Two to Obey

LAST CHAPTER: Some shit happened.

Chapter 12: Intelligence

It is often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.

-Adlai Stevenson

Thera Castelar wasn't in her room. Swearing under his breath, Severus turned and jogged down the stairs, heading outside. She'd gotten a head start on him out of the amphitheater, ducking out through the side door while he was stuck in a conversation with Nott, waiting for thirty emissaries of evil and their entourages to file up the stairs and out of the dungeons.

He crept silently across the grounds, his ears alert for the unmistakable sound of someone losing their dinner. Reaching the Carriage House, he tried to open the door, but it was locked. He pulled out his wand, but was halted by a raspy voice to his left.

"Trying to steal my car?"

Severus lit his wand, finally locating his quarry a few feet away, sitting on the ground against the side of the Carriage House.

"You can't just go running off whenever you want," he hissed. "It's not as if nobody will notice you're gone, especially after your performance tonight."

"Yeah, I made quite a name for myself, didn't I?"

If strutting around in low-cut robes that she was five years and several bra sizes away from pulling off convincingly hadn't done it, the events with the Muggle certainly had.

"Audience participation nights are always popular," Severus answered. It was an old Death Eater code word for gang rape, one Lucius had coined, if he remembered correctly.

She snorted. "Nice euphemism. I notice you didn't join in the fun."

"All of us have to draw the line somewhere."

"No matter how arbitrary."

Growing impatient, Severus asked, "Are you going to vomit or can we go back inside?"

She cleared her throat. "I already did, and no."

Severus gritted his teeth. "This is hardly the time to sulk."

"I'm not sulking, I'm fucking Patrick O'Riordan behind the Carriage House. It's called an alibi. Hey, look at that. It's an alibi for you, too."

The sooner he got to stop impersonating that fool, the better. "Well, that buys you five minutes," Snape said. "How are you going to account for the rest of the time?"

Castelar looked up at him, wide-eyed. "Did you just make a joke, Snape?"

Apparently not, if she had to ask. "No."

"Of course you didn't," she said, smiling.

He rolled his eyes. "Can we go inside now?"

The smile disappeared. "No."

"I will drag you inside, if necessary."

"Calm down, Snape. I don't know about you, but sometimes after I disembowel a perfectly innocent Muggle woman, I like to take a few moments to ruminate on the fact that I'd much rather have done it to my father."

"If you're going to blame anyone, I'd start with the Dark Lord himself."

"Yeah, well...he's not really my fish to fry, is he?"

"Neither is your father," he pointed out. "The Ministry already took care of him."

She made a strange face. "Not enough for my liking."

Severus found himself growing impatient again. What little sympathy he possessed had already been used up. "Castelar, that Muggle woman was likely a prostitute." She'd certainly been dressed like one, and the Death Eaters generally went after easy marks when picking out their victims.

"Oh, thank Merlin. I was beginning to think maybe we might've actually done something wrong."

"I'm just saying," he ground out, "that she stood a fairly high risk of meeting a similar fate in the Muggle world."

"Only without the wands and robes and a hundred people watching," she shot back.

Severus fought to keep from snapping at her. "Castelar, this isn't the first time you've done this. Yes, it was a woman this time, and perhaps that's more upsetting, but..."

"She looked like Reina."

He blinked at the interruption, his train of thought not quite switching tracks quickly enough. "Who?"

Castelar began drumming her fingers on her drawn-up knees, an abstracted look on her face. "The Muggle woman. She looked like Reina."

Severus opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn't see the resemblance, but then he hadn't seen Reina since the Dark Lord's defeat. If Thera Castelar thought she looked like the Muggle woman, the ensuing years must not have been particularly kind.

"Do you suppose it was on purpose?" she asked, her voice clipped.

He shook his head. "They don't put that much design into choosing victims."

She glanced up at him, then nodded slowly. "Did you bring the potion?"

The change of subject jarred him. He had seriously lost control of the conversation. Reaching into his pocket, he drew out the Impotence Potion she'd asked for. Severus hadn't questioned her desire for it. If she wanted to turn over a new leaf, he was hardly in any position to judge. "It's an expensive potion. I should charge you for it." He wouldn't, of course, but he felt the sudden need to stress that he could.

"Put it on my tab," she said, pushing herself off the ground and taking the vial.

"Just remember this if it ever comes my turn for public disembowelment," he said as they began walking back to the castle.

"You have potential as a comedian, Snape, but your delivery's off."

"I'll work on it," he said, every syllable dripping with sarcasm.

"Is this enough potion to last me until our guests leave?"

"That depends on how often you use it." She shot him a look, but didn't respond. Severus fought back a sigh. "Right. Well, a drop will incapacitate your average man for a night. Give him the entire bottle and he might as well become a monk."

"How tempting. I'd stay away from the wine at dinner from now on if I were you."

Not entirely certain that she was joking, Severus decided to let it go. "You have all the surveillance in place?"

"Bugged to the hilt."

"Good." They approached the entrance, and he focused on getting himself into Patrick O'Riordan mode. "I'm off to mingle in the ballroom. Are you coming?"

"No. I'm off to assure a Columbian druglord that it happens to all men at one time or another."

"Use the potion sparingly," he warned her. "You don't want to get caught."

Castelar sent him an amused glance. "Yeah, tomorrow morning, a macho, violent evil-doer is going to sit down at breakfast with a bunch of other macho, violent, evil-doers and talk about he couldn't get it up the night before."

"I see your point. You might want to clean yourself up a bit before you go, though."

"I was planning to. I generally don't make booty calls in my evening robes, you know."

He paused. "The Order's listening. Don't forget that."

She sighed. "I haven't. Can't really be helped at this point, can it? Maybe it's for the best. I'm always better in front of an audience." Then she went inside.

Severus squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Then he smashed Patrick O'Riordan's stupid top hat on his head and proceeded into the castle, his feet already falling into the distinct cadence of the man's walk.

*******

Human kind cannot bear too much reality.

-T.S. Eliot

Hermione hung back as the students began entering the Great Hall, her attention focused on Ginny. "I need to talk to you," she muttered as they walked inside.

"Oh, right. Okay," Ginny said distractedly, her eyes scanning the Slytherin table. She finally located Malfoy and her face stretched into a grin. Malfoy answered with what seemed to be an extreme smirk. It trembled at the edges, as if it was in danger of turning into a smile. Hermione promptly elbowed Ginny in the ribs.

"Stop being so obvious about it," she admonished. Ginny tore her eyes away from Malfoy and Hermione sent him a good scowl. He answered with a saucy wink. Gritting her teeth, Hermione sat, dragging Ginny down into the seat next to her.

"What did you have to talk about?" Ginny asked, her eyes moving again to Malfoy.

"Sex with your brother," Hermione said. She'd been aiming to draw Ginny's attention away from Malfoy, and she succeeded spectacularly. Ginny nearly fell off the bench.

"What?!" she squeaked, drawing glances from those around them.

Hermione shushed her. "We haven't done it yet," she whispered as McGonagall began setting up the stool and the Sorting Hat. "But to make a long story short, I need some pointers. Like, right now."

Ginny thought for a moment, composing herself. Then she leaned in, flipping her hair over her shoulder and looking around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping. "Listen, the first time's not great. It's all very weird and intrusive and uncomfortable. As far as losing your virginity goes, just get it over with. You can work on your technique later."

"How inspiring," Hermione said dryly.

Ginny shrugged. "It's the truth. It gets much better, believe me," she said, her eyes slowly sliding over until they focused once more on Malfoy. Her face fell into a seductive smile and Hermione gave up, turning to Parvati, who was sitting on her other side. Parvati was gripping the table with both hands and leaning back, her body jerking strangely, as if she were trying to kick off one of her shoes.

Looking across the table, Hermione saw Harry furiously slapping at something in his lap. Rolling her eyes back over to Ginny, she nudged her. "You might want to defend your territory over here."

The redhead glanced over, quickly sizing up the situation. Picking up a fork, she leaned behind Hermione and poked Parvati in the back with it, hissing, "Lay off him, skank."

Hermione bit her lip to keep from laughing. Parvati sneered at Ginny, but her foot abandoned its crusade for Harry's crotch, much to his visible relief. Ron looked around at all of them, utterly confused. His eyes found hers and they smiled at each other briefly. Then they both simultaneously blushed and looked away from each other.

And they stayed like that for the rest of the Welcoming Feast.

*******

Where have all my friends gone?

They've all disappeared.

Turned around baby one day,

You're all that was there.

Stood by unbelievin,'

Stoody by on my own.

Always thought I was someone.

Turned out I was wrong.

-The Jayhawks, "Blue"

Simply sitting around the common room was an activity Harry could no longer enjoy. After nearly being mauled by an overzealous pair of fourth years, he decided that if he was going to sit in the common room, he needed to have something to do that would hopefully keep people away from him.

Since he didn't have homework yet, Harry dug a parchment and a quill out of his bag, figuring it was about time he sent a letter to Mrs. Polkiss. Settling back into his chair, he inked his quill and waited for some inspiration. None came willingly.

Dear Zdenka,

How are you? I'm back at Hogwarts now.

Thank you again for the medal. Just wearing it makes me feel a bit braver. I seem to have become more of a celebrity lately, with crowds following me and girls screaming. I feel like a Beatle. But all the same, it's nice to know...

"Harry?"

"What?" he asked, startled, quickly turning the letter over so it couldn't be read.

Ron seemed too upset to notice as he tried look casual while holding a dozen red roses. "Do you think this is too much? For Hermione, I mean."

"No," Harry said, pushing up his glasses. "Girls like flowers, don't they?"

"Yes, but Hermione's...well, she's Hermione. I don't want to overdo it."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate the gesture," Harry shrugged.

Ron relaxed a little. "You're right."

Harry felt a need to buck up his friend. "It'll be fine, Ron. Really."

"I hope so," the redhead said, his voice a little strained. "I just don't want to mess it up."

"It's Hermione," Harry said, trying to sound reassuring. "You've known her for six years. You two have been going out for almost a year. I think she'll be understanding."

Ron nodded, though he still looked a bit pale. "Wish me luck. Please. I need it."

Harry fought down his amusement. "You don't need luck, Ron. You'll be brilliant. Hermione couldn't ask for a better guy."

Ron brightened a little. "Thanks," he said, smiling. Then he turned and strode out of the common room. Harry watched the portrait hole after his friend left, feeling strangely bereft, and a little jealous. Pulling the parchment out again, he began to write.

He wrote about anything and everything, completely ignoring that it was supposed to be a letter to Mrs. Polkiss. Harry didn't even know how long it took. One or two people tried to get his attention, but he ignored them, and his script finally filled up two sheets of parchment, then three.

Halfway through the fourth sheet, he finally reached an ending point. It wasn't even really an ending point, but simply the point at which his brain stopped working. Glancing over what he'd written, Harry felt a creeping sense of shame. Once he'd begun writing, he'd more or less accepted that it wasn't anything to be sent or even shown to anyone, but it shocked him a little to hear his own thoughts. They rambled and jumped here and there with no form, stopping only momentarily to deliver a bitter little diatribe or two. On the whole, the thing sounded remarkably whiny and self-indulgent. Harry began to crumple the parchments up to throw them away, then stopped himself. It might be a good idea to hang on to them, after all. If he ever felt sorry for himself, all he'd have to do was read them to know what a sodding jerk he sounded like.

Folding the parchments, he shoved them in his bag, pulling out a clean sheet to rewrite his letter to Mrs. Polkiss. In this one, he stuck to the basics: thanks for the medal, back at Hogwarts, hope you're doing well. After signing off, he rolled it up so he could give it to Hedwig to deliver to the Wizard-Muggle Communications Office tomorrow.

