Beaten and Blown By the Wind

Chapter Ten: Old Traditions Reborn

"Ginny! We're all waiting for you! What could possibly be taking so long?" Ron yelled up the stairs of the McGarret vacation house that had become home to Ron and Ginny as well as Harry, Hermione, Remus, and Aislynn over the past months. It was now the week before school was scheduled to begin and, at the suggestion and then begging of the teenagers, Aislynn and Remus were abandoning home for the final week of the summer holiday in London, as was their old tradition. Once the four teens had heard the idea, images of what could happen and how fun it could be had been floating in their heads, helping even Harry forget anything but the constant battle against the adults', well mostly Remus', better judgment until he allowed then to try it out.

"Ron, stop being such a prat, it's eight-thirty in the morning! We have plenty of time to get there and an entire week to waste once we do!" Hermione scolded him, causing his face to go from pink frustration to bright red embarrassment. He looked to Harry for support, who was just yawning in a chair he was trying not to fall asleep in.

"Don't look at me, mate," Harry managed through his yawn. "I would have been thrilled to get another couple hours of sleep."

"I'll second that," Aislynn said from behind closed eyes, raising her hand slightly. When she opened her eyes to see Ron's anger, she laughed, but managed to calm the boy down a little when he sheepishly noticed how red and puffy her eyes were even with the laughter and the dark rings beneath them.

It had been the final night of the full moon and, judging from Remus' almost sickly look, Lynn hadn't enhanced the right part of the potion. Hermione had questioned that at breakfast before anyone but the three of them had arrived, her having woken first and the adults having never slept, and received an almost angry but definitely dejected look and grumble from Lynn and a shrug from Remus that was trying to say 'Eh, maybe next time,' and look cheerful for the downtrodden scientist, but he looked far too weak and sickly to pull it off. Hermione guessed from that, and the amount of loud crashes and occasional scream followed quickly by some kind of ward or shielding charm from Lynn on the third floor the previous night that had woken her several times that they had neglected the wolfsbane potion for one reason or another as well. She hadn't asked any more about it, but had later walked into Lynn's room to ask her to help her tame her wild hair and found Remus helping her bandage a rather large and nasty looking cut on the back of Lynn's shoulder. Hermione had instantly understood what the screams and yelps were about last night, and immediately worried for the woman, who noticed her anxious face and laughed it off saying that she was braver than she was wise sometimes. Hermione had also offered the charm to heal it immediately, but Aislynn declined, saying she'd like to get it checked out by a mediwitch or maybe Snape before having it healed to make sure there's nothing weird with it, that there had been a certain potions mishap and hinted towards perhaps accidentally knocking over or exploding something that could have negative effects if not treated. As she was explaining, Remus finished up the bandage that looked as professional as he did guilty, and she was quick to pull a sweater over the camisole she had chosen to wear so that she could easily change the bandage if necessary. Hermione took that as a sign to not mention it, especially to Harry who she had found nosing around the third floor earlier that morning as if looking for a sign that something more horrible than Remus transforming happened. Hermione had chased him away before he got to the room above her own, which she suspected held the potions mess from the sounds of Lynn rushing around over her head all night, but with the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gash across Lynn's shoulder, Hermione guessed it best that Harry not see whatever mess or accident that may still be in there.

"Rough night?" Harry asked, implying more than spoken in his question. He couldn't blame Remus for any injury that Lynn took once he had transformed seeing as there was nothing Remus could do about it, but he could begrudge them both for allowing it to happen. It was more than obvious that Harry, despite supporting the idea and sentiment behind his godmother's experiments, was not at all pleased with her being in such close proximity with any werewolf during the full moon who had decided against the wolfsbane potion. In fact, Harry wasn't sure if he'd approve even if Remus had taken the potion. While he was a man most of the month, for those three nights, Remus was everything the world feared him to be all the time and Harry didn't like the idea of his godmother throwing common sense out the window for the sake of experimentation.

"It wasn't altogether pleasant," Remus replied in a tone that clearly stated he didn't want to elaborate, but Ron had caught on to Harry's curiosity and disapproval.

