

'It isn't much, I suppose…' she said, maintaining a similar air of uncertainty that Ron had expelled on Harry's first visit to the Burrow. 'But it's enough. It's not like I'm here very often - '

Ron mumbled a few words of selective approval that seemed to make Hermione's day. Turning slightly pink, she opened a drawer and rustled some more papers, finally emerging with a detailed folder of her own neat and elegant hand etched into the paper with an amusing purple ink. She opened it on her desk and began to sort it into piles.

'So we know who the witness is then…' she said as the sorting continued.

'Check!' bellowed Ron, giving her a mock army salute. She smirked at him fondly and continued to file, not batting an eyelid in the process.

'Correction, Ron: We know who she was fourteen years ago. She might have moved, changed her name, anything. Let's just hope we get lucky, hey?'

She looked directly at Harry, an almost accusing stare when relating the current discussion to the talk the night before. Harry just stared back.

'So what do you suggest?' he asked.

'Well, we'll catch the bus into town. Don't look so horrified, Ron.' She addressed the look of dismay that had temporarily seared across her best friend's face. 'It's necessary. We can check the electoral roll to see if this name at this address still exists. They'll keep a copy of it at the - '

'Library,' the boys said in unison. They could have been back in their first year researching Nicholas Flamel again. 'Honestly Hermione,' said Ron, rolling his eyes in a way Hermione had been thinking about in the early hours of that day. 'You really stick by your guns, don't you. “If in doubt, go to the library”. If Hogwarts ever got itself into that yearbook rubbish, that's your quote done and dusted!'

Harry frowned slightly at Ron's more sarcastic than usual tone. But on a note of careful consideration, he supposed it had been an anxious summer at the Weasley's, one that was bound to rub off on his companion somehow. Ron's father was trying desperately to alter the Ministry's attitudes towards Voldemort's return, while Mrs Weasley would have been equally worried as to the fates of her high-flying sons, not to mention son number six who had that wonderful knack of getting caught in the middle of things. They'd seen it all before. Ron had grown up with the stories, the bogeyman that normally resides in the darkness underneath a child's bed living and breathing in the memory of his parents. It was a harsh reality to live with, and an even harsher one to repeat.

'Yes, well,' Hermione said, not bothering to protest. She'd obviously sensed the shakiness in his voice as well. 'It's a good place to start. We can confirm all the details at the very least. It's a local address. Very convenient…'

Harry frowned at her. 'I don't think you can blame a coincidence of location on your conspiracy theories, Hermione. All going well, I think Ms Darlington can expect a little visitor...'

'Diving in head first, as usual…' muttered Ron. Hermione shot him an agreeable look.

'We'll cross that bridge when we come to it,' she replied, suddenly picking up a pile of her pristine scribbled sheets and throwing them in the bin. She dusted her hands satisfactorily with a sigh. 'I think we'd better get off. But first…'

Hermione picked up her wand, turned it in her hand for a minute, twiddling it like a prize-wining majorette before turning on Harry. Pointing with its wooden tip and muttering a few well chosen incantations, Harry was amazed to witness a transformation: He traced a tingling beginning in his feet as his trainers morphed beneath them, no longer slopping around his ankles like oversized barges but fitting snugly around his toes. He felt the length of his jeans and shirtsleeves immediately shorten, so much that he found himself madly scrambling to undo the rolls of material that had gathered at each end. Even the neck was shrinking, now fitting round his neck quite comfortably. As he gave himself a shake in his newly shrunk attire, a small shower of glittery sparks flew off, disappearing into the soft peach carpet like snowflakes into the frost. He looked at Hermione a little bewildered as she pocketed her wand and slung on her own sweater. Ron picked up the cue as she pulled it over her head.

'Oh come on, Harry,' he said merrily, picking up a rucksack. 'Dudley's castoffs didn't exactly do much for you …'

'And besides, like you said,' answered Hermione with a rare mischievous grin, flicking out her hair from underneath the sweater. 'They're hardly going to chuck me into Azkaban for that, are they?'

Harry smiled. Hermione really was beginning to lighten up.