Stretching a little bit, he glanced around the common room. It was completely empty, and as he glanced at his watch, he realized why. It was almost two o'clock in the morning. And Ron was still in Hermione's room. Harry supposed that was a good sign.

Sinking back into the chair, he stared at the fire, his thoughts drifting. He was tired, but he didn't think he'd be able to go to sleep yet. He really wanted something to do. He thought about writing a letter to Remus, but tossed the idea. He was sick of writing.

His eyes were drawn back down to his bag, or - more precisely - to what was inside of it. Thera would probably still be awake, and he kind of did want to talk to her. He wasn't sure why. An accident of circumstance, perhaps. They both kept late hours.

Sick to death of thinking, he reached down and got the mirror out, glancing around the common room once more to make sure that he was really alone. "Thera," he said.

She answered quickly, looking as haggard as he probably did. The fact that she was in bed didn't go unnoticed. The fact that she also didn't appear to be wearing any clothes definitely didn't go unnoticed, especially by his severely neglected groin area.

"Harry," she acknowledged. "What did you need?"

A few things came to mind immediately, none of which he was about to say out loud. "Uh, nothing. Just calling to talk."

She shifted around, stretching out on her side and resting her head on her hand, and if she moved the mirror just a few inches to the left, this call might be worth it. "About what?"

Harry cast a net across his mind, searching for a subject. Exactly one came up. There were certain drawbacks to being a sexually frustrated teenage boy. "Oh, you know," he said nonchalantly. "Stuff."

Thera smiled. Only she didn't, really. She rarely smiled the way other people did. Instead she sort of lifted her facial muscles to somehow convey the act of smiling without actually doing it. "Do you honestly think I don't recognize that look on your face?"

He scowled because it was the first expression he could think of. "What look?"

"The patented Harry Potter 'I'd like nothing more than to jump through this mirror and fuck you until you can't walk properly but due to my prim sense of decorum, I'm going to pretend like I don't and try to carry on a normal conversation with you' look."

He scowled harder. "That's not what I'm thinking."

The smile deepened a little bit, almost becoming a real one. "You're still a terrible liar. No bother, though. After the night I've had, a hard man is good to find."

He should never have gotten the bloody mirror out. "You really are a tart, you know."

"And it took you this long to figure that out?"

Harry couldn't help but chuckle at that, feeling like a bit of an ass for getting on her case. He had, after all, been the one to call her. "Sorry," he said.

"Forgiven," she murmured, looking amused. "You really are a pushover, you know."

"And it took you this long to figure that out?" he shot back at her, before it occurred to him that it wasn't any more glorious than being a tart.

"Merlin, no," she laughed. "I pegged you within the first ten seconds."

Harry rolled his eyes. "How is the Global Conference of Evil going?"

"It's going," she said, with a little half-shrug.

"Were you able to learn anything?" he asked, shifting again in an effort to do away with the continued urgent signals emitting from his crotch.

"Not yet. The Order would know more than I do, what with the bugs and all."

It dawned on Harry that she was lying her ass off, which came as a surprise. Not that Thera was lying, but that he could tell she was lying. Considering she could pull of a believable fabrication while piss drunk, he wondered if she just wasn't trying very hard.

"So you really didn't learn anything tonight?" he asked, testing the waters.

"No, I didn't." She sounded annoyed, and seemed to be telling the truth.

"What happened, then?"

Thera ran a hand down her face. "It's really not worth talking about."

"Oh," he said, finally understanding. It jarred him sometimes to remember that Thera regularly killed people. The circumstances of the killing aside, it still made him uneasy. And she was theoretically on their side. War made for strange bed partners.

Dear Merlin, why wouldn't his penis shut up?

"So how've you been?" she asked, abruptly changing demeanor.

"Fine."

"Harry, since you won't admit that you just called me up because you're horny, the least you could do is come up with a halfway decent secondary reason."

He thought for a moment. "Have you ever been to the French Riviera?"

"Of course."

"My parents have...had a vacation house there. I went to see it. It's pretty nice."

"Does it have a view?"

"Yeah."

Thera looked impressed. "Well, that's certainly better than your average bachelor pad. What the hell are you doing at Hogwarts when you could be plastered out of your mind with a bevy of multiethnic model wannabes vying for the opportunity to fuck you?"

"I don't know," Harry's penis forced him to say. Then he shook himself. "I mean, I don't want that. It's bad enough here. You girls are awfully ruthless, aren't you?"

"Depends on how thick you're being. Why can't you just enjoy it? Honestly."

"Because I'm not like that," he said, a bit defensively.

"No, you're not," she admitted, watching him. "It's weird going back, isn't it?"

"To Hogwarts?"

"No. To your parents' house."

Harry was silent for a moment, putting his thoughts in order. "It is, I guess. Half of me expected some people to just walk in at any moment and ask what the hell I'm doing in their house. But the other half of me..."

"Remembers it," she offered.

Harry blinked at her. "Yeah. It's strange. I don't remember the house on the French Riviera, but I think I remember the one in Godric's Hollow. I shouldn't remember, and I don't entirely. Just...parts of it, really. I don't know. I mean, I've never even seen a picture of it or anything, but I almost feel like I know what it looked like."

Thera cocked her head a little bit. "What did it look like?"

"It was white," he said slowly, the words coming to him the more he thought about it. "It had a wood shingle roof and yellow shutters and a yellow front door. There was a big front porch with a swing." He searched for more images, but they seemed to slip farther away the harder he tried to grasp at them. "That's all I remember," he mumbled.

"It sounds nice."

Harry shrugged. "I don't even know if it's right. It probably isn't. I don't know. Did you remember Shirag Castle?"

It took her a moment to answer. "Parts of it, yeah."

He finally realized what was going on. She wasn't lying, necessarily. She was telling the truth, just not the whole truth. Perhaps that's why she was so accomplished at dishonesty; when looked at in a certain way, almost any situation could be completely misrepresented without ever telling an outright lie. Hell, even the overwrought sob story she'd laid on him the first time they'd met had been true. It just hadn't been the whole truth.

"What parts?" he asked, wondering how she'd swing this.

But instead of doing that, Thera shifted around again, sitting up and looking miserable. "If I tell you something, do you promise not to think I'm completely insane?"

"More than you are already?"

"You're turning into a right smart ass," she said, shaking her head and looking away. Then she seemed to make a decision. "I think my father's still around somehow."

"You mean as a ghost?"

"No, I mean..." she trailed off, wincing. "Well, I suppose you can't laugh any harder than Draco did when I told him."

Harry ignored the unreasonable annoyance he felt at learning that Thera had told Malfoy about this before she told him. "What is it?"

Looking resigned, Thera started speaking in a flat voice. "I've been having dreams about my father - since Hogwarts, actually. He's the one who told me there are other spells, and he's the one who told me that all of us in the spell are basically immortal so long as the Dark Lord is around. In juicy Death Eater gossip news, he and Bellatrix were apparently having a hot affair, and this one time when I was fighting her..."

"Fighting Bellatrix LeStrange?" he asked, sitting back a little. "Why?"

"It's a long story. I actually won, but then she went all wacky - wackier than usual, that is - and started talking to my father like he was there. And I think he was. I felt him there, if that makes any sense. And then after I killed Bellatrix, I dreamed about him again, and he said that one of the other spells was an entailment to Draco."

Harry felt lost. "What's an entailment?"

"Slavery under the guise of an engagement. If it had held up, I'd have done anything Draco said just like I do anything the Dark Lord says."

"So it didn't hold up, then?"

"Well...no. When my father made all of these plans, he thought he was going to be around to see them through."

Harry nodded. "Only he wasn't."

"Right. So instead of Draco doing the honors on our wedding night..."

"...someone else did," Harry concluded.

"To make a long story short - yes," Thera said, scratching her jaw. "Only part of the entailment was that if something like that happened, then the benefits of the entailment would transfer to that person, whoever they were."

He digested that. "Are you telling me that somewhere out there is some random guy who can make you do whatever he wants?"

"Not anymore," she hedged.

Harry wondered if it was possible to be a pathological hedger. "Did you kill him?"

Thera shut her eyes for a long moment, as if trying to keep her patience. "No, I didn't."

"But he's dead, I take it?"

"Reina killed him," she said, waving a hand. "Don't bother getting all worked up about it. He deserved it, believe me."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "He was that bad in bed?"

"She didn't want him having the kind of power that he would have had."

He flinched a little. "That's awfully cold-blooded."

"Yeah, well that's my mother for you. Practical to the core. To get to the point of the whole thing, the last time I had a friendly little meeting with my father, it resulted in the renewing of the entailment. Draco tested it out, and it seems to be true."

"I see," Harry said, anger churning in his stomach. "So you and Malfoy had sex, and now he can make you do whatever he wants. Ginny's going to love hearing that."

Thera laughed. "So you Gryffindors do have imaginations. Lurid ones, too. Stop jumping to conclusions, Harry."

"It was a pretty reasonable conclusion to jump to," he pointed out.

"True," she acknowledged. "Only neither of us are about to let something like that happen. The Dark Lord's apparently planning on us getting married on my seventeenth birthday, which isn't all that far off. In the meantime, we have to somehow find a way out of this whole entailment thing. Well, strategically, it probably won't make a lick of difference. I just..." Thera couldn't seem to find the words she was looking for.

"You don't want Malfoy directing your every move for the rest of your life?"

Thera made an amusingly descriptive face. "Not particularly, no."

"And you're asking me to help you make sure that doesn't happen. Is that it?"

"I'm researching it," she said, looking down. "I just thought Granger might have some ideas. She's good at this sort of thing. Better than me, certainly."

"I'll ask her about it," Harry promised.

"Thanks," she said grudgingly, still looking down.

"You're welcome."

"In return, do you want me to give you the tit shot you've been angling for?" she asked.

He weighed his unrequited horniness against his innate disgust for the idea of accepting sex - in any form - out of gratitude. Fucking morals. "No, it's okay," he said dully.

"How am I supposed to pay you back, then?"

"You don't have to," he explained. "See, this is how decent people..." a sudden thought occurred to him. "Hang on. If you and Malfoy didn't do it, how do you know the entailment is still in effect?"

"Purity spell. I'm a virgin again. Somewhere the Fates are still laughing about that one."

Harry felt his jaw drop. "You're a virgin?" He didn't mean to stress the first word, but he couldn't really help it. "How is that even possible?"

She looked put out. "I don't know, but it is, and it's thrown a wrench in my plans."

"I'm sure," he said with a great deal of false gravity. "It must be difficult having to rely on your mind instead of your feminine wiles to get by in life."

"I use both, I'll have you know. Just because I'm easy doesn't mean I'm stupid."

She didn't mean... "Planning on using your mum's tactics to get out of it?"

Thera made a face at his tone. "No, I'm not. So maybe I am stupid, after all."

"Last I checked," Harry said coldly, "cold-blooded murder and intelligence weren't the same thing. But if you think that, why haven't you just done it already?"

She chuckled a little, the sound hoarse and weary. "All of us have to draw the line somewhere," she said. "No matter how arbitrary."

"It's not arbitrary. It's a choice."

"Choice," she mused, "what a novel idea." Thera stretched out on her back and yawned expansively. "It's just that the other way was much easier," she complained.

"Easier isn't always better," Harry murmured, thinking of Dumbledore's words.

"In this business, it is."

It was pretty hard to refute that statement. "Just be careful."

"You, too."

"I'll do my best," he promised, topping her yawn with one of his own.

Thera's face made that expression again: the smile that wasn't. "Go to bed, Harry."

"I think I will."

"And take this with you, you poor horny sod." Humming a painfully off-key version of 'The Stripper,' she panned the mirror down her body, giving him quite a bit to think about once he made it up to his room. And put a silencing charm around his bed.

"Thera," he groaned. Really utterly fucking impossible.

She finished by leaning forward to press a big, sloppy kiss on the mirror. "Consider it a gift," she said, smirking. "Use it well."