"I guess the potion didn't work," Ron tried, only receiving a shrug from Remus as Lynn scowled at the ceiling from behind her closed eyes, choosing not to make a statement.

"I'm ready! Now will you stop complaining, Ron?" Ginny said as she bounded down the stairs looking every bit as tired as Harry, but as excited as Ron.

"Ok then, let's head out. We'll catch the knight bus. I would have borrowed a car, but once I checked the calendar, I figured it best that Remus and I had a chance to rest on the way London and not have to worry about falling asleep at the wheel," Lynn commented, the cheer in her voice strained a little as she leaned on the arm with the cut shoulder to get up, earning her a weird look from all parties unaware of the hidden bandage. Well, not unaware for much longer.

"Lynn! Are you alright?" Ginny asked, her face aghast.

"I think so, why? What's wrong?" Lynn asked, looking entirely puzzled and concerned at Ginny's fear.

"Look at your chair!" the girl gasped, white as a sheet. All eyes turned to the white chair the woman had been slouching in half asleep before standing that was immaculate aside from a sizable blood stain where her right shoulder had leaned against the chair for the past fifteen minutes, waiting for everyone to be ready to leave.

"That would explain some of the dizziness," was all the woman said, looking at the chair with mild concern and interest as if viewing a disturbing painting in a museum.

"What happened?" Harry demanded, looking scathingly from her to Remus as if unsure of which he should be angrier at.

"Nothing big. The potion didn't work," Lynn commented, as if it was something that happened all the time. "I went up to check on Remus last night after you all went to bed to see what had come of the potion and how he was reacting to it and he was ready for me when I opened the door," she explained, half shrugging as Ron joined Harry in glaring at Lupin, who looked guiltier than seemingly possible. "Don't give him the evil eye, I was half certain that it hadn't worked and I was the one who had kept him from taking the wolfsbane potion. Along with mine, it would have poisoned him. I should have noticed him being too quiet, but you know me, caught up in thought as to what I could do differently for next month I opened the door without even raising my wand as if he were completely harmless. You can't possibly blame him for this sort of thing. Once he's transformed, he's really not Remus; it'd be like blaming Flitwick for Snape's long homework assignments."

"I could blame him easily," Harry hissed angrily. "As well as you. What kind of example are both of you trying to be for us? I could blame you for seeing nothing wrong with going against common sense entirely and observing a werewolf transformed every full moon and you for allowing her to be around you transformed by herself and unguarded! I thought that this kind of thing was what you feared most!" Harry accused, his eyes still darting from one to the other. "I thought you were as concerned about her as I was!" he screamed at Lupin.

"I was, I am...to both questions," Lupin countered before being interrupted by Lynn.

"Concerned about me? I thought I told you both to forget about it! I'm fine! You know, I was seeing things for years before I met either of you with less control over them! I'm not endangering myself with the future or anything," she argued.

"Yeah, and now you're making up for that danger by hanging out with transformed werewolves!" Harry retorted, making her flush with anger as Remus looked guilty and ashamed enough for both adults. "Did he bite you? What happened?"

"No, he didn't bite me! But thank you very much for assuming I can't take care of myself in the presence of a werewolf, your confidence in my defensive skills is overwhelming!" she retorted back, suddenly looking a little off balance from lack of sleep and blood, it seemed now, clutching the wall, but refusing to sit and shaking off Hermione's supportive arm.

"Then why are you bleeding?"

"Werewolves have claws as well, you know! Haven't you ever seen a wolf hunt? They use their claws first to try and take their prey down, then they use their teeth!" she yelled back, causing Remus to look more ashamed with every word she said. "I turned on reflex to avoid the attack and then immediately shot a light curse over my shoulder to get him away from me. Then I got out of the room and made sure the wards I had placed on the door earlier were still up and running so he couldn't get out. The next few times I went in, I was better prepared."

"The next few times? You almost got yourself killed or bitten the first time! How could you reason going in there again?!?"