***

Something was wrong. Even before she opened her eyes, she sensed it, like a biting breeze on a still winter's morning, piercing the air with its horrifying chill. Claudia had never had a feeling like it. She pushed her head down further into the pillow, averting it from the rest of the world while her alarm clock continued to scream like an unattended baby, its caws sabotaging the little feeling of peace that remained within her brain. She finally dragged a feeble hand from her hiding place to silence it with a slam, doing little for the niggling feeling in the back of her mind that life wasn't going to be the same by the time the day was out.

She rose, finding her dressing gown at the foot of the bed where she'd dropped it the night before. Her physical and mental exhaustion had taken her by the hand and led her to a restless sleep, full of the usual dreams and screams. For some reason, she could have sworn the images were sharper now, as if something was approaching that had cleared up their reception. The screaming boy, for instance, now had a positive outline, not merely the bundle of emotions she'd previously been able to detect him by. Small, troubled, injured. A mop of messy hair, even more tangled by a recent struggle. A panic in his misty eyes, catlike in the dark, wide with a horror of realisation that his nightmare had come true. And it was a common nightmare. The sense of dread was insurmountable. So much like another figure in her dreams, who seemed older, wiser, but shared the fear of his smaller counterpart. The same hair. The red head's eyes. A father, mother and son. But never did she ever receive the picture all together. It was like it had never happened.

She pondered this, like she did all her nighttime visions, as she stepped into the bathroom to reach for the sanctity of a hot, shocking shower. Letting the water tumble over her shoulders as it cascaded down in scorching streams, she allowed the steam to cloud her thoughts like the invisible air surrounding her, an inner sanctum achieved in the isolation of the white-tiled room. But the reality was unclear, causing the cloud that separated her from it to condense on the mirrors, clouding their reflection of something she never saw and thus detracting from the true image of the world they wanted to reflect. The truth, she supposed. Whatever that was.

It was only when she emerged from the shower that the silence of the house finally reached her normally sensitive ears. For once, the day before, she was able to put up a block between herself and those oversensitive organs normally so receptive, especially when she didn't want them to be, hearing the mutters under breath and the nerves behind the speech that set herself on edge. But this was just plainly odd. No radio blaring its usual nonsense. No muffled discussions between the long separated people. No excited bacon bits fizzing in the pan. No Paul. And certainly no Lucy.

At first this was of no concern. She trundled down to the kitchen and condemned herself to a simpler breakfast of toast and margarine, figuring Paul's flight must have been delayed. Lucy was the responsible one. She would have trailed to the ends of the earth as so much not to abandon her sibling, her charge. Her desperate desire to touch base at every opportunity had almost become a running joke, like as if she left Claudia alone in her own company for too long she'd implode into her own madness. And that was the last thing Lucy would ever have wanted.

Claudia found herself at ease in her kitchen. Everything was in its correct place, nothing had changed to send her into a kitchen of a stranger, where the cutlery felt different beneath her blunt fingers or the crockery was more delicate to the bone china touch. The bread descended into the toaster with ease as she approached the fridge, expecting the usual punched-out Braille note attached under a friendly duck-faced magnet to explain the emptiness of the dwelling. But nothing. The furrow on her brow deepened as she wandered over to the answer machine, felt along its familiar buttons and demanded the greeting of an explanatory message. But nothing. The blundering tones of its cordless beep emphasised the silence further still. Frighteningly still. You have no messages. You have made no contact. You are alone.

'Lucy?' she uttered into the darkness of her life. Useless. She wasn't there. She picked up the phone and speed dialled Lucy's mobile and gained the same, fearsome tone. Disconnected. Just like she was. Life imitating art imitating life, someone had once said, as the fumes of the now burning toast rose into the air. She made no effort to halt them.

'Where are you, Lucy?'

Something was definitely wrong.

***

Remus hated motorbikes. He hated them with a passion. He hated the way they spilt diesel on the road, the smell of the burning fuel choking in his throat as he tried to breathe in its industrialised wake. He hated their speed and dangerous tendencies as they took the turns at a heart-stopping rate, the tilt making his breakfast churn as the golden sparks showered where the metal scraped the road. He hated the leathers that clung tightly to his body, too tightly for comfort as he crouched inside the sidecar, Biggles-style goggles adorning his features while their rough brown fastenings dug into the side of his worn down face. But most of all, he hated Sirius' driving. Caution was not in his vocabulary.

