Rating:
R
House:
Schnoogle
Ships:
Ginny Weasley/Harry Potter
Characters:
Harry Potter
Genres:
Action
Era:
The Harry Potter at Hogwarts Years
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire
Stats:
Published: 09/18/2001
Updated: 03/30/2002
Words: 425,244
Chapters: 21
Hits: 583,257

Harry Potter and the Time of Good Intentions

Barb

Story Summary:
During his fifth year, Trelawney did a Tarot reading for Harry. She told him he would have to make a choice that could "change the world as we know it." At the beginning of his sixth year, Harry chooses, and the world does change. Does it change for the better? If he wants, can Harry change it back? Or is giving Harry exactly what he wants Voldemort's ultimate revenge? The sequel to
Read Story On:

Chapter 20 - The Time of the Wolf

Chapter Summary:
During his fifth year, Trelawney did a Tarot reading for Harry. She told him he would have to make a choice that could "change the world as we know it." At the beginning of his sixth year, Harry chooses, and the world does change. Does it change for the better? If he wants, can Harry change it back? Or is giving Harry exactly what he wants Voldemort's ultimate revenge?
Posted:
03/16/2002
Hits:
27,214


Harry Potter and the Time of Good Intentions

(or: The Last Temptation of Harry Potter)

Chapter Twenty

The Time of the Wolf

The members of the Dueling Club, minus Draco Malfoy, their comrade, flew in silence through the trees. They were no longer in formation and flew much more slowly than when they'd soared into the sky from the castle's crowded parapets. Harry looked at Ron, then Hermione, who had stayed near him. He had never felt so anxious and tense in his life. It was one thing when he and Hermione had ventured into the forest just over a year ago to get Ron, or when he and Ron had followed the spiders into the forest in their second year. It was quite another thing to be taking twelve other students into danger--possibly more if the seventh-years joined them, or the students in his own year. Harry felt as though the burden of leadership was a literal weight on his shoulders.

For the most part, the others flew in clumps with their closest friends; Cho and Liam were near each other, being Head Girl and Head Boy, and Justin also stayed close to Liam, looking very nervous. Mariah and Millicent Bulstrode stayed close together, and so did the fifth-year Gryffindors, Ginny, Ruth and Tony. Parvati, Susan Bones and Ernie MacMillan formed another group--Harry remembered that they tended to work together in Herbology, usually with Lavender and Hannah as well. Evan Davies, also from Ravenclaw, like Cho and Liam, flew alone, a short distance behind.

Suddenly, there was an earth-shattering explosion, and Harry almost ran right into an enormous old tree that had to be five feet in diameter. He came to a full stop, as did the others, without being told. The group closest to him and Ron and Hermione were the fifth-year Gryffindors. He directed his words at Ginny.

"We're going up above the trees to do reconnaissance. Stay here. We'll be right back. Tell the others." He didn't speak very loudly, and then nodded to Hermione and Ron, and together they aimed their brooms up at the dense forest roof, putting their arms before their faces when supple leafy limbs threatened to blind them (or take Harry's glasses off). In moments they had emerged above the green canopy. Harry stared at the swaying tops of the trees in the forest; everything looked peaceful. But then he turned, just as Ron and Hermione both gasped, and he saw flames shooting into the sky from the direction of the village. Vivid green against the sapphire sky, the ghastly skull and snake of the Dark Mark hovered above the destruction.

He set his jaw stubbornly. "Well," he said. "That's one more thing to do, then, isn't it." It was more of a statement than a question. He felt as though he had become a very hardened person, as though the boy who had cried with Draco Malfoy on the floor of the cave where his mother died had never existed--and technically, he hadn't. He felt angry and murderous, even more angry than when he'd tried to put the Killing Curse on Tom Riddle.

"Come on," he said tersely to his two best friends, descending into the trees once more. When they'd reached the others again, he motioned with his head for them to gather near so he wouldn't have to shout.

"It wasn't in the forest," he informed them in a low voice. "Death Eaters are attacking the village. Or so it seems. We can't let ourselves be distracted; it might be a ruse. If we can, when we're done here, we'll look into it. In the meantime, I'm sure someone will summon Aurors. Which means the Aurors I was hoping might come to help us will probably be called to work in Hogsmeade. We can't count on them coming here. If we need them, in--" he checked his watch "--fifty minutes the seventh-years will be coming. One of us will go up above the trees at that time to watch for them and guide them to our position. Hopefully that will be possible, since it wouldn't do for the reinforcements to get lost just when we really need them."

They all nodded and went back to their previous configurations, floating cautiously through the trees once more. Hermione and Ron flew near him, looking around tensely, and Harry wished he dared go into battle as a golden griffin; he could see far better in the dim light with his griffin's eyes. Hermione startled him when she said dreamily, "Le temps du loup."

Ron stared at her. "You have to go to the loo?" he whispered fiercely. "It's a hell of a time to think of that, isn't it?"

She laughed softly. "Le temps du loup. It's French for 'twilight.' That's all. It's a very poetic way of putting it. I like twilight," she said, her voice shaking as she looked around the still forest. "Usually." Ron also looked uneasy about the quiet around them. "Damn long way of saying 'twilight,' if you ask me," he said, as though he were trying to forget the reason for them being in the forest.

"I said it was poetic," Hermione said, sounding more like her old self to Harry. "There is a word that literally means 'twilight.' It sounds like some sort of growth you want to get rid of. Extremely unpoetic, especially for French. The literal meaning of 'le temps du loup' is 'the time of the wolf.'"

Harry snorted. "Yeah. How poetic," he said, his voice hard. "I always find it poetic to refer to creatures that could rip my throat out without a thought...." Hermione made a face at him, and Ron started to laugh but stifled it.

Harry looked at the two of them again. He'd seen the heir when he'd held the eyeball charm. He hadn't told anyone yet. He should tell them about the heir, but would they believe him? How would he explain knowing this? The heir was out there with Wormtail, waiting for them, and if Voldemort put an Obedience Charm on him the way he had with Malfoy and ordered him to do this, he'd be compelled to carry out his mission--to the death, if necessary....

Malfoy! He hadn't told him about the Obedience Charm! He smacked himself on the forehead.

Ron looked at him. "What's with you, Harry?"

"Um--" He had to do it, even at the risk of their thinking he was mad. "I just remembered two things that are kind of important...."

"What?" Hermione wanted to know; she'd been slightly ahead, and now she came back to where Harry and Ron were hovering. Harry swallowed.

"It's something Voldemort did to Malfoy when he was a baby. He put a charm on him--an Obedience Charm. Voldemort had to give up some of his power to do it, but he probably thought it would be worth it in the end. And he still managed to not be killed by the curse rebounding on him when he tried to kill me, so it couldn't have taken that much out of him...."

Hermione furrowed her brow. "What's the effect of the charm?" she whispered.

"If he gives Malfoy a direct order, he has to say yes or no to it. If he says no, he drops down dead, and all of the power that went out of Voldemort when he put the charm on Malfoy would die with him. Voldemort doesn't get that back. If Malfoy says yes to a direct order, then he will do it, if it's at all possible. If he's told to kill someone who's already dead, for instance, there's no effect. And he can't personally put any spell on Voldemort that would harm him in any way. He couldn't give him so much as a hangnail."

Hermione and Ron looked at him open-mouthed. "How long have you known this?" Ron demanded.

"Since--well, I guess since the night before your birthday--"

"How?"

"I--I can't explain. After I fell in the common room, and I went to bed--I just knew. I know that sounds odd, but it's like--like something I knew, but information I couldn't get at. I can't explain it...."

"That prat is my sister's boyfriend," his voice rose, "and he has to do whatever You-Know-Who tells him to or die! Well, let me see, what's his motivation for not doing whatever You-Know-Who says....Oh, right, there isn't any, because Malfoy's not about to let himself die just to avoid being a monster's puppet!" Ron was livid. "How could you not mention that? For all we know You-Know-Who's been controlling him all year. Ginny's the only sister I've got!"

Hermione shot Harry a look; well, Harry was wondering whether either one of them had told him about his missing sisters since September. It seemed they hadn't. Yet another thing he would have to deal with eventually….

"I'm sorry, Ron. I--I didn't think of it in terms of Ginny being in danger. I should have done. That was really stupid." Now he felt a panic rising in his chest. Ginny. Ginny could be in danger.... "I--I've been feeling like my head has been spinning for the last few days....Like there's so much I have to tell both of you...."

"Like breaking up with me?" Hermione said softly.

"Hermione--I've got something to tell you that's probably going to upset you more than that. It's about Voldemort's heir. It isn't a son; it's a grandson. Years ago, he had a daughter, and she had a son. Last summer I had a sort of vision, through my scar. I saw Voldemort initiating his heir, giving him the Dark Mark, but I couldn't see his face at the time. Or rather, I couldn't remember who it was afterward. I knew I knew him, but it was all fuzzy. Now I know who it is."

She looked at him shrewdly, waiting. "Well, Harry?"

"Hermione, the heir is Viktor Krum."

She covered her mouth in horror. Ron, if possible, was turning redder than he had when he'd learned of Malfoy's Obedience Charm. "Krum! Damn, Harry! Did you also not know that until last week?" Harry nodded miserably.

Hermione swallowed. "And I--I let him--"

Harry thought of them kissing in the entrance hall, and on the train platform in London. "He was probably under Imperius when he helped Lucius Malfoy and his helpers kidnap you, and then they probably put a memory charm on him. He may not even have known he was involved. Or he didn't. He may know now."

"That's why the test showed that his parents were really his parents! They are his parents. What it didn't test for was whether he was related to You-Know-Who." Harry nodded, remembering being initiated in his other life, remembering his shock when he'd looked at Viktor's still face before hurling his body into the sea. He'd long ago eliminated Viktor as a possibility, because of that test, and to find that it was him all along had been very jarring.

Hermione's eyes widened; she seemed to have thought of something else. "You know what? In fourth year, Moody--I mean Crouch--introduced us for the first time. In the library. You don't think--"

"He used some spell to get the two of you together? Probably not. It sounds like he was just hoping nature would take its course. Two teenagers and all..." Harry flushed.

Ron exploded, "So that's how all that started? Crouch introduced you?"

"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed. "That's all in the past now. I'm not the one in danger from him any more. Think of Cho!"

Harry jerked his head up. Cho! He'd fixed up Viktor and Cho. He'd forgotten all about that. He felt like the stupidest person on the planet. "They're still together?" he asked.

Hermione frowned at him. "What's wrong with you, Harry? Of course they are. We just saw them together in Hogsmeade two weeks ago. And you're the one who told me that he's been coming to the castle to see her quite often, since he's taken Dumbledore literally about everyone who was here during our fourth year always being welcome." Two lines appeared between her brows as her frown deepened. "You know all this, Harry."

Harry shook his head, wishing he'd remembered about Cho and Viktor... "The question is--" he said slowly, moving his broom forward again, soon followed by the others. "Is Cho oblivious to what he is and what he's now doing, is she being controlled by him, or is their relationship totally separate from everything else?"

"Harry!" Ron said suddenly, ignoring Harry's question and coming to a full stop. "I think I know who could have helped Blaise Zabini find a way to get all of the teachers into the Slytherin common room. Krum."

Harry frowned. "Viktor?"

"He and Zabini got to know each other during our fourth year. The Durmstrang students all sat at the Slytherin table, remember? And even though he spent a lot of time in the library making eyes at Hermione," she stuck her tongue out at him, "that doesn't mean he didn't get invited to the Slytherin common room at some point."

"Actually," Hermione said slowly, "he did. He mentioned it once in passing. I think it was at the Yule Ball. He was talking about the green lamps."

Ron nodded. "Yeah, we remember those. From when we took the Polyjuice Potion and went there." Harry remembered it even better from being a Slytherin for almost six years (before going to prison), but he didn't dare say that.

He rode along, wondering now, Is Cho a friend or enemy? Have I put her at risk or has she already turned against us? If she's doing anything for Viktor, is it of her own free will or is she being controlled? Is Hogwarts' Head Girl a tool of a Death Eater, of Voldemort's Heir himself? Thinking about it was making his head hurt.