"Oh, I will. Believe me."

*******

Quite a few women told me, one way or another, that they thought it was sex, not youth, that was wasted on the young.

-Janet Harris

Where she expected to find Ron's face, Hermione instead encountered a dozen red roses. He handed them to her with a sheepish grin. "Thanks," she said, smiling back. "I'll put them in some water." Spinning on her heel, she dug her wand out of her bag and conjured up a vase, then bustled off to the bathroom to fill it with water, grateful to have something to do. "Just make yourself comfortable," she called out to him, grimacing at how cliché it sounded. She strode out of the bathroom. Ron was sitting on her bed taking in the room, and she put the flowers on the desk and sat down next to him.

"This is nice," Ron said amiably after a short, tense silence.

Hermione nodded. "It's a lot better than a dormitory."

"You have your own bathroom, too," he continued. "That'll be nice in the mornings."

She hummed in agreement. "No rush for a shower, no line at the sink..."

"Nice," he summed up.

"Yes," she said. "Nice."

There was another silence. Ron twiddled his thumbs and Hermione played with her hair. This wasn't going well. "Uh, your desk is nice, too," he said finally.

"Can we just do this, please?" Hermione blurted out.

Ron turned to look at her, his blue eyes wide and surprised. His mouth opened, then shut. "Er...okay," he decided.

Hermione cleared her throat. "So how do you want to..."

Every once in a while, Ron Weasley surprised her. He said something incredibly insightful, or did something nice for her without being asked. But suddenly hauling her up against him and kissing her for all she was worth took the cake. Ron never kissed her like this. He was always gentle and sweet, but this...this was something completely different. This was every single ounce of Ron's formidable determination focused entirely on kissing her senseless, and she could only hold on and kiss him back.

Ron's mouth pulled away slightly, moving across her cheek and down her throat and she began to understand what Ginny had been talking about when she'd asked Hermione if she ever wanted to do things to Ron. Spots appeared in front of her eyes, and for every one, Hermione could think of more than a few things she'd like to do to Ron.

And as his hands pushed her robes off and began unbuttoning her shirt, it occurred to Hermione that she could do them. Right now, if she wanted. It was as if a barrier had been broken between them and all the rules they'd been following before no longer applied. With more urgency than coordination, Hermione divested Ron of his robes, too.

And then Ron was on her again and her shirt was open and his hands were everywhere. Hermione shook her head a little. Ron worked fast. She hadn't even gotten his tie off.

It wasn't as if she'd lost interest, necessarily. It was just that everything was moving too fast for her to react and there went her knickers and Ron was all flushed and breathless and Hermione had a feeling that getting here should have taken a bit longer. On the other hand, he was...well...there already, so it was a bit too late to be making suggestions.

"Are you ready?" he asked, panting.

It was also a bit too late to change her mind, wasn't it? "Yes," she lied.

On the day her parents had taken her to King's Cross for the first time to take the Hogwart's Express, her father had loaded her trunk in the boot of the car. Then he'd tried to load in her book bag. But no matter what angle he tried or how he rearranged things, he just couldn't fit it in properly. The first minute or two of sex with Ron were a lot like that, only with a lot more wincing and apologizing.

And the less said about the remainder of the copulation, the better. Ron finished up rather quickly - largely because she ordered him to, point blank - and that was pretty much that. Ron rolled off of her and Hermione got up and went to the bathroom, shutting the door and sitting down on the toilet. Well, she couldn't say she hadn't been warned.

Her hands were shaking for some reason and Hermione buried her face in them. She wasn't entirely sure what to make of the whole thing. On the one hand, she could see how it could be enjoyable for both parties, but on the other hand, it was just so weird to see this side of Ron. Somewhere in the back of her head was her first memory of him, on the train to Hogwarts with dirt on his nose. And what had just happened simply didn't mesh with that memory at all. It felt like a kind of betrayal, that over the course of all these years, Ron had developed this other sort of persona. It wasn't as if she didn't like the other persona. It just didn't seem like Ron. Or the Ron she knew, at least.

Bucking up her courage, Hermione stood up and opened the door, bracing herself to brazen out the whole parading across the room naked thing. It ended up being unnecessary, however. Ron was fast asleep.

Relieved beyond words, Hermione tiptoed around the room, silently pulling a nightgown out and putting it on, then blowing out the candles and gingerly crawling into bed next to him. Ron responded by turning onto his back and beginning to snore.

Hermione felt tears welling up and bit her lip to keep them at bay. Everything was changing, and not for the better, and she simply felt lost in it all. First Harry had changed, pulling away and growing increasingly secretive and inscrutable to her. And now she realized that Ron - who had always been so comfortingly simple and predictable - had changed, too. And it wasn't just because of the war, or the prophesy, or growing up. Their friendship just wasn't what it used to be. They were losing each other, and Hermione wasn't sure there was any way they could get each other back again.

Ron let out a particularly noisome snore and she sat up, wrestling him onto his side so that she could get some peace. Curling up against his back, Hermione stared into the darkness, shivering a little bit. Physically, she'd never been closer to Ron than she was at that moment. But in every other way, she'd never felt as distant.

*******

And if I had the sun and moon, and they were shining,

I would give you both night and day, love satisfying.

Feel like makin'...

-Bad Company, "Feel Like Makin' Love"

Ginny knew he'd be there. Her steps quickened as she approached the Room of Requirement, until she was nearly skipping. Dear Merlin, it had been so long. Finally the door appeared and she dashed through it, slamming the door shut. Draco turned to look at her and for a moment they just stood there, taking each other in. His eyes were dark as they looked their fill and his chest rose and fell to nearly the same rhythm as hers, and Ginny couldn't stop the smile of pure happiness that spread across her face.

Seeing him over the summer and not being able to touch him had only made it all that much worse. She honestly wondered how she'd ever spent so long without him, and she saw the same desperation reflected in his eyes, his face, his posture, his tightened fingers.

Merlin, she had to touch him. Before her heart beat again, before she took another breath, she absolutely positively had to have his body against hers, or she would die.

They came together with a sort of clash, and at the same time that something in her exploded in a burst of raw sexual need, something else uncoiled and relaxed, soothed into contentedness by his mere presence. It was all so familiar and perfect: his lips gentle yet firm against hers, his hard chest pressing against her, his arms tight across her back.

A moan gathered at the back of her throat at the smell of him, the feel of his hair against her fingertips. His mouth devoured her as his hands ripped through her robes and blouse and bra. He moved lower and Ginny leaned into him, lightheaded and grinning, her vision swimming with stars. She slid her fingers underneath his shirt, moaning again in appreciation of smooth skin and hard muscles.

They didn't make it to the bed. Instead, they crumpled to the floor in a kissing, touching heap, still fumbling blindly with buttons and zippers. His face appeared above her, as flushed and sweaty as hers probably was, and she shifted her hips slightly to help him come inside.

Draco slid forward as far as he could, staring down at her narrowly, as if trying to read her reaction. If he was looking for anything aside from half-dazed leering, Ginny wasn't sure she could provide. He paused for a moment, his lips twisting into a smirk.

"So," he asked pleasantly, "how was your summer?"

Ginny gawked at him. "Hunh?"

"Did you have a lot of studying to do? Were you able to get any Quidditch practice in?"

Half-nodding and half-shaking her head, Ginny wriggled a little bit, hoping to spur him into action. "Draco," she said urgently.

His eyes glittered. "How much do you want it, Red? Show me."

To put it mildly, this was not the time to play games with her. An animalistic sort of roar came out of her and before she realized it, Ginny found him on the bottom and her on top and there wasn't going to be any sodding chit-chat.

"That's my Red," he whispered, his face soft as his thumbs trailed across her collarbones. "In my entire life, I've never seen anything more beautiful than this." He sank his hands into her hair and pulled her down to him.

Her breasts made contact with the damp skin of his chest and Ginny sucked in a breath, beginning to move, her whole body brushing against him in a way that awakened all of her nerve endings in the most fantastic way. Draco gripped her sides, guiding her, trying to slow her down as he pressed gentle kisses to her cheeks and forehead.

"You're always in such a hurry," he admonished her. "Take your time. Enjoy it."

"I can't," she gasped. "It's been too long." Dropping her head to his breastbone, she squeezed her eyes shut, everything in her focused on the feel of him inside her, the light touch of his fingertips on her back. Her thigh muscles were burning with the rhythm she'd set for herself but Ginny pushed them harder, faster. She was so close...

And then Draco rolled them over. Growling, she glared up into his amused face. One hand snaked up into his hair and dragged his head down until they were nose-to-nose. "Now, Draco," she gritted out. "Right now." She sealed her lips over his, but he didn't give her what she wanted. His strokes remained deep and even and teasingly, aggravatingly slow.

"Trust me, Red," he breathed into her mouth as he drew back from the kiss a little. His eyes blinked open, staring down into hers. "You'll thank me. When you come harder than you ever have in your life and are reduced to a pile of satiated goo, you'll thank me."

"How can I thank you if I'm a pile of goo?"

"You'll thank me once you're put back together."

"Draco," she nearly begged, squirming and digging her fingernails into the small of his back. He was undeterred, and she began to grow desperate. There was a big gaping hole inside of her and he was only filling it up a little at a time and it was driving her insane.

He bent down to press a kiss between her breasts. Ginny made a sound halfway between a whimper and a moan, squeezing her eyes shut as she it all began to overwhelm her: the feeling of his breath on her and the crisp hair on his legs rubbing against her outside while he rubbed against her inside. He placed another kiss just above the last one, then another, each in time with his strokes, making a line up her chest, and she was literally shivering with all of the sensations running through her.

It didn't build up, but just suddenly flew at her. Animal Ginny had been allowed to make her opinion known, and had occasionally managed to sneak a paw out through the bars of her cage, but this time, she busted the thing wide open and took over. It was like being knocked over by a huge wave and she didn't know what was up or down or where she was or who she was. It was wonderful and terrifying, centered entirely on a spot deep inside her, and all Ginny could do as her body seized up with indescribable, incomparable, uncontrollable pleasure was hold onto Draco as tightly as she could and trust him to bring her back to earth when it was over.

It seemed to last forever before fading slowly and she lay there, capable only of breathing as the throbbing inside her ebbed and Animal Ginny retreated back into her cage, satisfied and smug. Eventually, her mind began refocusing, registering Draco's dead weight on top of her, the intermittent heat of his breath on her neck.

"I think," he said wonderingly between pants, "I died. Or we both did. I don't think people can live through that."

"If we did, it's a lovely way to go." Her hand came up to stroke his hair, smoothing it down as she slowly opened her eyes and grinned. "I don't think I've ever been happier."

"So this is all takes to make you happy?" he asked weakly. "I'll keep that in mind. Give me another ninety years to recover and maybe I'll make you happy again."

"I love you," she said, turning her head to press a kiss into his hair.

Slowly, he lifted himself up, an odd, wondering look on his face. "Do you, really?"

"Of course I do," she said, trailing her fingers through his hair, down his cheek. "I wouldn't say it if I didn't."

Shifting his weight, he caught her hand, pressing it to his lips, linking their fingers together. "I just wondered. It does seem fairly strange, after all."

"Strange how?" she asked.

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "I'm shallow and ill-tempered and for the most part, I'm an unforgivable bastard. I can understand if you love me for my looks, though. I do, too."

"Love me for my looks, or love yourself?"

"Myself. So we do have one thing in common."

Ginny couldn't hold back a smile. "Prat."

He smiled back, a lock of hair falling into his eyes, giving him a rakish look. "What? Are you saying it's not true?"

"I'm saying we have two things in common. You forgot about Quidditch."

"You're right," he said, leaning down to kiss her. "We both think I look sexy in my Quidditch uniform, too."

She laughed. "See? Why don't you act like this more often? Why do you have to act all pompous and morose and angry all the time?"