Arabella, meanwhile, looked as though she was having the time of her life. Her long coffee hair, dashed with the hint of aging silver, was streaking out behind her underneath the restraints of the Muggle crash helmet, jet-black and gleaming in the light-deprived dusk. She whooped and cheered with every deadly turn on the vicious machine as Sirius, looking menacing with his visor down and features disguised, nipped in and out of the bends and corners making up the road away from Ottery St Catchpole. Ever the criminal on the run. The image did occasionally have its benefits.

However, their journey was of a much more serious manner than a couple of oldies on a night time joyride. Their expedition to the Burrow was unsuccessful in everything except getting Mrs Weasley more wound up with worry than usual. At the best of times, the woman fretted enough for Ron and Harry altogether, but despite their evasiveness regarding their Harry-orientated inquiry, she was still sent into a tizzy. All of her five foot four frame positively shook with concern upon the doorstep as she drew an even more worried Ginny in under her arm, giving her a reassuring squeeze she seemed to wish had been bestowed upon her. But at least she'd pointed them in a useful direction: The Granger house.

Remus was uncertain how the Muggle dentists would react to having this entourage of werewolves, wizards and convicts arrive on their doorsteps in the middle of the night. He'd always had a soft spot for Hermione on both an academic and personal level. The girl was so eager to please in every field possible, he was sure you couldn't find a more dedicated soul anywhere on the plain of existence. Whether it was an essay on Hinkypunks or a death-defying rescue attempt, that girl would give it her all. An interesting trait in one so young. A Gryffindor with a sense of logic and rationality was rare in itself, but one who had the ability to implement it was virtually unheard of. Ravenclaws yes, but hardly ever Gryffindors. He remembered a similar comment being made about himself once upon a time. A second generation of Marauders... That was just plain frightening.

At this point, he tapped Arabella and indicated that it was time for a pit stop. It was beginning to get dark, and he was beginning to lose the feeling in his thighs after being cramped up in the sidecar for hours on end. He knew that Apparating was not the way to go: Sirius preferred to remain inconspicuous to any man or mammal. Those whom Arthur Weasley was yet to win round would still jump at the chance to nail the infamous Black, especially after the disastrous Triwizard Tournament. Sirius got the message and began to slow down, pulling into a wooded lay by off the dual carriageway and finally bringing the roaring machine to a passive stand still. Even in the trees that surrounded their parked vehicle, it looked darker than it was, the branches eclipsing what little sun remained over the horizon, casting a dusty light across the rural landscape beyond the wood. He dismounted, Arabella leaping off like a medieval lady dismounting sidesaddle, with an air of perfected etiquette than only she could achieve in full body leathers. Sirius removed his helmet and offered a hand to the werewolf.

'Starting to lose the circulation down there, Moony?' he said with a smile on his face.

'You could say that,' Remus replied with a smirk. 'Or you could just come out with it straight and say it's bloomin' painful!'

'It is magically expandable, you know…'

'Oh, right,' said Remus, one eyebrow raised. 'Thanks for telling me.'

With Sirius' help, he heaved himself out of his metal prison and stretched his legs, his own set of leathers creaking as he did so. He hadn't quite accustomed himself to the feeling of the material Arabella had conjured up for the trio at the journey's commencement, the way it clung to his aging body he felt did him no favours. He wasn't twenty-five anymore. Indeed he hadn't even felt youthful back then, time being bestowed upon his world weary body both through his monthly changes and the fight against the darkness. Although he was forty, he'd felt in middle age for all his adult life. He knew that if it weren't for Dumbledore, he'd have barely made it past his teens before being hunted down by various demon slayers. But nevertheless, there was no getting away from the fact that they were all getting older. Looking at Sirius as he set down his helmet to scratch his unshaven face, the dusk highlighted the small lines beginning to form around the haunted eyes that still reminded Remus everyday the horrors his friend had seen. Arabella herself was massaging her calf underneath the leathers, a look of quiet discomfort upon her face as she tried to eradicate her cramp. He smiled at the almost comic picture, the expression graduating to a highly contagious laughter.