"We need to be cautious around Cho. Until we can tell which side she's on." Ron and Hermione agreed with him. Harry glanced at Cho, Liam and Justin, flying about twenty feet ahead. He and his two best friends resumed flying in silence, all clearly thinking about what Harry had said about the Obedience Charm and the heir.

What a mess, Harry thought.

When they had been moving through the forest for ten more minutes, still seeing nothing, Harry pointed up, and the others all followed him through a gap in the trees, until they were hovering above the forest in the dark sky, the flames from Hogsmeade and the glowing windows of Hogwarts visible but seeming so distant it felt as though they were on a foreign campaign.

"We need to do more reconnaissance," Harry told them. "This is getting us nowhere. I want Ginny and Tony to come with me to look for the giants. I have a pretty good idea of where their camp is." No one asked him why this was, to his relief. "Hermione, you go with Liam and Justin toward the northeast--" he pointed for everyone's benefit "--and Ron, you go with Cho and Evan to the southeast." He wanted to put Hermione with Liam because he knew that Liam was a very protective Head Boy; he'd feel it his responsibility to make sure nothing happened to the other two, although Hermione could more than hold her own. Ron, on the other hand, now knew to keep an eye on Cho for any odd behavior, and Evan was an excellent duelist and could take care of himself. "The rest of you stay here and wait; if you see red sparks shoot into the sky, one or more of us is in trouble. No more than two people at a time go to one of the three groups to help. Everyone understand?" They all nodded. "All right then. Let's go."

Harry watched Hermione, Liam and Justin depart to his left, and Ron, Cho and Evan to his right. He nodded at Ginny and Tony and the three of them surged forward, Harry slightly ahead, as he had a feel where to look for the giants. It was easier to fly above the trees than down amidst the trunks and reaching branches, and the rustling leaves about five feet below them created the illusion that they were flying only a little bit higher than the terrain, when in reality they were far, far above the ground.

When they reached it, Harry almost missed it; he had to double back and check again, he'd flown over the clearing so quickly. Ginny and Tony followed, hovering next to him, when he stopped and pointed down at the fire the giants had left burning. They aimed their brooms downward and hovered just above the ground in the giants' camp. It was deserted, but something about the desertion didn't look recent, other than the fire. Something about the camp felt very different from when Harry had brought Ginny to meet Hagrid's mother. He alit and picked up something familiar; the parchment on which he'd written to Fridwulfa. it had a large dirty thumbprint on it; it had been read. Harry looked down at the ground, followed the huge footprints to the edge of the large clearing. Tony and Ginny followed him cautiously, still riding their brooms, both with their wands out. Harry walked with his broomstick clutched in his left hand, his wand in his right.

He turned to them. "We should put out the fire. They must have rushed right off. It'll just take us a moment, using our wands."

Ginny and Tony nodded, and the tree of them returned to the fire, aiming streams of water at it from their wands. Harry stood near where Ginny was hovering. As they directed the water at the fire, Harry spoke softly, not looking at her, "Ginny. I have something to tell you. It's about Malfoy. Er--Draco."

Then he plunged right in before he could lose his nerve and told her about the Obedience Charm, hearing her gasp as he explained the consequences for her boyfriend if he either refused to carry out any order from Voldemort or agreed to one.

The fire was out. Harry finally tore his eyes away from the damp, smoking remains to look up at Ginny. "I'm sorry to tell you this way, Ginny. I only just had a chance to tell Ron, and he was furious because you could have been in so much danger all this time...."

"How? All--" she swallowed. "All we have to do is keep Draco away from You-Know-Who and there won't be a problem."

Harry sighed. He recalled Voldemort using the Tempus Fugit spell to talk to him on September first. "Sometimes he's not so easy to avoid."

Tony flew over to them. "We should get going," he said, sounding urgent. Harry mounted his broom again and the three of them lit their wands. They flew out of the clearing, Harry in the lead, easily following path the giants had taken; every broken tree branch, every crushed fern or shrub told them they were headed in the right direction. He knew that in the previous year and a half the giants had been living in the forest, they'd come to know it very well. He thought it likely they knew where the spiders lurked. He and Ron hadn't been paying attention to where they'd gone when they had encountered the spiders in their second year. They'd simply followed the small creatures fleeing the castle because of the basilisk.

As they flew through the trees, Tony came near to Harry. "You think the others are all right? The ones who are waiting for us?" His voice shook as he asked.

"Hmmm?" Harry said, examining a broken branch. He looked up at Tony and had a sudden vivid image from a couple of months earlier of Tony and Ron and Katie driving toward the Hufflepuff goals, tossing the Quaffle back and forth effortlessly....and then after Harry had caught the Snitch and all of Gryffindor House was jumping on the team members back on the ground, a girl with shining hazel eyes and smooth brown hair pulled back into a ponytail was giving Tony a bashful hug before retreating shyly, while his eyes followed her longingly....

"Do you mean all of them--or Ruth especially?" Harry asked him, raising his eyebrows. Now he remembered other instances, in the common room or at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, when Tony had been giving her furtive glances, and she was looking right back.

"You fancy her, don't you?" Tony was a handsome boy with chiseled features, dark, brooding eyes and short, curling dark hair.

Tony grimaced. "I haven't got a prayer. She'd never go for me....If she did, I'd be the luckiest bloke in the world."

"You never know. She might fancy you, too. But you're right--anyone would be lucky to be with Ruth." Harry hadn't noticed how close to him Ginny was flying.

"Oh, you think so?" she said coolly. "Since when do you think so highly of Ruth?"

Harry furrowed his brow. "She's one of your best friends. What's with you?"

Ginny pursed her lips and shot forward, saying tensely, "This way."

Harry checked his watch before he followed her; it had been half-an-hour since they'd left the castle, and they were still searching. He almost wished he'd just flown directly to the forest to look for the spiders, but he remembered what they had been like the last time he encountered them, and knew he'd done the right thing to pursue the issue in an organized manner. Hopefully, the seventh-years won't need to come, he thought, just as a piercing scream rent the air.

"That's Hermione," he said with a certainty he hated. He didn't like knowing that at all. It meant nothing good. He swallowed even as he sped through the trees, Ginny and Tony keeping pace with him.

It took only five more minutes of following the noise and the giants' path to find the spiders. As he suspected, Hermione, Liam and Justin had found them first. Fridwulfa and Orst were there too, but they were the only giants. Where are the others? Harry wondered, but he didn't have time to ask them; each enormous person was working through the crowd of giant spiders. Fridwulfa and Orst were picking up the enormous arachnids and hurling them against centuries-old trees; Harry winced after he heard the first thud and squish! as the outer shell cracked and started oozing the inner organs of the creature. As unsavory a sight as that was, Fridwulfa's and Orst's methodology was effective--he only wished there were more of them.

Harry fired red sparks into the air, and in the eerie red light from this, he finally found out the reason for Hermione's screaming; she'd been knocked off her broom and was dangling by one hand from a very high tree branch, her fingers slipping off the branch one by one. Harry sped to her as fast as he could, but before he could reach her, she was falling, so he swooped down and let her fall across his broom, which made her cry out again because of the impact of her ribs on the wood. Harry wondered whether she might have broken some bones. Better than hitting the ground and being permanently broken, he thought.

He landed, about twenty feet from the nearest spider activity. He couldn't see Justin or Liam anywhere, and now he'd lost track of Ginny and Tony. It was so dark, and the spiders and trees were so dense, he wasn't sure how they'd fight these creatures who preferred the dark and who were familiar with this terrain, as it was their home. The brief burst of light from the red sparks had faded again. Unfortunately, the trees in the spiders' hollow were very dense and permitted almost no moonlight to penetrate to the forest floor.

He lit his wand so he could see her face, which was liberally scratched and bleeding in a half-dozen places from her fall through the tree branches.. "Are you all right?" She nodded, wincing a little; he had a feeling that if she weren't all right, she wouldn't own up to it. "Where are the others?"

"We found Wormtail and Snape and Malfoy. And--oh, Harry, you were right," she choked. "Viktor's with them. He's helping Wormtail. He pulled me off my broom and I was on his--he had his arm around my waist, and I managed to break his grip, but then I fell, and I must have tried to grab a dozen different branches of that tree before I caught one on the way down...." Now she pressed a hand to her side, not bothering to hide her obvious pain. Harry wished he had time to be solicitous, but he didn't have that luxury. Viktor pulling her off her broom certainly explained the blood-curdling scream.

"Do you have any idea where your broom is?" She shook her head. He gazed at the dark beyond the small light produced by his wand. "Do you still have your wand?" She nodded, evidently mute from the pain now. He racked his brain--how had he and Ron gotten away from the spiders before?

The Flying Ford Anglia.

Now he remembered; the bright headlights of the car had split the blackness of the hollow where the spiders lurked, frightening the creatures and disorienting them so that they had released Harry and Ron and they had been able to get away. He turned to Hermione now. "Can you think of a spell to create a really bright light that'll last for a while? So we can see the spiders and also so they'll be disoriented?"

She thought for only a moment, then nodded. He grinned. "I knew you would. I'm going to try to get the others here. You create the light--as bright as you can. The spiders hate that."

Harry would never forget her scratched, determined face as he aimed his broom up toward the roof of the forest again. He could see the lit windows of the castle in the distance, deceptively comforting and homely. Above the trees, the full moon clearly showed him the location of the six waiting members of the Dueling Team, two of them heading toward him because they'd seen the sparks (Ruth and Susan), the others still hanging back, as he'd originally told them. He shouted to Ruth and Susan as they approached him, "Go on where you saw the sparks! I'm telling the others to follow you! Then I'm off to get the other reconnaissance team!"

They nodded as they passed him, and soon he had reached the other four club members and sent them hurtling after the first two. He headed southeast now, and just as he did, red sparks flew up into the air from that direction. Harry's heart was in his throat as he surged forward with an extra burst of speed, wondering fleetingly if any wizard had ever written paeans of praise for his broom. At this moment, Harry absolutely loved his Firebolt.

As he neared the location of the red sparks, Cho Chang suddenly burst up out of a clearing, jolting Harry. He came to a full stop, immediately suspicious.

"What's wrong?" he demanded to know, pulling out his wand so he would be ready for anything she might dish out.

She was sobbing and Harry saw that there was a vicious scratch on her right leg, which was partially exposed by a long rip in her robes. "It's--it's Davies. He's turned on us. He and Ron are down on the forest floor, dueling. I sent up the sparks and came up to make sure help would be coming--"

"Why didn't you help Ron?" he shouted at her, not caring that she was already very upset. "Then it would have been two against one!"

"I'm--I'm sorry Harry, I just couldn't. It's--it's Evan! He's in my house. He's a prefect...."

He glared at her suspiciously. "Is that the real reason? Or is it because you're Viktor Krum's girlfriend?"

Her distress seemed to increase. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Harry didn't feel like explaining. "You wait here. I'm going down there to help Ron." Still unsure of her allegiance, he didn't want to find himself in a two-against-two fight instead of two- or three- against one. "The others have all gone to help Hermione, Liam and Justin. Two of the giants are there as well. I don't know where the other giants have gone. Don't you go anywhere!"

He went down into the clearing from which she seemed to have emerged; he could see crackling red and amber and blue light emanating from Ron's and Evan's wands as they dueled. Both of their brooms were lying amidst the brush on the forest floor, but as Evan saw Harry descending in the silvery moonlight illuminating the clearing, he quickly leapt onto his broom and sped into the trees. Ron also leapt onto his broom, but before he could follow his attacker, Harry yelled, "No, Ron! We'll deal with him later. Right now we need to get to the others. We've found the spiders. I've got Cho waiting up above the trees. Did she--did she seem to be in on this with Davies?"

Ron shrugged. "No idea. She did leave me to manage on my own, but I think she was really shocked when Davies turned around and tried to hex me. Luckily, I was expecting something like that from her, so I just aimed back at a different person." Ron was holding his right arm across stomach as he sat on his hovering broom, his wand still clutched in his hand. His face was white with pain.

"Can you fly all right? Can you cope with more fighting?"

Ron nodded. "I'm right behind you."

