Two to Obey

Chapter 18: Subject and Object

Vivian survived the weeks after Remus' departure by throwing herself into her work, forcing her mind to focus entirely on teaching, working on the spell, reading, doing research, marking essays. Sleeping draughts kept her from turning into a zombie and the days marched by with a monotonousness that she found oddly comforting. It was easier to pretend that nothing outside of Hogwarts mattered when there wasn't anything of note happening outside of Hogwarts to destroy the illusion.

The attacks against Muggles and Muggleborns had ceased. The Order members were decidedly uneasy by this turn of events, worried about what the Death Eaters were planning next. They had a full meeting about it that Vivian sat through, listening with only half an ear, her mind on the spell, calculating complex Arithmantic equations, trying to think of other avenues to look at, other ways to unravel it.

Remus checked in once, just after his first full moon with the dark creatures. The werewolves seemed to have formed a sort of pack, and he'd made contact with his old associates, hoping to find out more about what was going on. That had been the content of the message, which she'd relayed in its entirety to Dumbledore. The most important part of the message in her mind was that there had been one at all, that he was alive, and safe. She clung to that fact unconsciously, all day every day, somehow certain that if it wasn't a fact any longer, she'd know. It was likely bullshit, but it did keep her from going barmy.

This tentative calm was rocked rather violently the last day before Christmas holiday. Having worked on the spell for so long now without any progress, throwing every idea she could think of at it and having nothing stick, it took her a few seconds to realize that one of them just had. Staring down at the pages in front of her filled with almost perfectly matching Arithmantic matrices, Vivian shook herself, ignoring the way her heart pounded, half in anticipation and half in dread. She wasn't going to make too much out of it, not until she'd checked her work. She did. It was correct.

Just to be sure, though, she was going to have a second pair of eyes look at it. "Draco," she said, "could you look this over, please? Make sure I haven't made any mistakes."

Looking somewhat relieved to be given a break from the rather thankless task of organizing a heaping pile of her father's notes - a disturbing number of which were written on the backs of pub napkins - he took the parchments from her and spread them out in front of him. Vivian stood up and went to the bookshelf nearest the door, only to realize that in her newly reordered library organized by subject and alphabetized by author and title, the book she wanted was on the shelf behind her desk. Merlin, I need a map of my own office.

Finally locating Arithmantic Theories of Objectivity and Subjectivity, she pulled it off the shelf and flipped through it to the part she needed. She'd marked it. She swore she'd marked it. Okay, maybe she hadn't. Growling at herself, Vivian sat down and skimmed through the entire chapter page by page until she found the passage she was looking for, and the array of matrices involved.

"It's all correct," Draco said, raising his head, silver eyes wide. "Did you find something, then? What other spell were you comparing it with?"

"I wasn't. I mean, I wasn't comparing it to another spell," she said, holding out a hand for the parchments. He gave them to her and she zeroed in on the singular Arithmantic anomaly between the spell and the random idea she'd just thrown at it. Checking carefully, going between the book and the parchments, her heart began pounding even harder. It fit. Perfectly. "I was comparing it to the Arithmantic array for a Pensieve."

He frowned. "But they weren't identical."

"No, they weren't," she said heavily. "In a subject-object relationship, one entity has to be inactive, and one has to be active. A Pensieve is intended to be an inactive object in which the subject places his or her memories. In the spell, the caster is the object - the Pensieve - only he's not inactive. The spell links him to each of you. You five are the subjects, yet you're inactive."

Draco stared at her for a moment. "He can suck out our memories?" he asked tonelessly.

"Well, it's hardly an unlimited power," she said, as if that made much difference to him, which it probably didn't. "He can't just reach into your head and pull out any memory he wants, because the spell doesn't link him to those. He can only remove the ones he shares with you, the ones linked to the spell in some way."

Draco looked up at her, and edge of panic in his expression. "I'm not following, but I hope you're very, very sure of that."

"I am," she said, searching for another way to explain it. "Put it this way. He's the wand that takes the memory from your head and puts it in the Pensieve, and he's also the Pensieve itself. But he's not your actual mind, which is the subject of this particular array. He's just allowed limited access to it through the spell, to order you about - well, to order the others about - and to do this. Pulling out memories he doesn't share with you would be impossible. It would be like trying to reach into your mind and pull out someone else's memory. You couldn't do it, because it doesn't exist in your mind. It's simply not there." Vivian took a breath finally. "Is that any clearer?"

Draco blinked. "I'll just take your word for it." Then something appeared to click in his head and he sat forward a little. "Would we still remember the memory after he drew it out? I mean, putting a memory in a Pensieve doesn't mean you forget it completely."

Vivian thought about that for a moment. "Not unless he wanted you to," she said slowly. "The reason most people retain memories even after they put them into a Pensieve is largely because they're not trying to completely remove them from their heads. It's a risky endeavor in any case. That's why memory charms can be so dangerous. But considering we're talking about Voldemort here, I certainly wouldn't put it past him to remove the memory entirely. And he'd certainly be capable of it."

He took a deep breath and looked away, letting it out slowly. "So that's why Red can't remember anything," he said, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "And that's why she's been having headaches and nightmares, like a person under a bad memory charm. Because he took all the memories out."

"That would certainly explain it," Vivian said, rubbing her eyes, suddenly wishing as fiercely as she ever had that she was back at the Institute, where her biggest worry was making tenure. "And that's why she can remember everything in the Chamber of Secrets up until Tom Riddle became corporeal."

Draco's face tightened. "And everything at Little Hangleton except when he was with her." He looked back at her. "But how could that have worked for what happened in the Chamber of Secrets? That wasn't even really him, not as he is now."

"No, but the memories themselves still involved him. The piece of him preserved in the diary didn't have the ability to remove her memories, but the Chamber of Secrets marked her entrance into the spell. She probably did remember - or could have, more precisely - until Little Hangleton. Up until then, I'm guessing she just blocked it out."

"So we had a chance to find out what really happened, and we blew it," he concluded, running an aggravated hand through his hair. "But he can't...I mean, it works like a Pensieve, not like Legilimency, right? He can't get any of our emotions from it, can he?"

"I don't see how he could. Pensieve memories don't carry emotions, at least not any that aren't directly acted out or stated within the memory itself."

"Well, that's a relief. Of course, there's nothing stopping him from dosing us with Veritaserum, learning everything we know and then removing the memory of it."

No, there wasn't. "I think his behavior would indicate that he hasn't done that."

"Yet," he said pointedly.

Severus knocked and poked his head inside. "Vivian, do you have..." He trailed off when he noticed Draco. "What are you doing here?"

"Learning about the newest turn on the pathway down into hell," Draco said dully.

Rolling her eyes a little, Vivian explained what she'd found to Severus. His face grew steadily darker. "I'm confiscating those foolish mirrors. This has gone on long enough."

"What's your problem with the mirrors?" Draco asked.

"They're a direct link to Potter, who - because sometimes the universe has an astoundingly warped sense of humor - is the only person who can kill the Dark Lord. And there is absolutely nothing stopping the Dark Lord from forcing one of you to tell him about the mirrors, tinkering with one of them in some horrible way and then removing the memory so that nobody but him is the wiser. Shall I list my other objections to their continued use, or are we all in agreement?"

"The mirrors will automatically deactivate if anybody tries to tinker with them," Vivian stated, not because she really cared one way or the other about their continued use, but because she'd set all of them up for their current purpose, and she wasn't a total idiot.

"Apparently I shall," Severus said dryly. "He could still find out everything the Castelar girl knows, remove the memory, devise a trap for Potter and send her on her merry way to spring it when the time is right."

"Actually, he couldn't," Draco said. "For one thing, it's bloody obvious when the Dark Lord is nancing about in Thera's head. I'd know immediately, because the first words out of her mouth wouldn't be a request for a pool. Secondly, the same Dark-Lord-proofing that keeps him from using all of us to wreak bloody terror at Hogwarts is also currently in place at Malfoy Manor thanks to Fox and her friends, or - more precisely - the exorbitant amount of money I paid them to make it that way. He can't get in there, and even if his ordering Thera about works outside of his presence - which I doubt, because he'd have tried it by now - it won't work at Malfoy Manor. Right now, he doesn't know that and I sincerely hope he never finds out, because that would be a rather awkward conversation, don't you think?"

"Decidedly," Severus said, peering at Draco. "It's a shame that your protections don't cover the very likely possibility that he'd just call her to Shirag Castle, learn everything she knows, remove the memory from her and send her back."

"I'll admit it's a possibility," Draco said casually, shifting and throwing an arm across the back of his chair. "But I'd know the minute he did it, considering I have a tracking charm on her. I promise to let you know if he does, though."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "Tracking charm? Also courtesy of Fox, I imagine?"

"Very expensive, I'll have you know," the boy sniffed, pulling a device out of his pocket and checking it. "Thera's currently spinning around in a circle in the Grand Ballroom. And...oh, I think she just fell over. Well, that's the point of it anyway, isn't it?"

"The future of the magical world," Severus murmured, a sour look on his face.

"If she's bored," Vivian said, "I'm sure I can think of something for her to do."

"I don't know," Draco said, putting the device back in the pocket of his robes. "Thera's talents aren't exactly...well, to put it nicely, they're non-academic. She's been trying to teach herself Arithmancy, but apparently her mathematical education ended abruptly at long division. As if the pool isn't enough, now she wants some silly Muggle contraption that performs mathematical processes for you. Can you imagine? Aside from the fact that the thing wouldn't work at Malfoy Manor, how lazy are Muggles that they need..."

"She does," Severus said loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose, "know languages."

Vivian perked up. "Which ones?"

"Russian and French, at least. I haven't the faintest idea if there are others."

"Greek?" she asked hopefully. It was a long shot, but it would certainly be helpful. Between classes, Head Girl duties and trying to line up a job after school, Hermione Granger wasn't exactly making a great deal of progress researching the eschaton, not that Vivian would ever tell her that. The girl probably wouldn't sleep for the rest of the year. And it was useless for Vivian herself to research it, because all it meant was that she had less time to work on the spell, and now that Remus...

Dear Merlin. She'd just gone five entire minutes without thinking about Remus.

Putting the thought out of her head, she tried instead not to drool over the idea of adding the Malfoy family library to their research materials. Why on earth hadn't she thought of this before? The chalice and dagger might be in one of the books, or some reference to the spell, and...she really needed to stop getting ahead of herself.

"You know what?" Draco asked pensively. "I don't know what else she speaks, either. Wouldn't it be terribly useful right now if there were some way for us to ask her? Oh, but the floos at Malfoy Manor are blocked to all incoming calls and visitors, and the only one open to me is on the other side of the house. I suppose I could apparate over there, but I'd have to walk all the way outside the wards, and that would take a great deal of time. Or we could send an owl. Shall I?"

"Malfoy," Severus hissed. "That's enough."

"Yes, sir," Draco said politely, fighting down a smirk, reaching into his schoolbag and pulling out a sheaf of parchment.

"Ask her about Greek," Vivian piped up. "And Arabic. Turkish would be helpful, too."

"Vivian," Severus said. "Could I speak to you outside for a moment?"

Leaving Draco to his conference, Vivian followed him into the hallway. "It's worth a try, Severus. Merlin knows the rest of us don't have time..."

"I'm talking about the mirrors," he interrupted. "They're dangerous."

Vivian sighed. "We don't know that. And it's hard to forget their original purpose, no matter how far the three of them have strayed from that purpose."

"Very far, indeed," he drawled.

"Nevertheless, she and Draco are the advance guard as much as you are. We'd never send you into a Death Eater meeting without a communications device. Hell, even back in the day, we'd never send a team of Aurors without each of them having one, and usually a backup device, too. In situations like this, communication is paramount."

"Thank you, Vivian," he said down his nose at her. "I was highly in need of another lecture on strategies of wartime intelligence. It's too risky."

"Cutting them off completely is even riskier."

Severus glared at her for a moment. "I will not," he said softly, "have my cover blown because a group of idiot teenagers decided to use a device created for necessary communication to discuss the latest issue of Witch Weekly."

"I seriously doubt any of them read Witch Weekly," she scoffed. Then she conceded, "Well, okay. Draco probably does."

"He's carrying that mirror around in his schoolbag," Severus pointed out. "Anyone could..."

"Only the three of them can. And where's your communications device?" she asked.

The look he gave her likely would have been fatal if Draco hadn't chosen that moment to open the door. "Trying to get information out of that girl is positively teeth-grinding."

"Greek?" Vivian asked hopefully once Severus had followed her back into her office.

"Passable, she says," Draco shrugged. "Whatever that means. She claims fluency in nothing, but can curse in thirty-seven different languages. Impressive, but not altogether helpful. No Turkish, no Arabic, but she does have High Argorathic."

"Because of the spell," Vivian said, feeling like smacking herself on the forehead. "Well, if anybody has an ancient book written in High Argorathic, it would be the Malfoys."

"Of course," Draco said, as if this should be obvious. He lifted up a piece of parchment, on which he'd apparently written some notes. "She also wanted me to tell you that she speaks both Klingon and Jive, in case that might be helpful." Frowning, Draco looked up at her. "Must be Muggle languages. Are they Asiatic?"

*******

The weeks before Christmas holidays found Harry running around like a madman. Courtesy of Dobby's connections, he was now the proud owner of Winky and two other house elves who had also been given clothes by the families they'd previously served, much to their utter shame and horror. To say they worshiped the ground he walked on for taking ownership of them would be the understatement of the century. They sobbed in joy whenever he asked them to do something. They threw themselves at his feet and begged to be given more work. They composed entire odes to his wonderfulness. They'd made disturbing proclamations about building him a shrine. Harry found that he couldn't look Hermione in the eye anymore.

He'd asked - something he really had to stop doing with house elves, because the inevitable sobbing made his socks soggy - Bobsy to help out poor, aging Willy at the manor house and put Winky and Henny on the job getting the house on the French Riviera ready for guests. They got occasional help from Dobby, who would do absolutely anything for the brave and good Harry Potter, no matter how many times the brave and good Harry Potter told him that it really wasn't necessary.

He'd spent an entire weekend with Amina and Gautham building up the wards around his parents' - his - properties, and another one talking to Thera on the mirror while he attempted to add more bedrooms for people to stay in over Christmas. He'd contacted Remus' cousin in the Floo office to regain control of the floo wards on all the properties, so that those people who should be able to floo in could, and anybody who shouldn't, couldn't. He'd had several discussions with Hermione about preparations, making sure there would be enough food and hot water for showers. These discussions were a bit difficult. Unable to look at her face, his eyes were inclined to focus on her breasts.