'What's so funny?' enquired Arabella as the smile began to spread to her face.

'Nothing,' chortled Remus when presented with a look of bemusement from the general direction of Sirius. 'Nothing really. We're just all quite a sight, aren't we? Old fogies tearing up the road and all…'

Arabella's face dissolved into a baffled frown as Sirius caught on. He thumped Remus playfully on the shoulder, the sound of impact emphasised by his dangerous looking black leather gloves that were highly decorated with a variety of studs. 'Ah, yes Moony,' he replied with an air of reminiscing. 'What happened to the good old days, hey? Magical Mischief makers? Regular trips into the Slytherin common room to transfigure Severus' pants into a fine selection of ladies' undergarments?'

Arabella laughed. 'So it was you two who did that? I always wondered. The poor guy was walking funny for weeks afterwards…'

'By Merlin, I remember…' said Remus fondly. 'Frilly pink ones, right?'

'Complete with suspender belt…'

'That's not a pretty picture…'

They all laughed at the softest of memories, of cheeky school kids sensing amusement in the simplest of pranks. For a moment the familiar picture of the common room returned, a group of them sitting round the fire basking in the glory of their latest bag of tricks. Then as the laughter began to filter out, a new emotion filled the group, having a sobering effect upon the greyness of their faces. Arabella shifted a little awkwardly on the spot, pushing her hair back off her face allowing it to lie uneven on her shoulders. She stared through the trees of the wood beyond and removed a minuscule instrument from the pocket of her jacket.

'Still no trace of him,' she sighed, slightly annoyed at the failure of her instrument. 'And we're almost there. This Hermione person's house is only just across the field there.'

She beckoned them to follow her into the wood, which in reality was barely a few trees deep. They soon emerged on the other side and were greeted by a field of maize, waist high in the summer eve and swaying gently with the warm breeze coming over the North Downs. It was a sight that would normally allow Remus to sigh openly with contentment; a village at peace with itself in the evening light as the occasional giggle of child at play echoed from its many back gardens on the brow of the hill. But as the three of them stood in the shadow of the trees behind them, they were cast into a darkness that few ever faced alone in their dark, death like attire, and felt every part of the doom they were attempting to avert.

'There it is.'

Remus followed Padfoot's stare as his friend's sunken eyes focused on a tidy little cottage at the end of the row, roses creeping peacefully up one side of the Tudor dwelling like bars around a cage, encasing the white and black beams like a prisoner of plantations. They observed it in silence, half expecting the occupants to sense their shadowy presence beneath the trees across the field while Arabella held up a number of instruments to the light, her face remaining indignant and yet ready to register any reaction to the information received. Remus continued to watch the village up ahead, the strange desire taking him to be an ignorant as its occupants as to the fate awaiting his world. He was dragged out of his trance-like state as Arabella shut her caseload with a snap.

'Well, he was here,' she began, addressing the other two who hung on every word. 'And by the look of things, so were Ron and Hermione. But their trails lead off. The Veneficium tracer is sensing records of a couple of spells cast at day break, but they must have moved because the levels are barely lingering…'

Both men were looking a little puzzled and felt a bit of elaboration was in order. Arabella complied. 'Magical people tend to hold a certain air of magic around them as they go about their business. Like what those Muggle psychics refer to as auras, it leaves a trail behind it, which is called a Veneficer. As long as you're only a couple of hours behind, you can trace their path. The colours aren't visible to the human eye, and that's where these come in.' She held up an ordinary looking pair of binoculars, the eye pieces ringed with silver and the rest encased in a dark green casing. She offered them to Remus. 'If you look through, you should be able to see a faint blue line, accompanied by a green and red one. I charmed them to pick up the trails of our teenage runaways. From what you said, I suspected the number might become plural...'

Sirius got what she was getting at. 'Hey, he's James' son, not mine…'

'So what about the bright yellow blobs?' commented Remus from behind the instrument as he examined the landscape of colour before him. 'What do they mean?'

