Questions and Answers

Teddy waited precisely five seconds for Joel to respond before repeating, 'Why did you do it?' in calm voice that belied the simmering rage just under the surface. He could feel the pulse pounding in his ears, drowning out any reply Joel might have made, if he'd deigned to answer Teddy. The remaining rational corner of Teddy's mind dimly wondered if this was how his father had experienced anger. Teddy could only remember a handful of times he had seen his father lose control, and that was still confined to the pages of a diary. He realized his hands were trembling and clasped them together under the table.

Joel's eyes narrowed. 'You're not part of MLE. I don't have to talk to you.'

Teddy snorted contemptuously. 'No. But we were - were - friends. You owe me an explanation. You attacked my godfather, not to mention his family, killing one of his Aurors in the process.' Teddy could feel his skin begin to prickle, as if goose pimples were rippling over his arms. But this time, he recognized it for what it was. He knew it was only a matter of seconds before he could smell the stench of the prison, taste it in the back of his throat. He'd be able to almost feel Joel's pulse, as much as he would be able to hear it, echoing under his own. 'I won't tell, and I won't testify against you,' Teddy growled.

'Aren't you worried about your safety?' Joel muttered. 'Those fools used to burn witches and wizards. What makes you think they wouldn't do it again if they knew?'

'So you went after Muggles with zero connection to the wizarding world?' Teddy's breath caught, and a scrap of his father's diary floated in front of his eyes. 'Or are you like them and have issues with anyone who isn't a pureblood?' he asked quietly.

'Well, of course not!' Joel snapped. 'I left you alone; for all that you're the offspring of a werewolf. You're still magical. Even that girl of yours.' Joel's lip curled slightly. 'Mixing species,' he added. 'Bad enough for a witch or wizard to marry a Muggle, much less another species entirely.' Joel shuddered. 'Too many damn Muggles. I heard about how your godfather's Muggle cousin actually was allowed to come inside St. Mungo's.' Quite suddenly, Joel's eyes grew round and serious. 'Don't you see, Teddy? We won't be safe from them any longer...'

'You're mad,' Teddy whispered, shoving his chair into the wall behind him. 'You've lost your bloody mind...' He rounded the end of the table, and tapped the door with his wand. It opened just enough for him to slip out of the small room. 'I'll be going now,' Teddy informed the guard, his stomach churning from the scent of stale sweat and carelessly washed bodies as well as Joel's rantings about how the Muggles were going to drag off every witch and wizard in Britain. He stumbled to the entrance and once outside the prison, sat down hard on the rocky shore in the shadows of the hulking edifice of Azkaban. Teddy closed his eyes against the waves of nausea that washed over him. After several minutes, the burning in Teddy's stomach subsided enough for him to clumsily get to his feet. He stepped as close to the turbulent shore as he dared and tightly shut his eyes. Determination, deliberation, and destination, he told himself, picturing the opposite shore in Scotland, with the small village and the tiny, smoky pub he'd gone into with Harry the previous summer. He only opened his eyes, only after the suffocating sensation of Apparition had faded, staggering in relief when he realized he had managed to reappear outside the village without Splinching himself.

Teddy began to walk toward the village, intending to visit the pub once more for a cup of hot chocolate, but he suddenly stopped and spun on the spot.

Chocolate wasn't going to help. Not this time.

He spun on his heel, exchanging the view of the North Sea for the cliffs of northern coast of Cornwall. Teddy trudged up the path to the small cottage, the shells embedded in its walls glinting in the sunshine. He pushed the gate open and made his way to the front door. It opened before he could knock. 'Is Vic home?' he asked Bill dully.

Bill frowned. 'I didn't think the two of you had plans tonight.'

Teddy shook his head. 'We don't. I really just need to see Vic, please.'

Bill eyed Teddy's ashen face and nodded. 'She's upstairs.'

Teddy's brows rose in surprise. 'Thanks...'

Bill's eyes narrowed. 'Leave the door open,' he warned, stepping back to allow Teddy into the house.

Teddy edged into the house, and clattered up the stairs. Victoire was sitting cross-legged on her bed, frowning at a large textbook; Maddie's bed was covered under a layer of parchment and books. 'Hi, Teddy,' she murmured distractedly, scribbling a note on the parchment balanced on her knee.

'Can you take a bit of a break, Vic?'