"I needed to know exactly what was happening! It turns out whatever I gave him made him more aggressive than usual, which I need to know as to look into that for next time. I've been doing this kind of thing longer than you have been alive, Harry, and have received far worse than this scratch plenty of times. I'll be fine, I always am."

"But one of these times, your luck is going to run out!"

"It has nothing to do with luck! I know what I'm doing!"

"Stop it! Both of you!" Hermione screamed over their argument. "Can't you see that you're getting weaker the more you're yelling and screaming, Lynn? Can't you see how much this is upsetting Remus?" she questioned, causing everyone to look at the man who looked as if he were about to die of shame at this point.

"Oh, I'm fine," Lynn argued. "Come now, Remus, you can't possibly feel guilty about any of this! You're not at fault! This happens. I get the cuts and bruises healed and I'm good as new before the sun gets to rest. This one just needs some extra attention because I was careless with the disposal of my extra potion ingredients. If anyone's at fault, it's me for screwing up the potion. I should have known what would have happened. Looking over that list, I should have known it wouldn't work."

"But I do blame myself. Harry's right," Remus said softly to his shoes. "All three of you are right. I shouldn't let her do this, but she knows what she's doing and can handle herself better than most. I shouldn't feel guilty because I have no control over what happens, but I do because somewhere inside that monster is me and I still threatened the life of my last good friend from school in a very real way last night. And Lynn, you need to go get that checked out straightaway, you're not looking good and that shouldn't be bleeding through the bandages so quickly. There's something wrong with that cut."

"No, it's just kinda deep. You really got me there, but serves me right for being so careless. That wasn't one of my calculated moves last night that resulted in this. Maybe I can talk the healer into leaving the scar to remind me. I could always use a reminder," she thought aloud as she swayed a little. "I think I need to sit down," she reasoned and just about fell into the aforementioned white chair.

"Remus, what do we do?" Ginny asked, her fear outweighing anything else at the moment.

"We put aside our plans for London for a day and pay a visit to Hogwarts," he told her and turned to Hermione. "Hermione, you keep your cool well enough in most situations. Over by the fireplace there in that decorative little box is floo power. I want you to fetch Professor Snape for me. I have a bad feeling she got one of her potions or ingredients in the cut somehow, I don't remember very clearly what happened and he'd know what to do for it best."

"Alright," she agreed, walking over to the fireplace and taking some of the sparkling powder from the box. "What do I say?"

"Severus Snape's office in Hogwarts Castle," Lynn replied. "And I'm not dead, I'm not even unconscious. Could you all stop acting like I can't hear your or I'm in mortal peril or something?"

"Shush, you're too stubborn for your own good. You know that, right?" Remus scolded.

"Bah, I've met people who were worse."

"I suppose we both have. But what would he be saying, I wonder, about you bleeding uncommonly quickly through your bandages? He used to get angrier at the both of us than Harry did," the man countered with his infuriating reason.

"Fine, fine. Do what you will. I'm warning you that Severus is not going to be happy with you. He never blames me for these things as well he should. But do what you will."

"You didn't think your arguing was going to stop that, did you?" Remus questioned and she just grunted a little at him unwilling to argue through her frustration, dizziness, and exhaustion from the sleepless night.

"Severus Snape's office in Hogwarts Castle," Hermione clearly enunciated after stepping into the huge and uncommonly clean fireplace and dropped the floo powder, immediately disappearing in an explosion of green flame and sparkling smoke.

..........................................................................................................................................

Severus Snape was busy going over his outlines of lesson plans for the year when his fireplace exploded in green flame and glittering smoke. He half expected Dumbledore or Aislynn for a friendly visit and was about to smile despite his annoyance when the figure of Hermione Granger became distinguishable in the clearing smoke. This left him not only annoyed, but concerned. He wondered at what event might have inspired this student to visit him when he knew she was clever enough to realize her presence wouldn't be welcomed.

"Miss Granger," he managed as he collected himself, managing to sneer and sound overly annoyed. "This is certainly a surprise. Did you get off at the wrong gate or did you just fancy a visit to put me in the right frame of mind for the impending school year?" he asked scathingly.