'That registers areas of extreme magical activity relating to those being traced. Basically where they got a little wand happy.'

'Judging by this lot, they're lucky the Ministry is so distracted.' replied Remus, taking a peek. 'They would have been pulled up big time…'

'That's neither here nor there,' said Sirius, getting agitated on his feet. 'Where's it heading?'

'Out toward the main road and heading into town,' remarked Remus.

'So that's where we're heading.'

He shoved his helmet back over his lengthened hair without a second thought, stormed out through the woods and mounted the bike again, revving its engine impatiently. Arabella shrugged, packed up her instruments and turned to Remus.

'There isn't enough room in that side car for two, is there?'

He smiled at her, nodded quietly as she led the route back, both leaping the side car and speeding off into the fading light toward the Medway, failing to notice in their hurried wake the extra passenger their load now carried.

***

'Three half-returns to Rochester town, please.'

Hermione smiled sweetly at the bus driver as she handed over the correct amount, just as the polite notice behind them asked them to. The ticket machine on the stand next to him impatiently spluttered out their stubs while he typed the destination in, Hermione ripping them off the roll before Ron could grab them for himself. The look of glazed fascination that had taken residence in his face reminded Harry so much of the loveable Mr Weasley, he almost wanted to laugh out loud. Watching Hermione in this most ordinary of situations however was also an experience in itself. She knew exactly what to do. She wasn't totally fazed by the whole sequence of events, like the wizard-born Ron, finding every little detail strange and exciting, similar to Hagrid and the parking metres all those years ago. Instead she seemed to blend in, just like she did into the tapestries of Hogwarts, nothing ever seeming alien to her cinnamon eyes as she merely shrugged and accepted her surroundings as if they were as normal as apple pie. Harry had never seen her so full of confidence. They were intruders in her world now, and so she took hold of the lamplight to guide them all the way.

They followed her down the aisle of the bus and settled on some longer seats right at the back, away from the older travellers and their trolleys of shopping and doctor's prescriptions. Most certainly where their discussions would not be overheard. Harry was bringing up the rear just as one particular woman dropped her walking stick across his path, which he proceeded to gallantly pick up off the floor and present it back to the lady in question. She smiled pleasantly enough at him, muttering something about being such a nice boy, and all the youth of today were normally interested in were drugs and loud music. Harry had to restrain himself from a hideously ironic laugh as he mumbled it was no trouble, and continued to take up residence at the back of the bus. There was so little these Muggles knew that went on in the world, and so much they wouldn't want to know.

'Harry,' Hermione said a little while later, keeping her voice in a hushed whisper despite the lack of eavesdroppers around them. 'Have you heard from Snuffles lately?'

Ron looked just as interested in the proposed question, as he finally managed to drag his bulging eyes away from the cars that were passing them on the other side of the road. Very slowly, in fact, as these poor souls were currently in a queue of traffic behind a bright yellow tractor. He looked at Harry with an air of urgency.

'Actually, no.' he replied quietly, timidly even. 'Not since the end of term. Whatever Dumbledore sent him out to do, it's kept him very occupied.'

'All for the good of the cause, heh?' muttered Ron, gazing back out the window again.

'I suppose…' Harry muttered back, his thoughts beginning to drift. 'He didn't even send me a birthday card this year. I know I shouldn't be disappointed and all, but…'

Harry was letting the Dursley syndrome get to him. The misfit. The family black sheep. The little boy who slept in the cupboard under the stairs even though there was an empty room, simply because he wasn't worthy of their care, even if it only manifested itself at best as a pair of Uncle Vernon's mouldy old socks. The person inside him who still doubted that all of this was real. Hermione saw it in his eyes and attempted to dismiss it.

'Harry, don't think like that,' she said sharply, like a mother scolding a child. 'And don't you dare think like that again. You're just as entitled to have a proper birthday as the next person. And that does include a present from your Godfather.'

'Surprise surprise, Hermione's right,' supported Ron. 'He'd only hold off writing to you if he had really good reason.'

But Harry wasn't listening. His eyes suddenly widened with a form of realisation that even Ron didn't see in his wise words of counsel. He shot Hermione a baffled look as Harry dived into his jacket pocket and rummaged around for a moment, finally emerging with a handful of the infamous mahogany casing. He held it out in his hand, shaking it as he spoke.