"I'm a very complicated person," he sniffed.

Her laughter ended in a snort. "No, you're not."

Draco looked wounded. "How would you know? You only love me for my looks."

*******

Stood by unbelievin'.

Stood by on my own.

Always thought I was someone.

Turned out I was wrong.

-The Jayhawks, "Blue"

There is, Draco mused, perhaps nothing better than having a naked redhead lying on top of you. Especially a naked randy one to whom you've just given the most mind-blowing orgasm of her life. He absently filtered his fingers through Red's hair as she dozed on top of him, holding the strands up to the firelight and watching the colors glint off of it.

"I should go," she mumbled sleepily.

"What's the hurry?"

She tilted her head up, resting her chin on his chest so she could look at him. "I'm supposed to let the trio know where I am at all times. Hermione knows I'm here, but I probably shouldn't push it by spending the night. Not yet, at least."

Draco sighed. Right. The spell. Reality. His previous contentedness drained out of him.

Reality sucked.

"So go then," he said, crossing his hands behind his head and looking up at the ceiling.

"Don't be like that." She sounded exasperated, proving that things were back to normal.

"Like what?"

She shifted again and he felt her fingertips brush his chin. "How are you?"

He'd forgotten about his father. Fuck, reality just kept getting worse.

"I'm fine," he said, not even remotely in the mood to talk about it.

"I'm sorry about what happened," she said, her voice soft. "Was the Ministry really terrible? Did your Mum help out at all?"

"It really isn't in my mother's nature to be helpful," he said, his voice chilly.

Finally figuring out that he didn't want to talk about it, Red crawled up, pressing a kiss to his lips. "I never got to properly thank you for the painting. It's beautiful."

Draco shrugged. "Just because it was painted by a master. No offense to your namesake or anything, but she's a bit rough to look at. Are you sure your parents wanted you?"

"I don't think she's ugly," Red said, sounding thoughtful. "There is something about her. She looks so serene and beatific. I don't think I'm capable of that look."

"At least in my presence, you're not. You're too busy leering and salivating."

"You and your bloody ego. You should probably know that I'm dating Harry."

He must have heard her wrong. "Excuse me?"

"Harry needs help fending off the hordes of teenage girls who are after him, and I need help diverting any possible attention away from you and I, so...we're dating," she said with a little hair toss that annoyed Draco for some reason he couldn't explain.

"I don't see how this is a good idea," he said, trying very hard not to yell at her.

Red looked at him like he was an idiot. "Of course it is. If I'm with Harry Potter, why on earth would anyone suspect me of sneaking around to meet you?"

It was most likely an inadvertent snub, but it was a snub nonetheless. Considering Malfoys historically reacted to snubs with mass murder, Draco felt that tossing her off of him and stalking over to pull on his clothes was admirably restrained of him.

"Draco, I didn't mean it that way," she said.

He didn't even spare her a glance as he yanked up his trousers. "Red, I honestly couldn't give a rat's ass how you meant it. You're doing it, and that's the point."

"It's just for show," she argued.

"We snuck around all of last year, and you didn't feel any need to go oozing around the hallways nibbling on Potter's ear, did you?"

At any other point in his life, he never would have been able to admit that he was jealous, but it was far too bloody obvious to bother putting up a front, not to her and certainly not to himself. It wasn't as if he wanted to go parading about the halls holding hands with Red like a couple of moony Hufflepuffs, but...well, it was the principle of the thing. It was the fact that it had been her idea. It was the fact that he suddenly felt so angry that he didn't even know what to do with himself. Apparently he wasn't allowed to retain even one tiny little corner of his life that had nothing to do with either the Dark Lord or Potter.

Throwing his robes over his shoulder, he started walking over to the door. Red latched onto his arm, and - as she'd had quite a bit of practice manhandling people larger and stronger than her - extricating himself would likely mean leaving the arm behind.

"What?" he bit out.

"You're not walking out like this," she informed him.

Draco turned to look at her, still naked with her hair aflame from the firelight, and...well, he had a bit of a soft spot for such things. "I agree that it makes sense. That doesn't mean I don't still reserve the right to find it detestable and - frankly - disgusting."

A small smile crossed her face and she lifted a hand to brush a strand of hair out of his eyes. He hadn't had a chance to cut it before school started. "I love you."

"I know that," he said, not giving an inch. "You've told me before."

Red's momentary foray into feminine mushiness halted abruptly as she gripped his chin, forcing him to look at her. "I don't love Harry. I love you."

"I love you, too," he said, feeling a strange sense of loss. Draco knew that regardless of the business with his father, he was a fantastic catch. It was an objective analysis. On top of everything else he'd been before, he was now independently wealthy, with no strings attached. And perhaps that was the heart of the problem. Red didn't seem to want anything he had, and would eventually realize that what she did want from him, he likely couldn't provide.

It was really only a matter of time before she tossed him over for Potter. It was inevitable. Potter had beaten him at everything else so far. Why not this, too?

Red smiled at the statement - a pure, innocent, happy smile - and stood up to kiss him. Draco pulled her against him, stroking his fingers down the soft skin of her back while his mouth worked on giving her a little something to remember him by.

Letting her go, he stepped back, smirking at the dazed, horny look on her face. Let's see you match that, Potter, he thought. Then he turned around and left.

*******

Fellow creators, Zarathustra seeks, fellow harvestors and fellow celebrants: what are herds and shepherds and corpses to him?

-Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

David Lynes was a man destined for greatness. He had known this fact since he was a child, and yet for most of his life, he'd been too timid to simply reach out and take what was rightfully his. Becoming a vampire had been the first step he'd taken towards fulfilling his destiny. Becoming the leader of all the vampires had been his second.

Currently, he was well at work on his third.

David had always admired the great thinkers, both magical and Muggle. They had all made their mark on the world. They had all made themselves cogs on the wheels of history, and David was on the verge of becoming his own cog. And if it required living in a dank hellhole in the middle of bloody nowhere, he was willing to accept that.

He was even willing to kiss Voldemort's ass a little longer, if it got him closer to achieving his goal. David was, if nothing else, extremely patient.

Footsteps approached, eventually revealing a lithe female form stepping out of the shadows. A new recruit, a local named Leila. She bowed.

"He is here, Your Majesty."

"Show him in," David said. Leila disappeared once more into the shadows and he rose from his throne, climbing down the stairs to meet his erstwhile master.

"Milord," he murmured, bending down on one knee to receive Voldemort.

"Rise," his master said, his red eyes glancing around the room, missing nothing. "I see you have managed to make yourself...comfortable...in these crude circumstances."

David waved a casual hand. "It impresses the new recruits. Shows them a little authority, a little pageantry. It reminds the rest that this isn't a vacation."

Voldemort nodded slightly, sending him a shrewd glance. "Just so long as they don't forget their purpose. Or to whom they swear ultimate loyalty."

As if they were likely to forget. "Of course not," David said quickly, bowing his head. "They are servants of the Dark Lord above all, master."

"I should hope so," Voldemort said softly, his eyes once more traveling around the room. "You have fulfilled your duties, I am told?"

"To the utmost, milord. Everything is in place."

"When does it begin?"

"Before nightfall, milord."

Blood red eyes narrowed. "Perhaps that it is too early."

David looked up. "Too early?"

"I want no warning, young vampire. And I want them all. Do you understand?"

"Yes, milord. Of course."

"For your sake," Voldemort said slowly, "I certainly hope so."

Despite himself, David gulped. "Yes, milord."

The red eyes bored into him for a moment before shifting away. "Take me to see it."

David bowed a little. "Yes, milord."

Turning on his heel, he proceeded through the dark corridor to the left of his throne, passing through a short, throne-lit cavern and into a maze of passageways, nodding at the guards posted at every turn. It had taken him a good three months to learn the route, and another month to memorize it. The place was intended to be impossible to find.

And frankly, he never would have found it without the help he'd gotten. The place wasn't meant to be found unless it desired to be found. A cog on the wheels of history...

Climbing up the last steep staircase - a staircase he already had fortified to the hilt in his mind when the time came - he couldn't help but glance back at his master. Red eyes gleamed in anticipation of a reward that may or may not be his. David turned his head back before his thoughts could be discerned, unable to suppress a smirk. Later, he would report this little visit to his real master.

He heard Voldemort's breath catch as they neared the top of the staircase, taken aback by the sheer size of the place. Physically, metaphysically and historically, it had no equal.

"The ga'hshak," the reptilian one whispered reverently.

"Yes, milord," David said, smiling to himself.

*******

What I have to do is see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

-Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

As far as Remus was concerned, the day before the full moon was the worst. With the Wolfsbane Potion, the change itself wasn't so bad. However, a voracious appetite combined with overwhelming lethargy was a tough combination that generally resulted in him finally deciding that he had to make his leaden limbs work long enough to get something to eat, and then attempt to actually eat it before he fell asleep again.

Vivian had stopped by only briefly in the past few days, making it quite obvious that she was respecting his desire for her to keep her distance during the full moon. Unfortunately, he also tended to get almost uncontrollably horny leading up to the full moon. Fortunately, it meant she would that she would, in fact, keep her distance.

Despite the efforts of James and Sirius and Peter at Hogwarts, Remus had always preferred to transform in solitude. He was grateful for their acceptance, and Vivian's - more than he could ever hope to express to them - but it was just one of those highly personal events that he couldn't imagine having and audience for, like having a bowel movement. He loved her and all, but there were limits.

And if he could only manage to convey that message to Vivian, everything would be fine. But he found it hard to understand why she'd want to see him that way in the first place, and she seemed offended at the fact that he didn't want her to see him that way, and they appeared to be at a stalemate. To her credit, Vivian had backed off on the issue.

As he approached the kitchen, he heard the Weasley twins' voices. They were currently taking their shift listening to the bugs that had been planted in Shirag Castle.

"Fred! Switch over to disk 2-G, quick! Our girlfriend's on!"

So that's why they'd volunteered for every night duty.

"This is," Remus said, breezing into the kitchen, "a job. It's not a blind date."

"It's not like that," Fred said, tapping his wand against his receiver. "Believe me, I wouldn't go near this chick even if I had a cast iron cauldron over my privates."

"She's completely destroyed the masculine confidence of at least four individuals," George explained. "Literally. And those are just the ones we listened in on."

"She's ruthless," Fred said, with a mix of respect and not a little fear.

"Oh, no, mate," George tittered, apparently at something occurring over the receiver. "Don't drink it. You'll regret it. Your little friend will regret it even more."

There were a few seconds of silence, then both boys groaned simultaneously. "A refill? It's going to be a long, soft night for that guy," Fred said, shaking his head.

"She reduced a Yakuza assassin to tears last night," George added gleefully to Remus, who was building himself a gigantic sandwich he likely wouldn't have the energy to eat.

"What's going on exactly?" he asked, his mind only partially on their conversation.

"Impotence Potion, near as we can tell," George said. "There's nothing funnier than the pillow talk of an evil overlord who can't get it up."

"Be careful about laughing at others' misfortune," Remus warned them. "Someday it might happen to you."

"Yeah, right," Fred laughed, because he was twenty-one and had no idea what sort of cosmic sexual jokes were in store for him on the other side of thirty.

"So who's doing this, anyway?" Remus asked, carefully folding the two halves of his sandwich together and taking a bite.

"The Castelar girl, the one who planted all the bugs," Fred said, putting his feet on the table and grabbing a handful of crisps. "At first we didn't think much of it..."

"...aside from the fact that it was bloody hilarious," George interrupted.

"...but then it happened again..."

"...and again..."

"...so we've officially coined her The Erection Correction," Fred finished.

"That's what you call her," George sniffed. "I prefer The Lumberjack."

Remus' mind was apparently too slow for that one at the moment. "Why?"

"Because she's well on her way to destroying an entire forest worth of wood."

