Harry Potter and His New Standards

Chapter 33--Veracity

"A certain period elapses, and some unseen mysterious principle again sets in motion the magic pinions and the wizard wheels. The silver cord was not forever loosed, nor the golden bowl irreparably broken. But where, meantime, was the soul?"

*()%()*

Colors, shapes, and sounds rushed past. Both war and weather eddied around her, flickering within the woven strings of many years. When she focused her hearing, straining to hear beyond the slipstreams, she made out voices ringing clear with mingled scraps of sentences and words... then it all stopped.

The world came to a screeching halt; Holly's feet hit hard ground, and her knees buckled. She tried to look around, blinking dots out of her eyes, and clutched the triple-bulbed Time-Turner in a fist against her chest. She took several deep breaths, heaving, and bent over the floor as she began to cough.

She splayed her fingers and slid her palms forward against the cold, grainy floor. Holly came to rest on her elbows, sucking in the air between labored gagging. A familiar voice sounded over her fit saying, "What the hell?" quite kindly.

Holly attempted holding back her hacking, but it wouldn't stop. She threw her hair out of her face and looked up for a moment, no colors and shapes in the room quite definite or in focus. She bent her head again and coughed, arcing her back.

"It's a sign from God." That voice was familiar as well--somehow.

"Yes, Padfoot, quite the sign." The first voice again--Harry? A pause. "So..." the boy speaking cleared his throat and continued, "let's look on while she's sick all over the floor."

"Hey--hey..." Footsteps, then a new voice. This one, too, she knew--it made her heart swell with the comfort of recognition. A hand patted her back as she spluttered and wheezed; Holly felt like she'd inhaled the smog of decades in one elongated breath.

More footsteps. "You going to be all right?" The second familiar voice. Her coughs died into rasps, and she breathed deep again, blinking tears out of her eyes.

"Help her up--" That was Harry's voice--she knew it.

There were fingers beneath her chin, tipping her face skyward. As everything came into sharp focus, she stopped breathing altogether.

The face that belonged to the fingers at her chin was young and considerably alluring. The boy there had raven hair that had long since grown out of its chop and eyes that were pale and bright--they glittered like impure sapphires. He smiled at her with a reposeful Cheshire grin.

Next to him crouched another boy with brown locks and tired eyes. He looked older than the first boy, in a way, and he appeared to be a little ill. She searched his peaceful, striated eyes and he smiled sheepishly at her, boyish dimples indenting his cheeks.

The third boy she saw stood erect behind the other two. His thumbs were hooked in his pockets, and his hair was wild and ebon. He was rather tall, and he had this wiry frame and a face with planes and angles that were the most familiar of the three. Harry--he was so much like Harry.

As things began to register, her eyes grew wide.

She yelped and scrambled backward until her shoulders were against the wall. "Oh my God... oh my God..." Holly made an attempt at swallowing, but her mouth was dry.

"Are you okay?" asked Lupin.

She looked around frantically without taking in the sights. "W-Wha--What year is it?" she demanded stupidly.

"Um..." the Harry-ish figure stared at her before going on and saying, "1977."

She rested all her weight on the wall behind her. "1977?" she echoed. It might not have been smart to inquire as to the year, but Holly's thoughts were in disarray.

"Er--yeah." James looked around as if the décor or some invisible spectator was to confirm this sentiment. "Didn't you know?"

Holly's breathing was ragged again. Time-Turners were only supposed to be used to transport people a matter of twenty-four hours back in time, maximum. Why the hell was she sitting an entire twenty years out of place?

She looked around. She was in a large, square room with many windows opening over the still, green grounds. The walls were covered in uneven, checkered wallpaper and plastered with many posters--both stationary and in motion. There were old pillows thrown around the room with anything but designer's ease and moth-eaten furniture pushed against a wall here or flipped over its adjacent coffee table there. "Where am I?"

"You're in the Sanctum."

"You're going to need to be a bit more specific!" she hissed.

"The west side of Hogwarts--fourth floor." Lupin smiled comfortingly at her.

Weren't you supposed to stay in the same place when you flipped the hourglass?

Holly thought past her lightning-strike headache. When the future Ginny and herself had appeared in the younger girl's dormitory yesterday--or, she supposed, twenty years from now--they said the Time-Turner was malfunctioning. Riddle had spoken of the French Revolution, Ben Franklin, and the Beatles. Holly talked of pirate ships, Salem, and Nazi Germany. She hadn't thought of it before--but why would a graduated Ginny and Holly be in Ginny's old dormitory in the first place--before the Time-Turner brought them back in time? Holly stared down at the hourglass in her palm.

This was Elvish. This was different.

"You look familiar," said Sirius, "have I... I dunno... frenched you at a party before, or something?"

Holly shook her head vehemently, suddenly feeling very, very ill.

James knitted his dark brows, the hazel eyes behind the rectangular frames befuddled. "What year are you from?"

Sirius and Lupin looked up at James and then to her. She swallowed again. "1979?" she tried.

"Don't lie," James said warningly. "Lying is for fellators."

She stared at him, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "For whats?"

"Fel-la-tors," he articulated. "Y'know? People who perform o--"

Lupin jumped to his feet and covered James' mouth. "She knows what they are. Thank-you, Prongs." He gently removed his palm from the boy's lips, looking cautiously at him.

"I was just trying to be informative, Moony." The Harry look-a-like contorted his face into a pouting look of mock hurt.

"I know." Lupin sighed. "And your good will is always appreciated, but I've heard the definition of 'fellator' three thousand too many times in the past four days." He looked back at Holly. "So--what year are you from?"

Sirius straightened up and brushed off his clothes as she looked between the gazes of the three boys and mumbled, "1996."

There was an ominous pause, and she held her breath. Her father broke the junction of silence. "I didn't hear you."

"'96."

"1896?" He blinked. So did she. "Whoa. Like, welcome to the future."

"1996," Lupin corrected, not taking his eyes from her. "Welcome to the past. Right?"

Holly stared at him, wishing she hadn't said a word.

James inquired, "How'd you get here, then?" Reluctantly, Holly held up the Time-Turner on its chain, just long enough for him to see it. "Oh." A wicked gleam entered his eyes, and he leered down at her, transformed. "Aren't those illegal?"

She shrugged. A horrible thought occurred to her. Since typical Time-Turners brought a person back a matter of hours, they simply had to stick that time out before returning to the place they left from. Sure they would be three hours older, but who would notice?

How was she supposed to wait around for two decades?

"1996, eh?" James rumpled his hair, making each strand stand in an entirely new and uncharted direction. "Still gorgeous, I presume?"

Sirius hit him and Lupin shook his head.

Oh, God.

"I'm not sure," she lied. Stop asking me things, you're dead, you're dead...

He clicked his tongue.

"Prongs, stop being an arse. You don't have to show off, you're probably a washed-up pimp living in a box in Hogsmeade." Sirius stepped forward and held out his hand, smiling brilliantly. "Sirius Black."

Holly took his hand and he helped her off the floor. "Holly."

"Holly," he shook her hand after she was on her feet. "Do you have a last name?"

Many names shot through her head, and she resulted on, "Lindo." The least suspicious--Anendel's last name. He shouldn't have heard it before.

"Mmm." He furrowed his brow. "You're a tall one."

"Uh... thank you." I get it from my dad. She took a deep breath.

"Well, Holly Lindo, this is Remus,"

Lupin tucked his hands into the pockets of his robes and smiled. "Hi."

"--James,"

"'Holly Lindo'--that's a tongue twister," he said. "Ever think of shortening it to Hollindo or something?"

"--and... where's Wormtail?"

James jerked his head backward.

"And--" Sirius repeated, reaching around Lupin and extracting a portly little blond boy, "Peter." His watery eyes, which were spaced over a pointy little nose, searched hers and he puffed up bravely.

She did what could be possibly one of the most degrading and annoying things for people so very short. She bent down and, as if speaking to a child, said, "Hi there, Peter." He blushed.

Sirius looked approvingly at her. "So... the nineties. That sounds funny... 'the nineties'. Anyway, what's it like?"

"Ah--well--" she began, searching for lies and dropping her accent, "everything in the nineties is chrome--none of this..." she motioned around the room, wrinkling her nose, "whatever it is. Broomsticks are out--the new thing is hoverboarding. All our cities are suspended between gravity streams, and the Muggle and wizarding worlds are pleasantly united."

"Wow," whispered Peter, his jaw slack.

"Oh, Wormtail, she's lying." James gave her a pained look and added, "Don't lie. Lying is for demimondes."

She looked at him. "You're just going to have to wait two decades for the nineties," she said as coolly as possible.

He gazed blankly at her. He looked so much like Harry, just a little taller--perhaps only a year's worth of growing. Harry's almond-shaped emerald eyes and round-rimmed glasses gave him the visage of a thirteen-year-old, but James had longer, darker eyes that always seemed to be smirking sinfully at her. Somehow, however, he too retained that doleful Potter charm.

"So, why are you here, anyway?" he questioned.

He had a piercing gaze that compelled her to spill her heart out to him. She resisted the temptation, yet she couldn't conjure up magnificent lies easily when he leveled her with that lamenting hazel look--however unconvincing it happened to be.

"Well, my friend just got this thing from some Elves," she stated sincerely, "and I was messing with it, and then poof--here I was." She held it up to him. "No dials, you see? I'm thinking maybe it just transports you by twenty-year terminals--" she explained on a whim, "'cause twenty years is barely sixty seconds to an Elf, right?"

"I suppose." James took the hourglass betwixt two long fingers and turned it this way and that. She wanted to snatch it back from him--what would she do stuck in 1977 while the elder Potter ran around 1996 to see whether he was really a washed-up pimp living in a cardboard box? He shook it, then scowled. "How'd you get it to work?"

Holly took it back. How did I get it to work? "Luck, I guess."

"It is a sign from God!" Sirius tugged at the little section of her tee that had somehow ended up tucked into her jeans. He pointed to the print. "Look! Janis!"

As the other boys came forward to look at her T-shirt, Sirius smirked at her. "I've been trying to convince them to help me with a couple Big Brother and the Holding Company numbers to no avail."

A loud laugh escaped of Holly very suddenly; she couldn't help it. It echoed off the walls and routed the other boys' sounds. She covered her mouth for a moment, smiling into her palm, then joyfully assumed, "You guys have a band?"