'Don't you see?' he exclaimed, a little too loudly for Hermione's comfort as a couple of the passengers turned to stare. 'The time turner! It must have been a belated Birthday present from Sirius! Think about it…' he directly addressed the puzzled look on both his companions' faces. 'Like I said, it's just another Firebolt or Marauder's map. He must have known we were up to something and was certain we'd find some use for it.'

'But Harry, there wasn't a note or anything when you got it, right?' asked Hermione, her eyes equally as wide as Harry's but filled with a completely different concern.

'But,' added Ron. 'He didn't leave any note with the Firebolt either. And the message that came with the invisibility cloak wasn't exactly decisive of its origins, was it?'

Hermione obviously didn't have the energy to argue. She'd been up since three am, after all. 'I still reckon it's just a little too convenient. I'd say we're better off not meddling with it until we know its full intentions.'

Harry sighed frustratingly and fell back against the seat, putting the time turner back in his pocket. She'd never be able to accept that maybe someone wanted to give them a lucky break. But then the unnerving thought entered his mind that everything always started out like that.

***

Lucy shivered. She'd never felt this cold in her entire life. It was as if someone had sliced open her bones and poured in the ice from the darkest depths of Antarctica and further still. She didn't think she'd ever be warm again. The bait.

She found herself huddled underneath a threadbare blanket in what could only be described as a dungeon pit from hell. Her sister was the writer in her family, she was the practical one, but no amount of artistic ability would be able to personify its horror into words. She stared at its stone clad walls and damp drips of water descending from the roof and had to suppress a shiver. It was dark; she could barely see her hand inches before her face despite the presence of flickering candles in brackets along the walls. She staggered to her feet and stumbled toward one of them, taken back for a moment by her weakened state as she was forced to lean against the wall for support. Finally drawing herself to her full height and detaching the candle from it position on the hanging, she placed it on the floor in front of her and kneeled down in front of it. She let her head fall almost to her knees as all of her remaining energy was eaten away by the cold.

The candle was disappointing, but somehow explanatory. The light it emitted was pale and feeble, almost like a chip of blue ice as it sat and flickered on the wick. It didn't respond to the frostiness of Lucy's irregular breath as she held her hands over it begging for warmth, to no avail. Her fingertips remained freezing, feeling as though frostbite was ready to take its first snap at her limbs that refused to accept it was the middle of summer. Indeed for Lucy, all notions of time and the seasons had been driven to the unreachable recesses of her conscious mind by the darkened feeling that had only just left her cell.

Dementors. That's what she'd heard one of the guards call them as they came to free her from their torture, the sweeping cold they seemed to impose on their victims lifting as they went, leaving in their wake the cold that already existed. It wasn't as if they'd done anything physical to harm her. Indeed all the evil presence - they didn't seem to be anything else - had done was manhandle her into the cell, stepping back out to observe her from outside the bars as they continued their rattled excuse for breathing, sucking in anything good and warming that remained in Lucy's soul. With these hellish creatures guarding over her prison, she felt as if she'd never be happy again. She tried to concentrate on a happy memory - perhaps her and Claudia as children back along the Medway, her wedding day even - and found them frighteningly gone. Inaccessible. Nonexistent. It was as if these events had never happened, because all the negatives that came along with it were horribly prominent. The day her mother died. Paul's regular absence from the safe haven of their home upon the hill. She heard Claudia's tormented screams in her head, along with the anxious ones of her own as she tried to help and found her sister frighteningly out of reach. The screams reached a fever pitch as the creatures leaned in closer, sensing her fear almost and being enthralled by its sense, as if that was exactly what they fed off. If hell existed, these were the gate keepers.

But as they left her alone to seek what little warmth she could, she found that a little voice inside of her seemed to be generating it's own. She closed her eyes for a second, concentrating on that inner monologue that seemed so reassuring in its tones. It told her to hold on. Keep the faith. Faith. That was something the presence could never take from her. It was a faith that said someone would come. That someone would risk themselves for her. It was a feeling that filled her with the utmost dread, putting people directly in harm's way just to save her own sorry soul. But it was something she would have to rely on if she was to keep going. The bait. That she wouldn't be.