And that was the least of his worries. In his exuberance over not just spending a Christmas somewhere other than Hogwarts or in his cupboard listening to Dudley open presents, but actually hosting the festivities, Harry had gotten a bit...informal with the invitations. In all honesty, he'd expected most people to turn him down, and most had. He just asked a whole hell of a lot of people.

The Weasleys were all coming, along with Tonks and her parents and Professor Lupin's parents. Luna, Neville, Anthony Goldstein and Terry Boot were coming. Elphias Doge, Dedalus Diggle and Kingsley Shacklebolt - he really shouldn't have issued that open invitation to the entire Order - were coming, and Professor McGonagall was bringing her sister. Lee Jordan and Katie Bell were coming - whether together or apart seemed to be a matter of great interest - and Hermione was planning to visit on New Year's Eve.

With a quiet sense of panic, he realized that it he was not prepared at all. He came upon this realization as the Hogwarts Express chugged its way to London. Considering there was a heated pool deck and an ocean view involved, he'd known that it wasn't going to be a nice, intimate, traditional family Christmas. But twenty-five people all in one house was seriously pushing it. And he was beginning to worry about the mischievous smiles on the Weasley twins' faces when he'd encouraged them to "get creative" with the fireworks display for New Years Eve.

"Calm down, Harry," Hermione said without looking up from her book.

"I can't. I want everyone to have a good time, and have enough to eat, and..."

"And they will," she said firmly. "Now stop looking like you're going to jump out the window, apparate to your parents' house and start counting how many napkins there are."

Harry paled in horror. "I didn't even think about napkins."

Hermione set her book aside and crossed her arms. "Look at me." He did, briefly. "No, Harry. Look at me. At my face, if you don't mind. I know breasts are fascinating and all, but I didn't sprout them yesterday, and they're pretty much a fixture on any woman walking around, so you really need to get used to them."

"I wasn't looking at your breasts," he said to the window in an offended tone.

"Yes, you were. It's all you've been doing for weeks now and it's gotten beyond creepy. So..." He could feel the side of his face prickle with the force of her glare and fought the urge to cringe. "What are you hiding?"

Harry gritted his teeth. "Nothing."

"Oh, save it. You obviously are. So just tell me."

"I told you. It's nothing."

"If it's nothing, then you'll have no problem looking at me. And if your eyes stray below my neckline one more time, I'll hex you into next week, Harry Potter."

Gathering up his courage, Harry forced his gaze to meet hers and frowned. "Did you cut your hair?"

Hermione responded with a glare. "Yes, I did. A month and a half ago."

"Oh," he said with a weak smile. "Well, it looks really nice."

"Stop avoiding the subject, Harry."

Brown eyes narrowed at him. "I have house elves," he blurted out. Then he immediately clapped a hand over his mouth. Dear Merlin, where had that come from? Harry stood up and glared at her accusingly. "What the hell? What spell did you use on me?"

"I didn't," Hermione said coolly, picking up her book and opening it back up to the page she'd marked. "Your guilt just got the better of you. It generally does."

"I don't feel guilty about it," he grumbled, sitting back down.

"Maybe, maybe not. But you certainly felt guilty about hiding it from me."

"I only inherited one of them, and he's ancient. I couldn't give him clothes. It would do him in. And the three I picked up were miserable without a family to serve. I just..."

"Used four repressed and abused creatures to do your work for you," she finished.

"It's not like that," he said desperately.

"Are you paying them?"

"I tried to. I thought they were going to maul me in adulation. Then they refused."

Hermione harrumphed and focused on her book. Harry turned back to the window, but his eyes kept straying back to her as the tension in the air grew thicker. Finally, he couldn't stand it any longer. "I'm sorry, okay? I just...I really wanted this, and I don't have time to make any of the houses presentable. And I know I won't have the time to keep them presentable in the long run." Finally, he sighed and got down to the real truth. "I want them to look the way they did before, but I don't want to have to be the one to do it. It's depressing, okay? I mean, rebuilding Godric's Hollow is going to be depressing enough. I didn't want to have to go in and magic away sixteen years worth of dust, all the while trying not to think about why they've been empty for sixteen years."

"I understand that," she said softly, leaning forward, her elbows on her knees. "It's just that people look up to you. You're a leader, whether you like it or not, and the fact is that most leaders fail. They start out with high ideals but then at some point they give in. They sacrifice an ideal or two, and they find a way to justify it to themselves. Then they do it again, and again, and before you know it they're just doing it to protect themselves, or because holding to their ideals is too difficult and takes longer. And before it's over, the only ideal they have left is keeping themselves in power."

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his head. "No sugar-coating with you."

"Me? Never. Besides, you need somebody around to keep you honest."

"I can't free them," he said in a low voice. "They'd commit suicide or something. If I so much as say please, they go into convulsions."

"Pay them, then," she said simply. "If they refuse it, then they refuse it. You can't force them to take the money. But it'll just keep piling up."

Harry looked up, shaking his head at her. "Sometimes I think you should be my publicist. You probably already have the Daily Prophet article written in your head. Harry Potter Pays His House Elves!"

Hermione sent him a quelling look. "It's the right thing to do, and you know it. You also happen to be well-positioned to influence other people about it."

"Dear Merlin," he said with a healthy dose of appreciation, looking at his friend with new eyes, "sometimes I think you're more Slytherin than the Slytherins are."

"Hardly," she said with a bit of distaste. "You don't have to be a genius at manipulation to know how to persuade the public. But more than that, I just want to keep you...you. I'm not afraid all the hype is going to go to your head, because I know you're not like that. I just don't want you to forget that you're not just held to a higher standard because of who you are. You're also held to a higher standard because you deserve to be."

"I hope you're not trying to make me feel better," he said. "Because you're not."

"Good, because I'm not. When all of this is over, after you win..."

"If I win," he said darkly.

"When you win," Hermione returned with a hard look, "they're going to treat you like they treat Dumbledore now. You won't just be a hero; people will value your opinion, and they'll want to hear it. So what are you going to tell them?"

Harry stared at her. "I don't know."

"Well, you might want to start thinking about it," she said pointedly. Harry opened his mouth, then shut it and went back to staring out the window. He would. Really. But for right now, he was more worried about whether or not all of the toilets flushed properly.

*******

Unlike the more stylish dark creatures like vampires and veela, werewolves had historically displayed no sense of community, much less any sense of pride in what they were. Most either hid out in the Muggle world, lived as vagrants or existed off of the charity of family and friends. The braver ones eked out a living in one of the few magical occupations still left open to werewolves, mostly as test subjects for potions corporations. With the advent of the Wolfsbane Potion, a few of the more enlightened countries had begun relaxing the restrictions on werewolf employment, but Wolfsbane was expensive and only a privileged few benefited.

It was no surprise, then, that werewolves were less a cohesive group than a collection of solitary, bitter, angry individuals. And now every werewolf on the planet was currently housed in a barracks-like cement building with absolutely nothing to do all day but wait for the full moon and mull over their situation. And get more bitter and angry about it.

There was grumbling. It was rumored that the vampires' quarters were lavish and had twice as many bathrooms, and even though nobody could prove it, the rumor certainly added to the air of martyrdom around the place. Moping took place on a grand scale. Remus' bunkmate - a twenty-something Italian named Giuseppe - spent the first few weeks sobbing for his Mama, who always had a warm bath and a leg of lamb waiting for him at the end of every full moon. Most had similar stories. Life before might not have been grand, but at least it had been familiar, even if it was just the particular smell of one's favorite cardboard box condominium.

Oddly enough, however, there was also a significant portion of the werewolves that seemed to have paired up, mostly those who had been brought in during the first wave of dark creature disappearances. Couples walked around hand-in-hand, smiling at each other shyly, looking as if they had no desire to be anywhere else. This only made the new arrivals feel even more bitter and alienated. Remus briefly wondered how so many of the werewolves could have found romantic partners so quickly, then shrugged it off.

He shouldn't have. Soon after he arrived, the first full moon came, or - more precisely - the days of restless horniness leading up to the full moon. Having experienced it himself, Remus was well acquainted with the effect of the upcoming full moon on a male werewolf. He knew that the situation was more acute for female werewolves, who went into heat just like any other animal, minus the procreative purpose. They simply could not rest unless they got laid, or at least that was how it had been described to him. Remus had never actually witnessed the phenomenon until he woke up with a beautiful Argentinian woman on top of him clawing frantically at his pants and moaning in his ear.

For a few moments, he thought it was a dream. A very pleasant dream of the sort he generally got leading up to the full moon, in which...well, suffice it to say that werewolf sex dreams involved as much biting and clawing as they did anything that resembled sex. It was not the sort of thing he'd attempt with his wife. And he had no intention of ever letting his wife find out how long it took him to figure out that this wasn't a dream.

He did manage to uphold his marriage vows, but it wasn't easy. Female werewolves are every bit as physically strong as their male counterparts. A female werewolf in heat does not like to take no for an answer, and isn't shy about trying to pound your face in if you persist in giving her that answer. Remus was not particularly proud of the tactics he was forced to employ in order to preserve his virtue. He was proud of the fact that desperation allowed him to stupefy a female werewolf in heat without a wand, 'Female Werewolf in Heat' now being something to which he gave its due respect and fear.

Looking around the barracks, he saw that he was nowhere near the only male to have been assaulted, though it was hard to tell whether he was the only unwilling participant in the activities taking place. It was becoming apparent that werewolves having sex bore a disturbing resemblance to rabid dogs fighting to the death. There was growling and snarling and bunk beds creaking, the couples on top often falling off onto the floor and continuing without missing a beat. A pair in the corner were doing things that he'd only seen in nature documentaries.

Remus looked down at the gorgeous, naked, stupefied woman who had just crawled into his bed and demanded that he have sex with her and wondered why this couldn't have happened to him five years ago.

Binding her just to be safe, he woke her up. She struggled for a minute, jiggling quite a bit, then gazed up at him with big, plaintive brown eyes. "Please," she begged.

He squeezed his eyes shut and dug his fingernails into his palms. "I can't," he said in a strained voice, saying it as much for his benefit as for hers. I'm married and I love my wife. I love her very much and I'm not going to have sex with you.

She made another pleading sound. "Let me go, then. I will find another," she said in a fluid, exotic accent that flowed over him like melted chocolate.

A hand tapped him on the shoulder and Remus opened his eyes. Giuseppe had awakened, and seemed to be without female companionship. He was grinning and nodding excitedly. Remus cleared his throat. "Giuseppe, this is...what was your name?"

"Valoria," she said, turning a feral smile on his bunkmate. "Valoria Cordoba."

"Bellissima," Giuseppe breathed appreciatively.

Werewolf romance. "Yes, well, have fun together," Remus said, releasing the lovely Valoria, who pounced on Giuseppe and tore open his shirt. Figuring that his presence was no longer required, Remus trudged to the bathroom, turned on the water as cold as it would go and tried his best to ignore the bacchanal taking place a few yards away.

The next morning, he looked around at his fellow werewolves with new eyes. It was like a movie montage of a young couple falling in love multiplied by a thousand. Or, for Remus, it was like sixth year, when everybody seemed to have paired up overnight and the hallways were full of covert glances, soppy smiles and snogging couples.

He was one of the few loners. And they were a ragtag bunch, to be sure - mostly made up of those too old to partake in wild werewolf sex without breaking something. The old women took him under their wing. Such a nice young man without a mate; they'd find him someone. He put up with it, resisting as politely as possible, and tried not to think too much about what the larger group thought about his continued single status.

Remus tried to offset the aching loneliness of watching an entire barracks full of snuggling partners by viewing the phenomenon anthropologically. There had never been an actual pack of werewolves before, or if there had been, nobody had ever documented their behavior. The females were highly protective and ferocious about their mates. There were more than a few fights between them that nobody seemed inclined to break up, Remus included. Aside from the fact that watching two female werewolves duke it out was high entertainment, there seemed to be a general sense among the pack that the fights were a necessary conflict resolution mechanism. The males seemed to take on the role of caretaker, getting food for their mates, trying to snatch warmer blankets and softer pillows for them. In the wild, regular wolves generally mated for life. Remus sincerely hoped that werewolves did, too. If the next round of heat involved a scuffle for bed partners, things were going to get ugly for everybody, especially him. He did not look forward to another Valoria-like experience.

He absolutely did not. Absolutely.

The full moon itself marked another turning point for the new pack. There were thick woods behind the barracks that had apparently been set aside solely for their use. As they all made their tired, sore, grumbling way outside to transform, Remus spotted a deer dashing into the trees, and squirrels racing through the branches. The full moon had always been better when he'd had James, Sirius and Peter with him, instead of being trapped in a cage. Who knew what it would be like with a forest full of animals and an entire pack of werewolves to run with?

With his friends in the Forbidden Forest, he'd been able to retain some sense of self in his werewolf form. What he hadn't realized was that it wasn't himself necessarily, but the wolf part of his consciousness. Locked in a cage, the wolf couldn't think beyond its confines, and the irrepressible need to get out. Running free with other animals around and other werewolves at his side, the wolf could think, react and even reason to some degree. It still wanted prey, still wanted to hunt and eat, but it was a want, not a need. And it was a manageable one. For the first time since he'd been bitten, Remus woke up the morning after a full moon and actually had some memory of the night before.

The mood among the werewolves that morning was festive, jubilant. Whoever had set this thing up had some understanding of werewolves' needs, and there was an enormous feast waiting for them in the cafeteria that they all fell upon like...well, a pack of wild animals. Beyond that, there was a deep sense of kinship. Platters of meat were passed around, vague memories of the night before shared with laughter, and everybody agreed that it had been the best full moon they'd ever spent.

The new arrivals - who a week earlier could have passed for a ward full of clinical depressives in a state institution - were now inseparable from the veterans, and they were all like a large, boisterous family, come together to celebrate some happy occasion.

Remus had been avoiding the few werewolves he was acquainted with. He was fairly nondescript anyway, and the disguise certainly didn't make him stand out any more than he usually did. He was generally surrounded by enough people that he could blend in both appearance-wise and scent-wise, and he wasn't using his real name, but there wasn't any need to risk being recognized. If one of the werewolves he knew got close enough to him without any other people around, they'd be able to recognize his scent.