Sirius looked offended. He straightened his shirt and responded, "Yeah."

Holly looked over his shoulder and noticed, for the first time, that there was equipment set up in the center of the room. A drum set, keyboard, a handful of guitars, and some old-fashioned microphones.

She laughed again. "That's so cool!" She smiled, imagining the looks that the Sirius and Lupin she knew would get on their faces if she mentioned their old band to them. "What's it called?"

"The Marauders."

"Oh, cute!" she cooed. He looked appalled. "I mean--that's... wicked."

James hit her with a deadly look that was nearly credible, and commanded, "Never refer to my band as 'cute' again. We've killed 'cute'. We've killed everything about 'cute'."

"Sorry," she murmured. "I guess you're hardcore and all that."

"That's right, I have a motorbike waiting for me in London," Sirius told her. "As I was saying--Janis Joplin."

"What about her?"

"Could I sing Janis?" He cleared his throat extravagantly then made a quivering, gravely noise.

She assessed it and said, "Bet you could." She turned to the other three boys. "Why won't you let him sing Janis?"

James replied, "Firstly, we shouldn't deface the legend that is Janis Joplin by trying to recreate her wonderful music." He moved to sit on the windowsill, shifting a pillow so it would support his back. "But it's mostly because he can't sing like Janis Joplin worth shit." He sat down and bent one knee upward, resting a Petite Parchment Pad on his thigh and whipping out a quill. "Besides," he added, dipping his quill in ink, "Moony hadn't even heard of Big Brother and the Holding Company until today."

Holly focused on that statement, and the rest of James' words were drowned out. She recalled examining the Tengwar figures on either side of the hourglass when she sat on the mattress of her four-poster back in her dormitory. She'd thought about Lupin then--wondered silently how he even knew about Janis Joplin. Then, she flipped it 'V' side down. Did thoughts control the Time-Turner?

'V' must stand for 'vanwië', she realized. 'Vanwië' meant 'past' in Quenya. She looked down at the hourglass, trying to make her actions unnoticeable. On the other side was an Elvish 'R'. She didn't know if "future" was a word that could be translated into Quenya, but she did know the Elvish word 'rato'. And 'rato' is the Quenya word for 'soon'--which certainly denotes happenings in the future.

She stared at the Time-Turner. The future.

The gravity of the situation--the ability to take a look at things that had not yet come to pass--hit her like a Bludger. After that, she realized she'd solved the problem about waiting twenty years to show up back in her dormitory. If thoughts did control Ginny's little device, she could just think about what was going on before she left--the clothes she needed to change out of, the parchment beneath her pillow, her tricking Harry into kissing Ginny--and flip the hourglass 'R' side down.

Until then, she had loads of time.

"When the rest of the band gets here," Lupin said, throwing the chevron-patterned strap of an unplugged electric (well, it looked electric) bass guitar over his shoulder, "we can play you something, if you'd like."

She plopped down in an old armchair against the wall beneath a poster of the Cars and laughed. Just then, they were just as much random adolescent boys to her as they were professors and parents. "Yeah, I'd love that," she told them sincerely, grinning.

Sirius, who was fixing the height of his old, silver microphone by fiddling with something on the base, paused to smile at her. "Of course you will. We're going to make it big, someday, y'know."

*()%()*

Harry scrambled back to Ginny's four-poster and groped around for his glasses. He found them and crammed them onto his face.

The fuzzy blur that was Riddle came in clear; he'd truly wished that once his glasses were on, the image would sharpen to reveal Ginny, standing against the wall where she'd been before, looking befuddled. Naturally, Tom was there, smirking contentedly down at him.

He was the same Riddle Harry had met in the Chamber of Secrets when he was twelve years old, with one exception. Tom was absolutely solid this time--not fuzzy around the edges, not slightly transparent. He didn't glow aureate like a sweet memory of the forties--he was cold, harsh, and real.

Quite to his advantage, as Tom took form his clothing, too, had transformed. So, instead of being stuck in Weasley robes several sizes too small (which Harry would have dearly loved to see) it appeared that he'd conjured the garb he then wore. They were robes--long and black; they weren't Hogwarts robes--but they certainly looked like something Lucius Malfoy would choose to wear.

He stared at him, paralyzed on the spot. Riddle sneered, laughing so quietly Harry wasn't sure whether he'd laughed at all. With his pitchy hair and turquoise-blue eyes, he seemed like an entirely different villain than Voldemort.

Oh, God, Harry realized suddenly, I was just kissing him.

He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, resisted the urge to start spitting, and growled, "Riddle."

"Didn't we already establish that?"

What did should I say? What am I supposed to do, now? Harry found his wand and Disarmed Riddle, catching Ginny's wand as it arced through the air.

"Change back," Harry said uncertainly. "Bring Ginny back. Now."

"Why?" Tom raised his eyebrows. "So you can get on with your little--session?" He closed his mouth and laughed, a burst of air through his closed lips that was familiar--Malfoy-like. "I'm afraid not."

"Then don't say I hadn't warned you, Riddle."

"What are you going to do to me, Harry?" he asked calmly, "Curse me into oblivion?" Harry squared his shoulders and looked hard in the light-eyed boy's direction. "Because I assure you that hurting me wouldn't have a great effect on your dear Ginny, either." He smiled toothily.

Bravely, Harry inquired, "Without a wand, what are you going to do?"

Tom crossed his arms and leered at Harry unpleasantly. "Oh, you'd be surprised."

He took a step toward the door, and Harry took two in the same direction. Tom jerked teasingly toward the port, and Harry jolted nearer it. He laughed at him and Harry demanded, "What are you playing at?"

"Just having some fun. I never get to have fun." He strode nonchalantly in the direction of the door, and Harry jumped in front of it.

"You're not going anywhere."

"Why not?"

"Hmm, let's think about that a moment, shall we?" Harry tapped his chin. "I don't trust you when there are humans present."

"Whatever do you think I would do, Harry?" Tom questioned innocently. His child-like visage morphed very suddenly into an ugly look, and he came at Harry with a fencer's speed and grace.

He locked his long, cold fingers around his throat. Tom didn't draw back in pain--Harry's mother's protection didn't work against flesh and blood that was Ginny Weasley's and a form that had yet to kill Lily Potter. He drew nearer Harry's face and looked at him nose-to-nose, pretty eyes vivified by the thrill of strangling someone.

The edges of Harry's vision began to blur, and he felt around frantically for his and Ginny's wands. Harry gasped for air but all it caused him was pain. He managed to use what little oxygen that was left in his lungs to croak the only thing he could think of: "Ginny!"

Tom's fingers loosened and his lips thinned. His hands began to shake and finally drew away from Harry's neck completely, and Tom stumbled backward--clearly not of his own volition.

Harry rubbed his throat gently, coughing once or twice. "I told you," he said, "you're not going anywhere."

*()%()*

Two more members of the Marauders came--James loosely referred to them as "tagalongs" behind his hand (apparently James, Sirius, and Lupin were the true Marauders--and the soul of the band). One was named Davy--he wore an eye patch and had curly blond hair--and the other Gladys. They appeared to be related somehow--cousins, brother and sister, twins maybe. They were no more than a year apart, anyway. Gladys manned the keyboard and Davy sat himself behind the drum set.

Peter wasn't part of the band, due to the fact that the rest of the Marauders seemed to view him as positively helpless and little more than a little blond bowling-ball shaped burden as far as that band went. He'd been assigned the task of checking the pawnshop in Hogsmeade for better guitars, new LPs, and so on.

Peter sat in a chair on the opposite side of the room, casting wary glances in Holly's direction from time to time. Out of all the old crew, Peter seemed to be the only one who was suspicious of Holly and how she'd come to find herself in 1977. Perhaps he even recognized her as a close genetic match to Sirius. She didn't let it bother her... too much.

Her father sang more than the rest of the band-goers. He had a guitar as well, but focused mainly on chords rather than James (his counterpart), who got the real work done. Lupin picked serenely at the strings of his bass, his brow slightly furrowed. He hadn't learned how to play until that year, he'd told her sweetly. At that moment, James had added that his friend Remus had a little experience with strings, being that Lupin's mother made him play the harp. This awarded James a furious blush from Remus and a sharp punch in the arm.

The boys crooned the last few lines to "My Sharona" and waited for the final ringing of Davy's symbol to fade. Sirius questioned, "How was that?"

She'd heard a selection of tunes, everywhere from Aerosmith's "Same Old Song and Dance" to the Beatles' "Come Together" and the Ramones' "Pinhead". The Marauders played Muggle songs so that most of the Hogwarts students wouldn't have any clue that they couldn't write their own. She enjoyed them all, they weren't bad--they weren't bad at all, actually. Despite that, she would occasionally erupt in fits of giggles.

"It was good!" She straightened up in her chair. "I've never heard a better rendition."

James ran his fingers through his hair. "Tell us something we don't know."

"I think I know how you could make it better."

"How?" inquired Lupin, looking interested.

"Well, if you lost the guitar," she said, looking at Sirius, "and moved around s'more, it could drive most girls to kill to be your Sharona. Smirk at them behind the microphone, bend your knees, jerk your head once in a while--honestly, they'd love it." Her father stared at her. "What're you looking at?"

"Your ears." He stepped around the microphone and looked intently at the side of her head. "Shit--how many holes do you have, lady?"

She had to think about it a moment before the reply came to her. "Three on each ear," she told him.

"Merlin!" James stepped forward and looked at her ears too.

"Did you do any of them yourself?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah," she said, "I re-pierced the ones that closed up a couple times."

"Wow." Sirius touched one of her ears, and she instinctively batted his hand away. "Careful!" He showed her two bandaged fingers. "New tattoos, here."

Holly thought of her father's hands, and remembered the thin, ring-like tattoos that decorated his otherwise pretty fingers. "Sorry."

"Does anyone have a needle?" he asked loudly, after a moment. Peter came forward with one.

"Why do you need a needle?" Holly inquired cautiously.

"I want you to prick my ear!"

"What?"

He held the needle out to her. "Please?"

She took a deep breath and announced, "Okay, someone get me an ice cube and a half-slice of an orange or a lemon or--something."