They rose toward the forest roof again, finding Cho waiting for them. Without another word, Harry sped toward the spiders, just as a huge explosion turned an ancient pine about a half-mile away into an enormous torch, the fire lighting up the night sky. Is that what Hermione had in mind? he wondered. If so, it was effective, and the light wouldn't need to be maintained by magic. He glanced at Ron and Cho, who looked more alarmed than ever. Harry tried to reassure them as they flew.

"I told Hermione to give us a source of bright light. Looks like she managed to do it." He tried to keep his voice from shaking. He didn't tell them that he and Ginny and Tony had taken the time to put out the giants' fire. That seemed silly now in the face of the inferno that Hermione had started. Trust Hermione to go overboard at a time like this....But he didn't say that aloud. He wanted them to think things were pretty much under control, that this was intentional. He wasn't sure himself that anything was under control, but he couldn't let the people he was leading--even his best friend--know that.

When they reached the living torch, they cut a wide berth around it, descending into the trees about twenty feet away. The fire illuminated the spiders' hollow almost as well as the car headlights had once done. Harry was met with the horrific sight of hundreds of enormous spiders retreating from the light. Fridwulfa and Orst looked completely overwhelmed. They were working their way through the crowd of spiders, destroying one after the other, but it was like removing sand from a beach with tweezers, and now the spiders were moving toward the giants, surging around them, ignoring the fact that heading toward the giants could mean death. They knew that being burned by the fire would mean death.

The spider holding Snape and Malfoy was prevented from moving by the ropes Ginny, Tony and Liam had conjured. The three of them hovered in the air around the monstrous thing while Hermione yelled instructions from the ground. They had to strain to keep their grips on the ropes. Parvati and Susan and Ernie and Justin were gamely trying to curse Wormtail and Krum, flitting about on their brooms higher up, but whenever Wormtail held up his silver arm in defense against the curses, the enchanted metal immediately deflected whatever it was, and Krum was so fast and agile on his broom, the curses zoomed past him without even coming close. Harry gasped as he heard Wormtail cry, "Crucio! but Susan swerved out of the way in time, although Parvati came dangerously close to being hit with it instead. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that neither of them had been hit by the curse; it would be impossible to stay on a broomstick and suffer the pain of the Cruciatus Curse at the same time.

Ron went to help with the spider holding Snape and Malfoy, while Harry, giving a blood-curdling cry, aimed for Krum with his Firebolt. He wanted to grab Krum's broom and force him to come down to the ground so he'd be helpless, out of his element. Harry remembered Krum's walk, the duck-footed gait. A killer whale is only a killer in the sea, he thought. Get it beached, and he's at your mercy.

Krum had been dodging spells from Susan and Ernie and never saw him coming. The impact of the collision made Harry feel like his very bones were rattled out of place. Krum clung to his broom with determination, but now Harry was holding onto Krum's broom, too. He'd put his wand away so he'd have both hands free, one to hold his own broom and one for Krum's. Krum rapped on Harry's knuckles with his wand, trying to get him to let go. Harry wanted to scream from the pain, but instead, he tried to control where both brooms were going. Krum was glaring at him, his hawk nose very much like Snape's, somehow, in the flames from the burning tree. Then Krum aimed hot sparks from his wand at Harry's hand and forced him to release the broom. Harry did, with a yell of pain; there were black scorch marks across the back of his hand.

Harry looked up just in time to see the huge pine.

Thud! went Viktor Krum's body, into the thick tree trunk which he would have missed if Harry's hand had still been guiding his broom. He immediately fell off his broom and both the broom and Viktor Krum started hurtling separately toward the ground. Harry immediately went into a dive, clutching at the hooded cloak Krum wore. He couldn't believe his luck when it was actually in his grasp. But then, almost immediately, the hood was torn from the body of Krum's cloak with a dreadful loud ripping, and Krum was falling once more toward the ground. Harry threw down the useless scrap of fabric that was the hood and dove again, but he was too late this time, and Krum's body hit the forest floor with a sickening noise.

Harry zoomed down to land beside him. He went to his knees, his stomach turning over. "Viktor! Can you hear me? Viktor!" He'd fallen from at least a two-hundred feet onto a large flat rock thrusting up from the ground.

Krum's eyes were closed. Finally, they flickered open. "Harry?" he said in his distinctive accent.

"Viktor! Why--why have you done this?" Harry sobbed.

"Felt--so light--so happy--so carefree" the older boy intoned deliriously, his eyes rolling back in his head.

"Light? Happy? Viktor have you--have you been under Imperius?"

Krum opened his eyes again briefly. When he spoke, it sounded like he had pebbles in his mouth. "I do not know. Maybe. He--he is my grandfather. That must--that must make me like him. Right, Harry--?" His voice was getting softer, and there was a dark pain in his eyes that Harry didn't like.

"No, Viktor, it doesn't. It doesn't mean that at all. It's--" He practically choked, wishing Dumbledore were with them right now. "It's our choices that make us who we are, Viktor. You can be his grandson and still choose to be your own person."

Krum shook his head. "Not as--as strong as you, Harry. And--and now it is too late--"

"What do you mean? Of course it's not too late. Viktor? Viktor?"

The dark eyes stared, unseeing, into the intersecting tree branches above him. Harry shook him, then leaned down to listen to his heartbeat. There was none.

Harry felt the inexplicable urge to cry over this boy who had been a fellow Triwizard Champion (only two of the four were left, he realized with a shock) and whom he'd fixed up with Cho Chang, his first crush. (And now Viktor would be the second boyfriend she'd lost in two years.) Harry had seen him go down on his knees in agony when he'd received the Dark Mark (he knew what that was like now), and he'd seen him with his grandfather, torturing a caged lion for sport. In his other life he'd seen Krum's chest cut open and his heart removed by Voldemort, and Harry had dragged his body to the edge of the cliff where Lucius Malfoy and Barty Crouch, Jr. would later meet their deaths, and he'd thrown the body into the sea rather than let his corpse be cannibalized by his own grandfather, as well as the rest of the Death Eaters. And yet--Viktor Krum had done many horrible things in that other world at the behest of that grandfather. Who knew how many of the Death Eater attacks in the last eight months in this world had also included the heir of Voldemort? Did it matter whether he was acting under Imperius? He seemed to have a fatalistic view of what it meant to be Voldemort's grandson, as though his blood decided everything....

Harry looked down at the broken body, which had seemed so sturdy and indestructible. He must have broken his back when he fell, Harry thought, his throat tight. Well; better dead like this, he thought, than alive and in Voldemort's service, or dead by his own grandfather's hand and consumed, flesh and bone, by said grandfather in an effort to increase his power....Had he known what his grandfather might be planning to do with him? Did Voldemort even know what he could do with his heir, or had no one told him in this life? Harry wondered, shuddering.

He brushed his hand over Viktor's eyes to close them, remembering doing the same thing at Dover. He picked up his broom, scanning the eerily-lit hollow for Wormtail. Him I need alive, he thought grimly, sure that he would never forget Viktor's expression of helplessness as he lay dying, He's--he's my grandfather. That must--that must make me like him. To find out you came from such a monster must surely give you doubts about whether you're a truly good person or just fooling yourself and others, Harry thought. It had clearly had this effect on Viktor Krum. And then there was Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius Malfoy….

Harry tried to push down the inexplicable grief he felt on Viktor's passing, and the doubts about Malfoy. He leapt onto his broom again, zooming upward to help those trying to subdue Wormtail. Still more curses were being deflected from the silver arm. They would never get him this way.

"Treat him like the spiders!" he suddenly cried to the others, as he conjured enchanted ropes from the end of his wand, lassooing the harried-looking wizard and yanking him off his broom, which fell uselessly to the forest floor. Harry braced himself for the extra weight that immediately caused him to sink down at least ten feet, the body dangling from the strong rope in his grasp. Wormtail's eyes bugged out. He didn't dare transfigure so high above the ground. Harry rose higher again, shouting to the others, "Stun him! Do it now! All of you!"

Four voices at once cried, "Stupefy!" and Harry felt the body suspended from the rope go stiff and still; now it was as though he was carrying a Peter Pettigrew-shaped log, perfectly frozen, his arms pinned to his side by the magical ropes. They would keep him like that so he couldn't transfigure.

The smoke from the burning tree was starting to irritate his lungs; his breathing came in painful gasps. The other Dueling Club members who had helped bring down Wormtail had smoky smudges on their faces now and were also gasping. Looking up, he saw that two more trees near the first one had also caught fire. The brightness of the flames was almost blinding now, and much brighter than the Ford Anglia's headlights had been. Swallowing, Harry realized that when all was said and done, they would also need to keep the rest of the forest from catching fire, contain it somehow. Why did the number of tasks before him seem to be increasing instead of decreasing?

He looked up now to see what had become of the other spiders and the giants; the bulk of the acromantula colony had evidently fled before the fire, and Orst and Fridwulfa had gone with them, for he still heard the distant thud! and squish! of the creatures hitting the trees. He wished he had some way of summoning the giants; it was this spider in particular they needed to subdue. If the others were fleeing, he couldn't care less.

He left Parvati and Justin to stand guard over Wormtail's statue-like body, trying not to be distracted by the thought that Sirius could now be cleared, while he and Ernie and Susan flew into the fray again. Harry called Susan to him and together they grabbed Severus Snape's arms while the others continued to try to control the spider with magical ropes. They used the trapeze hold with him, grasping his forearms while he grasped theirs. At close range now, Harry was appalled to see how gaunt and wasted the Potions Master looked, and his grip was further compromised because of the bandages on his hands which were now clearly each missing the smallest finger.

"Hold on tight!" he told both Snape and Susan, grunting as he willed his broom to go higher still. It was no good; they weren't strong enough to pull up and get him out of the spider's grasp.

Wait, he thought. This is stupid. He remembered classes from when he was small, at the village school in Little Whinging. Classes about simple machines, about levers and ramps and pulleys....

Pulleys.

He conjured some more ropes and tied them around Snape's waist, two of them. It was difficult, as the spider was moving the entire time, and talking to them, which was really starting to annoy Harry. It spoke to him now. He'd almost forgotten the creatures could speak English.

"I have to eat, too," it said in a deep resonating voice, as though he were asking something perfectly reasonable. "This wizard came and dropped these nice morsels of food in our midst. Very nice of him, I thought. Usually Hagrid feeds us, but he hasn't been to see us tonight. Where is Hagrid? Why has he not fed us? Has he sent this wizard with these men to eat? That must be it. Hagrid wishes us to eat the men. Go away and leave us alone. Let us enjoy our meal."

Harry tried to shut his mind against the voice; it was worse than hypnotic, it was filling his brain, making it very nearly impossible to think of anything else. He tried to focus on his pulley idea and he summoned Mariah and Tony and Ginny and Ron, who saw immediately what he was up to. Mariah took his place slightly above Snape. Susan was already in position. They threw the ropes over Mariah's and Susan's brooms, and then Tony and Ginny pulled down on the rope looped over Susan's broom while Harry and Ron pulled down on the rope looped over Mariah's. Now they had enough force to pull him slowly up out of the spider's grasp. Mariah and Susan were making their brooms ascend the entire time, so the fact that the pulling was making them go back down meant that they each maintained a fairly steady altitude, and when they'd succeeded at last in extracting Snape from its grasp, it clicked its pincers at the empty air, grasping frantically for its lost quarry. The six of them couldn't help letting out victorious whoops and hollers; they moved him carefully down to the ground well away from the hollow and the burning trees, and Harry untied him and leaned down to speak to him.

"Are you--are you all right, Da--Professor?" He'd had to stop himself from calling him 'Dad.'

The older man nodded, his dark eyes as haunted as Viktor Krum's had been. He'd been tortured for months. He was missing two fingers and he almost been killed by an acromantula. By comparison, he was indeed all right now. Harry ordered Mariah and Susan to stay with Snape while he, Tony, Ron and Ginny sped back to the monster to free Draco Malfoy using the same method.