Which is why he was more than a little dismayed when Dougal, a werewolf Remus had met a few years earlier in St. Mungo's just after the man had been bitten, came up and clapped him on the shoulder, grinning madly. "Not such a bad life here, eh? Sure beats living with my parents and checking in for a cage at St. Mungo's every month to transform. And sure as hell beats Azkaban."

Remus hid his surprise, because he knew that Dougal had gone into hiding when the Ministry passed the anti-werewolf laws. He wondered briefly if any of the others had been captured. "I wouldn't know," he said, smiling a little. "I never got caught."

"You're a much wilier fugitive than I was, then," Dougal said, raising an eyebrow. "I could certainly use an education on Ministry-avoidance tactics, old pal."

It was quite obvious that the jig was up. Dougal would require an explanation, but at least he was trustworthy. Frankly, Remus considered all of the werewolves he'd been acquainted with in Britain trustworthy no matter what path they'd followed in the war so far, if for no other reason than each and every one of them owed him a favor. Even before the Ministry had started locking them all up, he'd helped them find jobs and safe places to stay. Afterwards, some had been nabbed before he could act, but for the rest of them, he had done his best, calling in favors and channeling them through to the very few resources available to a werewolf trying to avoid Ministry detection. And considering Remus didn't know how long he'd be here, it might be better to nip the matter of his identity in the bud. Hell, it might even be an asset. For all he knew, he might need their help in more ways than just keeping his identity under wraps.

"It sounds like you certainly could," he said to Dougal in an amiable tone. "I know a few others that could use it, too. All the old pals, provided they can keep a secret. I'd hate for everybody to know my sneaky little methods for hoodwinking the Ministry."

Dougal gave him a penetrating look, then nodded almost imperceptibly. "You know what was the best part of last night?" he said, looking off with a dreamy smile. "The smell of the woods at full moon. Invigorating, wasn't it?"

"Definitely," Remus agreed. "Nothing better."

Twenty minutes later, Dougal spotted Remus about fifty feet into the forest and picked his way over to him through the undergrowth. "The others are coming," he said, leaning back against a tree, watchful and curious. "I told them not to be obvious about it."

"Good," Remus said, with a grim smile. "So...Azkaban? What happened?"

Dougal returned the smile. "Hid out with my brother and sister-in-law for a while. But after the law passed, Wolfsbane was like gold, and then they had a baby, and even with the cage...well, it wasn't worth the risk. St. Mungo's kept advertising that werewolves could still check in for the full moon without getting turned over to the Ministry, so I figured it was my best bet. And it was, until the Ministry decided to sod its agreement with the Hospital. Got nabbed about six months ago."

Remus sighed. "I'm sorry. Truly."

Dougal's smile turned briefly bitter. "Yeah, well. Way of the world. So what's with the whole running around incognito thing?"

"It's a fairly long story. It's probably better to save it until everyone's here."

The other man nodded. "You're the lone poufter in the bunch. You know that, right?"

Remus chuckled a little. "I suppose the poufter rumors were inevitable. Odd that there aren't others, though."

Dougal snorted. "We're not vampires, mate. We're animals. Drive to keep the species going, even if it's just playacting for us. If you're trying to fly under the radar, being one of the only ones under a hundred not partnered up isn't the best way to go about it."

"I'm not gay," Remus said dryly. "I'm married."

The other man looked at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. "You're kidding."

"I can't be that surprising. I find it a little hard to believe that I'm only one here who was in some sort of committed relationship before all of this happened."

"You weren't, but...well, we're a pack now. The line's been drawn in the sand, it's us against them, and for the first time, there's an actual 'us' to even be against them. Obviously your non-legal wife isn't a werewolf, or she'd be here, too. And I doubt the others would take kindly to the fact that she isn't one."

"So in other words, I'm better off letting them think I'm gay," Remus concluded.

Dougal shrugged. "If you want to gain some points, I'd suggest cooking up a story about a boating accident or a curse gone horribly awry. Sympathy's better than suspicion."

Other footsteps entered the woods, interrupting their conversation, and the next few minutes were a mixture of surprised yet confused greetings, probing questions and many repeated promises that the story behind it all would be told as soon as everybody arrived.

"Right," Remus said, once all of the six other werewolves he'd known well prior to being called were standing in front of him with expectant looks on their faces. "So I'm sure you've gathered that all of the dark creatures have been called here for a reason."

"It's a rebellion," a somewhat hotheaded young man named Brian put forward, a bloodthirsty look on his face. "Against the wizarding world. We've been brought together so that we can stand up against them, so they can't treat us like shit anymore."

Remus looked over at him. "Is that just a rumor, or did someone actually tell you that?"

"The old man did," Ellen said. She was a quiet, dark-haired, sylph-like woman who was currently wrapped in Dougal's arms, his chin resting on top of her head. It wasn't hard to imaging them partnered up, though it was a lot harder to imagine Ellen overpowering Dougal in a fit of animalistic sexual madness. "The first night here, he gathered those of us taken in the first wave and gave us a big speech about taking back what the wizards had stolen from us. How we were more powerful than they were, how we should rule the world and not them. He went on for a good long while about how we were superior and they were inferior and we were the children of history and had been chosen to rid the world of their filth. Your basic Hitler diatribe, with a couple of words changed around."

"You can hardly argue that he didn't have a point," Brian shot at her.

"He might have," Ellen returned coolly. "Or he might've just been telling us what we wanted to hear. I don't trust anybody who promises me a rose garden without telling me what it'll take to grow it."

"Which one is he, in there?" Remus asked.

"He's not in there," Dougal said. "He just came, gave his speech and left."

"What was his name? Did any of you know him?"

"I've heard of him, but I don't know him," said Nasser, who had been one of Remus' first werewolf acquaintances. He was an outspoken dark creature rights advocate who had - unsurprisingly - been one of the first werewolves arrested in the Ministry crackdown. His dark eyes focused on Remus. "You do, however."

"Fenrir Greyback," Remus said in a tight voice, not surprised at all that he'd joined back up with Voldemort. Unfortunately, that meant there was yet another werewolf floating around who might recognize him. The wolf in Remus didn't particularly care. It just wanted to rip the guy's throat out. A little payback for thirty years of...this was really not the time to think about that, he decided.

"I thought he worked for You-Know-Who, though," Brian said. "What's he doing here?"

"Who do you think brought us here, fuckwit?" asked Betsy, an abrasive middle-aged witch with orange hair whom Remus had unsuccessfully tried to talk out of joining Voldemort's dark creature forces. Having just lost her last appeal to regain custody of her son at the time, she hadn't exactly been in the mood to hear his side of the argument. "The Dark Lord. Who else could spring us all from Azkaban like that?"

"Well, that's just bloody wonderful," sighed Calvin Hopkirk, a tall, reedy young man who came from an old family with a long history of faithful Ministry service. Unfortunately, that long history of faithful service hadn't done him much good when the Ministry stripped him of his inheritance after he'd been bitten. "Not that there aren't a few members of my family I haven't been tempted to gnaw on in the past few years, but I'd really prefer not to go about snacking on innocent citizens."

"You mean the same innocent citizens that cheered when the Ministry dragged us off to Azkaban?" Brain asked dryly. "I'm not sure a good bite wouldn't do them some good."

"Yes, an entire planet populated only with dark creatures, where we never ever have to be afraid again," Ellen said in bored tones. "No offense, but I've heard it all before."

"Not like this, you haven't," Betsy said, shaking her head. "Look at how many of us there are here, and that's just the werewolves. The wizards can't stop us now."

"Perhaps not," said Nasser calmly. "But who dies, then? Our families? Your son? And for what? You-Know-Who isn't going to let us rule the world, not when he wants it so badly for himself. We're useful to him right now, but we're also a threat to him. Do you honestly believe he won't turn around and eliminate us after our usefulness ends?"

"Who cares about ruling the world?" Betsy snorted. "Let him. At least he's doing something to try to help us."

"Well, of course. That's what he says," Dougal said, his voice thick with sarcasm. "And we all know what trustworthy chaps dark lords are. They never ever turn on those who've helped them get into power, if they think they're a threat. I'm with Betsy."

Now that he knew what had happened before he arrived at the encampment and where everybody stood on the issue of the werewolves' presence there - not that he couldn't have guessed - Remus supposed he might as well speak up.

"This isn't about Voldemort," he said, ignoring the others' wincing as he always did. "Or at least, not entirely. Not anymore. What's going on here, what we're a part of...it's not anything we want." Taking a deep breath, he gave them a basic rundown of the eschaton.

There was a long silence when he finished.

"No offense," Brian said, looking away. "But why should we believe you?"

"The Guardians are at war," Remus said. "What do you think Dumbledore is?" He had never made any secret of his association with Dumbledore. He had no idea whether it would help him or hurt him right now, though. On the one hand, Dumbledore had always been seen as a friend to dark creatures, as a separate entity from the Ministry. On the other hand, it diminished his legitimacy a bit. He wasn't here as a werewolf. He was here because he was a werewolf, following the orders of a wizard.

A Guardian, yes. But still a wizard. And Remus honestly didn't know how that was going to play with this crowd considering their new circumstances.

"I always thought the Guardians were a myth," Ellen said, watching him thoughtfully.

"So did I," Dougal agreed, worrying his lip.

"They aren't," Nasser said with curt firmness. "And even if you still believe they are, no wizard, not even the most powerful dark lord in history, could call all of the dark creatures in the entire world to one place at one time and then keep us here."

"Who says we're being kept here?" Betsy asked, looking as if she wasn't sure what to think about the whole situation.

Nasser fixed his eyes on her. "Anyone who has tried to leave."

"We don't even know if the rest of the dark creatures are still here," Brian argued. "There was the first wave, but I haven't seen any of the rest of them since then."

"When I came here, they were all still absent from the rest of the world," Remus said. "And we sent an expedition to check things out here a while back. They were attacked by a force made up of just about every dark creature on earth."

"In all fairness," Ellen pointed out, "nobody's actually tried to find the rest of them."

"Typical werewolves," Calvin snorted. "Hundreds of us bitching about our accommodations, and not one of us bothers to go see if there's anything better around. Passive-aggressive lot, aren't we?"

"So what are you saying we should do anyway?" Betsy asked. "We're stuck here. We can't get out. Whatever the plan is, we can't change it."

"We don't know that yet," Remus said. "And even if we can't, people outside can."

"Too bad we don't have any way to get in touch with them," Brian said. Remus looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "Oh. How do you know you won't get caught, though?"

"I don't," Remus admitted. "Not for certain. I'm banking on the idea that without floos and owls available, they're not expecting anyone to try. They set up this werewolf Shangri-La for a reason. Aside from the fact that we can't go back, I think they're trying to make it so that we don't even want to."

"I agree," Ellen said, with a bit of chagrin, pointedly not looking at Dougal. "It's all a bit too good to be true, isn't it? But even if we contact the outside, what can any of them do, really? Even Dumbledore and his Guardian buddies? This kind of concentration of dark creatures ought to be like a beacon. If they could get to us, they would have by now."

"And brought about a full out war between the Guardians," Dougal said. "Armageddon. End of the world. Plagues and locusts and meteor showers. I know my Old Testament."

"Can this even be stopped?" Nasser asked, his eyes on Remus, neither hopeful nor condemning, merely watchful. "I know my Old Testament, also."

"I don't know," Remus said quietly. "But if it can be, we have to try. And if it can't be, we have to make sure that Voldemort doesn't win. That's all we have."

"Maybe the world needs this," Betsy said. "A changing of the guard, so to speak. The Good Side's never been as good as it likes to believe it is."

"The Ministry isn't the Good Side," Remus told her. "It's just the Ministry."

"This all still seems pretty fucking farfetched," Brian said.

Remus knew that this whole thing warranted a good deal more discussion, and that he'd dropped a lot of information on them in a very short period of time, but the fact of the matter was that they couldn't stand out here all day debating it. His colleagues would need to think about what he'd told them, and frankly, he needed to think up a plan. His own doubts about what their small group could possibly accomplish against Voldemort's forces, not to mention the Guardians themselves, were fairly large.

But it all came back to the same truth. They had to try.

"I realize that," Remus said, looking at each of them in turn. "And I don't expect you all to jump right on the bandwagon, especially since I know we have a lot more to talk about. Unfortunately, we can't talk about it right now, because even though I don't think they're watching us, I don't want the other werewolves to have even the merest suspicion that we might know each other, much less that we might be plotting something. It's probably best if you're not seen associating with me at all. I knew what I was getting into when I came here. I know what the risks are, and I accepted them willingly. The least I can do is extend to you all the same courtesy. I'd like to meet again, if we can. You deserve to hear all of it. Would you all be open to that?"

A few of the nods were uncertain, but at least they all nodded.

Remus took a deep breath. "Then I have only one last thing to ask of you. I'm not here in disguise for the fun of it. Suffice it to say that I'm well known to some of those in Voldemort's ranks, and they're not terribly fond of me. I like to believe that I've been a friend to each of you, and helped you when I could. Whether you want to get yourselves involved in any of this or not, I'm asking you to at least not let anyone else know who I am." His eyes went to each of them again, staring them down, looking for the slightest eye-twitch, his nose ready to catch the faintest salty hint of duplicity, his hand surreptitiously on his wand, prepared to Obliviate one of them if necessary.

They all met his gaze evenly and he relaxed. "Thank you for that. So, for all intents and purposes, I'm John Brighton. Your servant," he said, affecting a little bow.

The group chuckled a little bit, breaking the tension. One by one, they began filtering out of the woods, the remaining members falling into small talk. Betsy approached him.

"I know you don't like what I did, joining up with Voldemort," she said bluntly. "But you'd understand, if you had children, if the Ministry just up and took them away just because you got bitten by some fuckwit whose cage wasn't locked up properly."

Remus thought briefly of Harry, and their last conversation. He knew he couldn't understand entirely, but he certainly sympathized. "It's okay, Betsy."

"You helped me," she said simply. "With the legal briefs and the arguments and the paperwork. In case you didn't trust it, especially since your lot tossed me into Azkaban, I just wanted to tell you that I'm not going to give you away."

"Thanks," he said. He didn't know whether she'd taken part in Voldemort's dark creature attacks, and felt no desire to ask. At this point, he'd take allies wherever he could get them.

Nasser hung back, the last to leave. He tilted his head and raised his eyebrows, inviting Remus to join him on the walk back through the woods.

"There are others," Nasser said after a while, "who would be interested in hearing what you have to say. My partner, and several trusted associates of mine. We attempted to escape shortly after we arrived. There are wards in place to keep us here. We ran up against them, and changed immediately. It was truly that simple. None of us have clear memories of what happened afterwards, until we woke up a few days later here in the woods. But I wouldn't be surprised if we were part of the group that attacked your colleagues. He means to use us in the same way again, I'm sure."