***

'This is it.'

Harry, Ron and Hermione were confronted by a perfectly normally urban dwelling, a semidetached house at the brow of the hill leading down into the valley and the river below, looking spectacular in the glittering light despite facing the mirror of itself all the way down the street. Its ordinariness hauntingly reminded Harry of the state of Privet Drive, with its well-to-do neighbours, community 'spirit' and the secrets that lay behind each door, number four in particular. Nothing was ever as it seemed.

The expedition to the Muggle library had passed with relative ease. The silence had been a pretty welcomed commodity considering the chaos that had preceded it. The three of them took up residence in a cosy corner of the non-fic section, flower covered cushions nestled in a Victorian window seat providing a suitable place to examine booklet after booklet of electoral roll, searching for a name that might not have even been there. Harry had felt sleepier than ever in the mid morning light, streaking through the high paned windows and casting a warming shadow across one side of his face. At one point, he was sure he closed his eyes and let the light absorb him, taking his face in a blanket of its hands a soothing him into a slumber. Ron had at one point managed to sneak off to the fantasy section, and when occasionally taking a break from the reams of names, he read out all the unrealistic sections regarding the activities of wizarding folk to lighten the mood. Hermione had, to begin with, shot Ron a disapproving look, but couldn't help but laugh when one particular author had his wizard falling into a darkened abyss when battling with what Ron had referred to as a Balfrog.

'It's a Balrog, Ron,' Hermione had scolded, failing to disguise a smile of amusement.

'Whatever…' Ron had replied. 'But honestly, how unrealistic! Any half decent wizard would have hit the thing with a conjunctivitis curse, just like Snuffles suggested with the Horntail, right Harry? Hit that thing square in the eye with it and he would have dropped like a sack of potatoes. Would have saved this Token bloke wasting his time with the other two volumes…'

Hermione had rolled her eyes. 'It's Tolkien, Ron, JRR Tolkien. One of the greatest Muggle fantasy writers who ever lived. Honestly,' she'd muttered, 'You wouldn't know good literature if it hit you with an unforgivable…'

Harry had smiled at his friends in the midst of yet another domestic when he spotted it. Darlington, Claudia, her name written out in dark black letters in amongst the residents of Rochester East. The name in print had meant nothing in itself, merely a jumble of letters on a page marked with every name imaginable, but for him it was the only name in the world. With that in mind, Hermione had quickly jotted down any extra details that existed with the record and packed up shop, leading them away from the main town and back up atop the hillside to the house that held all their secrets.

'So what do we do now?' said Hermione presently, tying her sweater round her waist as the afternoon grew warmer still. She seemed a little apprehensive, shrugging a little at Harry's pensive stare, Ron feeling the intensity and attempting to break the ice.

'Oh yeah,' his sarcasm kicked in. 'We're going to barge in there, say hey, remember that gas explosion that cost you a couple of limbs? Well, guess what? Fooled ya!'

Harry was vaguely aware of Hermione whacking Ron round the head as he stared from the piece of paper clutched in his clammy hand and the house in front of them. Before anyone could protest, Harry opened the little Iron Gate and strode up the garden path as it creaked closed, banging gently back and forth against its latch in the afternoon breeze.

'Harry!' Hermione suddenly exclaimed, pushing the gate open again and striding up behind him. 'Wait a minute! Ron's right!' she grabbed his arm as he spun to face her, eyes wildly gleaming with the sort of injustice that would be quashed by stepping over the threshold. She paused for an instant, feeling a wave of sympathy cast over her as she stared solemnly into those bottomless eyes. She shook herself out of it. 'We can't just knock on the door, like a bolt from the blue…' she whispered desperately, calming him so. 'We need to go about this some other way, cover our tracks….'

'Can you think of anything else?' Harry asked in a voice that was not unlike his own, but strangely alien at the same time. He wrenched his arm from Hermione's grip and glanced over her shoulder at Ron, still standing baffled at the gate. 'Anything to add?'