But when they returned, they found that another spider had returned, unfazed by the bright light, perhaps also upset that Hagrid had not come to feed them, and thinking that the members of the Dueling Club would do nicely. It was going after the students controlling the spider that still held Malfoy, struggling to keep a grip on the ropes, and both Ron and Harry cried out, "No! when they saw it coming after Hermione. She screamed and dropped her wand and rope, running before it, then stumbling and falling. She turned over and the thing loomed above her. Harry thought she must have twisted her ankle, or she'd be up and running again. He and Ron both swooped down to get her, but they weren't fast enough. The spider scooped her up and she let out a long, piercing scream, all the while struggling against the strong, hairy pincers. Now other spiders were returning; what had happened? Harry wondered. Were they used to the light now? Were there so many to manage that Orst and Fridwulfa hadn't noticed that some had evaded them? Or were they attracted to the heat of the fire? Did it remind them of their native Borneo?

Ron was flying around the spider frantically, its free pincers coming dangerously close to him. "Let her go!" he screamed at it, his face red with rage. "Take me! Take me instead!"

The acromantula answered, "As you wish," and plucked him from his broom. His face was no longer red but ashen, and Hermione's screams escalated.

"Ron!" she cried. "Are you all right?" Tears rolled down her face. "I'm sorry!"

Ron continued to try to bargain with the thing, even as it started to move away with its double prize. "She's small!" he said, trying to convince it. "Hardly half a snack! I'm a lot bigger--don't waste your time with her!"

Harry was shocked; this was Ron Weasley, of all people, Ron who hated and feared spiders worse than anything else in the world. Ron who, for the second time in his life, was in the grasp of an acromantula. Ron who had willingly offered himself up in Hermione's place.

He wanted to fly to their aid, but he was already in the middle of the rescue-Draco-Malfoy operation, and without Ron to help, they needed another pair of strong arms to pull it off. They'd started off needing to get two people away from a spider; now they had to rescue three people. Calculating quickly in his head, Harry was starting to despair of their task ever being done; if it took six of them to rescue every person who was captured by a spider, and the rescued person was incapacitated after that, their numbers would be dwindling very quickly and soon they wouldn't have enough people to execute the pulley-style rescues. And that was assuming no one else was captured, as Ron and Hermione had been.

Tony managed to grab Liam to take Ron's place, and Harry recruited Ruth and Millicent to fly high in the sky with the ropes slung over their brooms. After Ginny hovered near Draco, tying the ropes around his waist, she gave him a quick kiss, and then Harry, Ginny, Tony and Liam pulled down on the ropes while Ruth and Millicent kept their brooms at a stead height, and soon they had freed Draco Malfoy from the spider's grasp. The students on the ground tied the spider to a tree and went to conjure ropes to subdue the spider holding Ron and Hermione while the "rescue team" gently deposited Draco Malfoy on the ground near Snape. Ginny immediately fell on him, crying and laughing simultaneously, while the others returned to where Ron was still trying to convince the spider to free Hermione and concentrate on how delicious he was. This spider had moved close to where a fourth tree had ignited, sparks flying everywhere, and more and more, the sound Harry heard the most was human coughing as they all fought to breathe in the fiery, smoky atmosphere. It was like battling the beasts of hell in hell itself.

Harry didn't force Ginny to return with them; she and Draco Malfoy clutched each other convulsively, crying freely, while Snape, sitting nearby with Mariah and Susan, looked distinctly uncomfortable.

Then Harry wondered where Cho was, and found that she had discovered Krum's body and was huddled next to him, sobbing her eyes out. Harry was convinced that she had no idea what Viktor had been going through. And now he was dead.

Returning to the hollow, the spider was now securely tethered to a tree like its fellow, and Tony, Harry, Liam and Ernie managed to pull Hermione from the spider's grasp while Millicent and Ruth hovered above, the ropes slung over their broomsticks. Then they did the same for Ron, depositing him near Hermione, who fell on him much as Ginny had fallen on Draco Malfoy, clutching him to her. Harry caught his breath, seeing at last the raw passion she felt for him, the feelings she had denied on Ron's birthday when Harry had broken up with her--the feelings she'd been denying for perhaps a very long time. Was it to protect him that they'd still denied having these feelings on Ron's birthday? Was it her injured pride at his breaking up with her that had compelled her to turn on her heel and stalk away down the corridor?

Neither one of them seemed to care that anyone else in the world existed now. They knelt on the dirt of the forest floor, facing each other, arms wrapped around each other tightly. Tears were streaming down Hermione's face. Then she ran her fingers in wonder over Ron's features, shaking her head in wonder, speechless at first, and finally choking, "You--you hate spiders!"

Ron threw his head back, laughing uproariously. His face was smudged from the ashes flying from the fire and he had a gash along his jaw and several cuts on his arms bleeding freely. He cradled her face in his hands now, gazing at her with so much love it made Harry catch his breath.

"That's still true," he told her with a smile that looked like it went right to her heart. "But I love you more than I hate them, and I'm not willing to live without you any longer." He finally brought her face up to his and kissed her while she clutched at him, trying to get closer, opening her mouth under his and looking as though it would take an explosion of earth-shattering proportions to tear her from him.

Harry swallowed, feeling happy for them, but simultaneously feeling empty and utterly alone. He realized the others were standing around staring at him, wondering how he was going to react to this. "Um," he explained to them in a shaky voice; the smoke seemed to have cut his volume in half. "Did I--did I not mention that Hermione and I broke up last week?"

They looked uncertainly at the oblivious form that was Ron and Hermione combined, still kissing frantically. Then the two of them came up for air and noticed the others watching them. Hermione ducked her head bashfully, burying it in Ron's chest. She looked as embarrassed as when she'd inadvertantly "flashed" Ron and Draco Malfoy and Ginny on the day of Dudley's funeral. His two best friends looked at Harry uncertainly and he forced himself to smile, although he felt a sudden stab of loneliness pierce him. They smiled back in relief, seeing only his façade, and then they sat down on the ground with their arms around each other.

He couldn't think about this right now, and he turned away from them, returning to Snape. Malfoy and Ginny were sitting next to each other in a pose similar to Ron and Hermione, their arms around each other, Ginny's head pillowed on his chest. When Harry sat down near them, Draco Malfoy looked at him with only a hint of resentment.

"Well, Potter," he said reluctantly. Harry saw Ginny nudge him in the ribs. "Thanks for saving my life," he blurted out suddenly, as though to get it over with.

Yeah, Harry wanted to say, Thanks for being a stupid prat and flying off to the forest alone. But instead he answered quietly, "You're welcome."

Malfoy looked around uncomfortably. "Um--if you don't mind, now I need to go, er--" he leaned over and whispered in Ginny's ear. She giggled.

"Oh, you. Just go behind a tree. There are only a million of them. Avoid giant spiders," she advised with a mischievous, loving look. He leaned down and kissed her quickly, then rose.

"You know," he said affectionately, "you're the only one I would let get away with that right now."

Grinning up at him, she said, "I know," with a merry look. He exited the clearing, walking a bit strangely, and Harry decided to ignore him and sit next to Ginny. He wasn't prepared for her throwing her arms around him and giving him a kiss on the cheek. Then they were both sitting back, staring at each other, and Harry's heart turned over, loving her so much, and feeling like she had never been more beyond his reach.

"I--I still can't believe you did all this. For him," she said, her meaning quite clear. He loved her and she loved Draco Malfoy, and he had just saved Draco Malfoy's life.

"Well, Ginny," he said, remembering another young man lying in a bed in the castle infirmary, his eyes full of love and longing as he gazed at Lily Evans; "if he had died, it would have made you sad."

He couldn't stop the tears flowing down his cheeks as he spoke, and he turned to see Severus Snape staring at him in amazement. Then Draco Malfoy returned from relieving himself and sat next to Ginny again. She snuggled against him once more, but she looked at Harry strangely now, frowning just a little, but also looking as though she were trying very hard to figure him out, and failing.

Harry rose and walked away from them. He needed to make sure the others were all right. Ernie and Millicent had come to sit near Snape along with Mariah (who still wore her fingerless gloves) and Susan. Tony and Ruth sat a little ways off, next to each other, but not touching. They looked like they were having a quiet conversation. Perhaps he's telling her how he feels, Harry thought, silently wishing him luck.

Liam had joined Justin and Parvati in watching over Wormtail; Harry couldn't help notice how solicitous Justin was being of Liam, who was coughing vociferously, his face almost black with soot. Finally, Liam pulled Justin to him in a tight embrace, burying his face in his neck, looking like he thought he might not make it, and reminding himself of what was important. Parvati turned discreetly away from them, giving them their moment. Harry smiled at her sadly; he didn't know whether she knew about Ron and Hermione, about fifty feet away, but she would soon. He remembered now that all year, since September, she'd continued to look longingly toward Ron when she thought no one noticed. Perhaps she'd known the whole time they were together that he was in love with Hermione, and had thought she could eventually get him to change his mind and focus on her. But she had to draw the line at his saying Hermione's name when they were making love. That was too much. Parvati returned Harry's sad smile with one of her own. Parvati was all right, he thought. She'd fought as well and as hard as any of them, for all her dedication to Divination and Sybil Trelawney. She was a brave Gryffindor, an able warrior and still quite beautiful, even covered in soot.

When Justin and Liam had broken apart, he finally approached them. "We need to get Wormtail out of here before the spiders get him. Don't revive him. That's for the Ministry to do, in a nice, tight cell without any hope of escape."

They nodded and levitated the body, moving it into the trees and away from where the spiders were starting to congregate again. A sixth and seventh tree were burning now, and Harry held the hem of his robe up to his mouth to try to avoid inhaling too much smoke. He made his way to Cho in the haze. She was hunched over Viktor Krum's body, and she was very still. He pulled her up.

"Cho! We have to go! We'll bring Viktor's body, don't worry. But we can't stay here any longer. The forest is going up!"

He shook her and her head flopped around on her shoulders. He couldn't get her to open her eyes. Her breathing was barely detectable, as was her heartbeat. He slung her limp form over his shoulder and struggled to stand. She'd been breathing smoke for too long, sitting vigil so close to Viktor's body. Harry knew she wouldn't make it if she didn't get back to the castle soon.

Crucio!"

The pain hit him without warning. He sank to his knees, letting Cho's body fall to the ground; after what seemed an eternity of knives piercing his skin down to his very bones, and then the knives peeling back his skin and muscle layer by layer, he finally felt himself disconnect from his body and his eyes rolled back in his head as he found himself floating above it. Turning slowly, he saw who was torturing him now.

Evan Davies was not covered in soot, as the rest of them were. Harry remembered his brother Roger at the Death Eater meeting in his other life, and pursuing him at the football match in Fraserburgh. He recalled seeing the owl deliver the black-edged letter to Roger the year he was Head Boy. Had his brother Evan received one, too? Was Evan a Death Eater? Or was Roger the only true Death Eater in the family, and he'd put Imperius on his brother to make him another agent of Voldemort at Hogwarts, like Blaise Zabini?

Whatever the reason, suddenly several things happened at once. A large spider stepped up behind Evan and suddenly picked him up in its pincers, then began calmly walking away with him. Evan's mouth was opened in a silent scream--at least, it was silent to Harry. Evan's wand dropped to the earth, and the slowly crackling beam of light that had connected him to Harry was broken. Before Harry could think about returning to his body, several things happened at once. Fridwulfa came striding into the hollow again, and Harry knew why humans feared the giants. There was a terrible look on her face; she picked up the spider and bashed it into the nearest tree to get it to give up its prize, not knowing Evan Davies had been putting the Cruciatus Curse on Harry. The pincers opened, and the spider lost its grip on Evan Davies, who went flying directly into one of the fiery trees.

But as Fridwulfa had returned to the hollow, a wave of flying things had swooped down into the hollow in slow motion like very large, lumbering bats, but after a moment, Harry was able to see that they were actually the seventh-year students, and he also saw that there was someone leading them who was not a seventh year, and hadn't been for a very long time.

It was Albus Dumbledore.

Harry slid back down into his body. The headmaster had seen Evan Davies being flung into the inferno, and as Harry regained his hearing, he thought that he had never heard a more horrible sound than the headmaster's simultaneously agonized and angry cry of, "NOOOOOO!" as he saw the young man, whom he did not know had turned on Harry, rise up, standing amid the flames, running around in agony as the heat cooked his body at an unspeakable temperature. Harry had to look away; it was a horrible way to die. Evan Davies was sixteen, like him.