"Undoubtedly," Remus said, stepping behind a tree just out of sight of the barracks. "Spontaneous transformation, that's..." It was a frightening about of power in a simple ward, is what it was. The people in charge of this weren't messing around. "I have to stop here to contact my people. Let me know what your associates say."

"I will," Nasser said, turning his head to the barracks, then looking back at Remus, his expression troubled. "The others don't smell it. All they smell is the forest, and the animals, and each other. They didn't spend the time that the rest of us did, negotiating with those that hate and fear us, trying to change the laws. They're not used to it, so they can't smell it. But I'm used to it, and I smell it. I'm sure you do, too."

Remus breathed in, then out, the word latching onto something in his brain only because he'd been searching for it only a few minutes ago. It was faint, but it was there, underneath everything. Easily missed, carefully hidden, but there nonetheless.

"Deception," he said flatly.

Nasser nodded, just a slight movement of his head. "Ellen's right. It's too perfect. And it's too perfect because it's all false." With that, he walked back to the barracks.

*******

With no snow and no Burrow, it somehow didn't seem like Christmas to Ginny. Sure, there was a tree, and mounds of presents underneath it, and she certainly wasn't complaining about their magically temperate surroundings or the ocean view, but it still didn't seem like Christmas. That didn't mean that everybody didn't have a good time.

The nice thing about having so many people in the house was that there was always somebody around if you wanted to do something, no matter what it was: chess, water polo, Exploding Snap, or the twins' new favorite game, Everybody Try to Dunk Ginny. The downside was that there was no privacy, and there were more than a few embarrassing run-ins. An incident between Bill and Professor McGonagall in the downstairs loo - the details of which Ginny didn't know for certain, but could guess at - had them both staunchly pretending as if the other one didn't exist.

In some instances, the forced intimacy revealed tiny nuggets of surprising information about people, like the fact that Professor McGonagall was apparently the black sheep of the family. Her sister considered 'Minnie' to be an uncontrollable rebel, running around fighting in the war, not behaving at all like a proper pureblooded woman. Nobody made any secret about the fact that they found this particular revelation hilarious, especially since the Professor's only consolation to the fact that Harry's house and its environs were kept at a continuously summer-like temperature was to don a slightly more lightweight set of robes. She did not put on a bathing suit. Nobody was about to ask her to.

It should therefore have come as little surprise to Ginny that her own secrets were not nearly as secret as she'd thought they were.

"Hello," Luna said, wrapping a towel around herself and sitting down on the lounge chair next to the one on which Ginny was sunbathing - pointlessly, because she was covered from head to toe in sunscreen charms. Weasleys and sunbeams did not mix well.

"Hi," Ginny said, putting a hand up to shade her eyes. Luna was wearing enormous sunglasses and a light blue suit with a little skirt, decorated with silver stars. It was obviously a child's bathing suit enlarged to fit her, and therefore carried none of the charms a woman's bathing suit did. The twins were not above charming the water in the pool a few degrees colder to enjoy the full effect of this.

Ginny's own suit was red with full coverage per Molly Weasley's attitudes on the subject. Normally, she'd have been annoyed with the conscious Victorian un-sexiness of the thing - after all, she had a body and it was a fairly nice one, and there was no point in pretending like it didn't exist - but considering the company, she was all for it. One did not sport a skimpy bikini in front of one's brothers. Not only was it gross, but it was the sort of thing that would haunt a person at every family gathering for decades.

"Your brothers are very funny," Luna said, drying off her hair. "They're awfully fixated on breasts, aren't they? They seem remarkably fascinated with mine, at least."

Ginny flinched. She couldn't help it. "Um..."

"Of course, I realize that men in general tend to be fascinated with breasts," Luna mused on, unperturbed. "But most of them are a lot less obvious about it."

"Well, those are my brothers for you," Ginny said, recovering. "Obvious."

"I suppose," Luna said dreamily. "They're very honest, at least. They're not shy. It's refreshing. Most people are very shy about things like that. Neville likes my breasts, too," she said, turning her head to watch him do a cannonball off the diving board. "I know, because I've worn several tight blouses in his presence, and the pheromones it invokes in him directly affect his ability to speak in complete sentences. But he won't come out and tell me." She shrugged. "He's one of the shy ones."

"Yes, he is," Ginny said, trying very hard not to laugh. "Like that, at least. He's a lot more confident now, though. Maybe in time, he'll be able to tell you straight out."

"I don't think so," Luna said dubiously. "He's extremely repressed."

Why this should be surprising, Ginny couldn't tell. "You'll just have to make the first move then, I suppose."

Luna turned back to look at her, and even the sunglasses couldn't prevent the itchy feeling that Ginny often got in Luna's presence, as if the girl could see straight through her like one of those Muggle machines that took pictures of a person's insides.

"I have," Luna said plainly. "I've kissed him quite a few times now. He liked it. But he's worried about doing anything else. Boys get like that sometimes, if they're not like your brothers. I figure I'll give him a bit more time before I have sex with him." She tilted her head, looking up and off to the side, seeing things that probably only Luna could possibly see. "Perhaps this summer..."

"Good luck," Ginny said, for lack of any other ideas.

"I'm not sure I can wait that long, though," Luna sighed. "The eschaton is coming. The dark creatures have already been called. My father's there, you know. Not where the dark creatures are, of course, but nearby. He's created several new devices to help him track what's going on, and he says it's all very bad. The world might end. I think I'd like to have sex with Neville before the world ends. Maybe over Easter holiday."

Ginny simply stared at her. None of them had told Luna about the eschaton, and as far as she knew, nobody had told her father, either. "Who told you about the eschaton?"

"My father," Luna said. "He's been following it for quite some time now. All of the signs were there, but he didn't want to say anything after the Ministry completely ignored his report on the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. After the dark creatures all disappeared, though, there wasn't any denying it. That's why the Ministry agreed to send him out to investigate," she said happily. "None of them had the expertise."

Ginny wondered briefly if the Ministry hadn't 'sent Luna's father out in the field' because they wanted him to stop bothering them. She sat up on one elbow. "What were the signs you talked about? How did he know it was coming?"

Luna looked at her. "The prophecies, of course. Didn't you read the fall issue of The Quibbler? It was all about the prophecies."

"Erm," Ginny said, because not only hadn't she read it, but she couldn't possibly fake it well enough to lie and say she had. "I can't remember what they said?" she tried.

"I'm surprised you don't," Luna said seriously. "Especially since you're in there."

Ginny felt as if a thousand bees had just started stinging her. "I'm in The Quibbler?"

"Of course," Luna said. "Because of the Chamber of Secrets," she explained, upon seeing Ginny's expression, which was probably...well, Ginny had no idea, because she couldn't see it, but the most likely description was probably open-mouthed horror. "I mean, my dad's hardly going to put in a story about you and Draco Malfoy in there. We're not a gossip rag, like the Daily Prophet."

The comment came from so far out in the Quidditch stands that Ginny actually choked. It resulted in a coughing fit, causing Luna to reach over and whack her on the back.

"What?" Ginny asked, when she could.

Luna glanced around. Most of the adults were sitting around a table near the house, drinking wine, playing some sort of card game and - at that moment - loudly accusing Tonks' dad of cheating while Charlotte sat cradled in Molly's arms, occasionally attempting to steal her sunglasses. Bill and Tonks were both sleeping soundly on a pair of lounge chairs on the far side of the pool. Fox and Amina were trying to get Gautham to put more than his feet into the hot tub, and the rest of the kids were in the pool, playing Keep-Away with Ron's swim trunks.

Ginny tried for a moment to figure out how they could have possibly gotten them off of Ron in the first place, then decided that she probably didn't want to know.

"I realize it's a secret," Luna said, lowering her voice, even though nobody could possibly hear them. "And that you and Harry are just a cover. It's okay. I won't tell."

"I really don't know what you're talking about," Ginny said, recovering a bit of her composure. It was fine enough to be sneaky like a Slytherin, but she really wished sometimes that she had it in her to lie like one. Unfortunately, with most of the people she had practice lying to, they had a rather strong desire to believe the lie. Luna didn't.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," Luna said conspiratorially. "Not Neville. Not even my dad. But if you want it to be a secret, you should stop looking at each other like you do."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ginny said again, her tone chilly.

Luna gave a loud, snorting laugh. Ginny faked a laugh in response, slapping her thigh, trying to run at least some sort of damage control.

"That was a really good denial, you know," Luna said, grinning at her. "Much better than what the Ministry usually gives. If I hadn't seen you two looking at each other, I'd completely believe it. I mean, it was really good."

Figuring there was no harm in one last strenuous denial, Ginny made a face. "Luna. Honestly. Me and Draco Malfoy? What on earth are you on about?"

Luna frowned. "That one wasn't nearly as good."

Ginny sighed. "Fine. I confess. Draco Malfoy and I have bi-weekly sex in his room."

"Aha!" Luna said smugly. "It's only bi-weekly. That's why you two look at each other like that. It's the same way my dad and his girlfriend look at each other whenever I'm on holiday and they can't just have sex whenever and wherever they please."

"Please don't tell anyone," Ginny begged, a thought occurring to her.

Luna looked scandalized. "Of course I wouldn't. You and Draco Malfoy? People would think the nargles had gotten to me. And even though that would be a really good edition of The Quibbler, you're my friend. My father won't print something like that, especially since any proof of nargle infestation would be long gone by now. The only reason he printed the other article is because of the prophecies. Here," she said, jogging over to pick up an oversized, floral beach bag. Rummaging around in it for a moment, she pulled out the latest issue of The Quibbler and handed it to Ginny.

"Thanks," Ginny said, setting it aside without looking at it. "I was wondering, though. Do you know anything about the Scrimgeours?"

Luna plopped back down on her lounge chair and fixed her with a serious look. "Of course I do. For one thing, they've been staunchly for the repression of goblins since..."

Ginny sat back and listened, separating the fact from the obvious fiction, a smile spreading across her face as the pieces started coming together in her head.

She and Mary Scrimgeour were going to have quite a bit to talk about back at Hogwarts.

*******

Draco hadn't expected to be amused by his father's correspondence papers, but it was a fairly comedic collection. Fawning notes of thanks for one thing or another, even more fawning notes asking for one thing or another, unsigned hate mail, solicitations of hair advice, heavily perfumed and obliquely worded invitations for a bit of extramarital entertainment, and the occasional paternity claim.

All definitively proven false, he hoped. That was the last thing he needed.

He originally thought the letter was another attempt at extortion by way of ostensible parentage, but then he read through it again.

Lucius, you slippery little fuck,

I'm well aware of how badly you and the sodding reptile need the little insurance policy I've been dragging around for the past decade and a half. Call off your dogs and arrange for a transfer of twenty million U.S. dollars to the Muggle bank account listed below. It's connected to a false corporation I've set up with you and I as dual signatories. Don't try tracking me from it; the Swiss do have their uses.

Once I'm notified of the money's arrival, I'll arrange for the package's immediate delivery via portkey - untrackable of course. I haven't forgotten everything I've learned during my time with the Muggles. The portkey will be an order to close out the account and transfer all of its assets to one controlled solely by me. You'll have fifteen seconds to sign it, so do remember to bring along a writing utensil. Once you do, the order will appear in my hot little hands, and you'll have yourself a lovely fucking gift to present to your master. If you don't, both the girl and the transfer order will return to me, at which point I'll forge your signature and get the money anyway. You see, I've also learned a few things from the Muggles along the way, too.

I can just see you tossing your hair in indignation, your mind working, cooking up a thousand different ways to fuck me over. I don't recommend trying. I've had almost fifteen years to plan this, and I've spent every single day figuring out every single way to cover every single angle you could possibly play in this situation.

I recommend that you accept the offer. You'll enjoy preening at his words of praise, knowing that you won't actively have to kneel down and kiss his ass for at least another few days. Now, tell me that alone isn't worth twenty million dollars?

R.V.C.

Draco read over the letter once more, then put it down. With a sinking feeling, he realized that he knew what the initials stood for: Reina Valmontaire Castelar. A second later, it occurred to him that he knew what the insurance policy was, too. The date on the letter was May 20, just a few weeks before Thera had arrived at Malfoy Manor.

Prior to being murdered, Thera's mother had tried to sell her out.

His first instinct was to burn the letter and pretend he'd never seen it. Frankly, he wished quite fervently that he hadn't seen it. He didn't want this kind of knowledge, especially since he hadn't the first clue what to do with it, or if he should even do anything at all.

It occurred to Draco that he was in the middle of a moral quandary, and was not in any way equipped to resolve it. Perhaps, like the Swiss, Gryffindors had their uses, too.

Picking up the mirror, he sought out the Goodest Of Them All himself. Potter answered after a few minutes, his nose bright pink with sunburn. "I'm here. What is it?"

"How familiar are you with Thera's feelings regarding her mother?"

The Gryffindor eyed him a bit worriedly. "Not very."

Draco was not particularly comforted. "Well, if - for instance - you were to find out that at the time of her death, Thera's mother was planning to hand her over to the Dark Lord in exchange for money, would you tell her about it?"

Potter blinked slowly. "What?"

Draco sighed. "I was going through some of my father's old correspondence and I found this." He read the note aloud.

"I don't suppose it could be from somebody else?" Potter asked hopefully.

"You mean somebody else with those same initials who had a daughter the Dark Lord wanted and was willing to use her as a bargaining chip? I kind of doubt it."

Potter looked distinctly miserable. "I suppose she deserves to know."

Draco glared at him. "Oh, does she? Then how about you tell her?"

"You're the one who found the letter."

"You're the one she's sleeping with."

"What on earth does that have to do with anything?"

"I'd likely be an insensitive ass about it."

"Yes, and we both know she'd probably prefer that."

"I'm the one who's going to be stuck dealing with her for the rest of the holiday after she finds this out," he protested. "The least you can do is be the one to break it to her."

Potter winced at that. "You have no intention of telling her," he realized.

"She'd just get upset," Draco said, uncomfortable with this whole situation.

"I don't know if she would or not, honestly," Potter confessed.

"I personally can't see why this little revelation should come as any sort of surprise to her. But it would, I think. Thera seems fairly blind where her mother's concerned."