"Oh," he said, trying to build up the energy for another bite. "Okay."

"See? I told you," Fred gloated. "If you have to explain it to someone, it's not funny."

"I only have to explain it to someone if they're a moron," George shot back.

"Morons like me?" Remus asked, fighting back a yawn and trying to ignore the increasingly painful pounding in his head. He swore the days leading up to the full hadn't taken this kind of toll of him when he was younger. Bloody fucking body. Bloody fucking lycanthropy. Bloody fucking passage of time.

"Of course not," George said. "You'd have figured it out if you weren't half asleep."

Remus had a feeling he was a lot more than half as he took another bite out of the sandwich and swallowed it nearly whole, too lazy to chew anymore. Perhaps there was a magical way to get the sandwich directly into his stomach without causing indigestion.

Probably not. Or in any case, it wasn't worth risking at this point. He wasn't even sure he wanted to eat any more. He wasn't even sure what he'd already eaten was going to stay down. This was beyond pre-full-moon sickness, he realized vaguely. He must have caught something. Scrubbing a hand down his face, he tried to focus.

"Did she learn anything?" he asked.

He saw both twins' heads turn to him. "What did you say?" one of them asked. He couldn't tell which one. Merlin, he was hot. Did he have a fever now?

"I asked if she learned anything. That's her job, after all." It didn't come out sounding like that, though. It was all slurry, and something...wasn't quite...right...

"Remus!" The room tilted sickeningly and he saw the twins moving and then somebody turned the lights off. People were running and somebody ran into his shoulder and he tried to turn and snap at them, but there was nothing there.

*******

In sickness and in health...

"What the hell is going on?" Vivian tried to ask as the Weasley twins grabbed her arms the moment she flooed into Number Twelve. Both of them kept talking at once, and for the life of her, she couldn't keep her concentration on one of them long enough to figure out exactly why they'd felt the need to drag her here.

Until she realized they were dragging her up to Remus' room, that is. Shoving them both away, Vivian flew up the rest of the stairs, kicked open the door - yes, it was dramatic, but she was more than a bit worried - and stopped short. Remus was lying on the bed looking awful. Not sick awful or pre-full-moon awful, but dying person awful. His eyes were sunken, his breath shallow, and his skin was a terrible grayish-blue color.

"What happened?" she asked, moving over to him.

"He just passed out," one of the twins said.

"It's just before the full moon," she said, more to herself than anyone else in the room. "He gets woozy sometimes if he doesn't eat enough." His skin was cold and clammy, his eyes moving frantically beneath his closed eyelids, his pulse all over the bloody place. No matter how she categorized it, this was not normal. And it was not good.

"Remus?" she asked, slapping his cheeks lightly. "Remus," she said louder, slapping him harder. His eyes cracked open and something that had been nearly on the verge of suffocating her with worry relaxed its grip on her throat. "Remus," she breathed.

"Get away from me," he said, his eyes vague and unfocused, his voice sounding like he'd just swallowed a handful of razorblades.

His warning didn't go unheeded. A werewolf was capable of quite a lot in his pre-lycanthropic state, all of it done unconsciously. Vivian gestured to the twins to hold down his arms, her heart pounding. "What's wrong?"

His eyes narrowed, focusing in on her as his lips curled back from his teeth. He looked absolutely nothing like the Remus she knew, and Vivian glanced over at the twins' grips. They looked firm. "Get away." His voice didn't even sound like his own, and Vivian shivered. She didn't have the faintest idea what this was.

"Tell me what's happening, Remus," she demanded.

"I don't know," he gasped. Then both of his hands freed themselves and fastened quite firmly around her neck. The attack caught her by surprise, and it took her a few moments to get her wand out. The twins had begun pulling at Remus' hands and she added her own strength, finally getting them far enough away so that she could get a good angle with her wand, stupefying him, then shackling him to the wall. Auror training paid occasionally paid off.

Vivian quickly shackled his feet, too. Then she stood. "I can take it from here," she said to the twins, her eyes on Remus' face. "Go get Dumbledore."

*******

The best defense is a good offense.

-Anonymous

Thera considered herself a blow-job expert. Like most skills, performing extraordinary oral sex took training and practice, and a girl couldn't just go off and proclaim herself an expert without proof. Thera had plenty of proof.

Not that one would know it by the continued flaccidity of the burly Ukrainian mobster at the moment. Even an expert was powerless against the effects of Impotence Potion.

Pausing for breath and a jaw massage, Thera looked up at him. Or tried to. His belly was in the way, and she had to lean back in order to make eye contact. "Do you want me to keep going?" she asked, really hoping that the answer was 'no'.

His face was flushed, his eyes squeezed shut. "This does not happen to me."

Thera refrained from pointing out that it was in the process of happening to him at that very moment. "It happens to all men at one time or another," she said, beginning to think that those words ought to be inscribed on her tombstone. Over the past two nights, she'd said them to far too many of these assholes, with exactly nothing to show for it.

"It does not happen to me," he bit out.

Ah, the fragile ego of an evil tyrant. How many people would he have to kill to build it back up again? "We could just talk for a while. Maybe he'll get interested."

"I do not want to talk. I want to..." He was cut off by a knock at the door. "Zanyatoy!" he yelled at the door.

"Vazhnuh," came the response. Thera schooled her features. It was about fucking time a series of pointless blow-jobs got her something. And it ended up getting her something much bigger than she'd been expecting when the man on the other side of the door shouted, "Ya nashel Dashkin."

The Ukrainian snatched up a robe, rushing to the door while Thera absorbed that. The guy on the other side of the door had found Dashkin? Somebody was even fucking looking for Dashkin? Somebody who had no idea that she understood every word being spoken and would thus feel completely comfortable discussing the matter right in front of her? A spy couldn't ask for a better set of circumstances.

Thera sat down on the bed, turning so that she could give Mr. Interruption the proper sort of coitus-interruptus-victim-who-doesn't-speak-your-language-and-therefore-has-no-clue-what-this-is-all-about glare.

Her erstwhile victim/lover threw open the door to reveal a thin, rather greasy individual. "Where?" he asked the man.

"Third floor," the underling said with a wary glance at her. "Only one guard, but he saw me." The guard was Erskine, Thera knew. He was on duty. "I pretended to be lost."

The Ukrainian chuckled. "Voldemort is far too sure of himself."

He hadn't bothered to close the robe, and it was rather amusing to watch the underling try extremely hard to keep his eyes from straying to his boss' business. "Yes, sir."

"Get Olga. We're going after him right now."

The underling nodded and left. Shutting the door, the Ukrainian turned around, a sorry puppy-dog look on his face. "I must apologize, my dear. Business does not wait."

"I understand," she said, injecting just a touch of petulance into her tone. "Do you want me to stay here until you get back?"

"I might not be coming back," he said sadly. "It is a very important matter."

Thera took a brief moment to size up the situation. She had no idea why they were interested in Dashkin, or why they wanted to get him out. For all she knew, they didn't want to get him out and were perfectly happy to just kill him. And while either scenario certainly helped her out, she didn't particularly like the idea of these dickwads just up and offing the guy, and Erskine along with him.

Whoa, she thought, backing up a few mental steps. It was one thing to not want to kill someone. But a person couldn't go around adding new caveats on to something like that without landing themselves in a moral morass the size of Greenland. Just because she knew that someone might be planning to kill someone else didn't make it her problem, nor did it make it her responsibility to stop it. Only...

She didn't like it. It was really that simple. And even worse, she felt a painful desire to stop it from happening. Thera had no idea when she'd developed a goddamned conscience, but she had a nasty suspicion she'd caught it from Harry. And she had an even nastier suspicion that it was conspiring to get her ass in some serious trouble.

Well, having reached the end of her feminine wiles, it was probably time to take Harry's advice and start using her brain. Standing up from the bed, Thera crossed her arms, looking the Ukrainian right in the eye. "Why do you want Dashkin?"

He didn't betray even a flicker of recognition at the name. "Who?"

Thera had a great deal of experience with men lying. If their mouths were moving, it was happening. "I lived in Moscow for two years when I was a kid. Why do you want him?"

The Ukrainian tensed slightly. "I believe you misunderstood."

"I think we both know I didn't." Thera braced herself. There was going out on a limb, and then there was going out to the very edge of the fucking branch. "Betrayal of the Dark Lord aside, answer me one question: do you just want to get him out of here, or were you sent here to kill him?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand," he said, obviously playing for time. He was waiting for his backup to arrive, trying to decide whether to obliviate her or kill her. It was a fairly intelligent plan, considering he was probably just now realizing that she'd relieved him of his wand long before his trousers came off.

Thera pulled out her own wand. "Answer the question."

His hands tightened. "I was asked to bring him back," he answered.

"Why?"

"He's needed elsewhere."

A strange answer, indeed. "Who needs him? Where?"

The Ukrainian sent her an annoyed look. "They pay well. I don't ask questions."

"So you've done this sort of thing before?"

His eyes dropped to his wand, figuring out whether he could get it away from her before she did any damage. Sneering, she stepped back. "I have worked for them before, yes."

"Doing what?"

"Why should I tell you?" he asked.

Thera smiled at him nastily. "You saw what I did to those Muggles. Do you think I won't do it to you? You're a traitor. The Dark Lord would reward me highly for it."

At long last, he finally closed his robe, though he took his time doing so. "They ask me to deliver things. People, to a cave in Persia one time a week. That's all."

So far as she could discern, he was telling the truth. Probably because he intended to take her out of the equation fairly soon. "The cave in Persia?" she asked, dropping her wand a little bit, as if she knew what the fuck he was talking about. Then she raised it again, dousing herself in suspicion. "How the hell do you know about that?"

The Ukrainian gazed at her in confusion. "They told me about it."

In certain circumstances, if one was going to lie, one might as well lie as outrageously as humanly possible. "No," she said. "They'd never have hired a moron like you."

The expected response - fear - did not present itself. Instead, the Ukrainian looked relieved. "They said another was here, if there was trouble," he breathed. "It's you?" He took an extended moment to look her up and down. "That's a very good disguise."

Thera managed to cover up her surprise by waving her arms in a dramatically frustrated manner. "Nothing but the best, you know. About time you caught up."

"I apologize," the Ukrainian said, looking cowed. "How goes the potion?"

Potion. Disguise. Snape, who the hell else are you working for now? "It would be coming along a lot faster if I could work on it without interruption," she groused.

"We must do our best with what we have," he shrugged.

"Yeah? Well, I'd like more," Thera said sarcastically. "What's the plan with Dashkin?"

"To get him out and take him to Buckingham Palace," he said, with a significant look.

Code. Great. If only she knew what the hell it was code for. Headquarters, it sounded like. "Okay," she said. "The guard. Take him with you."

"We can obliviate him."

"The minute they realize Dashkin's gone, they'll kill him."

The Ukrainian shrugged, and Thera spent a highly surreal moment wondering exactly how many fucking people she was responsible for. A knock sounded on the door.

"He knows things about me," she finally said. "He'll expose me. You have to take him."

A knock sounded on the door again. He hesitated, glancing over at the door, then looking back at her. "Okay."

"Well then what are we waiting for?" Thera asked, yanking on her robes. "Let's go."

"You aren't coming," he growled, standing in front of the door, effectively blocking it.

"I can keep the guard from making trouble," she explained. "And frankly, I don't trust you not to fuck this up, zalupa. You're an easy fiddle to play, if you get my drift."

The expression on his face displayed that he did get the drift as he backed away from the door. "We go, then."

********

For better or for worse...

"We can't leave him here like this for the change," Vivian said, nodding to Remus, still shackled to the bed. "We're going to have to lock him up somewhere."

Bill eyed her strangely. Everybody seemed to be doing that lately. She must look a million years old. She certainly felt it. "Didn't he take the Wolfsbane Potion?"