Lupin began to ask, "Why do you need--"

"Don't question it, just get them."

Holly used Incendio to sterilize the needle and then took out one of her faux silver studs and threw that under flames for a moment as well. "Okay, everyone," said Sirius, "take five while I get my ear pierced."

"You're sure about this, now?"

"Yeah."

"And you want your left ear done, I'm guessing?"

He raised an eyebrow and rejoined, "Does it make a difference?"

"Doing your right ear means you're a homo," she stated.

"Well my left ear, then, by all means!" She Summoned a few pillows from the edges of the room while he added, "Sirius loves the ladies."

"Yeah, yeah." She threw the pillows on the floor and knelt next to them. He lied down on the floor when she asked him to, and Lupin handed her a large ice cube. She placed it against Sirius' earlobe, behind the ear, and told him to hold it there. He did. "Tell me a story," she said.

"About what?"

"Anything," she rejoined. "1977."

Sirius thought for a moment before commencing in telling her about a romp around Hogsmeade in his fifth year. She sat there on the floor, listening to her father talk, and examined his face. She'd heard witches whisper as they passed in St. Mungo's and Diagon Alley--even back in Bolkinwick--then grin sheepishly at her father, blushing if he happened to look at them.

Holly had never grasped precisely how much beauty Sirius Black reflected until then. In the year in which she knew him, he retained enough of the good looks she saw then to be stunning--but darkly so. A lot of the blue in his eyes had drained away, and the laugh lines that appeared around them and his mouth were much less deep than those that were being permanently carved into the crevices of a scowl. He went nowhere without first applying some Angst.

As he spoke, speaking with his eyebrows since he didn't have full use of his hands, Holly noted that maybe she did look like a Black. She didn't have those casual, elegant good looks that seemed so characteristic of the Black family (as could be seen in the family portrait in her grandmother's old bedchamber at 12 Grimmauld Place), but she had--something.

Maybe she simply hadn't grown into her well-favored Black mien yet. She'd give it another year or two--keeping her fingers crossed. But there were definite similarities between her and Sirius. She had that mouth, that stupid grin, and that nose. Her eyes were shaped just--so--and when she hit one of her lean-streaks her cheeks were indented just the way his were.

Perhaps she wouldn't grow into that Black mien. Maybe she was already there. --She might just look like a guy.

"--so James runs behind the bar, switches the crates back, and we get away with our Dungbombs." Sirius laughed. "It was brilliant."

"Sounds like it." She thanked Lupin when he handed her a lemon, sliced in half. "Can you feel your ear?"

"Um... no." He handed her the ice cube. "Did it fall off?"

"No." She put the fruit slice behind his ear so she didn't accidentally stab his neck with the needle. She held up the needle, looking for the perfect center spot to place the hole. "Are you sure I don't know you?" he asked.

She looked at his face. He was examining hers carefully. "You look so familiar," he continued, "It's eerie. Who are your parents?"

She didn't answer. "I'm going to count to three," she told him, "and then get you this hole, all right?"

Sirius didn't answer. Something strange was beginning to dawn on his face. "One..." She stabbed his earlobe.

He yelped loudly, flinching, and she twisted the needle quickly before snatching her stud and replacing the needle with it and securing the back. "All done."

"Oh--my--God!" He looked at her in horror. "That was the most pain I've ever experienced in such a short span of time! Merlin!" He blinked. "The left side of my head is on fire!"

"I'll let you lie there for a while."

Sirius gingerly touched his earlobe, his mouth agape and a frown line between his eyebrows.

Holly held up the needle and looked around. "Anyone else?"

"Nah..."

"No, thanks..."

"My mum would kill me..."

"I was considering it," said James from the windowsill, "but on second thought," he looked at Sirius wincing on the floor, "... no." He was scribbling on his Petite Parchment Pad once again.

She stood up and brushed off the knees of her jeans. "What are you writing?"

James' hand stopped moving immediately and he looked up at her, eyes wide behind his glasses. "Nothing."

Holly walked over to the window and tried to look at the Petite Parchment Pad. "C'mon..."

"No--no, it's nothing--nothing at all--"

She leaned over his knees and tried to snatch it away from him. He moved his hand very quickly this way and that, preventing her from laying a finger on his notebook.

"C'mon, what am I going to do with it?"

He looked at her with his nose wrinkled for a long moment before saying, "It's a song, all right?"

"About what?"

"Nothing."

She made an exasperated sound and rubbed her eyes. "Go on, James," Lupin said from across the room, "just tell her. She's not going to print it in the Prophet."

Slowly, carefully, he handed her the parchment. She looked at it. It was written on from margin to margin, covered in angry scribbles and half-hearted doodles. The only words she could still read on the page were the name "Lily Evans".

"Who's 'Lily'?" she asked him.

Sirius, who had finally gotten to his feet rumbled, "Lily is James' Aphrodite. His true love. His divine... fuck-buddy."

James retorted, "D'you want me to come over there and rip that earring out?"

Sirius scowled at him and took a step backward, covering up his earlobe again.

Still looking menacingly over at Sirius, James said, "Her name is Lily Evans."

"I see that."

"And she won't go out with me until I can prove to her that I can write a song of my own. She's Muggle-born, so she knows that all the Marauders' material is just adaptations of Muggle songs."

"Oh," she said. Her eyes swept over all the scribbles and scratches of ink again. "I guess you're not very good at it, huh?"

He stole the Petite Parchment Pad back and snapped, "I guess not." He sat it against his knee and pulled out his quill, looking determined. Nothing happened. "Well, I don't know," he said defensively. "How can I make this sound decent? I'm no good at this!"

Nearby, Lupin whispered, "He hasn't even thought about adding music to the nonexistent lyrics of his, thus far, untitled work."

"It can't be too hard, James," she said comfortingly. "Write while you can look at her--in History of Magic or something!"

"I s'pose that might help..."

"Or, or!" She smiled at him. "Write about how you can't write."

"Of course!" His eyes narrowed. "What?"

Holly smiled at him. "Write about how you're no William Shakespeare--"

"Who?" She bit her lip. "Only joking; go on."

"Okay." She paused and thought for a junction. "Say that you're no William Shakespeare but if you were you'd--you'd write a million sonnets for her. And that sort of thing. Pull it together with a heartfelt, lovey-dovey chorus."

"All right, so..." He tore out a new page of parchment and wrote as he spoke. "If I was William Shakespeare

I'd--"

"--give my heart to you?" she suggested.

"Yeah, good one! If I was William Shakespeare

I'd give my heart to you

I'd write a million sonnets..."

"In hopes that you'd be true," finished Holly.

"Yes! Yes!" He jumped up from his seat. "And it rhymes! Oh, how it rhymes!" James grabbed her and planted a quick kiss on her cheek. "You're officially sort of like my muse!"

"Never," said Sirius, "have I seen someone get so excited over... rhyming lyrics."

"Shut it, Padfoot, this is an accomplishment!" He put the page of Parchment against the wall and wrote, "In hopes that you'd be true." He smiled at it. "Perfect. End verse one. What next?"

She patted him on the back, blushing a little from the kiss. "You can take it from here."

He looked at the parchment. "I s'pose I could."

"What's that?" asked Davy, who was still sitting behind the drum set.

"What's what?"

He touched his shirt just below his collarbone and looked at hers, saying, "Your necklace."

"Oh, it's just a charm--random talisman." Holly tried to tuck the Cretionis Charm back under her shirt, but Gladys came forward to look at it.

"Charisse Whiltman has one of these!" she said.

Holly tried not to look too interested. "Who's that?"

"Seventh year Ravenclaw girl." Holly continued her attempt at hiding the Charm, but Gladys grabbed onto it. "Very shy--bit of a nonentity, if you know my meaning." Gladys shot her a significant look, and Holly cleared her throat.

"Yeah," she mumbled, "yeah, I know what you mean." She glanced sidelong at Sirius. He was coming near them.

She was waiting for him to speak in defense of her mother, but he didn't. He lifted the Charm from Gladys and asked, "Who has one of these, Gladys?"

"Charisse Whiltman. Know her?"

Sirius shrugged indifferently. Holly's stomach turned and a light shot of anger pulsed through her momentarily. He dropped the Charm and said, "Cool."

"I know Charisse," said Lupin quietly. "She's really nice. Her Cretionis Charm is more of a pearly color. Same shape, though."

"Is Charisse who you've been sneaking off with, Moony?" James inquired, smiling.

"No!" He blushed furiously. Sirius laughed and Holly stared at Lupin, trying her hardest to smile knowingly at him instead of gaze at him, transfixed. It was at that point that Holly caught sight of James.

He was looking at Holly and then at Sirius. His eyes roved over Holly, and then did the same to her father. Back and forth they went, narrowing more and more. As realization dawned upon Harry's father's visage, Holly scrabbled for Ginny's Time-Turner.

"Bloody hell--Moony, Wormtail--look at this."

Where's my wand?, she wondered frantically. Could a little Memory Charming fix this?

"Gotta go," she announced as Lupin started to look between Sirius and herself with that knowing look as well. Peter didn't seem to notice anything.

"Whoa..." Lupin furrowed his brow.

"What?" asked Sirius.

"You two," James said, "look just like each other."

Sirius stared at her and his eyes widened to the size of Galleons. Davy proclaimed, "I see it!" Gladys concurred.

"What're you talking about?" Holly asked weakly. She looked at her father. "I don't even know you!"

"You're lying again," James remarked. "Don't lie. Lying is for eunuchs."

"Eunuchs?!"

"Who are you?" her father asked. She opened her mouth to reply and he cut her off. "Really."

"I'm a Lindo. Maybe we're distant relatives or something, I dunno." She clasped the triple-bulbed hourglass in her hand. "But I really must be going--"

"Wait a second--!"

"Sorry." She thought about her dormitory, the house-elf making up Hermione's bed, and the little scrap of parchment she'd spotted beneath her pillow. Holly turned the Time-Turner over--'R' side down--and held her breath.

Her feet lifted from the ground and she was sailing forward at incredible speed. The wind roared in her ears and the many passing colors became one continual blur of white. Currents of power coiled and rippled on either side of her.

Holly's feet came in contact with hard floor once more and she stumbled. She fell backward onto her four-poster, the scarlet hangings for once a comfort to look upon. She sat up, breathing hard.