"I can't really tell," Potter said, wincing a little. "On the one hand, she's pretty up-front about the fact that her mother was an unbalanced, ice-cold bitch. On the other hand, I think she believes her mother was just trying to do what she thought was right, in her own twisted sort of way."

Draco wondered what vignettes Potter had heard, if they fell along the same spectrum as the ones he had. "The woman used her for target practice," he said in a flat voice.

The corners of Potter's mouth tightened. "She doesn't see it that way, though. She gave me a whole big speech about Death Eater child rearing, and how that's just the way things are done with you lot."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?" That was news.

"Using Unforgivables," Potter explained. "That it's how pureblood families do things."

"Thera hasn't the first bloody clue how pureblood families do things."

Potter raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Why am I not surprised that she lied about that?"

"I doubt she did," Draco said. "Or at least, I doubt she knew it was a lie," he qualified. "It's perfectly acceptable to use Unforgivables on your children if they've disgraced the family in some heinous way, or are about to. Throwing them around for the sake of entertainment isn't exactly recommended. You could ruin a perfectly good heir. Actually, that explains quite a bit about Thera, now that I think about it."

"Lovely," Potter bit out. "You're a right fucked up bunch, you know that?"

"Don't talk about things you don't understand, Cupboard Boy," he replied coolly. "Or would you prefer to address the issue of Unforgivables with Thera while you're destroying whatever remaining illusions she holds regarding the woman who raised her? After all, we wouldn't want her walking away with the impression that her mother merely didn't give a shit about her when the likely truth is that the woman actively hated her."

"Shit," the Gryffindor said, squeezing his eyes shut. "This is awful. Why did you even tell me this, if you already knew you weren't going to let her know about it?"

Draco thought about that for a moment. "Because I didn't know I wasn't going to let her know about it until I told you," he admitted.

"It's horrible to let her keep believing a pack of lies."

Draco laughed humorlessly. "Like the truth is any more palatable?"

"True, but..." Potter cut off immediately when someone pounded on the door. Considering there was only one person it could be, Draco swore under his breath. Thera always did have the most abominable timing.

"Go away. I'm busy," he called to the door.

"I've heard every word you've said anyway, so you might as well let me in."

Draco spent a moment in shock, then felt his hands tighten in anger as he stalked over to the door and threw it open. Thera was standing there holding one of the receivers they'd used when they'd bugged Shirag Castle, her face white with fury.

"I cannot fucking believe you," he hissed, ripping the receiver out of her hand and throwing it on the floor. Then he stomped on it a few times for good measure.

"Go right ahead," she said calmly. "I have plenty of others."

Standing up, Draco towered over her. "You utter fucking bitch."

Thera tilted her head back to look at him, that certain, specific, extremely dangerous look in her eye. "It's not my fault you've let your anti-surveillance charms lapse since your father died. I knew you'd try some shit like this sooner or later. Give me the letter."

Potter was saying something in the background, and Draco realized he was still holding the mirror. Slowly, he put it down and eventually the noise ceased. Probably for the best. He didn't need the Golden Boy to witness him engaging in a spot of spousal abuse, especially if it didn't quite end up going his way. There weren't many things more embarrassing than getting knocked around by a ninety-pound girl.

"You think I'm conspiring against you or something? You honestly fucking think that after all this time? When have I ever given you the slightest hint that I would do that?"

"Yeah, Draco," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "That's what I'm afraid of."

"Then what? Just bored and feeling in a particularly backstabbing mood?"

"No. I was worried about shit like this, about you not telling me things I've every right to know. Now give me the fucking letter before I lose the extremely tenuous grip I have on my temper and spend the time between now and when I can't move my arms any longer trying my best to claw both of your eyes out."

Considering her own eyes were nearly popping out of her skull and he had a tracking charm on her that she didn't know about, it dawned on him that perhaps a discussion about the trust issues in their relationship might best be left for another time. Draco handed her the letter, taking a few steps back just in case.

She read through it, her face unchanging. "It's her handwriting," she said in a deflated, clinical voice. Then she pulled out her wand and used the three different authentication spells used by the Ministry on important documents.

Draco couldn't see the results, but considering she carefully folded the letter up and put it in her pocket instead of balling it up and throwing it at him - or worse - he didn't need to be told what they were.

"Uh, Malfoy?" Potter's voice sounded from the mirror. "Or Thera. Whichever one of you is still standing, I suppose..."

"Pick it up," she ordered him. "I want to talk to both of you."

Almost without thinking, he reached over, his fingers curling around the handle of the mirror. Potter's face appeared, looking wary. "Malfoy, what's..."

"Shut up," Thera said, crossing her arms tightly. "You two have already said plenty. Now it's my turn."

"Thera, listen..." Potter tried.

"Shut. Up," she bit out, her voice rising. Potter let out a little sigh, but complied. "I don't want your fucking apologies. If you want to psychoanalyze me behind my back, go right ahead. But this overprotective older brother shit ends now. I survived fifteen years with this woman and a year and a half of the fucking Dark Lord without either of you idiots around to hold my hand, and I certainly don't need you around to do it now. I realize you both have good intentions. What I'd like you both to do right now is cram them up your ass. Don't ever presume to make a decision for me again. Now back the fuck off and leave me alone."

Thera turned and left the room, the temperature of which seemed to have dropped a few degrees. "Well, at least now we don't have to decide whether we're going to tell her or not," Draco said weakly.

*******

Being a Slytherin and thus capable of looking past words to focus on subtle clues in order to get a sense of what a person actually meant by them, Draco was able to correctly interpret 'back the fuck off and leave me alone' as actually meaning 'when I think I can see your face without ramming my fist into it, I'll come find you.' Being a Gryffindor, and thus immune to even the bluntest verbal baseball bat over the head, Harry incorrectly interpreted it as actually meaning 'I just need a few hours to cool down...call me later?' Thera had finally been forced to conjure up a box, soundproof the living crap out of it, put the mirror inside and bury it at the back of her closet.

Thera had always wondered why Reina had decided to take an infant along on her global misadventures. Her mother had hardly been stoical about it. Once she'd been dragged back to Britain, Thera had wondered if her mother had known about the spell, and if so, why she hadn't seen fit to let her daughter in on that nasty little piece of information. And now she had her answers.

That was what Draco and Harry couldn't understand, Thera supposed. She wasn't angry, because it wasn't a betrayal, not really. Reina had always told her to watch her back. Reina had never promised that she'd never stick a knife in it if she had to. Like Draco said, she shouldn't be surprised. The fact that she was - that was her own fault.

Reina was a shark, and any shark will bite your leg off if you're dumb enough to let your leg stray into its path. That was what sharks did. That was how they survived. That didn't mean they felt any particular sort of hatred for the leg. It was just food. And it was stupid to hate a shark for acting like a shark, especially when it's not like the shark had ever put on a disguise and tried to convince you it was just a harmless bunny rabbit...

Thera wondered if extended animal metaphors were their own specific form of denial.

Was it even denial? She couldn't tell, honestly.

She couldn't tell a lot of things, like why - if she completely understood Reina's justifications - the situation was fucking with her so much. Or maybe, she thought with a tingling sort of dread, what's fucking with you so much is the fact that you do completely understand her justifications. Maybe what's fucking with you so much is the fact that you know you should be angry about it.

Thera sat down hard on the floor of her bedroom and put a hand to her chest, where her breath seemed to have gotten caught, and frozen. Something welled up in her, some tight, intolerable sensation that made her want to cry and scream and beat her fists against something, and then it exploded out of her in a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and she could breathe again. More importantly, she could see the utter stupidity of the thought. What was the point in getting angry at a dead woman?

There wasn't any. You couldn't get revenge on dead people. You could just make paltry little gestures that didn't even make you feel any better, like flushing their remains down the toilet. That memory made the sensation return, and though it wasn't as bad as before, it didn't go away, either. It churned around inside her, sweeping her away whenever she tried to reach out and grab hold of something to stabilize herself. Why had she done it, then? Knowing it wouldn't make any difference, knowing Reina wouldn't even know or care about it, and knowing it wasn't going to make she herself feel any better, why the fuck had she done it?

Thera expected the sensation to well up out of her again, but it didn't. Instead it deepened, sinking hooks into every part of her, digging in and hunching down and forcing her to admit that she knew the answer, even if she hadn't known it at the time of Reina's burial at sea. She'd done it because once upon a time during those halcyon days at Hogwarts, she'd begun to entertain the possibility that her mother might not have known everything, that Reina's Rules For Life might have a kernel or two of bullshit in them. The sensation seemed to like this train of thought, and dug its claws in deeper.

Tired of fighting with herself, Thera sighed and let it, drawing up her knees and wrapping her arms around them. Some sense of rationality began to return. She'd read plenty of psychology textbooks. She knew what she was and what was going on here, and ignoring it wasn't going to do her any good. It wouldn't go away now, no matter how much she howled inside at the soppy treacliness of it all. The last illusion had been ripped apart and the mewling little voice that sprang up in its absence wasn't going to shut up until it had its say.

She'd flushed Reina down the toilet because she'd wanted to be Thera, and not Thera acting the part of The Second Coming of Reina. She'd done it because not a kernel or two, but a good fucking portion of what Reina had beaten into her head was bullshit. She'd done it because even if her mother had trained her since birth to be able to survive the role she'd eventually have to play in the Dark Lord's madcap attempt to rule the world, she'd only taught her how to survive it, not to get through it with any portion of her soul intact, assuming that was even possible.

"Fuck no," Thera whispered, gritting her teeth and trying with every fiber of her being to make the whiny fucking voice shut up. But it had broken free now, and it was a sadistic little bastard, and it wasn't going to shut up until it completely tore her to shreds and did a victory dance on top of what was left.

She'd done it because once upon a time when she was young and defenseless, she'd believed every word Reina said. And every time Reina had fucked with her or cursed her or neglected her, following it up with her standard justification: 'This is for your own good,' Thera had bought it, and been satisfied. And some tiny part of her had twisted the meaning of those words into the ones it secretly wanted to hear and then held them close and protected them and nourished them. As she grew and figured thing out, that tiny part got shut away and ignored, but it had never actually ceased to exist, because even if the rest of her knew what was what, that tiny part had continued wanting and needing and whole host of other ridiculous fucking shit.

She'd done it because once upon a time, in an embarrassingly uncomplicated manner, she'd loved her mother, and her mother hadn't loved her back.

"Oh, blurgh. Honestly," Thera said, feeling nauseous, her arms loosening their hold on her legs, all of the muscles in her body going slack. She lay on her back in the middle of the floor and took a moment to be utterly and completely fucking disgusted with herself. Then she tried to look on the bright side. At least the annoying, childlike little voice had finally shut up. And even if she'd never really desired to find out how pathetic she was capable of being, now she had. There couldn't be anything more pathetic than this.

Unable to shut her mind off, she lay there for a long time, the sensation that had brought all of this shit down on her head drawing back a little bit. The churning abated until it gently eddied just at the edges of her consciousness. Restless, she stood up and paced.

It didn't help much. If anything, it just made her more restless. She wanted to be able to take a step back and analyze what was going on with her, but she couldn't. There was just too much, and she was too close to all of it to be able to see anything clearly. She really needed to talk to someone, she realized. Someone who could make sense out of all of this in a way she couldn't. Preferably someone who wouldn't laugh in her face.

Growling at herself, pulling at her hair, Thera tried to hold on to the last piece of her pride and didn't quite manage it. She was sick of being alone, sick of feeling like some pathetic princess locked up in a tower, sick of talking to Draco and Harry over the mirror, and having it be the fucking highlight of her day. She wanted to be with someone else, to reassure herself that other people existed, that she bloody well existed.

She was halfway to Draco's room when she realized that he wouldn't be there. It was Christmas Eve, or - more precisely - very early Christmas day. He'd left for Saint Tropez already, to visit his mother and grandparents. Swearing, Thera turned and kicked the hallway wall, stubbing her toe. Swearing some more - this time at the top of her lungs - she sat down and rubbed her sore toe furiously, indulging in a few moments of self-pity. She didn't want Draco anyway. She wanted somebody who'd hug her and pat her on the back and tell her everything would be fine, and sound believable doing it.

She wanted Harry.

Good thing that her last shred of pride was already gone, or she'd never have been able to admit such a desire to herself, much less follow through on it. He had guests. He might be busy. He might be asleep. She listed all of these reasons to herself as she hobbled back to her room. Every single one bounced right off of her. The floo at Malfoy Manor was untracked. The Dark Lord had basically forgotten about her existence.

She dug the mirror out of the back of her closet, feeling nervous and a little giddy, as if she were sneaking out after curfew. Reina would never do something like this, she knew.

Yeah, well, she told herself, Reina's not in charge around here anymore.

*******

Harry braced himself for Thera's arrival, not really knowing what he was in for with her emotions. She'd seemed okay over the mirror, but with Thera, you never really knew. He was more than a little surprised, then, when she flooed in with little emotional fanfare at all. He initially figured it for numbness, but it wasn't, really. It was more...weary, he supposed, the way you get after a very long day, when you're really just too worn out to work up the energy necessary to be angry about anything. If was like scooping old ashes out of a fireplace and sifting them through your fingers.

The analogy fit, even if it worried him a little bit. Having someone else's emotions whirling around in his head was starting to turn him flowery.

"Hi," she said, looking over at him, smiling slightly, and the edges of the dull gray lightened a little bit, like...Harry bit his lip and forcibly clamped down on all similes.

"Hi," he said, feeling the sudden awkward desire to do something with his hands. He tried to shove them in his pockets, realized that the shorts he was wearing had none, put them on his hips, threw off the stance as being too confrontational and finally toyed with the edges of his t-shirt. "So how are you?"

He knew it was the wrong question to ask as soon as it came out of his mouth. Thera was momentarily vulnerable, and yet she'd sought him out to talk instead of doing what she usually did in moments of vulnerability, which was...well, in any case, it was a display of trust on her part. One that, on his part, required the sort of careful, gentle movements generally reserved for trained professionals trying to disable a bomb.

And instead, he'd just ripped out all the wires on the thing and hoped for the best. Nice work, there, Potter, he congratulated himself.

A tendril of blackness shot through the gray. "Fucking fantastic," she answered. "You?" Before he could answer, she squeezed her eyes shut and the blackness faded. "Sorry."

"It's okay," he said, watching her. "It was a dumb thing to say."

Thera shook her head and looked away, everything inside her shifting angrily even while her outside remained completely blank. She did that without even thinking, he realized. It was so ingrained it had become automatic. For all the world, she looked mildly bored.