She shook her head. "I can't get him to keep it down. I can't get him to keep anything down." Of course, it would be a lot easier if he would wake up.

"Dumbledore still doesn't know what's wrong with him?"

"Nothing's wrong with him," she said dully. "Nothing we can find, at least. Maybe it's just..." Even though she'd thought them a thousand times, it was still hard to actually say the words. "Werewolves do have a shortened life expectancy, after all."

Bill looked appalled. "Not this bloody short! Something's causing this, some sort of illness, maybe one that only affects werewolves. Surely we can do some research..."

"What do you think I've been doing for the past two days?" she hissed.

"Maybe we should take him to St. Mungo's."

"They'd register him as a werewolf again," she said, as if the same thought hadn't crossed her mind more than a few times since his collapse. So long as he didn't get any worse, she could justify it. But if he did, she'd have him there in a heartbeat.

"I don't suppose you've been reading the paper?" Bill asked.

The insides of her eyelids felt like sandpaper. Vivian scrubbed at them. "No."

"All of the Dark Creatures escaped from Azkaban."

"Oh," she said, letting that sink in. It didn't, so much. Beyond worrying about Remus, there wasn't really much that could. "Well, that's certainly a problem."

"I'm just wondering if the two are related."

"I don't see how they could be."

"Neither do I, really," he admitted. "It's just strange, is all. It happened the same night he fainted."

"Strange," Vivian agreed, glancing at her watch. "We should get him locked up soon."

"Attic, you think?"

"It's probably the best. Lots of useless junk for him to destroy if he wakes up." She undid the shackles and levitated Remus from the bed. Bill walked in front of her up to the attic, opening doors and guiding Remus around corners.

"Are you going back to Hogwarts tonight?" Bill asked.

"No, I'm going to stay here."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," he said. "Werewolf in the house and all."

"I'll make sure there's no way he can get out."

"It's not just that. I mean, it's going to be pretty loud, I imagine."

What with the ripping and shredding and attacking himself because there wasn't anybody else around to attack? Probably. "I'll manage."

"When was the last time you got any bloody sleep?" Bill asked, jumping up to pull Remus down so that his forehead didn't smash into the doorjamb.

"I don't remember," she said. It was true. She felt as if she'd been awake for years.

"Maybe you should give it a whirl."

"I can't. I have to make sure nothing happens."

"I can stay and make sure nothing happens," Bill said exasperatedly as they stretched Remus out on the floor of the attic. "Go back to Hogwarts and get some sleep."

"No," she said, walking around the room, putting Unbreakable spells on the windows, walls and floor.

"Making a mess out of yourself isn't going to help him."

Vivian was beginning to understand how an extended period without sleep could affect one's mood. "Shut up, Bill." And if he didn't, she was going to throw something at him.

Luckily, he seemed content with a frustrated sigh. Finishing up the containment charms, she squatted next to Remus, smoothing the hair away from his face. His breathing was getting faster. The moon would be out soon. She leaned down to kiss his cheek. "I'll be right downstairs if you need me," she whispered in his ear. "I love you."

He didn't answer, nor did he likely hear it, but she couldn't leave without saying it. It was one of many tiny little comforts she'd been shoring up in her mind, in case...well, in case the worst happened. At least she'd told him she loved him one last time. At least she'd been nearby when it happened. As if it would make the worst any less unbearable.

She put another Unbreakable spell on the door, adding a few locking spells for good measure. A werewolf couldn't turn a doorknob, but then in human form, Remus hadn't exactly been himself the last time he'd been awake. Better safe than sorry.

"Call me if you need anything," Bill said once they reached the entryway.

"I will."

"And don't go in there to let him out in the morning unless you have backup."

"I'm not a moron, Bill."

"He's going to be fine, you know."

Vivian nodded, turning to go down to the kitchen. Half of her was convinced that he would be. Sometimes he didn't eat enough before the full moon. Perhaps he just needed a big, juicy steak and a few days of rest. The other half of her couldn't stop thinking about how he wouldn't wake up, how he couldn't keep any food in his stomach, how he'd tried to strangle her to death. None of the individual symptoms was unheard of in a werewolf prior to the full moon, but never all at the same time, and never this suddenly, and never for this kind of duration.

Something was wrong. She could feel it.

Pouring herself a stiff drink, Vivian sat down at the kitchen table, feeling like she was dragging around an extra fifty pounds of weight. She should have talked to Remus' parents by now, told them what had happened. She kept putting it off, though. They'd want to see him, but neither of them could come inside Number Twelve, and it's not as if she could just pack up Remus and take him off to visit and...well, just thinking about the sheer effort that would be involved in the entire process tired her out beyond belief.

It was a long time before she heard anything from upstairs, long enough for her to hope that he'd stayed unconscious for the change. It was an insistent and angry sort of cry at first, like a baby with a dirty nappy. Then it grew more urgent, actual howls, building up in rage until it was punctuated by crashes and thumps.

Vivian put her head in her hands, trying not to cry. Under the circumstances, she'd thought he'd tire himself out quickly, but the howling only grew louder and the crashes and thumps more frequent. The fireplace flared to life, and she raised her head, expecting Dumbledore. Instead, it was Harry, looking pale and drawn.

"Dumbledore told me Remus was sick," he said a little uncertainly, standing in front of the fire as if he wasn't sure if he was allowed to come in or not. This struck Vivian as a bit funny. It was, after all, his house.

"He's been unconscious for the past two days," she said. "And now he's..." Well, considering the noise from upstairs, it was quite obvious what Remus was at the moment.

"Oh," Harry said, looking up and wincing a little. "Is it always like that?"

"No, it's just that he couldn't take his potion. It shouldn't last too much longer."

"Is he going to be okay?"

He really was a good kid. And Remus loved him to pieces. Vivian wondered if he even knew that, and it choked her up a bit. "I don't know," she said, her voice hoarse.

Harry swallowed and looked away, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "Can I stay?" he asked, as if he honestly expected her to tell him that he couldn't stay in his own house. This time, she found it a lot less funny and a lot sadder. "I mean, d'you mind?"

"You own this place," she reminded him gently. "You can come and go as you please."

He looked at her for a moment. Then a wry little smile crossed his face. "I know. I guess I just forget sometimes." The smile faded as another horrible, despairing howl issues from the attic. "What happened, anyway? What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know," she said, finishing off her drink. She didn't know much, apparently. "He passed out, and we haven't been able to wake him up. It might be nothing. The days before the full moon are always pretty hard on him."

"Yeah," Harry said, shoving his hands in his pockets, his face furrowed with worry. "He always looks sick. Even third year, I remember noticing it."

"Yes. Well, lycanthropy's no picnic."

"No, it isn't," he said, glancing at the ceiling as another howl ripped through the house.

"Sit down, Harry," she muttered, getting up to refill her drink. "Your house, remember?"

He did, his eyes following her every move. "What are you making?" he asked.

"Gin and tonic," she said, glancing back at him. "Do you have to be back by curfew?"

"No."

"Do you want one? And by that I do mean one, and exactly one."

"Yes, please," he said, sounding immensely relieved. Vivian made a drink for him, a lot heavier on the tonic than hers was. Training drink.

"You don't have to stay, you know," she told him.

"I want to," he said, taking a sip of his drink. He sent her a glance, then stood up, walked over to the bar and added some more gin to it.

Like father, like son. "He won't even know you're here, Harry. Go back to Hogwarts. I'll let you know if the situation changes."

He smiled. "I thought you said I could come and go as I please."

"Do whatever you want to, then," Vivian said, throwing up her hands. "I'm not your mother." It occurred to her that as long as it had been since she'd slept, it had been even longer since she'd eaten, and she was a lot closer to drunk than she usually would be.

He finished filling his drink and sat down across the table from her, his fingers playing with the glass, turning it around and around. The howls upstairs were upsetting both of them, and Vivian had a feeling it was more to break the silence than out of any true desire for information that Harry spoke up. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

He continued playing with his glass. "What happened to my grandparents? I mean, obviously they're dead. I know that. I knew that. I just wondered...how?"

"They disappeared. Nobody really knows what happened."

Harry blinked at her. "They just disappeared? That's it?"

Vivian looked down at her drink. "It happened a lot then. People went out to run an errand and never came back. It wasn't all that surprising, really. They were targets."

"So Voldemort got them."

"Death Eaters, most likely. It's doubtful he killed them himself."

"How does anyone know they're really dead, though?" Harry asked.

"It's been almost twenty years," she said uncomfortably. "I'm sorry, Harry, but..."

"You said a lot of people went missing then," he interrupted.

"Yes, they did. The first war was like this one in a lot of ways. If you weren't really paying attention, you might not even think it existed. It was even less obvious back then. Things happened. People disappeared. There were rumors, but rarely any facts. But underneath it all, everyone knew what was going on. We found some of the people who disappeared. Others we didn't. Cases have to close at some point."

"Did you ever find anyone who was still alive?"

Vivian sighed. "No."

Harry nodded, apparently enthralled with his drink in a way that made her truly hopeful that he was searching for something else to talk about. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Is it depressing?" she asked wearily.

His lips twitched a little. "No."

"Then ask away."

"What did my parents do? I mean, not like in general, but for work. If they worked, that is. Because maybe they didn't. I was just curious, is all."

Vivian sat back a little at that strange little monologue. "I'm surprised you didn't know."

"Never really came up, I guess," he said, lifting a shoulder in half-hearted shrug.

She could see how it might not have. People probably avoided the topic of James and Lily when he was around. "Your mother was in training to be a Healer. Your dad was on the reserve squad for the Guildmere Goblins."

Harry smile was wide and relieved. "Did he ever get to play?"

"Once," she said, chuckling a bit at the memory. "He was like a little kid about it, kept asking us all if we were coming, reminding us when it was and everything."

"How'd he do?"

"He took a bludger to the face about thirty seconds in."

"Ouch," Harry said, grimacing.

"He played a very good thirty seconds, though. We all told him so when he woke up."

"I'm sure that made him feel better," he said wryly.

"He took it in stride. James was just like that. He didn't dwell on things very much."

Harry took a drink, looking thoughtful, and they fell into silence. The minutes dragged on, and the howls from the attic only got worse, more desperate and awful until they were almost like screams. The only thing keeping her from going up there and stupefying him was the fact that he'd likely have her throat ripped out before she could get the words out.

"I thought you said it wouldn't last much longer," Harry murmured, his face tight.

"I didn't think it would."

"He can't do this all night, can he?"

Every howl was pushing her closer and closer to being physically ill. "I hope not."

Unfortunately, hope didn't have the ability to fly upstairs and cure lycanthropy. For the rest of the night, the two of them kept a silent vigil. She didn't say anything when Harry got up to get another drink, and Harry didn't say anything when she started crying again.

It was nearly dawn when the howls finally abated. Harry looked at her, but Vivian shook her head. They couldn't safely go near him until the sun came up. A fact he should know, considering they'd covered werewolves in depth last term.

The house was quiet now but still neither of them spoke, instead staring off into space in their own private sleepless stupors. When the astronomical clock above the ice box showed that the sun had fully risen, Vivian stood and they went upstairs.

"Stay here," she ordered him as she finished taking the charms off the door. She opened it a crack, her wand out. The room was silent. Figuring that if he was still a werewolf, she'd likely be dead by now, Vivian lowered her wand and pushed the door open further, trying to prepare herself for what she might find inside, as if that was even possible.

The room was demolished and deep scratches covered the floor, the walls and the back of the door. Remus was even more demolished.

He's dead, she thought, her wand slipping out of her hand.

"Professor?" Harry asked from the hallway.

"Don't come in here," she said, her voice sounding faint and far away. Can't...can't... That was even more faint and far away. That was...not coming from her. That was coming from Remus, naked and bloody and sprawled out in the middle of the floor. Remus, whose chest just rose and fell. Vivian flew across the room. She might have even spontaneously apparated across the room. A few hours ago, she'd wanted nothing more than to have Remus wake up. Her desires had simplified since then. Now she just wanted him to keep bloody breathing.