Yes, that was her dormitory. The house-elf was gone, and Roux was frantic--it seemed she hadn't appeared the exact moment that she'd left. No matter.

Holly rushed to the wardrobe and picked out new clothes to wear, which she promptly changed into. She grabbed the Time-Turner from where she'd left it on her bed and went out the door.

*()%()*

Ron ate his breakfast without looking at or speaking to Hermione for about as long as he could. He tried very hard to purge his head of all thought, but while doing that he realized that he was thinking about not thinking which meant he was thinking of something which meant--well, frankly, it was all rather complicated.

The end result was the same: a furtive glance in Hermione's direction and more efforts at clearing his mind.

He wasn't mad at her--it'd be different if he'd asked what her Supantoris was and she'd opted to lie about it. That wasn't the case, however.

So what did this mean? She had said she would never spy on his thoughts, but if she became more advanced she would always hear them. If that began happening he couldn't break a single rule, tell a single lie, or simply think a negative thought. And with those factors in mind--he couldn't really do anything.

He glanced at Hermione again and began peeling the crust off his toast. If he tried to hide what he was thinking and Hermione did happen to take a look, she would think he was keeping things from her and would break up with him immediately.

And did this Mind-Reading thing mean she could see dreams? Memories? What if he bumped into Holly and said 'sorry'? All the sudden Hermione would have found out that he'd been speaking to Holly and bam!, instant handprint on his face.

"I was wondering," Ron began. "Y'know how--that, that horrible girl..."

"You can say her name, Ron," Hermione said. "I don't care."

Did you know that I was talking about Holly without reading my mind?! "Okay." He cleared his throat. "How is it that Holly could feel it when you--y'know--when the rest of us couldn't?"

"Her Charm."

"Wha-?"

"Her Cretionis Charm, Ron. Isn't that obvious?" Hermione set down her spoon. "It has healing properties. It couldn't heal an intrusion in her mind as simply as it could a scratch on her elbow. I've been thinking about it, and the answer wasn't hard to come by. Its attempts at healing made my--presence, so to say--known." She unnecessarily dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin.

"Sort of like--a parasite?" Hermione leveled him with a look. "Oh--wait--I didn't mean that--"

"Well, you're right," she admitted. "Sort of like a parasite." She went quiet and Ron silently cursed himself, hoping that if she chose to read his mind, he'd be let off the hook by his mental chagrin.

*()%()*

Harry remained with his back to the door, staring at Riddle with as much bravery as he could muster. A silence grew between them, and it dragged on until there was a knock on the door. Harry jumped, and the doorknob rattled.

"Who is it?"

"It's me," came the reply. Holly. "Now, put your clothes back on and let me in! This is important."

Harry turned, keeping Riddle in his sight, and unlocked the door. Holly must have heard the click of the lock, and the door swung open, hitting Harry on the toe. She stopped in the doorframe and stared at Riddle. "Hello." She raised her eyebrows. "Are you who I think you are?"

Riddle extended a hand. "Tom."

Holly reached out and Harry jolted to stop her--but was too late. They clasped hands and Holly smiled at the boy. "Holly."

Harry held his breath--but nothing happened. He stared at Riddle, who didn't look back. "Pleasure."

"I'll bet." They let go of one another's hands. "So--you're the infamous Tom. I've heard all about you. So, looks like you found your window."

He smiled at her. "I did."

"Huh... uh-huh. When?"

Harry blushed a furious crimson, glaring at Riddle dangerously. He didn't seem to notice. "Ginny's mentality was quite a bit weakened when Harry burst through the door and started..." Riddle hid his mouth behind one hand and whispered to Holly, who leaned forward with no trace of doubt.

Harry's immediate interruption was cut off by Holly's bark of laughter. Soon she'd doubled over, cackling.

"Holly," Harry said seriously, "this isn't funny."

She only laughed harder, heaving for air. After spending entirely too long giggling, she turned the laughs into a couple short coughs then looked back at Tom. "That's perfect." She stuck out a fist and said, "Knuckles."

"What?"

"Knuckles!" Tom put a fist forward, cautiously, and hit his fingers against hers. "There you go." She took a deep breath and shifted her weight. "So--you wanna turn back into Ginny, now?"

He looked down at her. "No."

"Look," she said, "you're going to have a lot of trouble getting out of this school and back on your track of murder and shit, so you might as well just--" Holly turned a finger around in the air and finished, "turn back." She tucked her hair behind her ears and added, "Not that we don't enjoy your presence or anything--it's nice to see a pretty face around Gryffindor no matter how much evil you hold behind it." Holly smiled winningly at him.

Tom blinked. "Thank-you, I suppose."

"Any time." She tapped her foot. "So--turning back?"

"No."

"Fine." Holly looked at Harry. "Do you want to watch him, or should I?"

"I can," Harry offered. "Where do you need to go?"

"Find Ron."

"Okay."

Holly pointed a threatening finger at Riddle before escaping through the door. Harry locked it behind her. "What are you going to do, Harry?" Riddle asked casually. "Kiss me breathless so Ginevra can work her way back through?"

Harry scowled at him. "Why won't you change back?" he asked. "Ginny's the host--she's supposed to have control over you!"

Tom laughed, high and cold. He smirked in a comic book villain manner and said, "Oh, Harry--even four years later you're horribly naïve." He didn't reply. "Ginny may be the host, but I'm no common pestilence. I cannot be eliminated so easily."

"You watch," Harry warned him. "If Holly doesn't already know, Hermione'll be able to figure out just what to do with you."

"Maybe." He sneered at Harry and sat down on Ginny's bed. "But I doubt it."

*()%()*

Holly jammed her hands into her pockets and walked through the Great Hall. She stopped next to Ron, who sat with Hermione at his side, and looked at him. Ron stared up at her with a meaningful expression, and Hermione spoke for him. "What do you want?" she asked.

She glanced momentarily at Hermione, then reverted her gaze back to the person she was there to talk to. "Did you hear me?" the other girl pressed.

"I heard you." Holly didn't look at her. "And I'm not here to talk to you, so if you feel like shutting the hell up, that'd be great." She smiled sweetly at her.

Defensively, Hermione responded, "Anything you have to say to Ron can go through me."

She furrowed her brow. "I'm not asking to speak to him in private," Holly said, "so unless you want him to plug his ears so you can relay this information to him at a later date, feel free to sit in." Holly rocked back and forth on her feet for a moment, looking at the boy. "Riddle me this," she began. "What d'ya get when you mix a moment of weakness, an evil Dark lord, and your little sister?"

Ron blinked.

Holly sighed, staring at the ceiling, which was a brisk periwinkle today. "Harry's up in Ginny's dormitory right now with Tom Riddle, if you care to pop up there with me."

Ron scrambled to his feet, Hermione not far behind. "Are you serious?!" he cried, eyes popping.

"Nope--I'm lying to you about something very pertinent for shits. I do this a lot." He began rushing toward the gilded double doors into the entrance hall. "Calm down!" she said, grabbing the sleeve of his jumper. "It's all under control. Riddle would only get a laugh out of people freaking out over this."

Hermione batted Holly's hand away from Ron's wrist, and Holly stared at he shorter girl. She placed herself between Ron and Holly, grabbing the boy's hand and giving Holly a challenging look. She looked at Hermione with very mild contempt, but said nothing.

"What do you mean, 'it's all under control'?" Ron demanded, looking right over his girlfriend's head to meet Holly's eyes.

"Well, he hasn't gone on the rampage... yet--or anything--" Ron paled as they started for the staircase. "It's really all for the best that he show himself."

"And how's that?" demanded Ron.

"Now Ginny and Riddle are more separate," she explained. "Riddle can't control Ginny's actions without switching into his own body."

"How do you know this?" Hermione inquired doubtfully.

"I know what I'm talking about, princess. Or d'you have your own theory?" she questioned. "Because I'm sure that you, too, have been up to your elbows in material on Soul-Switching for a few months."

Ron sliced the matching glares with, "I still don't understand how Ginny turning into Riddle is a good thing."

"I never said it was a 'good thing'--" responded Holly. "I mean, it's not totally good, really. It's a little good. Sort of," she fumbled. Ron looked intently at her. "It would have all been sorted out by now," she continued, "but he's--uh... refusingtochangeback."

"What?!"

"Shh!" Hermione hissed, turning her head to face him.

"I thought Ginny could control him!" claimed Ron hysterically. "I thought that since it was her body that she got to choose when to change!"

Holly explained, "Well, typically that's supposed to be what happens, but--"

"But, what?"

"But this is Voldemort we're talking about!" Ron flinched violently, but Holly plunged on. "In case you haven't noticed, he's a special case!"

"Then what are we going to do about it?" he demanded. "Is there any way to kill him?"

"Not without killing your sister, too," she said. "Is that a sacrifice you're willing to make just so you don't have to hear the name Vo-" flinch, "Vo-" flinch, "Vo-" flinch, "Riddle again?"

Ron shuddered. "Of course not!" he yelped. His face was incredibly pallid, and his eyes were darker than normal. "But I thought you said it's all under control!"

"You shouldn't have believed me then, should've you?"

Hermione spoke up for the first time in a long time, snapping, "Don't tease, Holly, this is serious. And you're not helping."

"Neither are you." Hermione began an angry retort, but Holly cut her off. "Would you like me to back out and let you take care of it? Or can you handle not being the leader of the excursion for once in your life?"

Hermione glared at her, fury flaming on every inch of her visage. "Holly," Ron said quietly, "just let it alone."

"You want me to back off?" she replied, staring over Hermione's head at the girl's boyfriend. "You want to take care of Riddle? Because that's fine by me!" Holly stopped and made to turn down the stairs. "I guess I'll just go and--"

"Don't be daft, you cow," Ron growled, grabbing Holly's arm. She shook him off roughly.

"I know what to do," she claimed stoutly. "And if I happen to be wrong, I know someone who would--"

"Not Malfoy!" Ron said. "You will not bring Malfoy into this!"

"Well, there's always Dumbledore. I'm sure he'd be ecstatic about seeing an ex-pupil." Holly looked sideways at him.

"The most logical solution is to go straight to Professor Dumbledore," Hermione told them. "He'll know exactly what to do."

"So do I," replied Holly.