Harry just waited. She had something to say. She'd say it when she was ready. It didn't take as long as he thought it would, frankly.

"You know how you said once that your conscience sounds like Granger?"

Harry nodded.

"Mine sounds like Reina," she said flatly.

He absorbed that. "If that's true, I seriously doubt it's your conscience talking."

"It is," she said. "It's still a sense of right and wrong. It just exists on a different moral spectrum. One more akin to your average serial killer than..."

"That's not true and you know it," he cut her off. "You have a conscience, Thera. Sometimes you even let yourself listen to it. And it has nothing to do with your mother."

"I see," she said, smirking a little. "So my conscience is that voice that sounds like you."

Harry wasn't quite sure what to make of that. "I don't know. Is it?"

Thera shrugged, looking away again. "Maybe. It's the only time I ever stop and think, when I hear that voice. I used to find it pretty fucking annoying, to be honest. But now I wonder if it hasn't been trying to get me to see the truth the whole time. I used to believe that I was thinking all the time, that sometimes I even thought too much, but I wasn't thinking, not really. I was just translating everything into Reina's fucking philosophy of life, so her voice could shut yours up and tell me what to do. My conscience."

"So you figure you're better off listening to...uh...me?" he asked. "Is that it?"

"Well, it would be nice to listen to myself for a change," she said dryly. "But since myself doesn't know what the fuck to do anymore, I guess I'll settle for you."

"Right. What am I telling you to do, exactly?"

"That's the problem. I can't..." she cut herself off, running a hand down her face. "She made me what I am, for better or worse. And I wouldn't be standing here right now, with you, if it weren't for her. I'd be cowering, all 'Yes, Master' and whatever, and...okay, I actually do that anyway. I guess I mean that I'd be just another Death Eater, then. No different from the rest."

"Okay," Harry said, nodding as if he understood.

"I owe her," she said. "I just want to clarify that."

"You owe her?" he asked, couldn't help but ask. "In what universe is that true?"

Thera made a frustrated noise. "I just explained that. Merlin, are you even fucking paying attention?"

"Yes, I am. But if you explained how you possibly owe her for anything, I didn't get it."

"She knew about the spell," Thera said, crossing her arms. "She knew what was coming. She was just trying to prepare me for it."

There were times when one needed to be kind with the truth, to dance around a subject, or even tell a white lie if necessary. This was not one of those times, Harry felt.

"So selling you to Lucius Malfoy was all part of that, right? Just another lesson?"

"More like a pop quiz," Thera said, grimacing. "I should've been prepared for it. If I'd known about the spell, I would've been. Probably why she never told me about it."

It occurred to Harry that he shouldn't be shocked by revelations like this anymore. Slytherins as a whole tended to display a complete lack of faith in the motivations of their fellow human beings. Of course, in Thera's case, she was generally right in doing so.

She sat down on his bed, brow furrowed, the gray of her emotions pulsing in annoyance. "I didn't come here to talk about that."

"What did you come here for, then?" he asked. He already knew the answer, and already knew he was going to oblige her. But he wasn't about to broach the topic. If she wanted him to remove the chastity bond, then she was going to have to ask him to do it. Sure, it was petty, especially given the circumstances. Harry found that he really didn't care.

"Because I didn't know what else to do," she said, curling forward, sinking her head into her arms as the gray turned darker and began swirling and howling, lashing out. "And I thought you could help me, but it's like waking up from a dream. Ten minutes ago, this all made complete and total sense to me. It was so clear. But now it's all gone, and I don't know what the fuck I'm even talking about anymore. Oh, forget it," she muttered, uncurling herself and standing up. "I'll talk to you later."

He intercepted her on the way to the floo, his hands on her shoulders. He didn't particularly want to do it, but he wasn't about to let her leave in her current state. "I'll let you out of the chastity bond, okay? You don't have to get all worked up about it."

Thera looked up at him, black eyes in a face gone stark white. "That's the problem," she whispered. "I don't want you to let me out of it. I don't fucking trust myself anymore."

Harry stared at her for several long moments. "I thought you said you didn't want us making your decisions for you."

Her eyes marrowed. "And I don't," she snapped. "This is different."

"What is this?" he asked desperately. "What's different?"

Thera dropped her head forward. Whether it was a gesture of defeat or weariness he couldn't tell, and her emotions were just a whirling mass of black...

Fear. It was thick and oily and made no sense whatsoever to Harry. "Thera..."

"I did the same thing Reina did when I sold you out to the Ministry. I didn't even think; I never seem to think, and then I end up doing what she would've done. I don't know how to not be like that. But I'd like to try, and I thought you could help me."

She was breathing heavy by the end, her voice was low and shaky. Harry didn't know if she was crying or trying very hard not to, but it was certainly better than hysterical laughter. The tangle of emotions was starting to make his head hurt. "Help you how?"

"By using the entailment."

Those words got through loud and clear. Harry took a step back. "What?"

Thera raised her head, her emotions calming, solidifying, hardening into resolve. "You can order me not to betray you. I think I'd feel better if you did, frankly."

"If you recall, I promised not to use the entailment unless it was absolutely necessary."

"Yes. This is absolutely necessary. Thera 1.0 is dead and buried. Thera 2.0 is in control now, new and improved and sick of dead people and reptiles telling her what to do."

Harry shook his head, trying to find the words to explain why that felt so utterly wrong to him. "I'm not going to order you to do something like that."

"It's practically the same thing as a loyalty oath."

"Loyalty is a choice," he bit out. "This isn't."

She crossed her arms, composed again. It was as if the last few minutes had never happened, as if her previous emotions had just been wiped completely out of her head. "I'm choosing for you to order me to do something, and if you ever want to know how messed up our relationship really is, just think about that statement for a moment. In any case, I'm doing this of my own free will."

Harry snorted. "You're doing it because you're scared."

"Of course I'm fucking scared, Harry. You know how high the stakes are. You know that if he really wanted to, the Dark Lord could get me to tell him everything I know. You're not the only one who'd be hurt by that. If we really think the entailment can trump the spell, this could prevent that from happening."

"I thought you said you didn't want to do what your mother would do anymore."

Thera looked amused. "You think Reina would cut off an avenue of escape like this? Prevent the possibility of ratting you out if it could help her in some way?"

Harry swore. "You know, I'm really, really glad I never met your mother."

"So am I," Thera said honestly. "Now stop changing the subject."

"I'm not sure it's not all the same subject," he said, running an aggravated hand through his hair. "She's all part of this, too. Weren't you the one who said that war wasn't the time for in-depth self-evaluation?"

"Yes, I did," she admitted. "Unfortunately, sometimes we don't get a fucking choice in the matter. And I also said that war was about doing whatever you have to do to win, which is what I'm asking you to do, if you haven't noticed."

"I don't want to be responsible for you getting hurt," he said tightly.

"Same back at you. Only add in your friends, the Order, millions of innocent people..."

Harry gave up. "I order you to never betray me to Voldemort. Happy now?"

It seemed to jolt her a little bit. Thera's eyes went out of focus for a moment and she shook her head as if to clear it. "Relieved is more like it." She did, too, Harry noticed. All of her emotions were lighter, swirling gently. Warm.

"Well, I'm glad," he said flatly. "Because I feel like the biggest asshole ever."

*******

Thera felt almost giddy with relief. No, it was more than relief. Everything seemed sharper, more in focus. Reina would never have done what she'd just done. Hell, three months ago, she herself wouldn't have. But it felt good. Liberating. Almost hopeful.

She knew it wouldn't last, that she'd lose her focus again. Probably on a daily basis, if not an hourly one. But...well, at least she'd fucking done something.

Thera rolled her eyes at Harry's sulky tone. "You're not an asshole. I told you to do it."

"I didn't say I was an asshole. I said I felt like one."

"Tightly clenched and continuously shat on?" she asked, grinning at him.

He glared at her. "Nice to know that Thera 2.0 is just as big a smart ass as Thera 1.0."

"New and improved," she reminded him. "Twice the smart ass."

"Let the world beware," he said dryly. "I don't like doing that, and you know it."

"Doing what?"

"Using the entailment," Harry said harshly. "Acting like Voldemort would. Consider him my Reina. Regardless of what you think, I don't always know what's right. I don't always choose what's right. And I do know that sometimes I have to choose the lesser of two evils. That doesn't mean I like the fact that I have to choose evil at all."

Thera's good mood dissipated instantly. "Harry, I wasn't trying to..."

He winced. "No, Thera. Don't do that. I wasn't blaming you. It's my own...oh, damn it." He reached up under his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "You know what sucks even more than choosing the lesser of two evils? Choosing what's right when you know it's going to suck, and it would be much easier to choose the other way."

"Yes, the easy path and all that," she said. "Dumbledore loves that shit."

"He's right," Harry said, turning anxious, slightly bleary green eyes on her.

"He probably is. But he also probably owes George Lucas royalties for it."

"Don't joke," he said desperately. "I won't do this if you joke, and then I'll hate myself."

"Okay," she said. Then, "Do what?"

"The entailment gave me empathy." Harry brushed the back of his hand across his scar, watching her warily.

Thera stared at him. "Empathy," she said with no inflection whatsoever.

"Not for everybody," he said quickly. "Just you, and not even all the time at that. I mean, not when we're talking over the mirror or anything. Just when we're together."

"Like right now," she felt the need to clarify.

"Yeah. Although you're not really...the guilt is gone now, which is good. It's all awful and sticky, like tar. Now you're just...surprised," he said after a thoughtful moment. "Which is good, I guess. It could be worse."

"Yes, it could," she said. "I could be enraged. Due to the fact that you haven't seen fit to tell me about this until now." Merlin, she'd just practically had a nervous breakdown in front of him, and the last time they'd been together, right after the entailment, she'd gotten positively gooey about the whole thing, and he'd known that, felt all of it. The humiliation that had been creeping up on her turned swiftly into anger.

"I didn't tell you because I'd knew you'd be like this about it," he said, almost pleading.

"I think I have every right to be like this about it," she hissed.

Harry took a step forward again. "I know you're angry."

A humorless laugh burst out of her. "Yeah, you do."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, okay?"

"Well, at least you recognize that you should have."

"Yes, I should have. I'm sorry. But I didn't ask for this. I didn't know it was part of the entailment. And believe me, I'm as weirded out by it as you are."

"I don't think that's possible."

"You don't have anything to be embarrassed about," Harry said. Thera fixed him with a look and he gave in. "Okay, I'll admit I'd be just as embarrassed if I were in your shoes. But I promise I'm not going to tell anyone about anything, or use it against you."

"Of course you wouldn't," Thera said tiredly. "That's not the problem and you know it."

Harry sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, shut up. It's not your fault. That's the shittiest thing. I can't even be angry with you about the fact that it exists, and you're right here, all convenient to be angry at."

"You can be angry at me," he said, "if it'll make you feel better."

Thera glared at him. "Don't do that."

"What?"

"Act like a bloody doormat. I really fucking hate it when you do that."

"I'm not acting like a doormat," he argued, his face turning stubborn.

"Really? 'Take your anger out on me even though I don't deserve it?' Sounds like doormat talk to me."

"Doormats don't talk," he snapped.

"Yes, they do. They say 'Are you done wiping your feet on me yet? No? Oh, well then, just let me know when you are. Is there anything else I can do for you?' Merlin's balls, Harry. I'm hardly the only person here with issues."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Oh, do shut up, Thera."

"Now, that's more like it. Stand up for yourself, Potter. Don't let me push you around."

"I already told you. I don't let people push me around."

As far as Thera was concerned, Harry had more than a few blind spots. One of them was her, she supposed, but she certainly wasn't the only one. "What about Dumbledore?"

"Dumbledore?" Harry laughed. "Dumbledore hardly pushes people around."

"He left you with your bloody relatives, didn't he? And kept sending you back there, even though he knew what a pack of assholes they were."

"Yeah, because he had to," Harry said. "Blood protection."

"For you and them, I'd wager," she said, crossing her arms, astonished at how satisfied she'd feel pounding the old man's face in. "Think a bunch of Muggles can slap around a magical child and throw him in a cupboard without him defending himself magically? Funny how they're alive and well and not a trio of stains on the carpet, isn't it?"

"That was part of the bargain," he explained. "They wouldn't take me in otherwise."

"Well, that worked out well for everybody, then," she spat. "The Dursleys are still poisoning the world with their existence and Dumbledore got the meek little self-sacrificing hero he wanted. Oh, wait. Didn't work out so well for you, did it?"

He just stared at her. "You're really angry about this." Well, he would know.

Thera threw up her hands. "Somebody should be!"

Harry smiled in a way that made her want five minutes alone in a room with the Headmaster of Hogwarts and a pair of pliers. "Bit of a parallel, isn't it?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"It'd be a lot healthier if you took all your anger at Dumbledore and the Dursleys and directed it at Reina, and if I took all my anger at Reina and directed it at Dumbledore and the Dursleys, wouldn't it?"

Thera thought about that for a second. "Probably. Not going to happen, I have a feeling." Sighing, she sat down on the bed. "Why the hell are you angry at Reina? She never did anything to you."

Harry gave her a look. "Why are you angry at Dumbledore and the Dursleys?"

"Oh," she said, feeling itchy and uncomfortable with the realization, even as she admitted that it was probably part of the reason she'd come here. She couldn't be uncomplicatedly angry with Reina. Harry could. And as nice as it felt to know that someone was, they were straying into uncharted territory of the dark, scary, potentially hazardous variety.

"This is a relationship, isn't it?" she asked in a complete non sequitor, her voice stripped of emotion, mostly because she hadn't the first clue which emotion was warranted.

"I don't know," Harry said, eyes wide, his expression a mix of intentness and innocent curiosity that she'd come to view as uniquely Harry-ish. He could probably live to be a hundred, Thera thought, and still be able to pull off that look.

"Maybe Witch Weekly has a test we can take," she suggested.

"Definitely twice the smart ass," Harry said, directing his eyes to the ceiling.

"Oh, honestly," she scoffed. "Like you don't know who you're dealing with here. If you're just staying in this relationship in the hopes of changing me, then you really do need to start reading Witch Weekly. Those things never work out."

Harry lowered his eyes to her, his face stretching into a smile. "You great, huge phony."

Thera blinked at him. "Huh?"

"Blah, blah sarcasm," he said, smiling wider. "You like me. A lot. A whole lot."

It occurred to her - belatedly - that he could pick up on that. Her first instinct was to shut her brain down, tell him off and leave. However, Thera 2.0 was beginning to realize that if she didn't want to end up turning into a clone of Reina, her best option was to go the George Costanza route and do the exact opposite of her first instinct.