In all the years she'd known him, she'd never actually seen Remus right after a full moon spent without the benefit of Wolfsbane Potion. At Hogwarts, he'd always gone straight to the Hospital Wing, and after school, he'd always spent the full moon at St. Mungo's, where they healed him up before sending him home.

The gashes and bruises weren't so bad. It was the bite marks. He'd taken several chunks out of his arms and legs, and his left hand was still attached to the rest of him about as securely as Nearly Headless Nick's nearly lopped off head. There was so much blood. He was covered in it and lying in a pool of it and that pool was growing.

"Get Dumbledore!" she shouted back at Harry. "Then get some Blood Replenishing Potion from the cupboard in the kitchen and come back up here."

"The first part is already taken care of," Dumbledore's voice said from the hallway. "But please take care of the second part."

Vivian turned to see Dumbledore sprinting across the room with a speed and agility of a teenager. "Dear Merlin," he breathed, giving Remus a once-over.

"Can you...?"

"Yes," he said shortly, addressing the major wounds first, then moving on to the minor ones. The entire process took about a minute.

"Why do you even bother to keep Madame Pomfrey around?" she asked, relaxing a little.

Dumbledore looked up at her with the familiar twinkle in his eye. "Her bedside manner."

Either drink, lack of sleep, stress or soul-deep relief that Remus wasn't actively teetering on the edge of death made her laugh at that.

"He's very cold," the Headmaster said, removing his robes and wrapping Remus in them. Vivian couldn't help but think that generations of Hogwarts students would be severely disappointed to learn that underneath them, he wore an argyle-patterned jumper and a pair of slacks instead of a tutu. Or a thong.

Harry ran back into the room, out of breath and clutching a bottle of potion. "Sorry," he panted. "It took me a minute to find it."

Considering his recent history with potions, they decided to get Remus back to bed before giving it to him. Once he was settled in and shackled in, Vivian gave him a sip of the potion, and he managed to keep it down. "I think we're okay," she said, sitting back and rubbing her temples, her head throbbing with fatigue.

"Do you want me to send someone else to sit with him?" Dumbledore asked.

Vivian shook her head. "No. It's fine."

The Headmaster didn't overrule her, which - at this point in her saga of frayed nerves - was probably a good idea. Harry gave Remus an awkward sort of pat on the foot, and then they were gone. Finally alone, Vivian gave over. It was messy and loud, and she was very thankful there was nobody around to here it. Then she crawled up on the bed, wrapping her arms around Remus in an attempt to keep him warm.

"Can't," he whispered, roused briefly out of unconsciousness. "Can't," and he was out.

Vivian squeezed her arms tighter around him. "Come back to me," she whispered back. He didn't answer. Or if he did, she was already asleep.

*******

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you've forgotten the words.

-Anonymous

The sound of someone coming through the portrait hole roused Ginny from her nap on the sofa in front of the fireplace. Dawn had lightened the common room, and people would be waking up soon. Harry crawled through into the common room, looking awful.

"How's Professor Lupin?" she asked, shaking herself awake and sitting up.

He looked startled at the sound of her voice. "Oh. He's...I don't know, really."

Ginny drew up her legs so he could sit down next to her. "I'm sorry, Harry."

"Might be nothing," he said vaguely, staring into the unlit fireplace.

She looked over at him tentatively. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Harry ran a hand through his hair, sitting back with a sigh. "No, not really." Then he turned to her with a curious look on his face. "What are you doing down here?"

"Couldn't sleep," she shrugged. It really wasn't worth talking about. She had a feeling her nightmares couldn't hold a candle to Harry's.

"Right," he said, smirking a little bit. "How's Malfoy?"

"I can't really tell," she said slowly, as if he actually cared. "He doesn't let on to much."

"Yeah, I know how that is," he said, reaching up underneath his glasses to rub his eyes.

"You ought to. You do the same thing."

"Do I?" he asked, turning to her, surprised.

"Yeah," she answered definitively.

He looked down for a moment. "I don't mean to," he confessed.

"I know that," she said softly. "We all know that," she added.

Harry's usually bright green eyes appeared dull. Tired. "You're a really good friend, Ginny. I should've said it before. I should've realized it before."

She looked away. "And how many times have I nearly gotten you killed?"

"Never," he said softly. "Voldemort's not you. What he's done or made you do isn't your fault. It's his. It's taken me a long time to figure that out."

"Yes, but do you actually believe it?"

He rearranged himself, pulling up his legs and curling into an awkward ball, facing her. "Not yet," he admitted. "But someday I hope to."

"You're drunk," she said, finally getting a whiff of his breath.

"No," he said, smiling briefly, sadly. "Wish I was, though."

He held himself stiffly, defensively, the way that Draco did when he was upset. Unlike Draco, however, he wouldn't respond to comfort by unsheathing his claws. Reaching out, Ginny patted his shoulder. "In the end, you'll be glad you aren't."

"We'll see," he said, his eyes shutting briefly. He opened them again, staring at her. "I haven't been a very good friend to you, though, have I?"

"You saved my life, Harry. That pretty much balances the scales, I'd say."

"That was the hero thing," he said dismissively. "I can't help that."

"You still did it," she said, her hand on his shoulder now stroking it, soothing him. "You certainly don't owe me for anything. I owe you."

"This is a really dumb conversation," he said sleepily. "Owing and heroes and scales?"

"Come on. Up to bed," she said, standing up and trying to lift him off of the sofa. He resisted. Which is to say that he didn't help her at all and she couldn't exactly carry him upstairs on her own. He snuggled into the sofa some more, stretching his legs out.

"Hey," she protested. "I had it first." Well, if there was anything she'd learned in her life, it was how to share. "Alright then," she grumbled. "Move over."

By rearranging his legs, she cleared some space so she could lie down. Then she rearranged him again so that his feet weren't right in her face. Harry promptly took her feet, pushed them together and used them as a pillow.

Ginny honestly hadn't intended on falling asleep. She'd figured that she'd just doze lightly the way she often had that summer in an armchair in the den after a nightmare. Once she heard someone coming down the stairs, she'd spring awake and artfully sell the story that she'd just gotten up and had been on her way to the kitchen for some breakfast.

She'd figured wrong.

Well, Harry had wanted an impenetrable defense against his female admirers. Being caught sleeping with her in the common room certainly provided that. Unfortunately, it also meant that Draco spent the entire day treating her like a piece of furniture.

Less than furniture, actually. A rug, perhaps. Or a decorative lamp.

Ginny was beginning to have a healthy respect for the concept of unintended consequences.

********

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.

-Charles de Gaulle

Aloe isn't used in calming draughts because it is most effective when administered topically, and is in fact useless when administered orally. For this reason...

SLAM!

"Gah!" Draco yelled as his mind was violently yanked out of his Potions essay.

Dear Merlin, it was Granger. And she was in a snit. Apparently the dark, abandoned, far back corner of the library didn't afford as much privacy as he'd thought. Apparently, there was there no refuge for those whose girlfriends were apparently snuggling up to the unappealing, bony fucking golden boy of Gryffindor Tower every night.

"Think you can avoid me, do you?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously.

"Well, I always try to avoid you..." he began.

"We are going to talk," she interrupted. "Right now."

"Granger, what the hell do we have to talk about?"

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head at that statement. "What do we have to talk about?! Hello, I'm Hermione Granger, Head Girl. And unless I'm horribly mistaken, you're Draco Malfoy, Head Boy. And these aren't just ceremonial titles."

"Since when?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I knew you wouldn't want to actually do anything," she grumbled.

"And in that, you're entirely correct."

Granger worked herself up into a huff. "You're Head Boy."

"Yes, I noticed that when I put on the badge this morning. So?"

"So we have a whole host of issues that we have to deal with."

Leaning back in his chair, Draco crossed his arms and slapped his most bored look on his face. It wasn't hard. "Like what, for instance?"

"For one thing, there aren't going to be any Hogsmeade weekends this year."

"And?"

"And," she said, visibly restraining her temper, "we have to figure out something else for the students to do to amuse themselves. Everyone needs a break every once in a while."

"That's why we have Quidditch," he said dismissively.

"We need something everyone can participate in."

Folding his hands on the table, Draco leaned forward. "Listen, Granger. Let's be straight with each other for a moment. I'm not interested in putting forward any effort here. You don't really even want me to, because you're much happier running everything without any interference on my part. So how about you do everything and I do nothing? That way, everybody's happy."

"Alright then," Granger said, leaning forward to match him. "To make up for the Hogsmeade weekends, I'll open up the Quidditch pitch to the whole school one Saturday a month. How's that?"

Draco stared at her. "You can't do that. Saturdays are our biggest practice days."

"Are they?" she asked breezily, brushing a strand of her frizzy hair out of her face in a way that forced him clench his fists together to combat the urge to attack her with a pick and a bottle of high-control mousse. "Well, if you have an alternative suggestion..."

"Anything is an alternative selection," Draco said flatly. "Show porn in the Great Hall if you like. Actually, don't. I have a feeling attendance for team practices would drop significantly. Hold meetings for S.P.L.U.R.G.E. or something."

"It's S.P.E.W."

"No, it's not. It's the Elf Liberation Front. I'm officially taking it over and renaming it."

"You can't take it over. It's not yours."

"It's a hostile takeover. In the interest of good taste, I'm buying out your organization and renaming it. I'll sell it back to you for half what I pay for it."

"This is the stupidest discussion I've ever had," Granger muttered.

"Considering how much time you spend with the Weasel, I doubt it."

"Stop calling him that," she said through gritted teeth. "I can't imagine Ginny lets you get away with it, and I'm certainly not about to. And in case you forgot, we're all supposed to be working together, so don't you think you could maybe just try to play nice and get along with everybody?"

Draco's jaw dropped. "Dear Merlin, woman. You're one to talk. Might I remind you that moments ago, I was innocently sitting here in the library doing my homework when you walked up and jumped all over me shrieking about responsibility?"

"I was not shrieking," Granger said irritably.

"Close enough," he said, belatedly insulted. "In case you haven't noticed, I've instituted a firm policy of leaving you lot alone. If you come storming in interrupting my Potions essay and get a dose of nastiness in return, it's really your own fault, then, isn't it?"

Granger's eyes dropped to his paper. "You're doing your Potions essay already?"

Draco fought back a smirk. So she hadn't even started yet. "Well, you know, Quidditch tryouts are next week. I wanted to get an early start," he said casually.

"Oh," she said, her fingers drumming on the table in a manner that belied how much she wanted to go running off to Gryffindor Tower so she could get started on her own essay.

"That's why I've already finished my Arithmancy homework, too," he continued.

She hummed, eyeing him speculatively. "What did you get for the second problem?"

"Standard Switching Spell."

Granger's face shifted into that superior look that he hated with a passion. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"So you didn't notice the repetition in the three middle matrixes that pegged it as an obvious transfigurational countercharm, then?"

"Of course I did. But then I ran it through an analysis for Cato's Sixth Law, and the resulting number wasn't even. So I knew it was one of the exceptions."

She looked away, scowling. "I haven't gotten that far yet."

He smiled at her pleasantly. "Well, if you need help, let me know."

Granger sent him a death look. "Do you have any ideas for an alternative to Hogsmeade weekends or not?"

Draco Malfoy was good at spotting opportunities when they presented themselves. And he had an even better at taking those opportunities and making them pay off.

"I do have an idea, actually," he said.

"What is it?"

"I hear Potter's interested in expanding his defense club."

"Yes, he is. So?"

"I also hear it's going to be open to anyone who wants to join."

"Yes, it will be. So?"

"No Slytherin will join without my say-so."