'Yeah...' Victoire slowly closed the book, marking her place with an old quill. She finally looked up at Teddy. The look on his face made her snatch her wand from its place on the windowsill and start flicking it in his direction. 'You look awful,' she commented.

Teddy tried to duck the charms Victoire sent toward him, knowing it was futile. 'I'm fine,' he muttered. 'Budge up,' he told her, settling on the bed. 'I saw Joel,' he admitted. 'Just now.'

'Oh?'

'What makes someone think like that?'

'Like what...?'

Teddy's head slowly moved from side to side. 'The paranoia,' he began. 'The hatred. The need to wall themselves off from the rest of humanity, just because they lack the ability to manipulate magic.' His mouth twisted bitterly. 'And you and I get a pass, because we're magical,' he informed her. 'Even though, according to him, for all intents and purposes, my father was nothing more than a beast unfit to mingle with humans.' He looked at Victoire. Her eyes had grown wide. 'Same thing with your great-grandmother. And my mother and your great-grandfather, grandfather, and father are nothing more than pervs who married beasts,' he spat.

'Not everybody thinks like that,' Victoire told him gently.

Teddy shook his head violently. 'We were sheltered,' he said flatly. 'By our families. We were taught that things were different, that it wouldn't matter...' He covered his face with his hands and his shoulders began to shake. Victoire couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying.

'Teddy...?' She laid a hand on his arm, and Teddy's hands fell from his face and his fingers twined in her hair. His face was streaked with tears, yet he laughed. It wasn't laughter Victoire had ever heard from his lips before. It was cold and ruthless.

'I get it now,' he choked. 'How Dad felt about having me.' He rested his elbows on his thighs, hands dangling between his knees. 'It only took seven years.'

'It's still not everybody,' Victoire ventured. 'Just a few crackpots.'

Teddy snorted. 'By the time you got to school, it wasn't as bad, but there were plenty of others there who felt like that. I spent most of my first year in detention because I was always getting into fights with some wanker questioning my right to be at school.' He rubbed his sleeve under his nose. 'McGonagall rounded up the ringleaders and well, you know what she can do with just a look. Just because it stopped doesn't mean they changed their minds.' A pained expression crossed Teddy's face. 'I just never dreamed that Joel felt like that...' He fell sideways across the bed. 'Senseless,' he muttered, pulling Victoire down to lie beside him, shifting until she spooned against his chest, his arm tightly wrapped around her waist.

After several minutes, Victoire felt Teddy's breathing slow. 'I need to study, Teddy...' she said softly.

'Just a few minutes,' he murmured indistinctly. 'Haven't slept much...'

'Mmmmkay....' Victoire told him, her own voice fading.

xxxxxx

Bill glanced impatiently at the ceiling, his nostrils flaring. 'What are they doing up there?' he growled.

Fleur laughed softly and poured more tea into his cup. 'What do you zink zey are doing?' she chuckled. 'Ze door is wide open.'

'It's too quiet,' Bill complained.

'Zey are not going to do anyzing while we are here, -cheri-. Not any more zan we would have at your maman's before we were married,' Fleur pointed out.

'Yeah, that makes me feel better,' Bill grumbled, picking up his cup.

'Would you razer zey did zings behind our backs? At least Victoire has been honest about it.' Fleur calmly sipped her tea. 'Zat is more zan you or I could say, no?'

'That's different,' Bill spluttered.

'Oh? How is it different?'

'It just is.'

'Will it make you feel better if one of us goes upstairs to check on zem?' Fleur sighed. 'Like zey were bébés?'

'Yes.'

'Fine.' Fleur rose gracefully from her chair. 'I shall go up, zen. You,' she added warningly, 'will stay right zere.' She lightly walked up the narrow stairs, and peered around the edge of Victoire's open bedroom door. Victoire and Teddy were both sound asleep. Fleur flicked her wand at the door, and it partially closed, leaving a still sizeable gap.

xxxxxx

Hermione cradled a cup of tea between her hands. She used to love Saturdays. Saturdays, even after Rose and Hugo were born, were spent in leisurely abandon. But for the past few months, she had come to dread them. She spent most of her Saturday morning and afternoon with her mother. But more and more, the woman wearing her mother's clothes and face wasn't Jane. Hermione wasn't sure anymore who that was. Jane greeted Hermione with a blank stare that increased in duration as the weeks passed. Hermione thought that soon Jane wouldn't recognize her at all. The only person Jane remembered now was Richard, convinced they had hidden him somewhere in the home. Hermione was so lost in her misery; she didn't see Ron drop into the chair across the table.