But it was difficult to focus on the horror of Evan's death; loud pops! all over the place announced the elves' advent. Suddenly the little creatures were everywhere. A half-dozen elves surrounded Harry, and he asked them to move Cho Chang and Viktor Krum away from the fire. Then he shouted to Dumbledore, who was standing with a horrible expression on his face, watching Evan Davies, "Professor! Davies turned on us. He attacked Ron and flew off when they were supposed to be doing reconnaissance, and just before that spider attacked him, he'd put the Cruciatus Curse on me." Harry looked at the old man, who looked older still as he heard this news and watched Evan Davies die. When he had seen the headmaster, Harry had wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, in relief, but he looked at the old man's face and knew that rejoicing that the letter had been a ruse would have to wait.

Harry realized that Fridwulfa was gone again. Had Dumbledore seen what she'd done that had led to Davies' death? Would he tell Hagrid that his mother was a murderer?

Harry decided to focus on other things. "We're most of us all right," he shouted over the loud crackling of the flames. "The rest are farther along there, in the trees. We've got Professor Snape and Draco Malfoy, and Wormtail is stunned. Viktor Krum was helping Wormtail. He's dead--took a bad fall from his broom."

Dumbledore nodded sagely, but still looked shaken. "And as well-lit as this area is," he said nodding at the fire, "I think it's time for some containment." He sounded like he didn't want anyone or anything else dying as Evan had, regardless of what side the Ravenclaw prefect had been on. "You go along with the others and rest, while we get some help from the house-elves in creating a firebreak, so the flames can't travel farther than we want them to."

Harry nodded, following the elves levitating Cho and Viktor back toward the others. He could hear the headmaster, seventh-year students and elves farther off in the forest, magically pulling down trees and then setting fire to those growing at the edge of the firebreak. After letting them burn for a few minutes, they flew about, well above the flames, spraying them with water, until finally, the forest was more redolent of damp ashes than pinesmoke.

Trying to return his breathing to normal, Harry sat near Tony and Ruth, who were now leaning against each other companionably, exchanging small smiles every so often. The Dueling Club had done it. They had rescued Snape and Malfoy and apprehended Wormtail. And they'd only lost one of their number, the turncoat Evan Davies.

And Dumbledore was alive!

Harry tried to concentrate on this, swallowing as the headmaster walked toward him with a rueful smile on his face. He pulled Harry to his feet, then wouldn't let go of his hand. He seemed to be putting Evan Davies out of his mind for now.

"Well done, Harry, all of it. I'm very proud of you. When I'd returned to the castle, I found the students on the parapets, and they told me of your plan. Very well done." He nodded and smiled at Harry. Harry tried to smile feebly back, but just past the headmaster, he couldn't help but see Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley kissing. He looked back up into Albus Dumbledore's face.

"Thank you, sir," he said, his voice croaky. "Is--is everything all right at the castle? The other teachers--?"

He nodded. "Ah, yes. Good instinct of yours, having the elves take care of that one. Mr. Zabini did not see that coming."

"What actually happened, sir? How did a few students overcome all of the teachers?"

He shrugged. "The teachers are basically good people, but they won't make that mistake again--and not just with Slytherins. They were each told that there was a Death Eater attack in the Slytherin common room, and they came. As soon as each one was admitted, they were stunned, one by one. Flitwick, evidently, they didn't bother with. They drugged his tea." It had looked to Harry like everyone was in the Slytherin common room; he hadn't noticed the absence of Flitwick's name. "Hagrid was the difficult one. They decided to tell him that someone in the house had a dragon's egg which had just hatched, and they needed his help. Well, Hagrid couldn't resist, of course." Someone certainly knew Hagrid's weakness for dragons, Harry thought. "And of course, this being the full moon, Remus is in the Shrieking Shack. It's a pity Sirius couldn't be with him, nor you, but obviously you were needed elsewhere." Dumbledore smiled at him, but Harry didn't smile back.

"Oh, no, Professor! Where did you say Professor Lupin is?"

"In the Shrieking Shack, of course."

"Is the Shack okay? And the rest of the village? How's Hogsmeade?"

Dumbledore looked confused. "Hogsmeade is fine, Harry. Why?"

Harry explained to him about the explosion and Dark Mark they'd seen earlier. Now the headmaster was tense and worried-looking again. "In which direction did you see the Mark in the sky?"

Harry could only point vaguely. It must have faded by now. Dumbledore's face blanched. "Oh, no...." he breathed softly.

"What?" Harry's voice shook.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "Harry. I didn't hear a thing about there being trouble in Hogsmeade. But it does sound like--like the Shrieking Shack was attacked....And it's well away from most of the village. The people in Hogsmeade don't like it, so if it caught fire they'd probably just let it burn. It's too far away from other structures to endanger anyone else's house...."

Harry's legs seemed made of jelly. If one more thing happens tonight.... he thought, wondering how much more he could take. He swallowed with difficulty, then said, "There were flames. Shooting high into the air. And then the Mark."

They looked at each other, neither willing to acknowledge that Remus Lupin was probably dead. Dumbledore simply put his hand on Harry's shoulder with a sad frown pulling all of his features down, and Harry wished he could turn back the clock, not to change time, but just to keep himself from ever getting to this time, to avoid living this horror. Just when it seemed the only dead were Evan and Viktor, who were on the wrong side, and just as he found out that Albus Dumbledore was not dead, he learned that Remus....that Professor Lupin....

He turned away from Dumbledore, staring into the trees, his eyes feeling seared from the heat of the fire, too dry for him to cry. His tear ducts were completely depleted. "Time we all went back," he said tersely to the old man. Dumbledore patted his shoulder again and started gathering people together.

The elves were helping levitate many of the wounded and coughing members of the Dueling Club through the trees. Snape wanted to walk. He was already on his feet, staggering through the trees, when Dumbledore saw him and cried, "Severus!" He strode over to him and embraced him like a long-lost son, and Harry thought he actually saw a tear on the Potion Master's cheek as he withdrew. He nodded to Dumbledore, who left him alone after that uncharacteristic display.

They made an odd parade through the trees. Ron and Hermione also did not want help from the elves. Harry was right; Hermione had twisted her ankle when she'd been running from the spider, and Ron was carrying her now, which she was evidently enjoying (he didn't seem to mind a bit either). Draco Malfoy and Ginny walked together, arms around each other, just behind Professor Snape. Harry walked a dozen paces behind the two of them, trying not to stare, but it was very difficult.

After a while, he turned around, looking for Ron and Hermione. Ron was moving rather slowly while carrying her, and her head was pillowed on his chest. Harry couldn't help but remember when they'd first met Fridwulfa and Ron had scooped up Hermione in his arms effortlessly. Neither one of them seemed to notice that there was anyone else in the world. Hermione lifted her head and looked at Ron, making Harry catch his breath; it was that look of complete connection he'd never seen her direct at him. He had seen someone look at him that way, but only in his other life, when he'd been with Ginny. Ron returned the look, his eyes burning into hers as he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. It looked like he'd only planned to make it the briefest of kisses, but Hermione clutched at his hair, refusing to let him go. Harry saw her open her mouth under his again, making Ron groan and grasp her more tightly.

Harry took a step closer to them and cleared his throat loudly. Ron pulled back from Hermione abruptly. She looked like she was about to protest, but Harry said, "Hermione! Ron! Come on. There'll be time for more of that later." He forced himself to smile at them. Ron looked abashed, then couldn't help his own smile creeping across his face. Hermione grinned up at him, and Harry turned to walk toward the others again.

"Come on," he said again, over his shoulder. "Without brooms this could take a while." The others had moved quite some distance ahead of him while he'd turned to talk to his best friends. Only Dumbledore--who was walking by choice--and the seventh-years still had their brooms. The brooms of the Dueling Club members seemed to have become lost in the confused battle with the spiders, or fallen into the fire. Harry realized suddenly that he would need to get another Firebolt, or a different broom, perhaps. Something new and improved. That's what I need to do right now, he thought, acutely aware of Draco Malfoy and Ginny in front of him and Ron and Hermione behind him. Think about new brooms, state-of-the-art....

Ron's footsteps seemed very loud behind him; glancing back, he saw that, while they'd left off kissing, they were still finding it impossible not to stare deliriously at each other. As a result, Ron wasn't too steady on his feet. Harry shook his head and turned back to the path. I'm happy for them, I am. He knew it was not Hermione he was longing for, but what she and Ron had together. He wanted that with someone. As he looked at Ginny ahead of him, he amended that. All right; not just anyone....

After a few minutes, the others were in sight before him again. He saw Snape turn and look at Harry, Ron and Hermione, his eyes widening in surprise. Harry assumed he was unprepared for the clear, unmistakable looks of ardor on their faces, since it was Harry who'd been her boyfriend back in August, when the Potions Master had been captured. But then, in the wand light, Harry could see that Snape's expression was clearly one of horror, a worse look on his face than Harry had ever seen. He looked deathly pale even for Severus Snape.

Then Harry felt it. Even as Snape was crying out, "NOOOO--!" just as Dumbledore had done when he'd seen Evan in the fire, the hairs on the back of Harry's neck stood up and he heard the urgent footsteps pounding on the dry dirt path, heard the low rumbling growl. He turned just in time to see the wolf's red eyes as it leaped onto Ron Weasley's back and sank its teeth into his shoulder.

Ron's scream was earth-shattering and horrible. He fell to his knees, on top of Hermione, deliberately placing himself between her and the wolf even as he was clearly in unspeakable pain. The slavering mouth moved to Ron's left upper arm as Harry executed the change and hit the ground with all four paws running. Though he knew his transfiguration had only taken seconds, it seemed to be an eternity. His best friends had just admitted their love for one another at last, and now one of them was about to be killed.

Not if I have anything to do with it, Harry thought fiercely, as he leapt at the wolf, sinking his own teeth into its neck, making it release Ron's arm. He remembered feeling almost petrified with fear at the thought of being mauled by a wild animal, when he and Hermione had been in the Pensieve. Now he was doing some mauling himself. The two animals tumbled off Ron and Hermione, locked together, blood flowing liberally--Ron's and the wolf's--as they rolled over and over on the ground, banging into tree trunks and lumpy, ancient roots.

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Ron lying on top of Hermione still, his arm a bloody mess, and Harry renewed his efforts to punish the wolf for what it had done. But in the moment when he'd turned to see his best friends, the wolf managed to get away from him. He immediately sprang after the beast. The two of them pounded through the forest, which had become a blur; Harry's griffin eyes had no problem seeing the wolf in the darkness, nor keeping track of it, as he had with Wormtail the previous year. He and the wolf were of much the same size, and it couldn't go places that were inaccessible to Harry, as the small rat had been able to.

Harry didn't know for how long they ran. He tried not to think about how tired he was as he pushed himself to keep on. He had to make sure the wolf stayed in the forest. He couldn't risk it getting to any of the Muggle villages near the Clash.

They both slowed down a little at a time. Finally, the wolf collapsed into an exhausted heap on the forest floor. Harry let himself collapse too, a few feet a way, continuing to watch the wolf cautiously, should this prove to be a ruse. But the wolf put his snout down on his paws and closed his eyes, giving in to his exhaustion at last. Harry fought the urge to close his own eyes; he had to keep watch. He noticed in the moonlight that the wolf's grey fur was charred and singed along his right flank, and that his ears also looked singed. Perhaps he'd been too close to the fire at some point.

Keeping watch was difficult. His heavy eyelids kept wanting to droop…

He was standing in the doorway of a classroom. He could tell that he was not at Hogwarts. It wasn't like the classrooms in the village school in Little Whinging, either, which were in a building that had been smart and new forty years earlier, but now was smudged and grimy, rows of metal lockers in the corridors dented and covered in too many layers of paint to cover up graffiti that rarely occurred, dropped ceilings with flickering fluorescent tubes in the classrooms always missing a few tiles, so that daydreaming students like Harry could gaze up at the heating ducts or insulation-covered plumbing when they grew bored.