"You didn't sound so sure a second ago!" retorted Hermione.

Holly groaned. "Look--I'll just see you all up there..."

She ran ahead and disappeared from their view behind a tapestry.

*()%()*

"So, Harry..." Tom said in a genial tone, a malevolent glint coming back into his eyes, "how is the family?"

"Shut it," murmured Harry. Riddle laughed.

His laughing died away as Holly burst back into the dormitory. She shot Harry a fake smile and strode across the room, straight to Riddle. "Get up," she told him.

"No..." he replied, suspicion in his tone.

"I'm not fucking with you, Riddle."

"I'm well aware of that," Tom said shrewdly, narrowing his eyes.

Holly pulled out her wand, and with a little flick of her wrist--ropes appeared. They shot around Riddle's wrists and knotted several times. With a lazy, "Locomotor Mortis" Tom's legs snapped together.

She let the new wand go slack in her hand and pointed it vaguely in his direction. "Without a wand, you're relatively useless. Also, being that you're not the host body, if the host's soul is present and un-weakened, they--control--you." She smiled.

"Now, love you," she told him. "Love everything about you. Thinking about being you for Halloween. But, as it is, you turn out to be Lord Voldemort--so, maybe not so much... in foresight. Or hindsight." She furrowed her brow and concluded, "Whatever," before continuing. "You did take advantage of Harry, and that's more than a little bit funny--yet a tad too Voldemort-esque to be entirely appealing." She smirked. "Y'know?"

The door flew open again, this time with Ron and Hermione framed in the doorway. The redhead began to growl Tom's name, making to take a foreboding step forward. He stopped, though, and ogled at the boy. "R--Riddle?"

Hermione, too, stared at the future Voldemort in wonder. If anything, Harry would have once believed that Voldemort had been pale, greasy, and ugly as a child. In all reality, for a long time Harry's mental picture of Voldemort had been a man who looked surprisingly like Snape. Ron and Hermione must have been thinking the same way.

Tom leered at them in a way that reminded Harry strongly of Draco Malfoy.

Ron shook himself out of his befuddled trance and managed to growl the boy's name menacingly. He took that step forward, and Hermione grabbed his arm. "Are you mad?" she whispered, gazing intently at Ron. The girl looked over at Holly. "Now what are you doing?" she demanded.

"Trying to talk to Ginny, if you care to stop with the interruptions." Holly squatted down and looked at Riddle. "Ginny," she said. "Can you hear me?"

Tom looked at her. The difference in their gazes was apparent--Holly was looking far beyond the strange turquoise eyes of the boy and, with a mark of concentration, searching for another soul behind them. Tom, on the other hand, was looking at her with detached interest--examining her face with some superior knowledge.

"Ginny? Ginny? Ginny?! GINNY!"

"She can hear you!" Riddle finally exclaimed. He shifted his shoulders as if he wanted to bring his hands up to hold his head, ugly frown lines appearing on his forehead.

"Holly, are you sure you know--"

"Yes, Hermione," she snapped, "it's a simple matter of communication!" She muttered something else under her breath as she shifted to hold herself up on her knees that sounded ominously like, "Well--it should be."

"Ginny, if you can hear me," Holly said, "we'd like to see you. And I know you remember all those things we read about Switching between souls. It's your body!" She smiled at Tom, but her eyes were focused on a point Harry couldn't see. "You're in control. Remember how we read the instructions to Switching back and thought it sounded like some sort of weight loss guide? 'You carry the full responsibility for your form. You are in control of this body!'" Holly smiled toothily.

Harry watched Tom's face intently, hoping for some sign of change. Nothing was happening.

"You're a stubborn little son of a bitch, aren't you?" Holly remarked, gaze definitely trained on Riddle this time.

She moved to the end of the bed and opened Ginny's trunk. She pulled a few books out of it and opened the first one. "I'm sure it says how to deal with souls like yours somewhere in here, you just sit tight." Holly searched for a certain page number. "You three can give it a try, if you want to."

Hermione came forward, drawing her wand. She didn't mean to wait for her instructions, but it had been timed that way. "Stupefy!"

Tom's body went limp, as did the dubious leer on his face, eyes shutting. They waited for a couple minutes, the only sound being Holly's paging through the book on her lap. Hermione sighed in exasperation and said, "Ennervate."

Tom's eyes opened and he sat back up, smirk back in place. "Good try," he assured her dully.

Hermione tried a variety of other spells, some which made Riddle fuzzy around the edges and others which made his face go slack and his eyes become unfocused. All the while, Harry watched in a daze and Ron paced around in circles, breathing loudly.

It was a very long time until Holly shut her last book and sighed. She murmured some offhand string of curse words and got up. "Let's go to the library." She gestured with her hand in Tom's direction, and the ropes around his wrists extended and fell into her palm. She removed the Leg-Locker curse. "You too."

*()%()*

"Found it!" Ron announced.

"I'm sure you did," sighed Tom. Holly had lengthened the rope she used to drag him to the library and tied him to the gate that separated the Restricted Section from the rest of the library.

Holly had given him a little walking room, so he spent a lot of his time reading off the titles that were printed on the binding of the books nearby. The girl, though frustrated with his refusal to listen to her and turn back into Ginny, seemed to have taken an ominous liking to him.

Ron had mentioned this to Harry and Hermione whilst Holly walked ahead of them, Tom at her side.

"I think she likes him!" Ron had whispered. "She should be dragging him behind her on his stomach, and instead she's chatting with him like they're old mates!"

"In a way," Harry had remarked thoughtfully, "they sort of are. Tom hears everything she's ever told Ginny--and I'm sure Ginny has told Holly some of the things Tom says."

It was then that Harry had to explain to Ron that his sister could hear Tom speaking in her head all the time--a detail she'd conveniently left unsaid when she'd explained her condition to his family.

"Well, either way--I think she has some sort of fetish for denizens of Hell!" he'd hissed. "She was excited to see that she's a descendent of Morgana, she's doing Merlin knows what with Malfoy, and now she's made friends with the sixteen-year-old mold of You-Know-Who!"

"Don't think on it, Ron," Hermione had said. "If she wants to place her trust in Riddle, let her."

In the present, Hermione asked, "What did you find?"

"To invert the soul currently controlling the body with that of the recessive, one must--seeWatsonWaukegan'sextendedtextonSoulSwitchingdamnit."

He snapped the book shut.

"Calm down, Ron, we'll look for it." Hermione slid her volume in front of him and said, "Look over this. Harry and I will try finding that book. Watson Waukegan, you said?" She got up from her chair. "Harry, you look in the 'S' section, I'll check the 'W's."

She patted his hand with her dainty, un-freckled one. "Be right back."

He showed her a small smile. She wouldn't be leaving their table if Holly had happened to be sitting at it. Ron wondered off-handedly whether Holly had read the note he left her...

At that moment, the girl appeared. She came walking along the wall, her eyes alight with something wanton. She walked along the bookshelves, looking straight ahead. It was a moment before Ron noticed that she was carrying what looked like a bar from the Restricted Section gate.

"Hol--"

She took two quick running-start steps, moving away from the bookcases. In a split-second she'd raised the bar with both hands and, in a Beater's motion, hit Riddle on the back of the head with it. He crumpled.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?!" Ron spluttered frantically.

Holly dropped the bar with a metallic clang and knelt down at Tom's side. She untied his wrists and then pushed his raven hair out of his face. "Ginny?" she said, ignoring Ron. "Ginny? Come on out."

Ron watched in wonder as Riddle's nose started to become shorter, his eyelashes longer, and his hair lighter. Soon freckles made themselves known, and his hair grew out past his shoulders--scarlet. His body was shrinking in height and width, and in a moment it was Ron's sister lying on the floor.

Her eyes opened. All the turquoise had deepened into brown. "Perfect," Holly said. "I knew it would work."

She smiled up at Holly. "Thanks."

"Not a problem." She helped her to her feet. "A moment of physical weakness, says Watson Waukegan. I didn't bash his brains in, did I?"

"No," she cautiously rubbed the back of her head and concluded, "he'll be fine."

"Ginny!" Ron rasped. He tripped on his way out of his chair, and stumbled over the floor to hug her. She coughed. "Ginny--are you all right?"

"Ron, I can't--breathe--"

"Sorry." He loosened his grip, but only a little. "Is he gone? Is he? Never let Riddle do that again--ever! You hear me? I can't handle it!"

"Okay, sure, Ron," she promised, "just... geroff--"

He let go, warily, but left his hands on her shoulders. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"You're sure?" She nodded vehemently. He swallowed and shook her a little. "Positive?"

"If you don't stop, I'll flip my eyelids up," she alerted him, monotone

"I just want to be sure you're--" She took her eyelashes between her fingers and began turning her wrists. He covered his eyes and jigged backward. "Okay!" Holly leaned forward and whispered something in Ginny's ear, staring intently at Ron. Ginny nodded. "What?" he asked, "What is it?"

"Oh!" Holly said, "And--" She leaned forward and whispered something else to his sister.

"Are you serious?" Ginny asked, eyes wide. "Where did you--?"

Holly shook her head and walked away. "Ooh, my little pretty one

My pretty one

When you gonna give me some--

--Time, Sharona?"

Ron wasn't given another chance to question Holly's secrets, as Hermione and Harry came around the bookcases at that moment and began to fuss over his sister. Ron watched Holly disappear around the corner, and fought down his sudden impulse to follow her.

*()%()*

Ginny sighed, trying to tune the radio in her dormitory to pick up the WWN clearly. She frowned as the sound would pick up a few unclear words of a Broomhandle Confessional song, then go fuzzy. Another lyric, and then more fuzz. She shut if off and stood up, moving to look at the mirror.

Ginny snatched her fraying hair-tie and started to pile her hair up on top of her head. She'd really freaked everyone out earlier. They were still frightened. Hermione was the only one who seemed to be acting normally toward Ginny--but she, too, was more cautious. And, of course, she had questions. Innumerable bloody questions.

Holly wasn't afraid, it didn't seem. She had, after all, been the one to clock Tom over the head with a long piece of metal. But her eerily polar eyes always seemed to be assessing Ginny; figuring her condition out. When Ginny smiled at her, she would return a strangely sad grin and look away, a grimace gathering on her visage. She knew more than what she was letting on.