'Sickle for your thoughts?' he asked, prying the tea from her hands and taking a sip.

Hermione gave him a wan smile. 'Not worth that much,' she said quietly.

'I don't have to go in today,' Ron told her.

'But it's the holidays,' Hermione protested weakly.

Ron flapped a hand toward the window. 'If George can't handle a Saturday, even with the extra help in, he ought to break his wand in half.'

'That would be great,' Hermione said, before a voice called from the sitting room.

'Hello?'

'Mum?' Ron tilted his chair back on its rear legs, peering into the sitting room. 'Why are you here...?'

'Don't you go to sit with your mum on Saturdays, Hermione?' Molly asked, ignoring Ron. 'I thought you did...'

'Yes, I do.'

'Oh, well, then. Is Jane up for visitors?'

Hermione hesitated. 'I don't think -' she began, before Ron elbowed her in the ribs. She glanced sharply at him, and he attempted to communicate with an elaborate system of semaphore involving his eyebrows. 'Oh, honestly, Ronald, just say it.'

The back of Ron's neck flushed and he glared at Hermione for a moment. 'I just thought that maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea for Mum to come with us. Help run interference with your mum is all...' he muttered.

Molly planted a hand between Ron's shoulder blades and pushed until all four legs of his chair rested on the floor. 'Don't lean back in your chair, Ron,' she said absently. 'You'll fall.'

'Thirty-nine, Mum, not ten,' Ron grumbled.

'I've got a few more jumpers to finish,' Molly told Hermione. 'I can sit with your mother and chat about this and that, while I work.'

'But she won't remember you,' Hermione said.

'Doesn't matter,' Molly said breezily, flapping a hand. 'It can't be much different from when Auntie Muriel went tetchy after Harry and Ginny's wedding.'

'You mean she wasn't before?' Ron asked incredulously.

Molly rolled her eyes. 'My cousins and I used to take turns during the day with Muriel. If we acted as if we didn't know her, things seemed to be all right.'

Hermione ran her hands through her hair several times, making it wildly stand on end. 'All right, fine... Just give me a few minutes to get dressed...' She pushed her chair back and left Ron and Molly alone in the kitchen.

Molly gazed at Ron beadily. 'You almost gave it away,' she murmured, pulling her wand from her bag, and flicking it at the kitchen door.

'What was I supposed to say?' Ron demanded. 'We want to come with you, because you're wearing yourself down to a thread doing this all yourself?'

'Don't use that tone of voice with me,' Molly said genially. 'You might be nearly forty years old, but you're never too old for me to hex, young man.'

'You know Hermione, Mum,' Ron continued blithely. 'She won't do anything unless she thinks it's her idea.'

'I haven't any idea what that must be like,' Molly said dryly. 'Because of course all my children did exactly everything I told them to do.'

Ron grinned unabashedly at his mother. 'Yeah, we were all perfect.' He tilted his chair on its back legs once more. 'Harry just pretends to be.' Molly swatted Ron's shoulder as she lifted the charm from the door. 'I have to make a stop on the way to Oxford,' Ron said, letting the chair fall to the floor with a thump. 'I'll meet the two of you there.'

'I thought you weren't going into the shops,' Molly said suspiciously.

'I'm not.'

xxxxxx

Lily poked at her breakfast morosely. 'What's crawled up your bum and died?' Jacob asked, dishing eggs onto his plate.

'I don't see why first years can't go into Hogsmeade,' she pouted.

'Because you're all so titchy. Get lost, you will,' added Fred. 'Second years, too. Especially if they're as small as Sophie. She's hardly more than a midget.' His head rocked to the side, as Sophie aimed a well-timed miniature Bludger from the traveling toy Quiddtich set she had set up between her plate and Nicky's.

'I'm not a midget,' Sophie loftily informed her brother. 'I'm petite. Aunt Fleur said so!'

'Hogsmeade's not that big of a deal, anyway, Lily,' Jacob told her, through a mouthful of toast.

'Says you,' she retorted grumpily.

James slid into a chair and began to pile food on his plate. 'What's got your knickers in a twist?' he asked Lily.

'She's pouting because first years aren't allowed into Hogsmeade.'

'Is it so awful to want to get out of here, just once?' Lily cried, flinging her arms wide, a bit of potato flying off her fork to hit Scorpius in the face. 'Sorry...' she muttered, blushing.