No, this classroom looked more like something from a period film, as far as Harry was concerned. The blackboard was trimmed out in dark heavily-carved wood and the desks were bolted to the oft-waxed floor; crudely-drawn pictures of people in wizarding cloaks and hats covered one wall, and above these works of art was the legend, "Our Families." Family pets depicted included some rather exotic birds and a couple of snakes, in addition to the requisite owls and cats.

Latin declensions covered the blackboard. The children who belonged to this classroom did not appear to be the eldest in the school; they seemed to be around eight or nine years of age, from what Harry could tell. They sat at the desks in small versions of the adult wizarding robes depicted in the lively drawings and recited the Latin with a seriousness that was threatening to make him burst out in extremely inappropriate laughter. Then Harry looked up and saw the teacher, pointing at the words with her wand as the children read. It was Alicia! Harry smiled at her from the doorway, and she stopped and smiled at him.

"Children! We'll go on with this in tomorrow's lesson. Mr. Potter is here now, as promised, for today's story-time. Please give him your complete attention."

Harry walked forward, and near the desk, Alicia handed him the book with the story he was to read to the children; she said to him quietly, "Thank you

so much for coming, Harry. Thank goodness Dumbledore and McGonagall gave you permission. The children are incredibly restless now that spring's here. It's all I can do to keep from running outdoors and rolling about on the grass myself…"

But that gave him an idea. "Why not do just that?"

She frowned at him. "What?"

He turned to the children. "How would you all like to have story-time out-of-doors today?"

The children smiled back at him eagerly, and Alicia looked at him skeptically, one eyebrow raised, then reluctantly nodded at him, and he admired the way she lined the children up like little marching soldiers. In front of the heavily-timbered building across the High Street from the village hall there was a curved drive like the one at Hog's End, so that the school bus could load and unload children without blocking the street. Nestled in the curve of the drive was a small park with neatly-manicured grass and flowering trees and buds just beginning to emerge from the ground. Harry led the lines of children into the middle of the grass and they all sat down around him. He was in a sea of children, terribly squirmy and excited because HARRY POTTER was going to read them a story today!

Harry made himself comfortable on the grass and opened the book Alicia had handed him, beginning, "Once upon a time there was a beautiful maiden…"

As he read the tale of the unfortunate girl whose father lied and claimed she could spin straw into gold, and the prince who forced her to do just that, he was frequently interrupted by questions from the children.

"Was the little man really a little man, or was he a house-elf?" said a shy little girl with dark shining hair.

"I think he was a house-elf who tricked his master into giving him clothes," said a boy with sandy hair and a scaly scab on his chin.

"But house-elves can't spin straw into gold!," said another girl authoritatively. "It had to be a really small wizard."

"Could have been a lepper kon," said a boy with no front teeth.

"But then the prince's gold'd be gone the next day."

"Maybe he put it away in a vault and didn't notice."

"Children--" Alicia said with a clear warning in her voice. They settled down to listen again. When Harry reached the part about the poor girl having to guess the name of the person who had helped her or give up her child, the children gasped, even though they also gave the distinct impression that they'd heard the story many times.

When Harry said, "The end," his audience erupted in appreciative applause. Then suddenly, with a loud BANG! a yellow school bus appeared in the drive.

"Back inside, children! You need to pack your bags. Don't forget your currency assignment. If I say to you, What is another way you can express four-thousand, six-hundred thirty-eight Knuts? I want you to immediately say--"

"Nine Galleons, six Sickles and twenty-seven Knuts," a few students answered in unison, while others attempted to mumble along as if they knew.

A little girl with light brown hair and intelligent dark-blue eyes said knowingly, "That one's easy. There are four-hundred ninety-three Knuts in one Galleon, so it's going to be less than ten Galleons because it's short of four-thousand nine-hundred thirty Knuts…"

Harry's head was swimming. He'd prided himself upon at least being rather good at mathematics in school (he'd even bragged about this to Hagrid when they met, since Hagrid as much as implied that Harry hadn't been taught anything of use), but he'd never had to memorize products of twenty-nine and seventeen.

"--so you take four-hundred ninety-three away from four-thousand nine-hundred thirty," the girl continued to whomever would listen. Harry smiled; she would be a terror at Hogwarts one day. Probably already planning to be Head Girl, as her teacher had been.

"--and you get four-thousand four-hundred thirty-seven. Which is just two-hundred and one short of the original number. And it's easy from there to figure out that there are six twenty-nines in two-hundred and one with twenty-seven Knuts left," she finished triumphantly. Her face fell momentarily when she saw that no one was paying attention to her, but then it lit up rapturously when she saw Harry smiling at her, followed by her turning a bright crimson and scurrying into the school with the other children.

Harry followed the children back into the school, wandering up and down the corridors looking at artwork and essays on parchment that had been posted outside various classrooms. In every room, the children were busily packing their rucksacks, and soon, they were swarming out the front doors of the school and piling into the bus, to be taken wherever they lived in England, Scotland or Wales. When it was fully loaded, the bus disappeared with another loud BANG! and Harry wandered back to Alicia's classroom to say good-bye. It had actually been a rather pleasant way to spend the latter part of the afternoon. He'd managed to get permission on a day when he would otherwise be in the Potions dungeon, and he wasn't sorry not to see Professor MacDermid or Pansy Parkinson until the next Potions class. He hadn't been allowed to come by himself, however, for security reasons. The headmaster himself had flown with him to the village, and then he'd gone on to have a drink with a friend at the Three Broomsticks, which had been rebuilt after the explosion on the day of the ceilidh.

When Harry reached the classroom, he heard low voices, and realized that someone else had come to see Alicia. She seemed to have thought he'd left already. Then--there was no mistaking it. Alicia was moaning and a male voice was saying, "Let's continue this at my flat." Harry dared to peek around the doorway just as they Apparated out of the classroom, arms around each other. He hadn't been able to see who Alicia's boyfriend was.

"'Arry?" a heavily-accented voice said behind him. Harry whirled, surprised to see Fleur Delacour standing there, looking as flawless as ever, even though, like Alicia, she spent her days teaching children. She leaned forward and kissed him quickly on each cheek. "'Ow are you doing?" she asked with a brilliant smile.

"Oh, er, fine. I'm just fine. I was just doing story-time for Alicia's class."

Fleur looked distinctly unhappy about that; her mouth twisted, and it was the first time Harry ever thought of her as ugly. She bore a striking resemblance to the rampaging veela at the Quidditch World Cup, who had suddenly become so frightening after being so irresistible….

"Alicia." Fleur said the name as though it were an obscenity. Harry swallowed, not knowing what to say. But then he could see that Fleur made an effort to brighten. She smiled--although it looked forced, and said, "'Ave you seen Roger Davies? The 'eadmistress said she saw 'eem entair a leetle while ago. I thought pairhaps 'e was planning to surprise me."

So, Harry thought. Fleur and Roger are still seeing each other. Wait, he thought--the man with Alicia--

He thought about what Roger Davies would probably look like from the back, and realized that was probably the person who had been in Alicia's classroom with her, just before they Apparated away--

"Are--are you sure she saw Roger? Maybe she made a mistake. Did you--did you plan to meet here today?"

"No, no--that is why I said 'e might 'ave been planning to surprise me." She looked suspiciously at Harry, who tried to look as innocent as possible. Harry prayed desperately for Dumbledore to appear. Amazingly, he looked up, and there was the headmaster in the doorway to the school. Harry breathed a sigh of relief.

"Ah, Harry! There you are. How did it go?"

"Fine, Professor."

"Madamoiselle Delacour. A delight, as always."

She nodded and smiled at the Hogwarts headmaster. Harry was very glad when they were able to get away and retrieve their brooms from the anteroom near the front door. As they rode back to Hogwarts, Dumbledore made small talk about teaching small children (apparently, he had done a stint himself in the village school just after he'd finished at Hogwarts), but all Harry could think about was the inadvisability of cheating on a girlfriend who was part veela…

Was that a dream or a memory? he wondered. He decided it had been another memory; it was too vivid for a dream, it had too many small, clear details. During the time since he'd restored the timeline, he seemed most prone to having memories come over him unexpectedly when he was just falling asleep or just waking.

Harry wasn't sure how much time had passed, but a faint glow started to appear in the sky above the trees and birdsong began to twitter here and there. He opened his eyes in surprise, remembering that he hadn't intended to close them, but he saw before him not the sleeping form of the grey wolf, but a thin wizard in tattered, singed and bloodied robes, snoring softly. There was also a great deal of blood on his neck and face and around his mouth, and a wound on his neck that was healing rapidly, even as Harry stared at it. The hair on the top of his head also looked singed.

Harry changed back into his human form again, immediately yawning and stretching. He felt like he could sleep for a month. And yet, he dared not. There was still a lethifold loose somewhere in the forest. Even though it was morning, it wouldn't do for both of them to be asleep if it came upon them.

Finally, the man stirred and lifted his head cautiously, staring at Harry, who sat with his arms around his legs, clutching them to his chest.

"Good morning, Professor."

* * * * *

If someone had asked Harry twenty-four hours earlier where he would be having breakfast this morning, the answer would not have been "at the pub known as The Clash in the village of Gartley, Aberdeenshire." After Harry had said, 'Good morning,' to his professor, the older man had broken down in a crying fit, tearing at his ragged robes, demanding to know whose blood was on him, wanting Harry to tell him what he'd done. Harry had forgotten that he couldn't remember anything from his werewolf nights except when he had the Wolfsbane Potion; the potion helped him retain some of his human thought processes. Without it, he was like a person with split-personality disorder who remembered nothing of the actions of an alternate personality. Harry had been shocked and dismayed; adults weren't supposed to cry, certainly not professors. He had been furious the night before, wanting to kill the wolf (but lacking the silver to do it). He had suspected that he would awake to find a man in the morning, rather than a wolf, but he had been torn between wanting it to be Lupin (because it would mean he had escaped the Shrieking Shack) and not wanting it to be Lupin (because that would mean someone else was responsible for attacking Ron).

Ron.

Oh, god, Harry thought.

He bit Ron.

Feeling incredibly dim, Harry understood the tears and self-recrimination then. How horrible. That would mean that Ron was now--

Oh, god, he thought again.

Harry had swallowed, looking at the distressed man before him, who had tried almost his entire life to avoid just such an event occurring. If Harry had had to describe his basic nature during the other twenty-six or so days and nights of the month, he would say that Lupin was the soul of kindness and would never hurt anyone except to defend himself or someone else. And now he had done this, to Harry's best friend....

Harry had broken through his sobbing to ask him whether he had any Muggle money with him. He looked up in surprise, saying that he did, for just such an emergency (he wanted to think he knew where he would wake on the mornings after the full moon, but he felt safer taking precautions). Harry transfigured their clothing so it would look less conspicuous to Muggles and used his wand to determine which direction was east. They'd walked through the forest, soon reaching the edge of the trees and the village of Gartley. (Harry was glad they hadn't drawn closer to the village.) They passed several large gardens in the rear of some imposing houses, continuing to walk within the confines of the trees, before they came to a large meadow, and then just beyond that, Harry recognized the pub where he'd seen Dumbledore with the bloodhound in his other life.

Now they were sitting in a cozy booth in the Clash, speaking in low voices while the publican served up pots of tea for them and for a young honeymooning couple who had taken a room for the night (he heard them saying they were driving up to Inverness). Harry's stomach responded immediately when the smell of eggs and sausages cooking wafted from the kitchen behind the bar.

Lupin looked at him helplessly. Harry had tried to help him make his hair look less like it had been held to a candle, but it hadn't worked very well. He looked awful. His eyes stared into Harry's from sunken sockets, a haunted expression there that broke Harry's heart. He recalled Cedric and Dudley; he knew how easy it was to wallow in guilt. And he hadn't personally put the Killing Curse on Cedric, or put Imperius on Dudley and made him jump to his death. Lupin had personally attacked Ron and changed him forever.

Harry cast about for something helpful to say, but all that came out was, "We heard the explosion from the Shrieking Shack in the forest and went up above the trees to see what it was."