Which was owning up to it, she supposed. "Yeah, I do."

Harry looked surprised and pleased. Having had very few opportunities to see anything she said or did invoke that kind of reaction, Thera couldn't help but enjoy it, which made Harry enjoy it even more, because he knew she enjoyed it, which made her...

At some point, she'd stood up and he'd stepped forward and they were kissing, only it was hardly even kissing, or at least that was certainly secondary. Most of it was her arms around his neck and his arms around her waist, both so tight that her feet left the floor. Thera made a noise into his mouth, wrapping her legs around him, and he made a noise back into hers and sort of dove forward with both of them onto the bed. He landed on top of her and their teeth and lips mashed together painfully.

"Ow," Harry said, drawing back and pressing a hand to his lip. "Sorry."

"Unh," she replied, shifting so that his hipbone wasn't digging into her thigh.

Snogging resumed, both of them panting and kissing, hands pulling clothes off with a violence that had been decidedly absent from the Troy and Cathy encounters. Every single day she'd gone without sex suddenly seemed like a bloody eternity, and all of the frustration that hadn't been exorcised by the respectably large collection of erotica in the Malfoy library was now pooling nice and low in her body, right where it should.

Harry stood up, pulling her to the edge of the bed, panting and looking down at her with wide, dazed green eyes, glasses slightly askew. Thera pulled her legs up and sank her fingernails into his ass, closing her eyes. Here it comes. Finally.

"Thera," he whispered shakily. She opened her eyes, gritting her teeth. What kind of fucking moron would try to talk to her right now? "I just...I mean, with the chastity bond and everything...it's still there, is all I'm saying...so if this isn't...um, you know..."

Thera sat up on her elbows, consciously pulled out every ounce of desire and every last tidbit of irritation at him for stopping and mentally threw it in his direction.

Harry blinked, staggering a little. "Ah," he said faintly. "I...okay."

She sent him a pointed look and lay back down. Without hesitation, he came inside, his fingers digging into her hips, her hands fastening around his wrists, riding higher and higher, the orgasm building in her nice and steady, Harry holding everything in with a great deal of lip-biting and grunting. And then it exploded, and Harry practically collapsed on top of her, his hand tangling in her hair, his face slick with sweat, stubble scratching her forehead, his weight forcing the breath out of her.

Relationship sex, Thera decided, had potential.

*******

Vaguely, like a shout heard in the distance, Harry wondered if Thera could breathe. Her hair was soft against his cheek, her face pressed into his neck. He lifted his head, still catching his breath. Thera opened her eyes, dark and utterly fathomless in the low light, her emotions a low, contented hum in his mind.

Harry tried to think of something to say, couldn't, and made to move away.

Thera locked her legs and arms around him. "Give it a minute. We're not done yet."

"I'm done," he said firmly.

A dirty smile crossed her face. Harry groaned, wondering if another go wouldn't kill him. "Don't argue with the expert," she chided him.

"Oh, shit," Harry breathed as she squeezed him in a way that gave his member unrealistic expectations of what the rest of his body was currently capable of doing. "I don't think my legs work any longer."

"That's why," Thera panted, bracing her feet on the bed and turning them over in a way that caused him to seriously respect her flexibility, "there are two of us."

She was now on top of him, her hands braced on either side of his head, her hair hanging down, brushing his shoulders and cheeks.

It was slower than the first time, less frantic. There were certain perks to being with a girl like Thera, and one of them was that she was very, very good at this. The end result was just as satisfying. She sprawled out on his chest, their skin sticking together, her breath ghosting across his skin. Harry knew he had a soppy, dazed smile on his face and didn't particularly care. "I'm a lucky man."

She chuckled weakly. "At least in this sense you are."

"The rest of it's not so bad, either."

Thera hummed, raising her head to look at him speculatively. "You do know what we're getting into here, right?"

"We have plenty of time to rehash it all," he said. "We hardly have to do it now."

The rush of emotions from her were cut off too quickly for him to identify any of them. Thera gave a short nod, kissed him briefly and peeled herself off of him.

"I felt that, you know. What was it?" he asked, sitting up and watching her get dressed.

She pulled her shirt on. "Me going against my instincts."

He eyed her curiously. "Is that what this whole thing has been?"

"Pretty much," she said, with a wry little smile that made something in his chest shake loose and break free. Thera didn't give herself enough credit, sometimes. She was who she was in spite of her mother as much as because of her.

Dumbledore got the meek little self-sacrificing hero he wanted. Harry frowned, rubbing his hand absently across his scar. He never really knew what to do with thoughts like that. Be angry? He could, he supposed. Even Dumbledore would probably say that he deserved to be. But it wasn't that simple, and he knew it. Moreover, being angry was...draining. Tiring. He'd never see the Dursleys again; it was all over and done with.

All the same, he really wished he'd never heard her say that.

His shorts hitting him in the face made him look up. "Stop thinking. You're a Gryffindor. It looks painful," she said, pulling her hair back into a ponytail.

"I thought people in relationships cuddled after sex," he said, standing so he could put on his shorts.

"Yet another question we'd probably need Witch Weekly to answer." With a kiss and a swirl of fire, Thera was gone, leaving Harry feeling like unfinished business.

He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, then got dressed, walking out to the pool, feeling restless and increasingly philosophical. And not just a little bit self-pitying.

*******

Fox glanced over in surprise as she heard the door to the pool open, footsteps approaching in its wake. She knew it was Harry before he even came into view, his presence familiar enough now that she could tell when he was nearby. That still didn't explain why he was wandering around in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve.

He obviously didn't notice her lying still and silent on one of the lounges in the corner as he walked up to the pool and sat down on the edge, dangling his feet in the water and dropping his head, frowning pensively. Fox pressed her lips together in helpless frustration. Would the kid never learn?

"Stupefy," she muttered, bracing herself to jump into the water after him.

Instead, Harry dove to the side to avoid the spell, throwing a binding curse on her that dissolved on contact. "I knew something wasn't right out here," he said, lifting himself up painfully from the concrete, righting his glasses and scowling at her. "Must you jump out of shadows at me during Christmas holidays?"

"Don't leave yourself open like that, and I won't," she said, sitting up. "What are you doing awake anyway? Shouldn't you be in bed waiting for Santa Claus?"

"Father Christmas," Harry said dryly, squelching over and plopping down on the lounge next to her, cradling his left elbow. "And I never believed in him, anyway. Even if I were the devil's spawn himself, I think I'd have at least gotten a lump of coal."

"I'm surprised your relatives didn't give you one just to prove their point."

"That would involve spending money on me."

"Angry and bitter around the holidays," she mused, wrestling his left arm away from him and healing up the scrape. "Well, I can certainly get on that bandwagon."

Harry shot her a glance, and it struck her suddenly how different he was from the boy she'd met. He was still thin, and probably always would be, but he no longer looked weedy and undernourished. He'd never be physically imposing - if the top of his head ever reached her nose, she'd be surprised - but more than his magic made up for that. It was his entire demeanor, the easy confidence of his movements, the steadiness of his gaze, the sharp edge of awareness that vibrated almost unconsciously from him just underneath the average person's perception. He was more of a man than he realized.

It made her feel proud in a weirdly parental sort of way.

"Worst Christmas ever," he said, looking up at her, smiling faintly. "You go first."

"I don't have the capacity to get drunk enough for that conversation," she told him. "And you're certainly not drunk enough to have it. What's eating you?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, looking down. "It's been a really weird holiday."

Fox studied him. "Everybody's having a good time."

"I hope they are," he said automatically. "I hope you are, too."

She kept her eyes on him. He avoided them. "What did you do?" she asked, a note of warning in her voice.

Harry made an impatient sound. "I don't want to talk about it, okay? I'll tell you. Just not right now. Can't we just talk about something else?"

"Like what?"

He looked over at her. "Can I ask you something? I mean, will you answer honestly?"

Fox returned the look. "If I can."

Harry didn't look entirely appeased, despite the fact that it was the most honest answer he could've hoped for. "When do I get to finally go after Voldemort?"

"That depends," she answered carefully.

"On what? On me? What else is there to teach me that'll do any good? We both know the training's just supposed to help me protect myself so I can fight him. I'm not going to actually be able to defeat him with any of this."

"Probably not," she admitted. "But there are other things to consider."

"Like what?" he asked, practically begging.

"Like the spell," Fox said. "Ideally, Professor Wellbourne would find a way to counteract it before you go off to fight Voldemort."

"Ideally?"

"It's not a necessity. A lot of it has to do with you being ready, and despite what you think, you actually do still have a few more things you should learn before you charge off to fulfill your destiny, young Skywalker. Your animal transformations and your ability to defend against them are shit for someone with the kind of power you have."

"I'm sure in the heat of the moment, I'll be a lot more motivated to keep myself from being turned into a woodchuck," Harry said sarcastically. "But what do you mean, 'It's not a necessity?' I thought undoing the spell was high priority."

"It's not as high priority as you defeating Voldemort."

Harry sat up. "But what would happen, if we can't counteract the spell before then?"

"Considering he hasn't completed it? Nothing you need to worry yourself about."

"Don't fuck with me, Fox," he said, his voice more weary than confrontational. "If I'm putting off facing Voldemort for a reason, I'd like to at least know the reason."

"There isn't just one reason. Part of it is that Dumbledore's softhearted," she said. "He doesn't want to send you off to face Voldemort at all, so he keeps cooking up excuses to put it off. Beyond that, nobody knows what'll happen to the children in the spell if Voldemort's defeated. Maybe it'll be nothing. Maybe they'll keel over dead. Maybe some part of him will continue to exist through them. Either way, he wants to know."

"But you said it wasn't a necessity, figuring out the spell."

"It's not," Fox said. "If the opportunity arises and the Professor still hasn't figured it out, then you'll go after him, kick his ass, and we'll just have to see what happens."

Harry glanced at her. "No offense, but that's a pretty shitty plan."

"It's the best we can put together based upon the intelligence we have. Welcome to war. It's a much more half-assed endeavor than you thought it'd be, isn't it?"

He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, staring at the moonlight glinting off the waves in the pool for a few minutes. "I'd rather know," he said finally. "Even if it means waiting a little longer, I'd rather know."

Surprise, surprise. "I don't think Dumbledore needed your approval on the strategy, but I'm sure he'll appreciate it."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Maybe I can even get some help. Padma Patil's good at Arithmancy. Ron's girlfriend is, too. And Terry Boot. Can't hurt, I guess."

"Take it up with the Professor," Fox said dismissively.

He nodded. "You already know Thera was here, don't you?"

"Of course I did."

"I'm surprised you didn't storm in and kick her out."

"Believe me, I thought about it," Fox muttered.

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I knew she wasn't tracked. It's not my job to run your life, just to make sure you keep it. And whatever damage she's done in that department is already done."

He raised an eyebrow. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Don't play stupid. You've done that enough tonight. If we find that killing Voldemort means the children in the spell will all die, you're still going to have to kill him."

Harry swallowed, dropping his head, his hands clenching together. "I know."

Fox sat up, squeezing his shoulder. "I really hope that's not what happens, but if it does, don't look at it as a decision you have to make. You didn't cast the spell. You didn't put those kids in that position, and it's not your job to save them all. You can't. Your job is to kill Voldemort. The consequences of that are entirely out of your hands."

"I understand that," he said in a low voice. "It doesn't make it any better, though."

"No, I guess it doesn't," she sighed. "But we don't even know if it's going to play out like that. There's no point in worrying about it now."

"That's your problem with Thera, isn't it? You don't want me to get too attached."

Fox snorted. "That's just one of many reasons, believe me."

"What are the other ones?"

"How long do you have?"

Harry made an exasperated sound. "You act like I don't know what's going on at all, like I'm just wandering around with my head in the clouds, completely oblivious to reality. Well, I'm not. I know where this could end up. I'm not blind."

"I'm not saying you are," Fox said. Which she wasn't; she was just thinking it. "But even if everything goes perfectly with Voldemort and she doesn't end up in Azkaban, you're going to be worshiped by the magical world and she's going to be reviled. And the two of you are going to keep dating? Wait until the Daily Prophet gets wind of it."

"I'm not going to let the Daily fucking Prophet run my life," Harry bit out.

"That's admirable of you. What's her opinion on the matter?"

Harry's expression turned mulish. "There are a hundred reasons why this might not work out. I get that. Public opinion isn't going to be one of them. You just don't like her."

Fox shook her head. She really didn't want it to come to this, but he deserved to know. Not all of it, because she honestly didn't even know whether or not his Guardian power was driving this little romance or not, and there was no reason to tell him if it wasn't. If he defeated Voldemort and gave her back her power, then everything would go back to rights. On the other hand, she'd been inside the girl's head, and there were things that Thera Castelar likely didn't even know about herself. And if she did, she certainly wouldn't tell Harry about them.

"It's not her I object to. It's the fact that she's not exactly alone up here," she said, tapping her forehead. "And I'm not sure she's the main decision-maker, either."

"Yeah, the spell. Voldemort. I know," Harry snapped.

"I don't mean Voldemort. Her father and Bellatrix LeStrange had a soul-severing session and the results of it are running around her psyche. She's a fucking time bomb."

Harry stared at her. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"Voldemort's not the only person on this planet looking for immortality, not by a long shot. Most people just don't have the stomach to do what it takes to preserve a piece of themselves here. It's unnatural in the most basic way possible. Most cop out, settle for just creating an emanation, and hang around as ghosts. But some go all the way with it and preserve a piece of their soul. Usually they preserve it in an object. If they're sick enough, they can preserve it in another person. That person is your girlfriend. The two individuals sick enough to go that far are her father and Bellatrix LeStrange."

"How on earth would you even know that?" he asked.

Fox gave him a look. "I know."

"So...what are you saying, then? Thera's two-thirds evil?"

"It doesn't really work like that. It's not like she's got multiple personalities. They're mostly just passengers, really. Along for the ride. They can't make her go off on a killing spree or anything, but they can exert their influence in more subtle ways. Over time, they become fairly well entrenched. It's not exactly uncommon for people in her situation to just up and lose their shit entirely."

Harry swore and put his face in his hands. "Brilliant. This is just fucking brilliant. So this is why she's been having dreams about her father?"

"I doubt it," Fox said. "Generally, the person doesn't even know they're walking around with extraneous pieces of another person's soul glommed onto them, and even if they are, they're certainly not capable of separating it out and dreaming about it. Which is to say that they're probably just dreams."