Ron was petrified, stammering, and incessantly inquiring as to whether or not she felt all right. "I'm fine, Ron," "I'm all right, Ron," "Ask me again, and I'll let him murder you for me, Ron." She'd been thinking about the former, at least, but hadn't summoned the nerve to threaten him with it yet.

And, Harry. Ginny silently cursed Tom's existence. She just had to be kissing Harry when Tom decided to show up, didn't she? It wasn't fair. How could she ever even put her hopes into having a relationship with any person when Tom could show up at any given moment? It wasn't fair at all.

She glared resentfully at her reflection, hoping Tom got the message.

There was a knock at the door. Ginny sighed and pushed a stray lock of hair aside. "Come in." She brushed off the front of her jumper and watched the door open through the mirror. Harry entered. She turned around, dropping her hands, and fumbled, "Oh..."

"You look awful disappointed to see me," he said, gently closing the door behind him.

"No!" She shook her head. "No, only--surprised."

Harry sat down on Lila's bed, resting his elbows on his thighs. She could only make eye contact with him for a few seconds before tearing her eyes away and gazing off toward the wall. After a moment, he affirmed, "You gave me quite a scare back there."

There was something about that statement--perhaps the 'me'--that told Ginny that he hadn't been sent up to speak on behalf of the Trio. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

"Don't be." Harry showed her an understanding smile that Ginny only caught through the corner of her eye. "It's not your fault."

"Hmph."

"What?"

Ginny sat down on the next bed, which was Kylie's, with her back against the pillows. "Now that I've spent entirely too much time looking back on it," she told him, "it is my fault."

"Ginny--"

This time it was her who said, "What?" Harry closed his mouth, eyes wide and all-too-doleful. He wasn't exactly innocent, his hands were far from clean, and yet he would perpetually look that way. "If I hadn't written in the stupid diary to begin with--"

"Ginny, you were eleven," he interjected. "You didn't know any better."

"Didn't I?" she challenged. Harry straightened his back and looked at her. "My father had always told me to never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain. I'm sure the very words are carved into my skull, I've heard them so--many--times." She grimaced, and recalled the words, "'Ginny! Haven't I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain? Why didn't you show the diary to me, or your mother? A suspicious object like that, it was clearly full of Dark Magic...'"

A frown line appeared between Harry's eyebrows, but he allowed her to continue.

"At first it didn't seem like there was anything wrong with it. With him. But eventually I started to realize that something wasn't right. Tom knew too much. I'd poured too much of myself into him. So I tried to get rid of the diary."

"In Myrtle's toilet," Harry finished for her.

"Yeah." She paused, then had a thought. "What the hell were you doing in a girls' lavatory in the first place, anyway?"

Harry shrugged, breaking eye contact. "I don't remember."

She doubted that was the truth, but didn't challenge it. "So after I saw you had it I went berserk and had to steal Tom back. I didn't want him telling you all my stupid little secrets, and I felt so empty without him." She leaned her head back against the stone brick wall and shut her eyes. "By the time we were in the Chamber, Tom was living off me instead of my ink. If I'd just gotten rid of the stupid diary, I wouldn't be dealing with him as we speak."

"Ginny, it wasn't your fault. We all made a million mistakes that year. I should have gotten rid of that diary before you had the chance to take it back. To this day I still don't understand everything that happened." His lips thinned into a very straight line. "I don't know why destroying the diary didn't destroy Riddle as well."

"All the diary did was give Riddle the ability to be corporeal without me alive. It was like his flesh." She rubbed her forehead with the heels of her hands and groaned quietly. "I was his life. Now I'm both, I suppose."

There was a long, deafening silence. Mignon found her way out from underneath Ginny's four-poster and walked across the room to join her master on Kylie's bed. She stroked the kitten gently behind the ears and listened to the little sounds around the dormitory--faint creaks, ticks, and cracks thrown together without harmony. Finally, Harry said, "Are you sure?"

"About what?"

"That you serve as his flesh."

Ginny blinked. "Well, considering that he doesn't have a body of his own, yes, I'm quite sure."

"I was just thinking..." Harry paused, frown line reappearing on his brow. "Riddle told me that I couldn't hurt him without harming you, right?"

"Yeah..."

"But Ron said that Holly whapped him pretty good with that bar."

Ginny laughed a little. "Where did that bar come from, anyway?"

"She said she ripped it from the gate into the Restricted Section." Harry smirked a little at her. "But my money's on her carrying a shrunken crowbar in her back pocket for occasions like these. You know her."

Ginny laughed a little harder this time--it almost hurt to do so.

"My point being--" Harry said, "Holly could have killed him--or you--with that thing. She knocked him out, though, and as soon as she started talking to you, you came through--completely awake, and the whole bit."

"You mean, you think I should have been knocked out, too?"

"Exactly."

"And that I should have a gigantic lump on the back of my head right now?"

"Yes."

Ginny bit her lip. "Maybe each form sustains its own injuries." She looked down at the scarlet bedcovers and frowned. "Odd. Either way, don't try cutting his head off next time, because I really don't know how that'll turn out for me."

"Oh! I wouldn't, but still--" Harry paused to clear his throat, "maybe we can get rid of him. Somehow."

"You can ask Holly about it." Ginny let Mignon crawl up her back and come to rest on her shoulder. "She knows a lot more than I do. It's her big obsession, second only to the Elves."

Harry murmured something. After a junction he said, "Why did the bar thing work when Hermione's Stunner didn't?"

"Being Stunned is different. I suppose you've always been able to dodge any that came at you, so you wouldn't know." She didn't let him interrupt, although it did appear that he wanted to. "Stunners quiet everything within a person--it's not like being asleep, y'know. They can't smell, they can't dream, they can't hear--they will not get any sense back until the curse has been reversed."

"That makes sense," Harry said.

"The Full-Body Bind might have worked," she informed him. "But then, maybe not."

"I wonder why Hermione didn't try that one," Harry rejoined vaguely. "I know she knows it."

Ginny shrugged. "When you've got a million incantations floating around in your head, it's really difficult to pick out the right one. Even if you're Hermione Granger."

"Thus lies the reason why Holly resorts to a big metal rod. She couldn't think pick up Petrificus Totalus either."

She smiled. "I think Holly was more apt to hit Tom on the back of the head than even think about drawing her wand."

"That's true. She's violent."

The door opened at about the same time there were two short knocks. Holly walked in, clutching a large pot. Harry tried hard to stifle his laughter, and Ginny stared at her lap with a wide grin.

"Anyone want this? I swear to God, if another house-elf puts a pot of hot water beneath my bed thinking that it'll prevent nose bleeds or whatever the hell, I'm going to freak right out. Damn it!"

Ginny buried her face in her arms and laughed. She wasn't sure what was so funny, exactly, but Harry's sniggers were incredibly contagious. "What?" demanded Holly dangerously. After a moment she added, "Am I interrupting something?"

*()%()*

"It seems to me that approximately every book on Soul-Switching has been rented out to Holly Black, as of today," Hermione grumbled.

"I understand that you want to get involved," Ron said, watching the Bookworms go through the card index. "...And having at least two brains in on this thing might just lead us to a conclusion..."

Hermione took a card from the mouth of a Bookworm that was a particularly interesting shade of green. "No," she told it, reading the initials magicked onto the card, "no, this one's been checked out as well." She handed it back over, and the worm dove back into the catalogue.

"And I hate to say it," continued Ron, "but I think we should just trust Holly as the brains of this operation and let her run with it. I mean, I'm pretty sure she's got plenty of big, heavy items to hit Riddle with if things get out of hand. And, she's probably very good with bipolar anxieties and all that... she juggles a dozen-odd personalities of her own on a daily basis! What's two more?"

Ron smiled hopefully at Hermione and sent a violaceous Bookworm back into the card index with a wave of his hand.

"I just feel like I'm not caught up enough with this Supantoris," Hermione confessed, looking up at him and accidentally batting a Bookworm out of its drawer with a hand gesture. It squealed with delight and scooted off into the nearest shelf. "And I really ought to be! What happens if I find myself stuck in a room with Riddle without a crowbar? I should know what spells can help me!"

"Or you could take a semester in Xi'an and learn kung fu!" he rejoined with satirical glee. Hermione looked darkly up at him. "Why don't we just talk to Ginny and ask her what she knows about it? Then, maybe, we can negotiate a treaty and drag her to Dumbledore. Or Lupin, maybe... he should know all about controlling mad alter egos, right?"

Hermione took a card from a pink-ish Bookworm and saw that it, too, had "H.P.B." marked into the Current Renter Initials space. She held it out to the roseate worm and it slipped its sharp little teeth into the punch holes.

"Yeah." She watched the cards in the catalogue shuffle this way and that as the Bookworms made their way around the drawers. "Back in Grimmauld Place, Holly accused me of never trying to Read Ginny, did you know?" Ron shook his head. "She was right, too. I had never tried. And--so--the other night... I did." Hermione stopped and swallowed, uncertain of what his reaction to this was going to be.

"Well?" pressed Ron. "What happened?"

"I was thrown back out." Ron's eyebrows shot up into his lengthening hair.

"By...?"

"Riddle, yes." Hermione furrowed her brow and sent another Bookworm back into the card catalogue. "I think so, anyway. That made me wonder, Ron, if Riddle could protect Ginny."

"If he wasn't an evil git, I'm sure he would."

"Me too." She rubbed her forehead. "I think he might protect her in his efforts to protect himself, though. He doesn't want anyone reading his thoughts, so he got rid of me. And if someone comes at Ginny with a knife and she freezes in terror, Tom will know what to do--because his life is at a risk too." Hermione sighed and shoved the nearest catalogue drawer shut, trapping the antennae of a Bookworm in it. She released it, and then shut the rest. "I'm done, here. Have you matched the colors found in the identifier to logical ingredients in the list I gave you?"

"Erm..." He smiled criminally. "Yes?"

She said, "All right. Let's go work on that." She chose to ignore his loud sigh and the fashion in which he rolled his eyes.

*()%()*

Harry left abruptly after he finished with his sniggering. Holly watched him go, then shut the door. "So," she said, "how are you?"

Ginny shrugged, a smile lingering from her laughter. "All right, I guess. I've cracked open the first of several gigantic bags of chocolate bars that your dad gave me and scarfed down about half of it."