"I'm sorry to intrude, sir. I certainly hope I'm not interrupting anything important," she said politely and hurried. Snape suddenly had a sinking feeling in his stomach at her rushed words, knowing something had happened and Lynn had sent her to fetch him.

"I'm sure. To what do I owe this visit?"

"Remus sent me, sir. You see, Lynn's got herself a pretty nasty cut across her shoulder and it's not healing quite properly."

"She's been fooling around with potions trying to help out that monster again, hasn't she?" he asked, not bothering to mask his disapproval as Hermione nodded. "He's gone and attacked her again, has he?" he more stated than asked as she nodded again. "I fail to see where this concerns me; I'm not trained in healing. In fact, that's one of the few fields I know very little of. I don't see how this heralds my attention unless..." he trailed off, looking to his young student, a worried look replacing the sneer.

"He hasn't bitten her," Hermione assured him, amazed at how human her potions master came at the prospect of her new friend being attacked by a werewolf. She had noted the look of genuine concern and then the immediate expression of relief before his sneer returned. "But apparently there was some kind of accident where she was also exposed to one potion or another and Remus thinks that might be why she's bleeding so much. He says he can't remember what happened clearly and doesn't have a mind enough for potions to know what she was working with or what it could have done to her. I would have gone to look into it to be able to tell you a little more than that, but he was very insistent that I come and ask you to see if you can find the problem straightaway."

"You didn't get to look over what she was working on at all?" he questioned and Hermione just shook her head. "Pity, you may have had half a clue as to what we're dealing with. She keeps horrible notes that only she can understand and I doubt he'd notice if she accidentally poisoned him," Snape commented, giving Hermione a sideways compliment as he gathered a few things, but reminded her of something Lynn had said.

"Lynn said that she couldn't give him the wolfsbane potion in addition to hers because it would have poisoned him. She also said that she should have looked the ingredients over a couple times because she would have known they wouldn't work," she told Snape, who eyed her curiously, as if debating something in his head.

"Is that all she said?" Hermione nodded. "Well, that will help when I look at whatever she made a mess of and whatever he did to her," Hermione noted his bitterness as he said this and how he placed all blame of the cut on Remus, just like Lynn had said. "We can't get back there with floo powder," Snape said, looking at Hermione. "Lynn hasn't gotten that fixed up yet. She means to make Hogwarts accessible to all her houses by a warp in her father's mess of their floo system, but is too lazy to get anything done with Harry around asking for stories," the man's sneer increased as he shook his head disapprovingly, but she noted how he called Harry by his first name when attaching him with Lynn in thought and figured the two probably discussed him at length recently or that maybe his hatred wasn't as deep as it seemed. "You haven't happened to learn how to Apparate yet, have you? It could take us right to the gates. She's told me the password, after we get in the gates we could Apparate to the parlor," Snape was thoughtful and hopeful all at once, not wanting to have to make an ordeal out of getting to his friend.

"Lynn and Remus have been helping me learn, but the farthest I've tried is from the gate to my bedroom," Hermione said nervously, not wanting to set off Snape's infamous temper.

"Do you think you could manage? It's not that far from here, actually. It's closer than London," Snape asked, eager to be going. "You are the top student in your year. From what I've seen, and your O.W.L. results, you should be able to do it if you have the basic idea of it down and can clearly picture the front gates of the house."

"I could try," Hermione offered, caught off guard by the complement and by the unknown fact that her professors could see her O.W.L. results, but perhaps Lynn had shared them with Snape, she couldn't be sure.

"You can't try today, Hermione, you have to just do it," Snape caught her off guard again by calling her Hermione rather than Miss Granger as she was so accustomed to. "Really it's a matter of belief and knowledge once you've mastered the basic skill. You can't try to do it or think you can. You have to know and believe you can and you will. Is that possible?"

"Yes," Hermione said, using the faith in herself the last person on earth she expected it from had offered to help her just know she could do it. Snape just nodded and with a swish of his robes had turned and started out of the castle. Hermione was relieved that at least one person in the world was aware that you could not Apparate into or out of Hogwarts castle. Once they reached the edge of the forest, he stopped abruptly, almost causing Hermione to walk right into him.