'Don't mention Ogsmeadehay to Lily,' James warned Al and Scorpius, who had just joined them for breakfast.

'Oh, stop it,' Lily huffed. 'I'm not four and you don't have to try and pretend to not talk about things.'

'Acting like you're four,' Al commented, pouring orange juice into his goblet and gulping it thirstily. 'Don't you have homework?'

'It's done,' Lily said proudly. 'Finished it last night.'

'Ooo c'lh eeee 'agi,' James spluttered through his sausage.

Maddie reached over and smacked James on the back of the head. 'For Merlin's sake, James, act like you have table manners. I know Aunt Ginny taught them to you,' she sniffed disdainfully.

'Ow!' James rubbed the back of his head. He swallowed the bite of sausage and repeated, 'You could go see Hagrid, the lot of you staying.'

Hugo's eyes widened fearfully. 'Do we have to eat lunch there?' he whispered.

'Just move it around your plate,' Isabella advised. 'But if he offers you a rock cake, say you're not peckish just now, and will save it for later.' She sipped her coffee. 'Gave one to my owl one year... Damn near killed the poor thing.'

'And don't try to eat it yourself,' Rose added. 'Mum says she almost broke a tooth once.'

'Even the Giant Squid won't eat them,' Alex said in hushed wonder. The Giant Squid would eat nearly anything that was thrown into the Black Lake.

'Ugh,' Lily muttered with a visible shudder. Hagrid was a great one for tea and sympathy. He could brew a good cuppa, but cooking was not one of his skills, even if he did try to use magic.

Scorpius spread marmalade on a slice of toast and gazed at Lily speculatively. Under the guise of leaning across her for a box of cereal, he murmured, 'What is it you want from the shop?' Lily didn't reply, but dug into the pocket of her jeans and slipped a scrap of folded parchment into his hand. Scorpius thumbed it open and nodded as he poured cornflakes into a bowl. He shoved the scrap of parchment into his own jeans pocket.

xxxxxx

Ron opened the door to Greenhouse One and smiled in satisfaction. The cuttings he'd brought Neville from Richard's rose garden grew in wild abandon down one side of the greenhouse. The canes were heavy with rosebuds, making the warm, humid air redolent with their heady scent. Neville was perched on a tall stool grading papers, while Eric sat in an unused corner of the greenhouse, industriously digging with a small shovel. 'How's fatherhood treating you?' Ron asked, sliding onto a stool across the table from Neville.

Neville glanced up and grinned. 'I feel like I'm cheating,' he confessed. 'I got to miss all the crying and two in the morning feedings.'

'You're not missing much,' Ron assured him. 'This is when they start to get interesting.'

Neville snorted. 'I don't think Hannah thinks so. I didn't know one small baby could create such havoc.'

'To put it mildly,' Ron agreed.

Neville dropped his quill and shot off the stool. 'No, Eric. Don't eat that!' He squatted next to the boy and held out a hand. 'Give it to me.'

Eric shook his head. 'NO!' He clutched whatever it was in his chubby fists to his chest, leaving dirty streaks on his small jumper. Ron nearly gagged when a common earthworm began to wriggle from the top of Eric's fist. It had been years since either Hugo or Rose had tried to use the creatures in the garden as a mid-morning snack.

'Wouldn't you rather have a banana?' Neville wheedled. Eric shook his head even harder, making his straight black hair fly about his head. 'Eric Zhao, give me the earthworm,' Neville said quietly, reverting to the same authoritative voice with the steely undertone he used with his more recalcitrant students. It made Ron blink. It gave him an idea of what Neville must have been like in his seventh year of school. 'Now.'

Eric gazed up at Neville with shiny dark eyes and reluctantly gave Neville the limp earthworm. Neville straightened with a muffled grunt, as his knees popped, and took the hapless worm to the rose beds and gently released it. Nearly simultaneously, Eric burst into tears. Neville swept the boy into his arms, and gently patted him on the back murmuring nonsense, while Eric burrowed his face into Neville's neck, hands twining into the folds of Neville's robes. After a few minutes Eric's howls faded into whimpers and he blindly poked a thumb into his mouth. Neville's fingers wrapped around Eric's wrist, intending to pull out the filthy thumb, but Ron shook his head. 'A little dirt's not going to hurt him.'