"Yes, nothing like chocolate to both spoil and distract you." She sat down where Harry had just been. "Wanna hear something that'll cheer you up?"

"Yeah."

Holly smirked. "Guess which of our professors used to have a little rock band."

Ginny thought of the words Holly had whispered to her in the library concerning the Time-Turner. "I figured out how it works," she'd said. "I've just been to 1977 and back."

"It's not Snape, is it?" she hoped aloud, not wanting to be told about a psychedelic revolution band called the Vanquishers led by a greasy-haired teenager belting emotional lyrics about tortured souls and empty loves.

"Oh, God, no. Lupin!"

"Lupin?!" she repeated, a laugh on her lips. "Blushing Professor Lupin, with his old phonograph and swing tunes, used to have a rock band?!"

"Yes!" Holly smiled brilliantly as Ginny laughed. "They called themselves the Marauders. He played bass."

Holly continued to tell Ginny all about how Lupin had mentioned her Janis Joplin shirt to her and how, while she was thinking about it and playing with the Time-Turner, it came to life. She explained, in detail, what all the boys looked like--from Lupin's dimples to Sirius' blue-blue eyes and James' likeness to Harry. Holly explained the journey back to front, and then stopped to let Ginny assess it all.

After a junction she continued, "So, I figure, as long as no one you know recognizes you and you don't change anything severe--you can meddle with that thing all you like." She grinned. "So--where d'ya wanna go?"

Ginny stared blankly at the hourglass in her palms. "Wow..." she murmured, rolling it along her fingers. "There's so much--I can't even imagine what I'd like to see.... I'm a bit afraid of what I could look at in the future..."

"I wouldn't even try that," Holly said. "It seems like anything you happened to look at would be immoral and unhealthy and all that in the end."

"Like... if I jumped forward a year and it turns out that I'd died, or something."

"Exactly. And that might mean that your current self would die there, as well, and it'd all just go to hell." Holly paused. "Not you--just... the situation."

"I knew what you meant."

"Yeah." Holly traced her toes along the floor. "The most I'd do, at the moment, is just go back in one hour intervals so I could get more study time, or sleep, or... something."

"Good idea." Ginny blinked. "Would that work?"

Holly furrowed her brow. "I have no idea."

"Hmm." Ginny examined the little spindle-figurines on the Time-Turner. What would I like to see? ...What would I like to see? There were probably many things Ginny could take a look at that would help her work the situation out in her mind. The Chamber, for example. But then she might need Harry's Invisibility Cloak, and for that she would need someone who would have no qualms about sneaking into his dormitory and stealing it.

She glanced up at Holly, who wasn't looking at her.

No, no, she thought. I really don't think I could handle going back into the Chamber, anyway. Maybe she could choose to see something silly and, for the most part, something that had no effect whatsoever on her life. A famous Quidditch match. A Wizengamot hearing.

Or she could go and see something that affects someone else's life. Ginny looked at Holly, who was still gazing elsewhere.

The day Sirius encountered Pettigrew. The day he was thrown into Azkaban. The night he escaped Azkaban. The day he met Harry, Ron, and Hermione and many details of the past thirteen years were uncovered; she still didn't know them all.

But, no. That would be unfair. Those were things for Holly to see; things for Harry to see.

She could see the day that her parents met. Or, maybe go back to the Elves and see how she even got this Time-Turner.

"I just remembered something..." Holly murmured. "Ginny, I better go."

"Okay." Ginny stood and sat her Time-Turner down on her own bedside table. "I'm going to eat ten more chocolate bars and take a nap."

Holly, who was at the door, said, "I thought I cheered you up!"

"You did!" Ginny lifted the bag from her mattress. "There's at least thirty in here."

Holly smiled weakly and left.

*()%()*

There was no one in her dormitory. Roux woke up and stretched, walking off the rug to hover around her ankles, tail wagging. "Hey, doggy."

She moved right over to her four-poster, before she forgot about it again. Holly pulled the slip of parchment out from beneath her pillow and unfolded it.

Holly--

She knew that untidy scrawl.

What do you know about the Angainor chain, Melkor, and the Valar?

--Ron

She smirked. So Hermione did bar him from speaking to her, after all. Holly was rearing to grab a quill, some ink, and a roll of parchment so she could explain what Angainor, Melkor, and the Valar were--then she thought better of it.

"I'll just go to his dormitory," she said to Roux. "This is Christmas vacation--I shouldn't even have to touch a quill."

The dog sat back on its haunches and looked at her with its big, doleful eyes. "Don't look at me like that." She tossed him the knotted-up stocking that had ended up on her bed and started out the door.

She knocked a few times on the door of the boys' dormitory when she reached it. She waited a moment before pushing it open and sticking her head it. "Hello?" No one was in there.

She was just ready to step back out of the chamber and start back for her own bedroom when a thought occurred to her. Holly's eyes traveled over to Harry's trunk, and her gaze remained fixed on it for a long moment before she decided to move into the dormitory.

Holly opened the trunk and rifled through it. He has a map of some sort... I know he does. My father's map. Our fathers' map. She pulled a folded sheet of very old parchment from the side of the trunk and opened it up. It was blank.

"How does it work, again?" she asked Roux, who was chewing amiably on the sock. She looked at the splotched surface of the parchment and pulled out her wand, tapping it experimentally. Something about being up to no good... what was--oh! She pressed the tip of her wand to the center of the parchment and vowed, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Ink spread from the place on the map where she rested her wand tip and outward. She watched an animated Hogwarts come to life under her nose before standing abruptly and walking out of the dormitory.

Roux stayed at her heels on her trek through the bookcase passage to the fourth floor. When she'd descended the many stairs and pushed open the bookshelf in the History of Magic corridor, she stopped to look at the map.

There it was, sure enough. A rectangular room on the very edge of the page labeled "The Sanctum". Holly watched the map as she took the hallways toward it, clipping at least three corners too short and hitting an elbow or a toe on the stone.

She came to a long, empty hallway--with the exception of one black tapestry. Holly walked toward it , but when she stood in front of it, her dot on the map didn't line up with the door into the Sanctum. She moved along the wall, with one hand on it for balance, until it appeared she was directly in front of the entrance.

It was a blank wall. She looked at it for a moment, pressing her palm to the stone, before glancing back down at the map. A speech bubble had appeared next to the dot labeled "Holly Black" that read, "Gabba Gabba Hey!"

She stared at the wall. "Gabba Gabba... Hey."

The stone became soft, and acquired a silvery glow. A space large enough for three men to walk inside shoulder-to-shoulder rippled like water where the wall had once been solid. Holly turned, picked up her dog, and walked in.

The Sanctum was alight with the slowly dying rays of the sun, and left much like she had first seen it. The only things that appeared to be missing were the stage equipment and the Marauders.

Every poster remained in place, though faded. The tatty old furniture and pillows were still situated all around the room, appearing very soiled and dusty. Visible cobwebs hung here and there along the high ceiling. The checkered wallpaper was old and waning, and the fiery, bright living atmosphere that the Marauders had brought into the room was gone. It was replaced by something aging and bittersweet.

One of the capital previous occupants of this room was long dead. Betrayed by another former resident. Here, in this open chamber, was where James had once been very happy (and very content with the supposition that his friend Peter would never sell him to Lord Voldemort). Here, in this open chamber, was where James had once written songs about his then-crush Lily Evans--his wife whom, too, had died.

Aging and bittersweet.

Holly spotted something on the far wall. She walked toward it, letting Roux down to sniff around the chamber. It was a piece of parchment Spellotaped to the stone. Holly walked up to it and began to read the scrawl that was so much like Harry's she was quite sure that it belonged to James.

"If this is still here, congratulations: you are most likely the first visitor to the Sanctum since the year of 1978. This also means that you have, in all likelihood, acquired the Marauder's Map. Again, congratulations. Here be the oracle of the Marauders, those who created that map for the aid of marauders to come. If you're up to no good (and you can solemnly swear it), we salute you.

Another possible reason for your visit here is that this chamber has been made into a museum and opened to the public as the shrine in which the Marauders (the incredibly prodigious rock band) first began playing together. That all depends on whether or not we find fame outside of Hogwarts; which, as my partner Moony has so amiably chosen to remind me, probably won't happen.

And so, since you're reading this now, we beg that you clean up this old chamber, (i.e. the Sanctum) and put it to good use. Do not, however, attempt tearing down our posters or refurbishing our walls. Punk rock lives on, and so do our Permanent Sticking Charms.

Sincerely yours,"

Following the closing were the names Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs--each written in the respective handwriting of its keeper and doodled by to reinforce the point (a spherical-looking scribble of the full moon; a long, squiggling line that Holly guessed was a rat tail; two dark, little inked paw prints; and antlers around "Prongs" with a hoof sketch beneath).

Holly took the parchment down from the wall, and sticking the Spellotape over to the other side, she rolled it up and pocketed it. Then she drew her wand.

Holly lifted her arm high into the air, and with all the air and energy she could work up she shouted, "Scourgify!"

From the tip of her wand, a wave in the air moved outward--cleansing the Sanctum of all its dust, stains, and cobwebs. She lifted her feet and stepped backward, scouring the floor of two sneaker-shaped dust prints.

She glanced around the room once more, a lucid smile on her lips, before looking down at the map to find Harry. He ought to see this.

She scanned the Gryffindor tower and all its dormitories, but caught no sight of his dot. She did, however, find another. This one labeled "Tom Riddle".

Holly groaned. She looked around the Sanctum for something to use against him and discovered an empty ashtray sitting on a spare coffee table. Vaguely wondering which of the Marauders smoked, she picked it up.

Perfect. It was ceramic and impeccably weighty.

According to the map, Tom was making his way down to the sixth floor. Holly moved to the section of wall that she'd came in through to see there was a wooden door there. She reached for the handle, then opened it.

The port was a simple doorway, rather than rippling stone. Holly walked through it, Roux ahead of her, and shut it in her wake. The door disappeared and the wall was simple stone brick again. "Hm," she remarked.

Holly used the map to track Tom's progress down to the third floor, where she finally spotted the real thing. He was walking with casual certainty, ebon robes waving gently behind him. "Mischief managed," she informed the map with a tap of her wand. She pocketed the bewitched representation and trained her eyes on Tom, clutching her ashtray tightly.