Lupin nodded. "I had gone there after classes were over. I was waiting for Sirius, but then the headmaster's phoenix came to me with a note saying that Sirius was indisposed, and did I mind coping by myself just this once?" He sighed. "I thought of coming to get you, for you to transfigure yourself and keep me company, but frankly, the last time you did that I felt a bit like I was imposing, so I just settled down to wait. Ever since--well, ever since the incident three years ago I've erred on the side of caution, trying to sequester myself good and early. It was going to be one of those strange nights, too, like when we were in the Shrieking Shack with Peter and I hadn't transformed even though it was after moonrise...."

Harry furrowed his brow. "Oh, right. Why did that happen?"

Lupin sighed. "The full or nearly-full moon rises about the time the sun sets. Right now that's about seven-thirty. But when the moon becomes truly full--when the earth and moon move in their orbits so that the earth is fully exposed to the side of the moon on which the sun shines--that might be any time before or after moonrise. Three years ago on that night it was a good hour-and-a-half later, just when we had come out of the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow and were on our way back to the castle. I knew it would be happening soon, but unfortunately, I must have lost my watch inside the tunnel. I would have stayed in the shack had I realized I was so close to my change. I thought it was earlier in the evening...." He sighed deeply again. "Last night it was only about forty-five minutes after moonrise that the moon and earth moved into position so that the moon became officially full. However, fifteen minutes before that--"

"Death Eaters attacked."

He nodded, taking a sip of tea. "They attacked the shack. Very specifically. It was intentional." He put his teacup down and made a tent of his fingers. "We can't avoid facing it any longer, Harry. We have a double-agent in the operatives, and we have to find out who it is. We've been going on wild-goose chases and following red-herrings for two years now. Only an operative would have known to attack the Shrieking Shack last night, just before the moon became full."

"Why did they do it that way? Because you can't be killed in your werewolf form without someone using silver?"

Lupin frowned at him. "Is Hermione the only one who did proper research when Snape assigned that werewolf essay? I can't be killed except with silver or by beheading in my human form either, Harry. No, the person or people who attacked the shack wanted me to flee, and they knew where I would go while I was in my human form in order to try to avoid endangering others: the forest."

Harry nodded. "Except that they knew that a whole slew of us were planning to go into the forest to try to rescue Professor Snape and Draco Malfoy."

"Right."

They were silent, staring into their teacups. A few minutes later, the publican made them jump when he arrived with their heaping plates of food. Harry started to tuck in enthusastically, feeling ravenous after the events of the previous night, but when he saw Lupin staring listlessly at the mounds of egg and sausage, he slowed down, tucking a piece of sausage into his cheek so he could ask, "Aren't you going to eat anything?"

Lupin looked up at him with a truculent expression. "Why? You think it makes any difference if I fill my belly while I'm still in my human form? You think it makes me less of an animal when the full moon is in the sky? Because I can tell you now--I've tried everything, and none of it has any effect on me. None. The only thing that works is Wolfsbane Potion."

Harry smiled brightly at him. "Well, some good news is in order then. We managed to get Snape back. So when we return to the castle, he should be able to make you some potion to take tonight."

"And the person I attacked."

"Pardon?" Harry said indistinctly, with his mouth full of eggs.

"The person I attacked will need it too. He'll change tonight. Or she will." He still looked very somber. "Harry. Tell me who it was. I--I didn't kill them, did I?"

Harry shook his head, putting his fork down. "I'm almost completely certain you didn't. I saw it--you--bite his shoulder, and then his left upper arm...."

"Who?"

Harry swallowed, thinking again of what his best friend would be going through for the rest of his life....

"Ron."

"What?"

Harry nodded sadly. Lupin covered his face with his hands again and his shoulders shook with sobbing. Harry noticed the publican giving a curious look in their direction as he stood behind the bar polishing glasses.

Harry stared down at his plate, wondering what to do, what to say to make things better. And yet--this man had attacked and changed his best friend forever. He'd turned Ron into a monster like him.

But this "monster" had also been one of his father's best friends, a friend for whom he'd learned the Animagus transfiguration, a friend whose secret he kept for seven years, and a friend whom he wanted to prevent becoming a murderer. If James Potter hadn't pulled Severus Snape out of the tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack, Lupin would have been going through this at the age of sixteen. His father had stood by Remus Lupin, and so would he. And he would stand by Ron Weasley as well.

"Did you--did you know who bit you?" Harry asked him softly. Lupin raised his eyes to Harry.

"No. I was young. I've never known any other werewolves, nor wanted to."

"Well," Harry continued, "Ron's lucky then. I mean, he'd obviously rather not be a werewolf--no offense--"

Lupin actually snorted in laughter; Harry was glad to hear it. "None taken, of course."

"--but at least he has someone he can talk to about it. You can warn him about all of the things that will happen to him. Explain about the cycles of the moon and all, so he knows when everything is going to happen, like you do. He has someone who knows."

Lupin grimaced and put a sausage into his mouth, chewing it savagely and then swallowing. "Yes," he said as though he detested himself. "He has someone who knows because I made him like me."

"That wasn't your fault! Normally you could assume that you wouldn't be endangering any humans to go into the forest. You were already doing everything in your power to keep yourself from other people by going into the Shrieking Shack. You were set up. We all were. You made every effort to do the right thing. And plus, Wormtail had Snape, who could have been making Wolfsbane Potion for you all these months if he hadn't been taken prisoner. That's probably why the board of governors reckoned it would be safe to have you back, right? Because Snape could make you the potion?"

He nodded miserably. "And I think we know that there are people on the board who are being influenced by the Death Eaters. What with the ban on Muggle-born students they're discussing..."

"They are?" Harry immediately cried. "They can't do that! I know! It would be a disaster--"

"I don't think it would be a good idea, but why do you feel so strongly about it?"

Harry bit his tongue at first, but then he couldn't help himself, and his words started tumbling over themselves. "Well--well look at Hermione. If there had already been a ban on Muggle-borns before she came to Hogwarts, the wizarding world would be missing out on the most brilliant witch to come here in ages. And last year the Head Girl was another Muggle-born, Alicia Spinnet. And my mum was a Muggle-born. They can't ban Muggle-borns, they just can't. If we let them do that, the next thing you know, the Squibs will all disappear, and there'll be a labor shortage in the wizarding world, and the Ministry will be so busy monitoring accidental magic by Muggle-borns the Death Eaters will take over, and you and Ron will be sent to the mountains to live in werewolf relocation camps, which, let's face it, are just glorified prisons...."

"Harry!" Lupin shouted, then dropped his voice, clearly having not intended to speak so loudly. "What are you on about? You're babbling."

Harry looked up in surprise, stopping in mid-rant. He swallowed a gulp of tea. "Oh. Sorry."

He stared at his food, suddenly not feeling very hungry. Lupin had started to eat again, though, and Harry even thought he might be looking a bit like his old self. "What exactly happened in the forest, Harry?"

Harry gave him the short version, saying that Viktor Krum was Voldemort's heir, and he'd died from a bad fall; they'd captured Wormtail, and then freed Snape and Malfoy. Lupin was grinning now.

"Really? You really have Peter?"

"As far as I know." Harry felt a happiness bubbling up in him, too, and he grinned. "Sirius will be cleared. He can finally stop running."

Lupin was really shoveling the food in now, looking cheered. "He can finally go home and see his family," he said between bites. "And they can hold up their heads again. You know what it's been like for them, everyone in the wizarding world thinking they have a murderer in the family?"

Harry frowned. "Sirius has a family? Do he and his wife have kids?"

Lupin snorted. "Wife? No, I didn't mean that kind of family. He was only twenty-one when he went to prison, Harry. Lily and James had met in school, so they were already settled down at that age, but I doubt whether Sirius would be married today even if he hadn't been in prison for twelve years and on the run for four. No, Sirius has two older sisters, and his parents are still alive as well. The sisters are married and one of them has kids--I think the other one didn't want any. Cass was always--"

"Who?"

"Well, actually, her name is Cassiopeia. She's the oldest. Very, very bossy. A good ten years older than Sirius. And then there's Ursula--she's the one with the children. Two boys and a girl, if I recall correctly. The older boy's supposed to start at Hogwarts next year, I think. Sirius has never even met them--they were all born after he went to Azkaban. I've kept in touch with Sirius' mum, Callisto. She sent me announcements when her grandchildren were born, and every so often I get pictures, too. I've been able to share them with Sirius since he escaped, so at least he's seen images of his nephews and niece, even though he hasn't met them yet. I think Ursula's done having kids. Callisto implied it when she sent the announcement of Mercy's birth..."

Harry smiled. "That's a nice name."

Lupin laughed. "Guess what it's short for?"

Harry blinked. "I didn't know it was short for anything. Isn't it just one of those virtue names, like Faith and Hope and Prudence?"

"Usually. This one is short for 'Mercedes.'"

"Oh."

"Don't ask."

"Well--it's kind of hard not to...."

Lupin smiled. "Ursula is seven years older than Sirius. Both of his sisters were out of school when he started, and they'd both been in Ravenclaw. Very studious, very clever. Ursula married a Muggle-born wizard from Hufflepuff, Alan Pierson. He and Ursula had already had Orion and Leo, and they thought they were done when they discovered Ursula was expecting again....Alan never got over his fondness for cars, even though he knew he was a wizard from the age of eleven and there was no place to keep a car at the castle, but he'd evidently labored under the delusion he would get himself a Mercedes when he could afford it. Well, when the baby was born, he got his Mercedes, but it was a little girl, not a car," he grinned. "Of course, according to Callisto, he fell in love with that baby girl at first sight and hasn't talked since about getting a car of any kind." Harry smiled. He couldn't wait for Sirius to get to meet his sister's children. Then he noticed something else Lupin had said.

"No place to keep a car at the castle? Is that what you said?"

"Right. The Blacks live in Ascog Castle, on the Isle of Bute, in the Firth of Clyde. Oh, the history books all say it was destroyed in the Campbell-Lamont skirmishes of the seventeenth century, but it's been in the hands of the Black sept of the Lamont clan since the early part of the eighteenth century. Muggle-repelling charms and illusion charms make it appear to be a ruin to non-magical people. There's a cottage on the estate that people know is a private home, but it's really little more than a glorified entrance hall. It's the way into Ascog; there's a long underground passage connecting it to the castle proper. I loved going there to visit when I was a boy. We timed my summer visits so I wouldn't have any trouble with the moon. But, of course, once Sirius could transfigure himself to accompany me, that was less of a worry. And if James was also visiting, the three of us could go out together on the beach at night and the moon be damned."

Harry's mind was still reeling. "Sirius grew up in a castle? On an island?"

Lupin nodded. "Perhaps he'll have us all for a visit once his legal problems are cleaned up. You'll like Callisto. And Sirius' dad, Walter. Ursula's not bad, either. She and Hermione would probably get along well. Cass, on the other hand--"

"What?"

Lupin frowned. "No one ever got on well with Cass. It's beyond me how she found a husband. He's a Slytherin too, no less. And just as disagreeable as her. Well. So maybe it's not beyond me--probably no one else could stand either one of them."

"Really? What's his name?"

"Something simple. Johnson. Jones. Smith. Something like that. I don't remember right now. I try to think about Cass and her husband as little as possible. I think his first name is Floyd. Oh, wait! His name is Floyd Jones. That's it. I think he works for the Ministry, but he's one of those close-mouthed types, and I don't tend to go prying into others' business, especially if I'm not too fond of them to begin with. It makes them less likely to go prying into mine."

Harry nodded and they ate the rest of their breakfast in silence. After their plates had been cleared, they paid the bill and left, the publican looking at them strangely. They looked about to make sure no one was observing them going into the forest, then slipped into the trees and waiting to come upon a clearing. Harry looked up at the break in the trees, judging whether it was big enough to give him enough room for an ascent. Lupin frowned.

"What are you doing, Harry?"

"Well--I thought I'd fly us back. You don't look all that heavy. If I can carry Draco Malfoy, I can carry you."

Lupin frowned. "You've flown with Draco Malfoy riding you?"

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it very quickly. Yes, we practically flew all the way from Edinburgh to Manchester.... Except that was in another life. "Er," he said, stalling. "I said 'if.' I mean, he's not that big, so I reckon I could carry him. And you're a little smaller, so you shouldn't be a problem."

