The Soldier's Time

Cuts is a Death Eater, Harry thought later on, lying on his back on his bed, that's all there is too it. She faked her death just like Wormtail.

"She's a traitor!" Harry said loudly, sitting bolt upright.

"Who's a traitor?" Ron asked. He was putting his books into his trunk, they would return to Hogwarts the day after next. Harry didn't answer. He got up, flung himself out the door and down the stairs to the basement kitchen. He had to tell Lupin, tell anybody. He didn't care if Cuts came after him. The Order would take care of her. All he cared about was exposing her treachery.

He burst through the door and all thought of what he was about to do fled his mind when he laid eyes on his least favorite teacher, Snape.

"Potter, what are you doing down here?" Snape asked in his usual loathing voice. "You have no business in what we do." Harry gazed steadily back at him, returning every bit of loathing Snape directed at him.

"I came because I have some information that I think will be useful."

"I'd hardly say that anything useful could ever come out of you mouth, Potter. The last bit of information you had led to the death of your godfather." Harry's fist curled into a ball, as someone threw their chair back roughly.

"Shut up, Snivellus," Cuts said in a voice so threatening that Harry and many of the others in the kitchen looked taken aback, if not frightened. Harry saw that Snape had taken the smallest of steps backward, but he gave Cuts the glare Harry knew so well.

"If you think you're here to replace Black, you're mistaken. Though I daresay you've done quite a job of it. Both of you wanted by the Ministry, and not able to leave headquarters." Cuts strode over to where Harry and Snape where.

"For your information, I can leave whenever I feel like it. They are looking for Michelle Tiberdeaux, and they happen to think she killed me about twenty years ago," Cuts said smugly.

"Michelle Tiberdeaux is still alive. Need I remind you that nearly all of us know who is dead, and who is at fault." Harry knew immediately that Snape was referring to what Kingsley told him earlier. Cuts's look grew uglier than Harry thought possible and as she flung her right hand to the side Harry thought she was going to hit Snape. Instead,

"Gladius Cor-," Before Cuts could finish the incantation, Lupin darted forward and seized her arm.

"Stop it, both of you," he said firmly, looking between the two, "We are a team." Snape's glare broke.

"Yes, we are a team, aren't we," he said silkily, and Harry knew Snape was about to be at his worst. "Though, I'd say we were more like a family. I wouldn't want to be responsible for the death of a family member. Wouldn't you agree, Iphigenia?"

In response, Cuts threw herself at him with her free hand and her feet and tried to pull her other arm out of Lupin's grip. Harry instinctively grabbed her other arm and found it was all he could do to hold on. Snape had backed up when Cuts struck out at him but now that she was partially restrained, looked on as though he were slightly amused.

"Snape, go. Just go," Lupin said, struggling against Cuts's unnatural strength. Snape left, though not without one last snide comment.

"You know, it's becoming quite difficult to distinguish you from the Tebos." Harry and Lupin slowly released Cuts, afraid she might go out after him. Cuts didn't follow him, but instead turned and punched the stone wall with all her might, cursing. Harry saw her knuckles start to turn purple.

She kept her back to everyone and leaned on the dresser with her uninjured hand and shaded her eyes with the other. Cuts took several deep breaths before forcing out a cough.

Mrs. Weasley looked sympathetic as she walked over to Cuts. "Is your hand all right, dear?" she asked kindly. Cuts responded with a curt nod and a few more coughs. Mrs. Weasley looked queerly at Cuts, but she turned away, covering her face with her bruised hand. "You aren't crying, Gena, dear?"

"No," Cuts replied thickly, making it obvious that she was. Until that moment, Harry never realized that Cuts could not possibly be as inhuman as she made herself out to be.

"Don't pay any attention to Snape," Tonks said bracingly, "He's like that with everybody." Cuts whirled from the dresser, her face red and her eyes bloodshot, making her so pitiful looking that Harry felt sorry for her.

"I'll be damned if I'll stand having him throw that in my face. He was there that day, not as one of us. What right does he have?" she burst out angrily, shoving the dresser aside and nearly toppling it. Lupin put his hand on Cuts's shoulder.

"Gena," he said soothingly, "It wasn't your fault. There was no way you could have known." Cuts furiously wiped her eyes, muttering about how stupid she was being and sat at the table. Mrs. Weasley made Cuts some tea, which she took with a shaking hand.

Perhaps it was being addressed familiarly, or the fact everyone was acting friendly towards Cuts rather than exasperated, but something made her say two words that Harry thought he would never hear Cuts say.

"Thank you." Mrs. Weasley smiled down at Cuts.

"What did you have for us, anyway, Harry?" Tonks asked. In the heat of the confrontation between Cuts and Snape, Harry had forgotten why he was there in the first place. Suddenly all his desperation to expose Cuts for what she really was disappeared. He realized he had fallen prey to the information of the newspaper that nearly destroyed him and felt foolish.

"Never mind," Harry said, "I was wrong."

~

Cuts and Snape were both gone the following day. On the day they were to return to Hogwarts, Cuts returned her usual surly self, possibly topping herself by flinging a dagger at Snape when he entered the living room, missing him by a hair's breadth.

"Don't mess with me, or next time I won't miss," she said, wrenching the dagger out of the wall and replacing it in her boot. Snape said nothing as she walked out of the room, but scowled more foully that Harry ever imagined possible. They said their good-byes to those remaining in the house. Cuts shook everyone's hand, giving Ginny, to whom Cuts seemed to have taken a liking, another hard slap on the back.

Mad-Eye, Lupin and Tonks accompanied them to the King's Cross. Harry remembered last year, when Sirius, as Snuffles, had run along side him, chasing cats and yapping loudly. This year's walk was much less entertaining, much more sober, and much more wrenching.