"Can you picture the front gates?" she nodded. "Concentrate on that very hard and just Apparate. It's well within your skill level."

With that, Hermione heard the pop of Snape Apparating and concentrated on it herself. Suddenly, she was beside him in front of the now open gates to the Whales summer home. He just nodded to her, and it seemed to her he was trying not to smile before he turned away to pass through the gates. She followed him and he pointed his wand at them to close them.

"They're in the parlor, right?"

"Last I checked," Hermione replied as the two of them suddenly appeared in the parlor with two pops.

"What did you do to her this time?" Snape practically growled at Remus Lupin once they arrived, dropping every bit of kindness he had shown to Hermione making him seem so human the last few minutes within seconds.

"I'm glad you were able to get here so quickly, Severus. I've just charmed her to sleep. She was arguing quite loudly about not getting help..."

"I'd imagine. She knew there were people willing to hold you responsible for things like this and people never meant to find this out. The ministry would be quite harsh with you if they discovered that things like this were happening," Snape hissed in return, looking at the man with the same anger Harry had earlier.

"As would she," Lupin replied in his quiet way, not backing down nor letting Snape intimidate him.

"I doubt it. Not with a few quiet reminders as to why they took her off Sirius' trail they wouldn't. It seems the ministry is under the impression that Lynn isn't quite in her right mind. Nothing anyone has tried to tell them has gotten through yet. Here you are one of her last friends from school, but even more importantly her brother in law who has come upon hard times. They are quite aware of her pain over the loss of her sister, I doubt they'd believe even her telling them it was her idea to experiment," Snape countered, his logic frighteningly sound, leaving everyone looking at either him or Remus openmouthed. Remus just stood there, looking back with the guilty look in his eyes Lynn had yelled at him for, unable to argue.

"I would never dream of harming her," he said back in a barely audible voice.

"But you did," Snape kept the accusations coming.

"You can't possibly believe him, Remus!" Ginny cried out, not able to bear the thought of the consequences Lynn's experiments would bring upon them all. "The ministry knows you and Lynn are friends! They know you're a good man! They can't do anything to you! It wasn't your fault!"

"Yes they can," Harry replied sullenly, looking at Snape for the first time without hatred, but his voice was without any emotion or life, as dead as the man's in front of him. "They wouldn't care about any of that. They do believe she's out of her mind, even Lynn told me that. And they have absolutely no pity for werewolves. Snape's right."

"Harry, what's wrong? You sound funny," Ginny squeaked back, afraid of another angry outburst. "You're scaring me a little, Harry."

"Some people don't take Lynn's reckless nature into account before placing the blame. Some people automatically assume the fault lies with the person who inflicted the injury," Harry continued, almost not hearing Ginny, remembering his automatic loathing of his former professor that had possessed him as he screamed at both him and his godmother earlier, his instinctive anger at the idea that Remus had hurt her, whether she was at fault or not.

"Perhaps what's wrong is that Mr. Potter is realizing that he's not entirely without the instinctive prejudices the wizarding world runs upon," Snape interjected, looking almost amused at Harry's sudden realization, "Perhaps Mr. Potter here has finally realized that we are not so different, regardless of how fond we are of the other."

"Just help her," Harry replied, choosing not to look past his potions professor's face to the gaping mouths of his friends and the shamed face of Remus. "You know as well as I that she would never blame him for this. Neither of us may agree with what they're doing, but perhaps we should not condemn them for it. She may walk unscathed from the ministry, but do you think you or I would after she gets home?"

"Impressive, Potter," Snape said, his sneer almost becoming a smile. "She said she was working on the fact that you sometimes don't seem to grasp reality as tightly as the rest of us. You're making progress, I wouldn't expect both logic and humility so soon," he paused and looked at Remus. "Perhaps I was harsh in my accusations, Remus. But you realize that you do hold fault in this, even if the entirety of it is not yours."