He frowned a little at that, running a hand through his hair. "So how do you get them out? These...soul bits or whatever."

"You can't," Fox said. Then she amended, "Unless you kill her."

"But shouldn't you just be able to sever them off the way they did?"

"It's not like cutting off your hand. They're part of the whole now. When you sever off a piece of your soul, you basically just take out a representation of the whole. You can't choose which parts go and which parts stay."

"Okay," he said. "So what if we went with the killing route, then? With the spell, she'd come back. Wouldn't they just...dissipate or something?"

"That's not exactly a situation I'm familiar with, but I don't think so," she said slowly. "Like I said, they're part of the whole now. They've been there for a long time."

Harry let out a humorless laugh. "That's probably why they did it. Figuring he'd win, wanting to spend an eternity serving Voldemort through Thera. Lovely. And she...how the fuck am I supposed to tell her something like this?"

"That's not my department," Fox said, backing off. "I just thought you should know."

"And now I do," he said, standing up and brushing the conversation away with a small motion of his hand. "Thanks. I'm going to go upstairs and not sleep tonight, wondering at the depths of evil in my girlfriend. The girl I'm sleeping with. Whatever she is."

"Might want to clear that up," she said as they started back to the house.

"The last thing I want from you right now," he said sourly, "is relationship advice. Especially since you're all immortal being-ish. You don't even have relationships. You just prance about with Amina in string bikinis giving Elphias heart attacks."

Fox held no sympathy. "We're on the Riviera. Amina and I only wear tops out of respect for your Puritan sensibilities. Though I'll grant you I'm not big on relationships."

"And that," he said with a smug grin, "is why I don't ask for your advice about them."

Fox shoved him in the pool and kept on walking. "For the last fucking time, Harry, never leave your guard down," she admonished him over her shoulder.

*******

Hermione glanced up as her father knocked on her bedroom door and poked his head in. "Dinner's ready. Didn't you hear me calling?"

"No," she said, paging through her last stack of parchments, bound together neatly with a simple brown leather cover and gold script, making sure once again that everything was absolutely correct. "Sorry. I'll be down in a minute."

"You've been holed up here the whole holiday. What are you working on?" he asked curiously, ambling over to pick up one of her earlier stacks. "A Comprehensive Arithmantic, Magi-Historical and Practical Analysis of the Meaning of and Relationships Between the Numbers Six, Eight and Three: Part One," he read off the cover. "I'm so glad I'm not in school any longer."

"It's not for school," she said distractedly, waving her wand at a sentence, rearranging it to sound more direct.

"If you tell me that you're doing this for fun," he said seriously, "I'm going to go outside, make a snowball, come back up here and throw it at you. You're on holiday."

"I know that," she assured him. "It's for a job interview."

Her father looked at her for a moment. "I realize that I don't know much about the magical world, but what sort of job would possibly require you to know everything there is to know about the number six?"

"Unspeakable."

"I'll say."

She smiled up at him. "No, that's the job title. Unspeakables work in the Department of Mysteries, analyzing the true nature of magic." She hesitated. "Or something like that, at least. Nobody's sure exactly what they do except for them, because they're not allowed to talk about it. Hence, Unspeakables."

Her father snickered. "Department of Mysteries? Tell me, where is it located in relation to the Ministry of Silly Walks?"

"Two floors down," she breezed, adding the last book to the stack of them, thirty-three in all. Nobody would ever say that Hermione Granger was not a thorough researcher. She shrunk them, put them in her pocket with her wand and stood up. This was her last night at home before leaving for Hogwarts. Tyrone Flingleton had said that she'd next see him on the night before she returned. Hermione took a deep breath. She was ready. She was more than ready. She had over a thousand pages in her pocket, every single one of them not only intellectually sound and clear of typo's, but practically memorized by heart.

Her father led the way down the hallway, shaking his head. "I'll never get used to that, watching you just wave your wand and make something happen."

"It's a little weird for me, too, sometimes," she confessed, remembering her conversation with Malfoy. "Unlike most of the kids who were raised around it, I don't automatically think of how to solve every problem with magic. Seven years at Hogwarts, and I still occasionally think like a Muggle."

"Just like this," he said, waving a hand. "Look at you, wasting time using your legs to walk down the stairs when you could fly, or just disappear and reappear in the kitchen."

"Being magical isn't a license to be as lazy as you possibly can, Dad."

"It would be if I were magical."

Her mother called her name from the entryway, causing Hermione to turn away from following her father into the kitchen, every nerve in her body suddenly coming alive. This was it. Taking a deep breath, she joined her puzzled mother in the entryway, clapping eyes on Tyrone Flingleton for the first time in nearly five months.

Beyond anything she'd learned through the Ministry or Dumbledore or discreet inquiries or the private investigator she'd hired, the fact that Tyrone Flingleton was currently standing before her in her parents' house assured her that he was trustworthy. Her parents had been under a Fidelius Charm since Voldemort's return, with Dumbledore as their Secret-Keeper. He couldn't have located the house, much less set foot inside, unless Dumbledore had told him where it was.

Hermione ought to know; her parents still complained about the unreliability of the post, not knowing that its unreliability was due to the fact that every piece of mail had to be screened and owl-delivered by Dumbledore himself.

Flingleton bowed his head, his gaunt, aging features stretching into a polite smile. "Miss Granger. I've arrived as promised. I hope I'm not interrupting," he said, glancing briefly at her mother, who was staring at him with blatant curiosity. A few strands of curly hair had escaped from the bun at the back of her head, and she continued absently rubbing her hands with a dishcloth, as if she didn't even realize she was still doing it.

"No, of course not," Hermione said automatically. She turned to her mother, touching her on the shoulder. "I'll be in for dinner in a few minutes."

Her mother tore her eyes away from Tyrone Flingleton, blinking at her daughter in surprise. "Yes, of course. Feel free to use the den for your meeting. Would you like some tea, Mr...? .I'm terribly sorry. I didn't catch your name."

"Flingleton," he said graciously, extending his hand with a smile. "Tyrone Flingleton."

Mrs. Granger took his hand, still looking at him oddly. Then her features suddenly shifted, her eyes narrowing. "No, you're Peter Wise. I'd know those teeth anywhere."

Tyrone Flingleton merely smiled wider. "Well spotted, Mrs. Granger. I see now where your daughter gets her unique brand of perceptiveness, and her attention to detail. No spell ever managed to clean my teeth as thoroughly as you did."

Hermione reeled a little bit. "You went to my parents' office?"

"Standard procedure," he said easily, "though I apologize for my subterfuge. We at the Department of Mysteries are very discerning about our candidates, as the topics we deal with are highly sensitive. It was merely a background check, similar to those required in order to obtain security clearance in certain areas of the Muggle government."

For one brief moment, Hermione wondered what she was getting herself into. On the other hand, she wasn't about to let all of her hard work go unpresented at this point. If she didn't want the job, she could always say no.

"Right. So...shall we?" she asked, with what she hoped was a confident smile, ushering him into the den, almost immediately wishing she hadn't. The room mostly housed dental paraphernalia, trade magazines, and her father's astonishingly large collection of airplane models, airplane books, airplane parts and videos about airplanes. "My dad's a bit of an aeronautics buff," she apologized.

"I confess I'm a bit of one myself," Flingleton said pleasantly, studying a scale model of an F-18. "Astonishing what Muggles have managed to do without magic, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," Hermione said, taking the volumes out of her pocket and enlarging them on one of the side tables. "So..."

"Ah, yes," he said, turning back around, blinking at the stack of volumes. "Dear me. You're certainly thorough. No stone left unturned, I'm sure."

"None that I could think of."

"Well, then," he said, sinking into a chair and steepling his fingers, looking amused. "Why don't you give me a brief synopsis of your findings? I'll read the full report later."

Feeling much more comfortable, Hermione launched into the relationships she'd found between each of the numbers in various contexts, as well as the different numerological, mathematical, arithmantic and cultural relevances of the numbers themselves, their sum and their product. She hit the historical highlights of the years 683, 638, 386, 368, 863 and 836 in all of the major Muggle and magical calendars. She talked about the differences between the numbers - six being three greater than three, eight being two greater than six and five greater than three - as well as their usage in different codes.

Then she took a deep breath and discussed the various ways in which the numbers factored into Tyrone Flingleton's life. He raised his eyebrows, but didn't question her about it. "You're the sixth child in a family of eight, and the third boy. You were born on the eighth day of the sixth month in a year ending in three - that's a bit of a stretch, I know. When you were sixty-eight, your third grandchild was born. You received your third Order of Merlin when you were eighty-six, though I was unable to find out the reason. You have three children, six grandchildren and - at least when I last talked to you - eight great-grandchildren, though it's nine now. Congratulations, by the way."

"Thank you," he murmured, holding up a hand when she drew a breath to continue. "If you don't mind me asking, what methodology did you use?"

"Well, I started with my own books, and the local library. When I got to Hogwarts, I used the library there. I borrowed a few books from Professor Vector and Professor Wellbourne and requested several documents from the Ministry archives. I also..." There was no reason to lie. It's not as if she'd done anything wrong. "I also hired a private investigator to look into your background. I'd have done it myself, of course," she said quickly, "only there wasn't any time, with classes and all."

"I understand," he said, nodding, smiling a bit. "That must have been quite expensive."

It had, but Hermione just shrugged. "I couldn't...well, I suppose you could say that I wouldn't have felt satisfied with the report if I didn't explore every possible avenue."

"To find the answer." He sat forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands folding underneath his chin, his face suddenly serious. "So tell me, then, Miss Granger. What is the answer?"

Taken aback, she gestured to the volumes on the table. "There are a million of them."

"There are a million possible answers," he said, almost sternly, his brows lowering. "So which one is the right one?"

Hermione felt a brief moment of panic, feeling that she should know the answer to that question, her mind racing to find one. Somewhere in all of her research, she should have happened upon the right answer. She should be able to face him and say, without pause, 'This is the right answer.'

She couldn't. With a sinking feeling, she just said, "There isn't one."

To her surprise, Tyrone Flingleton broke out in a wide grin. "Miss Granger, I can sincerely say that I look forward to working with you."

It took a second for that to register. "I...got the job?" Was he joking? She couldn't tell.

"Yes, you did."

On the heels of acceptance came anger. What, was he playing with her? "That's it? I say there's no right answer and I get the job? After all of..." Forcibly shutting herself up before she could alienate the person who might be her boss, provided she even wanted to work for him anymore, which wasn't definite, Hermione gazed sadly at her volumes of work. Months of tireless research, and it didn't mean anything.

"Do not doubt me, Miss Granger," he said firmly. "That was part of the test, too. We do quite a bit of research, and a great deal of it is rather...unorthodox. I have to admit that hiring a private investigator is a tactic I haven't seen before, but that makes you all the more attractive a prospect. With most of my colleagues, I worry about them falling into a rut, relying upon the avenues of research they're most comfortable with, ignoring or failing to find information because they've stopped thinking creatively. Somehow, I doubt I'll ever have to worry about that with you."

"But then what was the point of asking me that question?" she couldn't help but prod. "About whether or not I thought there was a right answer?"

"Because we rarely deal in absolutes," he said simply. "If you had honestly thought that there was a right answer, you wouldn't be able to handle the life of an Unspeakable. And, frankly, if you'd just told me there was one for the sake of answering the question, that would have been the end of our acquaintance. As Unspeakables, we value truth and knowledge above all else. We're allowed that luxury, because we're largely outside of Ministry control. We aren't politicians. We don't tell people what they want to hear."

"I understand that," Hermione said slowly, "only...well, not to sound argumentative or anything, but you're my superior. There's certainly a power differential between us. Doesn't that make the idea of complete honesty a bit problematic?"

"In any normal circumstance, it would," he allowed. "But - just to set the record straight - I'm not your superior. Every March, the Unspeakables get together and draw straws to decide who should handle the administrative duties. Dealing with the rest of the Ministry, filing paperwork, handling recruiting, that sort of thing. I drew the short straw last year. No Unspeakable is superior or inferior to any other, though those of us who've been around for a while often help the younger ones with their work."

"But then...I mean..." she sputtered, trying to wrap her mind around that. "What do you all do, exactly? Who tells you what to do? Do you actually even do anything at all?"

Flingleton chuckled. "We do quite a bit. You'll learn more when you join us, but the short story is that we pretty much do whatever we want to do with respect to seeking out knowledge about the nature of magic, and nobody tells us what to do."

Hermione felt her jaw drop. She might have even drooled a little bit. All of the stories Professor Wellbourne had told her - about clawing your way up the academic ladder, doing other people's research for years only to see them get all the credit, then finally being able to work on what you really want to only to have to sell yourself out to get funding - melted right out of her head. "You can't be serious," she decided.

"Funny," he said, sitting back. "That's exactly what I said when I was recruited. I didn't even believe it until I took up my position. I hardly expect you to do any less."

"Anything I want?" she felt the need to clarify. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," he said. "That's our job. Those of us able to attend meet weekly to discuss our research and give each other ideas and guidance."

"But who funds the research? Don't we have to answer to them?"

"The Ministry funds it. And to a certain extent we do have to answer to them, or at least we have to prove that we're doing something to warrant our funding. Every year when the Wizard's Council plans the annual budget, we all go up and present our current research topics to them. Generally, their eyes are glazed over by the time the first Unspeakable is finished, and we're fully funded well before the second one finishes."

Hermione shook her head in disbelief. "Fully funded independent research," she breathed. This had to be too good to be true.

"Believe me when I tell you that you won't find it anywhere else," Flingleton said, standing. She stood, too, and shook the hand he offered. "Which reminds me...make sure you owl your expenses to me so I can make sure you're reimbursed."

She nodded and he turned to go. A thought occurred to her. "Mr. Flingleton, there's something you should know. Well, probably something you already do know." He turned back, eyebrows raised, and she took a deep breath. "Harry Potter's my best friend, and...well, I'm sure you're aware of the task he has in front of him."

"Indeed, I am."

"It's just...that's my first responsibility, you understand. Helping him. I'm not asking for special treatment or anything, but I couldn't fulfill my duties as an Unspeakable until he fulfills the prophecy. Is that...please tell me that won't be a problem."

"I fail to see how helping Harry Potter fulfill his prophecy isn't fulfilling your duties as an Unspeakable," Fligleton said, with a brief smile. Hermione honestly couldn't think of anything to say in response to that. "I'll be in touch."