Lupin looked up at the sky. "It's broad daylight, Harry."

"We're well away from Muggles now."

"I wasn't thinking of Muggles. Anyone looking out a castle window when we're coming back will see you."

Harry thought about this. "Perhaps I shouldn't wait any longer to register with the Ministry. I know Dumbledore and McGonagall said I could wait, but at this point--I'm not sure what the point would be."

"Voldemort will know, if you do that."

Harry grimaced. "He already knows. Or at least, he knows I'm an Animagus. He thinks I"m a lion, because that's what Wormtail told him."

"Well, if you register, your true form will be legally recorded, and he'll know you're not a lion."

Harry swallowed. "That's true. Maybe--maybe we'll just fly part of the distance, then walk back the rest of the way?"

Lupin nodded. "Probably wise. Don't show your hand until it's absolutely necessary, Harry, if you can help it. You know something they don't. Exploit every advantage you can. You didn't transfigure yourself during the battle, did you?"

"No. Only afterward, when you--" He stopped short of saying when you attacked Ron. "You know. But I didn't spread my wings, so even if anyone saw that who didn't already know I'm an Animagus, they'd think I'm a lion."

The brief transfiguration spell Harry had put on Lupin's hair and clothes wore off, and he was once again wearing charred and ragged and bloody garments. The older man looked down ruefully at his attire, reminded again of what he'd done the previous night. "Speaking of transfiguration...." he said, grimacing.

Harry put his hand on his shoulder; it was so strange, being taller than this man who was one of the best teachers he'd ever had, to whom he'd looked up when he was in third year (literally and figuratively). "Do you want me to be there when you and Ron talk?"

Lupin looked thoughtful. "I don't know yet. I'm still trying to formulate what I need to say. There are so many complicated issues to being a werewolf. I mean, life as a wizard is never really simple. Life as a wizard who is also a werewolf--well, the complications don't just double, they increase exponentially...."

Plus, Harry thought, there was the fact that it was Ron. The situation couldn't be much worse, he thought, if Ron were somehow turned into a house-elf. Or a giant. He remembered Ron's reaction to discovering that Lupin was a werewolf, when they were in third year. Now he was a creature he loathed and feared. How would Ron cope with that?

At least, he realized, he and Hermione finally admitted their feelings for each other. She would help him. She'd never abandon him. He wouldn't be alone in this.

Harry looked up at Lupin and said, "I'm going to transfigure. Have you ever ridden a horse bareback? It's a bit like that, but you want to really grip my mane tightly, and use your knees to grip me as well. Don't worry about hurting me; if you fall from a couple of hundred feet in the air, it's you who'll be hurt. Or dead."

Lupin shook his head again. "No, Harry. Remember? It takes very specific things to kill me." He gave Harry a small smile. "However--I would probably break every bone in my body, and I wouldn't have the luxury of death's escape. And the moon is full again tonight. I'm not sure what a werewolf transformation is like for someone who's broken every bone in his body, but I'll go out on a limb and speculate that it would be even more agonizing than usual." Then he looked at the basilisk amulet on Harry's chest. "What's that?" he asked with his eyes narrowed. "Is that silver?"

Harry looked down. "I don't think so. I've worn it day in and day out for almost two years, even in the shower, and I've never polished it. It would be black from tarnish by now if it were silver, wouldn't it?"

Lupin put his hand out toward it; he hesitated for a moment, then grasped it quickly, holding it in his hand tightly. Harry looked down, horrified as he saw smoke begin to seep from between the werewolf's fingers. Harry knocked his hand away. Lupin held up his palm, and Harry could see a perfect impression of the basilisk pendant burned into the flesh of Lupin's hand.

"Just a mild burn, really. It's not pure silver, or this burn would be a lot worse, but it's probably an alloy of some kind. It might have been magically treated to prevent tarnishing."

Harry frowned, suddenly thinking of something. "Professor, does that mean you can't handle silver Sickles?"

He nodded. "And did you never notice that at my place at the staff table, there is a set of steel tableware for my use only?" He shuddered. "Although I might enjoy meals more if the entire Great Hall weren't filled with people cutting and stabbing their food with silver utensils…."

Harry had never realized somehow that he ate every day with real silver. "Ron will need that too, I suppose," he said softly. Lupin nodded.

"And if we do this, if I ride you, I probably should be careful of hurting you; werewolves are naturally stronger than humans. Even when I'm not in wolf form, I'm always having to temper my grip and be careful when I'm doing simple things like opening a door, so I don't use too much force and take it off the hinges by accident. Ron will have to learn about that too. I'm used to it, after all these years. You probably never even noticed. But he already seems to be unaware of how strong he is, and that was before I bit him. No offense to your best friend, but he's not exactly what you'd call 'graceful,' is he? If he's not careful, he'll be single-handedly destroying Hogwarts castle."

Harry laughed. "No, he's not graceful, that's true. But he's grown much better at dueling this year. Is there anything else you need to tell him?"

"Well, I should definitely warn him about--" Lupin started to answer, then closed his mouth and actually blushed, surprising Harry. "On second thought--it's nothing I particularly want you to hear. You know, Harry--perhaps I should talk to Ron alone. That is--when he's ready to talk. He'll probably be hacked off at me for a while."

Harry wondered what Lupin had been about to say, and what he didn't want Harry to hear. He changed into his griffin form and spread his wings, then felt Lupin climb onto his back and grip his mane tightly. He took a running leap into the air and soon they were flying over the treetops, returning to Hogwarts to see his best friend:

Ron Weasley, the werewolf.

* * * * *

Harry opened the door to the infirmary cautiously. No one had seen him and Professor Lupin returning to the castle. Lupin had gone directly to the headmaster's office to speak to him about what had transpired during the previous evening. Harry knew that the wounded among his charges would be in the infirmary, and it was his duty to go see them. He had inhaled a good deal of smoke himself during the battle, and when he was in his human form, he frequently broke out into coughing jags. Walking back to the castle, he'd had to pause several times to catch his breath, and Remus Lupin stood patiently and waited for him before they continued.

Harry looked around the infirmary. Almost the entire Dueling Club was present, plus Professor Snape and a couple of seventh-years who, Harry imagined, had been injured while helping Dumbledore and the elves to put out the fire Hermione had started for the purpose of having illumination.

Harry found Ron quickly, and was startled to see his eyes looking back at him. He strode quickly across the room and stood helplessly by his side, unable to say anything. Ron's left upper arm and left shoulder were bandaged. He was otherwise unclothed from the waist up. The scratches and gashes on his face looked as though they were healing rapidly. He really needs a shave, Harry thought. Ron wore a beard, but it was usually a very close-cropped beard. Overnight it looked as though it had sprouted several weeks worth of growth, and his chest was definitely hairier than Harry remembered it being.

Harry pulled up a chair and sat down. He saw now that Hermione was in the next bed, curled on her side, asleep. The scratches on her face hadn't healed yet, unlike Ron's, and she had a bandage around her right ankle. Her face was very peaceful. He saw that Ginny was in the bed next to Hermione's, and Draco Malfoy in the one just beyond that. Like most of the other students, they were both fast asleep.

Harry looked back at Ron. He couldn't place Ron's expression. It seemed to be a combination of hatred, fear, and despair. Harry didn't know what to say.

"Did you kill him?" Ron asked suddenly, his voice very hard.

Harry furrowed his brow. "Who?"

"The werewolf who bit me! That's why you were chasing him, isn't it? So--is he dead?"

"Ron--it was Lupin."

"I know."

"You know?"

"Well, not know so much as I suspected. So did you?"

"No, Ron, I did not kill Remus Lupin!" he said, raising his voice. "He's--he's really broken up about this…"

"He's broken up about this!" Ron said, his voice also going up. "Oh, that's rich."

"Ron! He was set up! Just before the moon became full last night, someone attacked the Shrieking Shack and he had to run to the forest. He never knew humans would be in there. He did everything he could to avoid this, but now that it's happened you just have to deal with it!"

"That's easy for you to say. You're not going to become a monster at sundown today."

"No, but I'll be there for you. I can accompany you. And--" he glanced over at the sleeping form of Severus Snape on the other side of the room "--perhaps Snape will feel up to making the two of you a batch of Wolfsbane Potion, so it won't be so bad…"

"The two of us? What, do you think I want to hang out with him tonight because he's made me like him now? That doesn't make us mates. He's the last person I want to see right now."

"Ron, you need to let him talk to you. First of all, he's beside himself that this happened. Second, he knows things. Things that can help you. Things you need to know to prepare yourself. He's learned about it all the hard way, but you have the benefit of being able to hear about it all from someone who's been there, who's lived with this almost all his life. Let him help you."

"Ron," said a quiet voice behind Harry; he turned in surprise, not having heard the infirmary door open. "I do want to help you."

Ron Weasley looked into Remus Lupin's eyes with the deepest loathing. "Get out of here," he said in a low growl. "I don't want to see you." Harry thought he actually saw small red lights flickering in Ron's otherwise dark blue eyes.

"Ron," the werewolf said again. "There are things—things you need to know. We don't have much time. Before you know it, the sun will be going down again, and about forty-eight minutes after that the full moon will rise. Since it was already full last night, it will be full right away tonight. You need to know what to expect, how to cope. I had to do it alone when I was a small child. I don't want you to have to go through what I did."

"You don't want--" Ron said in a low, barely controlled sarcastic voice. "How kind of you," he said snidely. "You know what I wanted to be doing tonight?" His eyes wandered over to Hermione, a pained expression on his face that broke Harry's heart. He thought he saw a tear glisten in one of Ron's eyes. "But--but I can never be with her now. I can't be with anyone now--"

Harry swallowed. He didn't know what to say. They'd had only a very brief moment in the forest before Ron was attacked. Now he was changed forever. He was a werewolf. "Ron," Lupin said evenly, "you don't have to despair of that. If she's not--not averse to your being a werewolf--"

"I'm averse to my being a werewolf. I'm afraid of hurting her--of hurting anyone. How can I ask her to be with me when--" He trailed off, looking like his throat wouldn't function.

"Ron, I'm sure there are werewolves who have--relationships--"

"Yeah, yeah, and normal lives, and who are healthy, contributing members of society. Blah, blah, blah," Ron finished for him, a very sarcastic edge to his voice, even for Ron Weasley. "Hullo!" he said, sounding disingenuous suddenly--falsely so. "Why don't we just ask Lupin here how his wife and kids cope--oh, wait. We can't. He hasn't got a wife and kids. And neither will I. Ever. I'm going to be alone for the rest of my miserable life."

Harry's jaw dropped. "After waiting all these months for me to finally get it into my head that I should break up with her, after telling me I should break up with Hermione and getting me hacked off at you, you're going to do this to her?"

"Harry--being with her would be 'doing' something to her. I'm trying to protect her. I have no right to ask her to be with me now." His voice grew very soft as he turned and looked at her peaceful slumbering face. "I've no right to ask anyone to be with me now, even as a friend."

"Ron, don't be stupid. If you think we're going to stop being your friends because of this, you're mad. You need your friends now. You can't push us away."

But the gangly boy turned over on his right side, his back away from Hermione. "Go away. Let me get used to living my life alone."

Harry stared helplessly back and forth between his two best friends, then looked at Lupin, whose face was very grim. This wasn't just going to be difficult, Harry thought. With someone as stubborn as Ron Weasley, this was going to be damn near impossible.

Suddenly, the door to the infirmary banged open and an extremely irate young wizard was standing there, seething.

"Potter, you bastard! I'm going to kill you!" he declared, glaring at Harry, who swallowed and reached instinctively for his wand. He didn't have to wonder why the other wizard was saying this. "Because of you, my brother is dead!" he went on, spit flying from the corners of his mouth. His wand was pointing menacingly at Harry, who extended his own wand arm, ready.

Harry had thought this might happen; he just wasn't prepared for how soon it had happened. The wand pointing at him was shaking with fury. He gripped his own wand so tightly his knuckles hurt. His heart thumping loudly in his ears, he looked into the red, angry face of his accuser.

* * * * *


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