No one replied, but Harry moved aside and Snape whisked over to Lynn, looking at her pallid complexion with a bit of concern and the growing stain on her clothes and the chair with a slight look of disgust. None the less, he lifted her face with his hand and mumbled the words to break the charm that caused her to sleep. She woke up groggily, not sure of where she was, but when she saw him, sighed and nodded. He helped her take her sweater off and then motioned for Harry to come and make sure she was able to sit up on her own through her sleepiness and loss of blood while he took off the bandage. She cringed a bit, though he seemed to be putting a lot of care into not hurting her more than absolutely necessary. Harry held her hand and smiled a little for her, as if to tell her that it's for the best and she just rolled her eyes at him. That, if nothing else, seemed to brighten the crowd a bit, knowing that she was still in her own frame of mind, even if it wasn't the right one. Well, until they realized Snape was looking at her shoulder oddly as if greatly perturbed. He motioned Hermione over, who gasped immediately and held her hand to her mouth.

"What kind of potion could do that?" she gasped, looking as if she were caught somewhere between fainting and vomiting.

"I was going to ask your opinion. There are none that I know of," Snape replied, sounding greatly annoyed. "What have you been toying with, Lynn?"

"Just a little of this, a little of that, nothing too harmful on its own," she replied, waving her hand slightly as if to brush him off.

"Somehow I doubt it was less than dangerous mixed," he replied almost under his breath. He straightened and looked to Remus. "I'll have to go and search through her mess and see if I can figure out what she was playing at. Where was she brewing whatever she gave you?"

"Upstairs in a room on the third floor."

"I know which one, professor," Hermione offered. Snape just nodded to her.

"Good. Then I suggest no one else visit her disaster site until Miss Granger and I have had a look through it," he looked at a room of raised eyebrows. "The search for the ingredients and perhaps the final potion itself will go more quickly if I have assistance and none of the rest of you would be of any help with your sordid potions careers," he explained, earning dirty looks from Harry and Ron who had done well enough for advanced potions on their O.W.L.'s as well. "In the meantime, I suggest someone go and fetch Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey. I have no doubts Professor McGonagall will be joining them as well, but I would advise against bringing anyone other than those three back unless Flitwick has yet arrived, but I doubt he will be needed," Snape looked around. "Potter, I assume you would prefer to stay here with Lynn?" at his nod, Snape looked to the remaining people in the room. "Very well then, Miss Weasley, you will go fetch Dumbledore," she nodded. "And we will need you, Remus, to try and throw Molly Weasley off the scent. She will be expecting you all in the Leaky Cauldron for lunch and will be very quick to arrive if you are not there. This is enough of an ordeal without her here squawking at everyone. Tell her that Potter and Weasley exploded some fireworks in the gardens or something and that they are busy cleaning their mess, that Lynn will contact her later telling them whether you'll arrive tonight or tomorrow. Take her to lunch or something, just keep her away for several hours until the extent of the damage is taken care of. I don't expect you to be able to hold her at bay all day, but let us accomplish something before she arrives. Leave a couple hours before you're to meet her to sort out things at the Leaky Cauldron as well."

"And Lynn will be fine by tomorrow morning?" Harry asked hopefully.

"If Miss Granger and I can sort out her experiments within the next few hours, she'll be fine by dinner, most likely, late tonight at the most," Snape assured them, his voice dripping with disdain at the mess they were all in. "Miss Weasley, you will find that fireplace will only be able to take you to one of the McGarret homes or my office. Lynn has been lazy and has yet to entirely fix it so that you can go to or from anywhere in Hogwarts to here. You will not be able to return by floo, she has yet to sort that out as well, but I'm sure Dumbledore will sort everything out. Take the floo to my office and then proceed to Dumbledore's immediately. The password this year is 'sugar quill'. Be quick about it," he said, his sneer increasing with the thought of Dumbledore's penchant for using candy as passwords. After Ginny had disappeared in the fireplace, Snape took one last look at Lynn's back and motioned for Hermione to lead him to the potions mess on the third floor.

"If you would be so kind, Miss Granger, I believe we have a mess to investigate," he said icily as she swept past him and towards the stairs, not even looking back to see if he was following. Harry, Ron, and Remus were startled by the chuckle Lynn let out while watching them.