Granger looked unmoved. "You expect me to believe that nobody in Slytherin House is allowed to do anything unless you let them?"

Apparently she was unfamiliar with the concept of hierarchy. "That's how it works."

"And you're not going to let them join unless we do what, exactly?" Then she added, "And no, Malfoy, I'm not letting you touch my hair."

"You should," he said honestly. "But that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm merely advising you to take advantage of the valuable resource sitting right in front of you."

She raised an eyebrow. "Since when are you a valuable resource?"

He sat forward a little bit. "Granger, there are two people on this planet who know more than I do about Death Eater battle strategy. One of them has red eyes and is trying to take over the world. What's left of the other one is currently housed in a small cardboard box on my nightstand. I'd say I'm more valuable than you think."

"Assuming I don't automatically decide that there's no truth to that statement - and even you have to admit that history is on my side if I do - what are you proposing?"

"I'm proposing to show you lot exactly what you'll be facing with the Death Eaters."

"Dark magic," she concluded.

"Precisely."

"That's what Harry's defense club is for."

"No, it isn't. There are a great many dark spells that can't be defended against in any way you lot would know about."

"I think you're underestimating how much research we've done on this."

"Granger, you could read every book in this library and you wouldn't find anything like what I'm talking about. Or have you managed to figure out what curse you got hit with in the Department of Mysteries two years ago?"

It was quite obvious by the look on her face that she'd researched her little tail off and hadn't been able to find it, and that it annoyed her to no end that he knew what it was.

"Coquere Hex," he finally provided.

Granger rolled her eyes. "Right. A cooking spell. You're full of it, Malfoy."

"It's all in the intention. In the right frame of mind, it's not a cooking spell, it's a cooking hex that sears your internal organs, fries your blood and makes a right mess of you. If you'd gotten it at full strength, you'd have died in a decidedly unpleasant manner. As it is, you were still laid up in the Hospital Wing for quite a while, if I recall."

"Yes, I was," she said, looking as if she wasn't sure whether to believe him or not.

"You needn't have been. Like many dark hexes based upon everyday spells, it's transferrable back upon its caster. Of course, you only have about four or five seconds to manage that before it kills you, but if you'd been able to get him, you'd have been fine."

She looked uneasy. "But it would've killed him."

"Uh...you do realize that the 'him' in question was a Death Eater, and was also - in casting that hex - fully intending to kill you, right?"

"Yes, but..." Granger played with her hair a little, thinking. "If he wanted to kill me, why would he use a hex that I could in turn use to kill him?"

"Because you didn't even know that was possible until just now, when I told you."

"But he didn't know that."

"I assure you he did. Nobody outside of the inner circle knows."

"Well, that's silly," Granger scoffed. "Surely somebody must have..."

"Figured out that you can counteract dark magic with more dark magic?" he interrupted. "In case you haven't noticed, Hogwarts doesn't exactly include that in the Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum. Outside of evil, power-hungry individuals, most people who spend a lifetime studying the dark arts generally look for light ways to counteract it, and they certainly don't go about practicing it. Only someone who's specifically looking for a way to use dark magic to protect yourself against dark hexes would know something like that. So are you interested or not?"

"I don't know," she said after a moment. "It's really Harry's call. And I don't know if Dumbledore would much like the idea of us..." Suddenly her head snapped up, her eyes wide. "Using dark magic to counteract dark magic," she said. "Do you think that might work for the spell?"

"I'm way ahead of you," Draco said, holding up a hand.

Granger looked surprised, which galled him. She seemed to exist under the assumption that everyone around her was a moron. Of course, considering the company she kept, he supposed that was generally a reasonable assumption to make.

"What, you're already working on it?"

"I'm in favor of Potter killing the Dark Lord, but I'd rather not follow him into the netherworld, if at all possible. So yes, I've been working on it."

"Oh," she said, blinking. "I didn't know that."

"I'm just full of surprises, aren't I?" he drawled.

Granger smiled a little at that, finally backing off of the intellectually-superior ice-queen routine for once. Then she looked down at her hands. "Are you working on getting out of the entailment, too?"

"Well, of course..." Draco shook his head. "Hang on. How do you know about that?"

She shrugged. "Thera told Harry about it. He asked me to help."

"Least you could do for her, I suppose," he said, unable to keep the bite out of his words.

Granger had the grace to look guilty. "That's basically how I saw it."

"Makes sense," he murmured. "After all, if somebody had risked their ass to save my life and then gotten a few healthy doses of the Dark Lord's Cruciatus for their troubles and only asked me to do one simple thing in return that I didn't do, I imagine spending a few hours in the library to help them out of a jam would be a good start on showing that person my gratitude. I also think a nice gift basket would be in order, but then I'm not familiar with how these sorts of things are done in the Muggle world."

Granger looked even guiltier, which had been his purpose. She ought to be. "I actually did want to do something, I just couldn't think of anything that didn't make it seem...I don't know. Trivial, I guess. A selection of fine salami and exotic mustards doesn't exactly make us square. I mean, what does a person like her need?"

The answer was simple. "Scotch. Lots of it."

For a second, he thought she was going to argue with him. Then she nodded. "Done."

"A case, at least."

"Of course. If I give it to you, can you make sure she gets it?"

"Sure."

Granger sent him a look. "Can you make sure she gets all of it?"

Draco smirked at her. "We'll see."

*******

It's like déjà vu all over again.

-Yogi Berra

It was a tense, strange ending to the Awesomest, Biggest, Most Evilest Pissing Contest Ever. The Ukrainian contingent had gotten Dashkin out, and even though most of the attendees didn't know this, they certainly smelled blood in the water.

Of course, the Dark Lord was the Dark Lord, and he hadn't laid claim to the title for that long without a great deal of charisma, an ability to keep his promises, and the ability to formulate a flashy backup plan when the situation called for it.

Thera kept the smile pasted on her face as a couple of underlings bowed off to bring her next Muggle victim into the arena. Running into Snape on the way into the amphitheater, she'd been surprised to have him press the vial of potion into her hand.

"Anti-nausea potion," he'd said with an inscrutable look, moving off to blend into the crowd. Thera hadn't even paused before drinking it down, being heavily in favor of anything she could get her hands on that could get her the fuck through this in one piece.

Despite the potion, her stomach roiled with dread. Generally the Dark Lord was in command by now. What if he wasn't even going to take control, though? What if this was the big test? What if he finally expected her to do this herself? It would be the end, she knew it. She wouldn't be able to do it, and she'd be finished.

Just about brimming with terror, she looked over at the entryway and froze.

Well, you can't kill people who are already dead, her brain supplied. Dear Merlin, had she been possessed by a Hufflepuff? When the fuck had her brain reprogrammed itself to look on the bright side of things, and how many priests would it take to make it go back?

The grunts didn't bring out a Muggle. They brought out Bellatrix LeStrange, looking blank, wild-eyed and fierce, trying her best to take a bite out of her guardians.

"My servant," the Dark Lord said, gesturing grandly in her direction. "Just a few hours ago she was a lifeless corpse. Bellatrix LeStrange. I'm sure you've all heard of her."

Murmuring arose in the crowd at this announcement, making the Dark Lord smile.

"The dead are not casualties," he said slyly. "They are simply a new form of servant." Turning to Bellatrix, his face grew stern. "Stop that!" he barked. Bellatrix immediately gave up on fighting her captors, looking over at her master and cocking her head like a well-trained dog, awaiting orders.

"The victims of dementors are useful," the Dark Lord said, casually strolling over to Bellatrix, "but they only do what they're told. They lack the killer instinct of an inferiorus." He tapped a finger against Bellatrix's forehead, making her smile in a gruesome fashion that made Thera wonder how long she'd decomposed before they'd done the Death Eaters had gotten their shit together. "They also require upkeep and feeding, whereas an inferiorus is perfectly content to remain dead until they are needed. And when used properly, they are unparalleled killing machines. Would you like to demonstrate, my dear?" he asked Bellatrix, who bared her teeth in response.

"Bring out the Muggle," he announced, sweeping back over to his throne.

The door opened again, revealing a pair of Death Eaters dragging a young man with shaggy blonde hair, a straggly beard and an utterly terrified look on his face. "Just the Muggle," the Dark Lord said sternly, his eyes on Bellatrix, who was practically slavering.

There was a long moment in which he made her wait, for effect. Then he nodded slightly, and Bellatrix pounced on the Muggle.

Thera had seen some gruesome deaths in her time, but watching Bellatrix eat this guy alive with her fingernails and canines quickly earned a number one ranking. Shaggy was actually lucky - or as lucky as he could be, under the circumstances - because a few minutes into it, Bellatrix seemed to grow annoyed with his squirming and screaming, finally chomping down on his neck until she hit an artery. Blood sprayed everywhere, continuing rhythmically for a few minutes, then gradually slowing down as the man's screams turned into gasps. Finally the sprays stopped entirely, the man's body seizing up, making Bellatrix sit up in confusion, abandoning the pathway she'd been eating into his stomach, her mouth covered in blood and skin and whatever else.

"That's sufficient," the Dark Lord said idly from his throne. "Take her away."

The murmuring arose among the crowd again, more subdued this time.

The Dark Lord glared across the audience to silence it. "Death is no obstacle. There is no such thing as a casualty, not so long as you are my ally. We have all spoken privately about our concerns and interests. Consider this a donation to the cause. The Dark Lord provides," he said, gesturing first to her, then to offstage Bellatrix, "in many ways."

"The Dark Lord," he said significantly, "always provides."

Standing up, he strode away. Thera followed in his wake, turning left to go outside when he turned right to go wherever the hell it was he went. She ran out behind the Carriage House the way she always did, falling down on her hands and knees. Nothing came, though, and she knew that nothing would. Sitting back, she wrapped her arms around herself, the night's chilliness sinking into the skin of her arms, making her teeth chatter.

The easier it gets, the more they own you. As thankful as Thera was for the potion, she honestly would have preferred to just deal with it at she normally did. As gross and incapacitating as the whole puking thing was, at least it got it out of her.

And yes, she knew that it only really got out the contents of her stomach, and that any amount of guilt that she bore in the situation wasn't absolved by any of it, but it still...it made it seem less connected to her. It made it palatable, or at least survivable. It didn't make her feel like this, at least, like the guilt was living in her skin, sinking in deeper and deeper every second, impossible to remove. The more she tried, the harder it dug in.

Staring down at her hands, doing her best to throw up without having to resort to fingers and gag reflexes, Thera wondered disconnectedly if she'd live through this whole thing, or even if she should. When it came down to it, getting caught didn't even really matter. Even in the best-case scenario of Harry winning and her successfully saving herself from a trial, what the fuck was she supposed to do with her life? She had less than a year of formal education and skills far more applicable to being a petty criminal or a con artist than a contributing member of society. As far as the story went, she was expendable.

Cursing Snape and his stupid potion, and her own stupidity for taking it, Thera stood up a bit unsteadily, intending to go back to the house. Only Shaggy's grisly death was still shooting through her like lightning under her skin, and she made a detour into the Carriage House. She didn't really trust herself to drive under the circumstances, but just seeing the Ferrari in all of its well-polished luxury sports car beauty glinting in the moonlight inspired a teensy burst of happiness. Climbing into the driver's seat out, she leaned it all the way back, stretching her arms out. Turning on her side, she wiggled around until she got her arms and hands properly in position. It was snug and womb-like, and safe in a way she hadn't really known since Hogwarts. The lightning didn't go away, but it died down enough for her to drift off intermittently.

Small favors.

*******

REFERENCES:

"A hard man is good to find." - Mae West

TRANSLATIONS: (I am not an expert at this shit. I translate it into English the way it sounds)

Zantatoy: I'm busy

Vazhnuh: It's important.

Ya nashel Dashkin: I found Dashkin.

Zalupa: Dickhead (rough translation)