The redheaded one silently shook his head, a little scared at the drastic means that had taken over his friend. Harry looked back at Hermione fiercely. 'I think you're outnumbered, Hermione.'

Harry turned and knocked on the door.

***

She sat bolt right in the armchair at the sound of the raucous at the door. The noise seemed so out of place in the silence that had engulfed the house in company's absence. Twenty-four hours and still no word. The being knocked again. Maybe it was just the paranoia that had aggravated her sibling for so long, but the overriding sense that her unexpected disappearance was the first piece in a jumble of many that would finally solve the puzzle was a feeling that wasn't going to go away. Her heart rapidly ascending her throat, she rose silently, clasping at the doorframe as she staggered through it, a little dazed with anticipation as to what lay behind the front door. An explanation, perhaps, or the police delivering the expected worse? Or maybe, even…

'Lucy?'

She called out helplessly into the darkness of her world, hoping for an answer at the door beyond her reach, as the invisible figures on the other side of the glass nervously muttered between themselves. As she reached for the handle, a great apprehension arose in her chest. Were the people who took Lucy away back for the last piece of the puzzle? This fear that now crept across her frozen heart caused her knees to bend and to place her mouth to the held open letter box. She took a deep breath.

'Who's there?'

Her voice was unusually shaky and nervous, not the Claudia people associated with the blind cold stare that penetrated the soul of a problem without a batter of an eyelid. This was the Claudia of the past: a frightened child who was timid at every step. Something not unlike the voice that gave the reply.

'Someone who really needs your help.'

For a reason that she would never be able to explain, the voice of the unknown individual who stood behind the glass seemed soothing, reassuring almost, like a voice that had been bared to all hell but still managed to maintain an ounce of innocence that so many lacked. It seemed so familiar in its tones, a voice of a maturing adolescent. For the best part of two decades, she'd come to rely on her hearing as a judgement of character. While most people take one look at a face and form an impression without meaning to, Claudia inevitably did the same with the voice. But it was this voice in particular that seemed to stir her emotions and send rationality into the gathering dusk. She instantly trusted it.

'We just need to talk to you, Ms Darlington,' said the voice of a teenage girl, obviously standing a little way back from her up front companion. She heard her take a deep, prolonged breath 'About the accident…'

She paused, confused for a second as to the youth of her voice, both their voices. They couldn't be more than teenagers. The mystery that surrounded these particular visitors seemed to entice her into half turning the door handle. But then she paused, fastened the door with the gold security chain and then proceeded to let the warm summer air in, the door opening at a crack as she pulled herself up and hid behind it, still standing stock-still behind the formidable force of its mahogany setting. She let her fingers slowly creep to its edge, the tips peeking out around its frame as the first part of her body to truly face the visitors.

'How can I trust you?' she said simply, allowing some of her hair to fall across her face and into the light that was streaking through the door crack. She was shaking.

'Here,' said the boy, reaching up and gently touching her fingertips. 'Take my hand.'

For some reason beyond all sensibilities, she felt compelled to obey his command. She simply put her hand more fully into view and allowed him to grasp it tightly in his, the feeling so familiar somehow, like something that had touched her in another life perhaps. His palm felt warm, reassuring, comforting in her own. She didn't breathe as he continued to speak.

'Claudia, do you trust me?'

An entire lifetime must have past as she stood behind the door, holding his hand in hers while his companions watched in dutiful silence. He intertwined their fingers as she thought, a million memories pouring into her head, watching on in her mind's eye while he rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. A million emotions, a million dreams. A million people affected by the existence of this hand. She almost felt a jolt of electricity run the entire course of her body and the visions hit, one after another with a greater speed that ever previously comprehended. A man with gleaming red eyes, evil to the bone. A family destroyed, mother, father, son. A friend. A traitor. A dark-hared man on the brink of insanity. The dog star.

'You're…' she started in a hoarse whisper. 'You're him. You came back.'

'Yes,' she could feel him smile underneath her fingers with a sense of relief that seemed to flood from his own body to her own. 'I came back.'

And without a moment's pause and not letting go of his hand, she unbuckled the chain that restrained their entrance and invited the strangers in.

***

To be continued...