"It really is funny how no one in the world puts more into their own pride and dignity than the two of them," she chuckled weakly, wincing as her shoulder shook with laughter.

"No one else but you," Remus joked. "But you've got them both beat when it comes to being stubborn."

"Eh, some people should be stubborn. The whole world can't be wishy washy," her smile was more a wince than anything else anymore. "This kind of pain isn't normal. What does it look like?" she questioned, not looking at the three men standing there wondering if they really wanted to look, remembering Hermione's face when she saw. After a few moments Harry stood and walked to the other side of the chair to take a look. It took every bit of self control Harry had to avoid gasping.

"It doesn't look very good," he finally managed to choke out.

"But what does it look like? Either you tell me or I'm picking into that brain of yours to see first hand."

"It's...it's...I don't even know...it's not natural, Lynn," Harry fumbled for adjectives. "What have you been messing with?"

Lynn just made an exasperated sound that bordered on growling and got very quiet, closing her eyes. Harry knew she was picking the vision right from his head, but lacked the will to stop her. He couldn't describe it. The bleeding had slowed, but the area immediately around the cut had exploded in huge boils of an undetermined color somewhere between green and purple. The light bluish purplish color of frozen flesh had spread across her shoulders, the back of her neck, and partway down the back of her arm. The cut itself was large, deep, and vicious. It was still bleeding, and now the blood was trailing down her back and soaking up into her shirt and the waistband of her pants as well as the chair. Harry had never seen anything like it. He would have offered to clean it, but wasn't sure if that was a good idea or if the boils, which he could now see were oozing yellowish pus to add to their grossness, would spread to his hands or across more of her back. The bluish skin almost looked like gooseflesh with new boils starting to pop up. Remus and Ron had by then joined in Harry's horror and Remus finally managed to conjure bandages over the cut and boils.

"What in the world could have done that to you?" Ron questioned, incredulously.

"I don't know," she replied, looking green. "But it's gross. Remus, I'm never making that potion again."

"I would hope not," he mused, conjuring a chair up across from her and sitting in it. "It seems to be spreading across your back."

"I saw."

"Then what do we do about it?"

"Wait."

"For what?"

"Who."

"For who?" he questioned, his voice rising a little in exasperation as he was starting to tire of her little game.

"Poppy, Severus, Hermione...I don't know. Between them, I'll be ok."

"I hope so."

"Remus?"

"Yes?"

"Do you mind if I lean against the arm of this chair over here and take a nap? As long as we're not going anywhere, I'm awfully tired."

"No, not at all," he said, slumping in his chair and holding his head in his hands, over stressed.

The three men waited until Lynn's breathing had evened into sleep. After a few moments of listening to her sleep, Remus stood up, walked over to her and picked her up. He then carried her over to the couch across the room in the same ring of chairs they had all sat in when discussing Harry's legend. Summoning a blanket from somewhere in the house and covering her, Remus settled into chair across from the couch, across from her feet, that he had occupied that day and let his head fall into his hands once more. Harry had taken the chair he had also occupied that fateful day off to the side of both the couch and the chair across from it Lynn had once sat in, by her head, as Ron took her chair.

"Remus?" Harry asked.

"What, Harry?" he asked back, raising his head from his hands.

"What do we do now?" he questioned, causing a small smile to come to the man's lips.

"We wait...for everyone. We're the useless ones who wait and worry while the stronger ones, our heroes, go out and save the world," he paused, looking at Lynn a little and smiling a little more. "She hated this role the most, though she hardly had to keep it. In pranking, in class, in life, battles...everything. She just had to be the hero. And if she wasn't, she'd go become one just so she wasn't sitting and waiting for him to come home safely. She managed to flatten many toes as she danced over them doing that," Remus looked to Ron. "Welcome to the club of the waiters and worriers, I say. Perhaps you can be more patient than Lynn."

"Harry! Remus! Ron! Hermione! Lynn! ...Professor Snape?" Ginny called, bursting through the front door. "We're here!"