Neville sighed. 'Now would be the perfect time for that bloody ministry witch to come in on a surprise visit.'

'I'd leave out the part where Eric tried to eat an earthworm,' Ron promptly replied, barely keeping a straight face.

Neville chuckled a little. 'Good advice.' He smoothed a hand over Eric's hair, then wiped the tearstains from his round cheeks. 'He gets into everything...'

'Rose ate Crookshanks' food when she was little like that,' Ron said ruefully. 'Thought Hermione was going to come unglued.'

'Thank God we don't have a pet,' Neville muttered.

'You have an owl, don't you?' Ron asked. 'Yeah... Owl Treats. Charlie had to stop storing them under the kitchen sink when Aiden found them once he learned how to crawl.'

'I think Hannah's already put anything within Eric's reach over our heads. Did it after we'd had him a day.' Neville shifted Eric, so he could hold him with one arm, and began to grade papers again. 'I've been meaning to write to you and thank you for the cuttings,' he said, gesturing toward the roses with his quill. 'The seventh year Potions class is experimenting with the formulas for the ones they learned in their first year. One of the students is trying to see if adding rosehips to the Fainting Solution makes it better. I hope you don't mind if she uses them.'

'No.'

'And it's good practice for the first years to grow and harvest plants magically. Especially since roses are relatively harmless and not in high demand as potions ingredients.'

Ron slid off the stool and wandered down the row, stopping occasionally to examine a rosebud. 'They've done a good job. Hermione's mother will like them.' He rummaged in a box of classroom supplies and unearthed a small set of shears and began clipping rosebuds. 'It's kind of hard to force them like you've been able to do here in the middle of a Muggle neighborhood, and since we share a garden with about four other families...'

'What about putting a greenhouse at her parents' house, or have you managed to sell it...?'

'She let it to one of her cabana boys. He and his wife just had a baby a couple of months ago, and they needed a bigger place, and Hermione was willing to let them have it for what they were paying for some dinky flat in Diagon Alley that was smaller than the one over the shop. We managed to donate most of Richard's rosebushes to garden devoted to maintaining heirloom plants and flowers... Didn't seem fair to expect Seth and his wife to take care of them, nor to have me popping over at odd times to do it.' Ron pulled that morning's paper from the pocket of his coat. He pointed his wand at it and murmured, 'Aguamenti.' He wrapped the stems in the damp newspaper then carefully bundled the whole thing in several layers of dry newspaper. 'Thanks, Nev. I owe you one. More than one...'

'Then don't be surprised when Hannah and I ask you to babysit Eric during the school holiday,' Neville said quickly.

Ron laughed outright. 'That I think we can do. I'll see you later, Nev.'

xxxxxx

Lily stood just outside the school entrance, her hands stuffed into the pockets of her coat. She set off toward Hagrid's hut, intending to say hello and play with his dog, Brutus for a while. But as she came closer to the round cabin, a flash of movement in the Forbidden Forest caught her eye. Curiously, she veered into a clearing, then disappeared into the thick foliage that was still remarkably green and full, even in the dead of winter. She cautiously slipped between the large tree trunks, fascinated by the way the light changed from the bright, clear light that made the snow sparkle to a muted green, filtered by the deep green pine needles above her head. She tilted her head back, staring at the canopy of branches. She didn't see the large creature standing silently in front of her, a bow held lightly in his hands. Not until she ran into his side.

Startled, Lily fell backward, landing on her rear. She quickly pulled her wand from her pocket, realizing as she did so that it was futile - the most she could do defensively at this point in her education was send a great deal of sparks at the large chestnut centaur looming over her. The centaur seemed amused as he crossed his arms over his chest. 'Are you hurt?' he asked in a rumble that Lily could feel in her fingertips.

'N-n-n-no.'

The centaur held out a hand and pulled Lily to her feet. 'May I see your wand?' he asked. Lily's brows drew together suspiciously, but she allowed the centaur to examine her wand. He ran an appreciative fingertip over the polished surface. 'Rowan, is it not?'

'Yes.' Lily wrapped her fingers around the handle when the centaur offered it back to her. 'Who are you?'

'Ronan.'

Lily's brows shot up in surprise. 'Oh, you're Ronan! When I went to get my wand, Mr. Ollivander said the core was the hair from the tail of a centaur. My aunt Hermione asked which one and he said it was yours. I'm Lily, by the way.'