There were good-byes all around on Platform 9 ¾. Mrs. Weasley hugged everybody, giving Harry an extra-hard one. On the train, Harry and Ginny staggered down the corridor, trying to find seats for themselves, Ron and Hermione, who had to spend the first hour up front with the other Prefects. They found an empty compartment at the end and loaded their trunks into the luggage rack.

"Feels good to be going back," Harry said, "I would have gone mad staying there." Ginny nodded sympathetically.

"It's hard. I keep wondering who it's going to be next. The only thing you can do is take it one day at a time. Sirius would want you to keep fighting. Wonder who Dumbledore found for the Dark Arts position?" Harry was glad for the change in subject.

"Whoever it is, they can't be worse than Umbridge." They spent the next hour speculating on who their new teacher was, and what could possibly have gotten Harry into NEWT Potions. Ron and Hermione joined them after they had gotten their instructions. Harry had stocked up on snacks from the food trolley, and Ron flung himself onto a chair and started opening Chocolate Frog packages.

"Well, Malfoy's back to normal, unfortunately. You'd think that his father landing in prison would shut him up a bit."

"You know Malfoy, if he wasn't a git, what would he be?" Harry said.

"A really big git?" Ron guessed, opening a cauldron cake and taking a bite. "Can't wait for the feast," he added. Hermione rolled her eyes behind his back.

"Don't you have other things to think about besides food?" Ginny asked.

"With the size of his brain, it'd be hard not to," came a drawling voice from the door. Malfoy, along with Crabbe and Goyle had come to pay them a visit.

"What do you want?" Harry asked nastily, "In case you haven't noticed, Malfoy, this is the non-Death Eater section."

"Watch it, Potter. I'm a prefect, remember? How'd you like detention?"

"Here's the thing, Malfoy. I don't care, remember? How'd you like to get out before you end up as a slug again?"

"You wait, Potter. Once my father gets out, you'll pay for what you did."

"Oh, I'm so scared," Harry said sarcastically.

"Of course not," Malfoy retorted, "You've got that mad ape to look after you. Oh wait, you don't, she's been arrested."

"What are you talking about?" Hermione snapped.

"Don't you read the Prophet, Mudblood?" Malfoy pulled a copy out of his robes and tossed it at Hermione's feet. "Happy reading," he added as he left, beckoning Crabbe and Goyle to follow him. Hermione slammed the compartment door behind him, then bent to pick up the newspaper.

"How could Cuts have been arrested?" Ron asked, "She didn't even leave headquarters."

"Of course it wasn't Cuts. Malfoy thinks Cuts is Michelle Tiberdeaux. I don't see how, they look absolutely nothing alike." Hermione handed Ron the newspaper, which Harry looked at over Ron's shoulder. The real Michelle Tiberdeaux blinked up at them.

Tiberdeaux, despite the image being a mugshot, was impeccably groomed, down to the last strand of long blond hair. Harry looked at the woman's slim, feminine face and wondered how the hell anybody could cross the two women.

"Cuts should be flattered, really," Ron said, "If I was a girl, I'd be flattered to be mistaken for her." Hermione snatched the paper back from him and started perusing the article. After a few sentences, she gasped and covered her mouth.

"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry," she said.

"What?" Harry asked, "Am I somehow related to her?" Hermione shook her head, her eyes wide.

"No, it's just that, well, your Uncle Vernon, he died." Harry snatched the paper back and looked at the article himself.

"Michelle Tiberdeaux was arrested last night on charges of assault and manslaughter. Tiberdeaux was taken into Muggle custody by the local "police men"(Muggle law enforcement) following the death of Vernon Dursley of Little Whinging," Harry read aloud in a hollowed voice. No love was lost on Uncle Vernon, the man had abused Harry for twelve years of his life, and he certainly had never cared for Harry at all. But it was a death, and Harry felt that he had quite had his share of it for one lifetime.

He was also not looking forward to his return to Privet Drive that summer, when he would have to face his Aunt Petunia, after someone Harry knew had killed him. Harry knew that his aunt would blame him, and Dudley would probably try to beat the tar out of Harry the moment they saw each other. Harry knew it wasn't his fault, but try telling anything to his aunt and... his aunt.

~

At the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, Harry sat numbly between Ron and Hermione, picking dully at his food. The newly Sorted first years a few feet away from them chattered away animatedly, without a care in the world. Harry thought longingly of his days as a first year. Life had been so much easier then. He had had his struggles, yes, that was true, but he wasn't surrounded by death, made all the more obvious by the presence of the Thestrals, winged horses that were only visible to those who had seen death.

The chatter during the feast died away as Dumbledore stood up for his Beginning-of-term speech.

"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts," Dumbledore said, looking around at all the tables fondly, "I have a few announcements to make. Firstly, Quidditch tryouts will be held in the second week of term, please see Madam Hooch if you are interested in playing for your House. Next, I would like to remind everyone that no magic is to be used in the corridors and also that the forest on the grounds is forbidden. Lastly, I would like to announce that there have been a few staffing changes at Hogwarts over the summer. We have a new Potions teacher this year, and I would like you to welcome Professor Sordhan, who has replaced Professor Snape."

The students clapped for the new teacher, who Harry had just noticed. She looked like a young McGonagall, Harry thought, tall and thin, with black hair. The only difference was that Professor Sordhan wore her hair down, and she had a distinctly haughty look about her. Harry wondered whether she'd be much better than Snape, but was at least glad that she didn't have any school-boy grudges with his father.

"Ginny was right after all," Ron whispered, but before Harry could answer, Dumbledore had continued with his announcement.

"Our second change has been, of course, to the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts. I am glad to say that the position has been taken by none other than our very own Professor Snape!"