Ronan's eyes narrowed as he looked at Lily. 'And you are the daughter of one Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley,' he stated. 'You have the look of your mother about you and the attitude of your father. A most fearsome combination when you grow into your abilities as a witch, young one.' Ronan gently began to herd Lily back to the entrance of the Forest. 'However, you should not be here. The Forest is forbidden to the students at the school, for your own safety. The other inhabitants here might not be as obliging as I.'

'Thanks...' Lily walked next to Ronan for several moments before asking, 'What other sorts of creatures live here?'

Ronan snorted, in a rather horse-like manner. 'Not afraid of much, are you?'

Lily shrugged. 'Some things aren't worth getting fussed about,' she retorted. 'Nothing worse than being afraid of your own shadow.'

'There are things you should fear, Lily,' Ronan told her.

'My cousin Hugo says there's a difference between being afraid something and respecting what it can do,' Lily shot back.

'And how old is this Hugo?'

'Eleven.'

Ronan grunted softly. 'A wise young man, Hugo.'

'If you say so...' Lily said doubtfully. She glanced at Ronan from the corner of her eye. 'So what else lives in here, besides centaurs?'

xxxxxx

Draco slouched in the armchair, glaring at Andrew. 'So now what?' he huffed. 'Am I supposed to tell you that my father was distant, my mother was over-protective, and my childhood was absolute rubbish, all the while lying on the floor in a fetal position while I'm sobbing?' he asked sardonically.

Andrew's lips twitched. 'If you want to.' He turned to the notes he'd made in Draco's chart from his last session. 'But I'd like to start with what you said before. About not hating Harry Potter.'

'So? Lots of people don't hate Harry Potter.'

'True, but lots of people also didn't belong to groups actively attempting to kill him, either.'

'Touché,' Draco murmured. 'But I didn't really hate him. Not even when we were at school. Well, I did at first, because he wounded my overinflated sense of pride, but after some time, it turned to something else.'

'If you didn't hate him, then what was it?'

'Envy, I suppose. He didn't have to deal with parents, or try to live up to this completely unrealistic idea of what he should be. Later, I sort of felt sorry for the poor bastard.'

'Sorry in what way?'

Draco rubbed a fingertip over the weave of his jumper for a moment, thinking. 'It's not like he asked for any of it. No more than I had, in the end.' He grew nauseous thinking of what his last two years of school had been like. Draco drew several slow deep breaths, thankful for once, that he'd had to learn to function while hungover. It was rather a lot like sifting through his memories. 'And if both of us refused to do what we'd been set to do, we'd both be dead.'

'So, the two of you are more alike than probably either of you realize.'

'No.' Draco leaned forward and picked up a small, squishy ball, and began to squeeze it, passing it back and forth between his hands. 'Because you know who gets Sorted into Slytherin? Cowards. And Harry Potter is not a coward. Not when he was eleven years old, and not now. And I... I was.' Draco looked down at the brightly-patterned material covering the ball in his hands. 'It all came so easily to him. Flying, Quidditch, even magic, when he wasn't trying to avoid being injured or killed, and frankly that was most of the time he was in school. I saw him a few times, before the war, before it all went to hell, when we weren't at school. And it was glaringly obvious to anyone who bothered to look that they...' Even now Draco couldn't make himself say their name. 'His wife's parents,' he managed to choke. 'They cared enough to bother with him, and he wasn't even related to them. He didn't have to do anything special for them to be concerned about his welfare.

'I would have given anything...' Draco trailed off and stared down at the squishy ball, then set it back on the table so hard, the hourglass rattled. 'But we're not talking about me,' he said pointedly.

'At the moment, no.' Andrew set his ordinary Muggle pen down. 'But at some point the topic of conversation has to turn back to you. If you don't want to talk about yourself, then perhaps you might be amenable to telling me what made you come here? You don't have to, though. Not right now.'

Draco sighed and laced his hands together, the thin band of his wedding ring pressing into his flesh. It still felt alien on his finger, even after fifteen years of marriage. 'I have a wife I don't know how to talk to,' he began awkwardly. 'And a son I can't...' Draco's eyes burned. 'I have spent most of the last three years drinking myself into a stupor to the point where I seriously think I'm going to drink myself into an early grave, if I don't stop. I don't want to end up like my...' Draco's lips clamped shut. He ground his teeth for several moments. 'My mother stayed with my father until the day he died,' Draco spat. 'She's all but branded like we were, just by association. She should have left when she had the chance...' he mused. 'And so should my wife.'

Draco exhaled heavily and stood up. 'Next month?'

Andrew nodded. 'Just one more thing,' he began, 'before you go.'

'All right,' Draco agreed warily.

'Speaking of your wife - does she know you're here?'

Draco started guiltily. 'No,' he said in a low voice.

'Don't you think you ought to tell her?' Andrew said calmly.

Draco snorted audibly. 'What for? So she can think I'm even more of a daft plonker than I already am?'

'You're not mad, you know,' Andrew said. 'And if you're not telling her where you go, I'll bet my best quill she thinks you're doing something else.'

xxxxxx

Ron strolled down the corridor, trying not to notice the residents who were unable to walk, and sat listlessly in wheelchairs, staring off into the distance, locked in a private world of their own making. Those were the ones that were no longer able to talk, for the most part. If they still retained their power of speech, what they said was mostly garbled murmurs. If Jane survived that long, it was what they had to look forward to with her. There were times Ron hoped Jane would die like Richard - suddenly and in her sleep. He stopped in the doorway to Jane's room. Hermione was nowhere to be seen, but Molly sat in a chair next to Jane, peacefully knitting the Muggle way, chatting to Jane about inconsequential things. 'Hello, Mum,' Ron said cheerily.

'Ah! Ron. Jane, this is Ron, my youngest son,' Molly explained, as if Ron hadn't been married to Hermione for sixteen years. It was much easier if they didn't try to force Jane to remember them.

'How are you feeling today?' Ron asked, with a slight frown. Jane was lying in her bed, with the quilt drawn to her chin. Jane gave Ron a puzzled grimace, her mouth working soundlessly. She gave up and pointed to the roses Ron carried. 'These are for you,' Ron said, ducking into the small bathroom, searching for the plastic vase. 'Looks rather dull in here. Thought you could use something to brighten things up.' Ron set the bouquet of roses on table next to Jane's bed.

Jane gave the roses a perplexed glance. 'Richard grows lorries,' she said, the bemusement deepening on her features. 'Not right...' she said fretfully.

'Roses,' Ron supplied. Jane blinked rapidly, trying to process this seemingly new information. After several minutes, she gave up, sinking back into the lethargy Ron had seen when he entered the room. 'They have names, too,' he told her. 'This one is called Sarah van Fleet,' he said, naming each rose as his fingertips brushed lightly over the petals. 'La Reine Victoria, Louis Phillipe, Camille de Rohan, Comtesse Cecile de Chabrillant, and Gentle Hermione...'

'Pretty,' Jane managed to say. Her eyes closed, as if the effort of forming words exhausted her.

Ron glanced at Molly. 'Where's Hermione?' he whispered.

'Talking to the Healer assigned to Jane,' Molly murmured. 'Jane's not well.'

'What does that mean?'

'I don't know, Ron...'

At that moment, Hermione appeared in the doorway, ashen and shaking. She motioned to Ron, and he slipped out into the corridor to talk to Hermione. 'Mum said your mum's ill?' Ron asked.

Hermione nodded. 'Can we go home?' she asked, her voice trembling. 'Now? Please?'

'I'll get Mum,' Ron said, leaving Hermione alone in the corridor. She wrapped her arms around herself, attempting to still the tremors that ran through her body.

xxxxxx

Scorpius clambered through the portrait hole, sighing blissfully at the warmth of the Gryffindor common room. 'Finally,' he breathed. 'Too bloody cold outside...'

Lily and Hugo looked up from their Reusable Hangman. 'Well, at least there's one advantage to not being able to go,' Hugo said to Lily, using the stylus to scribble another letter on the miniature chalkboard on the front of the gallows. 'We get to stay in a nice, warm common room.'

'Very true,' Lily agreed. 'And we get the good seats in front of the fire.'

Scorpius flopped to the floor next to Lily and handed her a small magenta paper bag. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah... The wind just goes right through you. Came back early.' He shivered and scooted closer to the fire.

Lily opened the bag and smiled. 'Brilliant,' she murmured. Inside were two of the Muggle tricks Ron and George stocked - a lock-picking kit and a short piece of rope, charmed to knot itself around your wrists for one minute, so the owner could try to learn to wriggle out of it. The more you used it, the more complex the knot.

'Why did you want them?' Scorpius asked.

Lily's grinned mischievously. 'Practice.'