Holly tiptoed alongside the corridor wall. Roux seemed to get the idea, and he, too, sneaked along behind her (to the best of his ability what with the tapping of his clawed feet on the stone).

The portraits were muttering to each other, but Tom didn't appear to pay them any attention. With his big head, he was probably assuming that they were simply speaking of how they recognized that beautiful face. As he drew to the end of the corridor, where the hall split two ways, Holly sped up.

He chose the passage that led to a staircase descending directly to the first floor, and Holly moved away from the wall.

She wound back her arm, praying to God that her Chasing skills hadn't left her, and fired. Holly flung her arm and then her entire body forward, whipping the ashtray with alarming torque at the boy's raven head.

It made contact, and Tom toppled to the floor. Almost immediately, he rose--but as Ginny. She turned sharply and rushed toward Holly, breathless.

"I was just having a lay down, and soon as I dozed off he--he--"

"It's all right, Gin--"

"Did he do anything? What did he do? I didn't wake up until he was on the fifth floor, and--"

"Shh!" Ginny stopped speaking abruptly, and Holly listened hard.

Someone was coming up the stairs Tom had just prepared to descend. "C'mon!" She turned Ginny around and whispered to her to walk casually, like they were just making their way to a common destination, no trouble in mind. Ginny did her best, but remained looking a little washed out and breathing heavily.

"Did one of you drop this?" asked a voice from behind. They stopped, and turned slowly to meet the speaker. It was Lupin. He held the ashtray up with one hand. "Or, rather, throw it violently down the staircase?"

Holly drew her face into a casual mask of superiority, marred by a dash of guilt, and proclaimed, "I don't smoke." She took her eyes off the ashtray and looked at the approaching professor. She straightened up and inquired, "What kind of girl do you think I am?"

"Well, it nearly took off my right arm. I'm concerned that, within the castle, there may be conspirators plotting my murder."

"By ashtray?" said Ginny.

Lupin looked down at the receptacle. "Well, no. I lied." He looked back at them. "Where did you find this?"

Ginny began, "Well, Peeves d--"

"Where did you find this?" he pressed, raising his eyebrows.

"It wasn't a matter of finding it, really," manifested Holly. "Rest assured that it found us."

Holly looked in Lupin's face, now, and recognized it not only as the visage of her Defense Against the Dark Arts professor but also as the map of a younger boy. She saw the same halcyon eyes colored brass, the same straight nose, the same pink lips set between the same juvenile dimples. His hair, now streaked with an occasional lock of gray, parted and fell in a very similar manner that it once had.

The professor looked between the girls before discerning in a slow, cautious key, "You're up to no good."

Holly smirked, figuring that one more thing for him to report back to her father about couldn't hurt. She raised her chin and opened her eyes wide before affirming, "I solemnly swear it."

She hit Ginny on the forearm with the back of her hand, and they turned to leave.

*()%()*

Remus had knocked on the door of Sirius' room at the inn at least three times. First a soft knock, then a polite rap of the knuckles. Sharper rapping followed that. Now, he was pounding on the port with the edge of his fist without pause.

The door was flung open and Remus was greeted by a dark room and a lit wand at his throat. Sirius stepped out of the shadows, looking a mix between forbidding and unconscious. His hair was rather rumpled on one side and his eyes narrowed in rejection of his own Lumos spell.

Remus turned his chin up and his face away from the light and said, "Sirius, it's 7:30."

"I know that." He poked Remus once in the throat with his wand before putting it away. "I'm tired."

"I've never seen you in bed before midnight."

"Apparation lagged."

"From what?" Remus raised his eyebrows and added, "Staying too long at your winter home in Japan?"

Sirius straightened up and raised his chin defiantly, attenuating his eyes. "Just for that," he said, "I'm not letting your filthy werewolf hide past this doorframe." He began to gently shut the door. "Go take advantage of some unsuspecting young witch, I'm tired, happy Christmas--"

"Holly cut her hair, you know," Remus stated casually, looking at the wall. The door stopped moving. "Just below the shoulders--only a couple inches longer than yours." The door opened, slowly, and Sirius looked at him. "I saw her yesterday morning. It's a lot like yours when it's not taken care of. Wild, wavy. With that blue eye showing, she looks exactly like you." Sirius looked at the floor. "Well--from the left, I suppose." He used his hand to hide one side of Sirius's face from his view. "I think it's the left..."

"My eyes used to be blue," Sirius murmured.

"I remember," Remus told him truthfully, dropping his arm to his side. That night a few years before when Remus saw his friend for the first time in twelve years, it wasn't how gaunt and bony he was or how uncharacteristically grimy and unkempt he looked that Remus first noticed. The very first difference he registered from this Sirius in the Shrieking Shack compared against his dear old Marauding comrade was the loss of color in his eyes. They had faded and turned slate gray--blank. They'd once been so blue.

Sirius lit the lanterns in his room with a wave of his wand, and opened the door for Remus to enter. "I've never understood," he continued as he moved to sit down in the chair, "how it is that Blacks perpetually use changes in their appearance to express themselves."

"We are our own canvases," Sirius sneered.

"You grow your hair out when you're unhappy--your eyes gain and lose their color depending on your mood."

"And on how many dementors happen to be around, sucking everything colorful out of you," he reminded him. "And I didn't have the chance to cut my hair in Azkaban."

"Yes, of course." Remus sat down at a chair pulled out from the table and looked over at his friend. "But you didn't seize the chance to cut it after you escaped, either."

"That's true," he muttered, plopping down on the bed.

"But it seems to me that Holly follows the footsteps of your little brother in the expression of her temperament," Remus told him. After rerunning the statement through his head, he was sure that Sirius was going to jump out of bed--but he didn't.

He remained lying there, motionless, his eyes on the ceiling. "You mean she's convinced herself she's a princess, converted to Slytherin, and joined ranks with the Death Eaters?"

"Well I don't think the 'little king' thing was Regulus' fault." Sirius turned his head to look dubiously over at him. "We should have never let Cassandra Trelawney come in to determine the meanings of our names and read our palms. You looked for the brightest star in the sky for weeks demanding, 'Is that one me? Is that one me?'"

Sirius leveled him with a glare. "I'm the brightest star in the sky."

"I know that." Sirius turned his face away again, and recommenced staring up at the ceiling.

"And Regulus was not only a star--"

"A double star," Remus reminded him quietly.

"Shutupwhateverhewasjustabloodystar." Remus closed his mouth and smiled. Sirius pacified himself by closing his eyes before he continued to explain, "Regulus was also the metallic mass that sinks to the bottom of a furnace or crucible during smelting."

"Or a relatively impure intermediate product of various ores in smelting."

"Yeah!" he concurred in an adolescent key.

"I remember that because you were so annoyed with him strutting around like the little king he was that you made me find the word 'regulus' in a Muggle dictionary." He looked resentfully at the form on the bed. "Over and over."

"The plural is either 'reguli' or 'reguluses'," he murmured in mock reminiscence. "Sirius means 'scorching' or 'burning'."

"And it's also called Sothis or the Dog Star."

"Yeah." A pause. "That beats the hell out of 'the little king'."

"It certainly does. But your brother's dead now, so maybe you shouldn't think about him that way." Remus tried to recall what they were talking about before Sirius got stuck on how his name is better than that of Regulus. "Anyway," he said, "no she hasn't joined the Death Eaters. But, like Regulus, she cuts her hair and reveals truths in her appearance rather than keeping them hidden away."

"Oh!" said Sirius in sudden understanding. "Like when he stopped putting adhesive bandages over his third nipple?"

"Just like that." Remus shifted his weight in the chair and waited for Sirius to say something else. He didn't. "Found your ashtray." He held up the receptacle and Sirius looked at it. Remus decided to skip the details and said, "I figured you might want it back."

Sirius drew his face into an all-too-familiar casual mask of superiority, marred by a dash of guilt, and proclaimed, "I don't smoke." He took her eyes off the ashtray and looked at him. Sirius straightened up and inquired, "What kind of boy do you think I am?"

Remus sat down the ashtray and tried to ignore the strong feeling of de ja vu he'd just experienced. "So..." he went on, "I spoke with her."

Sirius finally sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and looking intently at Remus from behind some stray locks of wild, uncombed hair. "And?"

"Well, as soon as the name 'Malfoy' came up she went all stiff." Sirius looked at him to continue. "I warned her against the Darkness and power that the Malfoy family has and against the certain danger she's putting both herself and Harry in."

Sirius pressed, "And?"

"And then she got all defensive, told me that no one trusts her, and assured me that she could walk out of whatever she and Malfoy have without shedding a tear. She also added that she could kick the, and I quote, 'sh--uh--crap' out of him, which is probably true."

"But she can't kick the 'sh--uh--crap' out of a dozen Death Eaters," Sirius muttered.

"I told her that, too, at which point I also discovered that one of my Hufflepuff students is a trannie."

"What?"

"Then she took on that 'I-Didn't-Listen-To-A-Word-You-Just-Said' tone, thanked me for the chat, and left." Remus tapped his fingertips against his knee. "And... Ithinkshe'shavingsexwithhim."

Sirius' eyes widened to nearly twice their original size, and he his face became very white.

"Did I mention that her shirt had a Janis Joplin print on it?" Remus covered feebly.

"Draco Malfoy is shagging my daughter?" Remus winced. "Draco Malfoy is shagging my daughter!" Sirius scowled deeply and murmured, "Dirty rich wanker. Moony, you need to fix this!"

Remus blinked. "What?"

"Report him to Dumbledore for sexual harassment! Hex him during class! Poison his pumpkin juice!" Sirius got to his feet and started to pace. "Ohhhhh, when I get my hands on that little whelp..."

"You're being ridiculous--I don't even have proof."

"You're right." Sirius scuffled the soles of his feet against the floor. "She's too tall for him, anyway! Right?"

Remus cleared his throat behind a closed fist. "That's right."

It wasn't five seconds before Sirius began looking crazed and pacing the floor of his room once again. "What if she gets pregnant by him?" He gasped. "To spite me for having you caution her against the Malfoys!" His voice cracked into a different register. "She'll pop out another one!"

Struggling to recover from the phrase 'pop out another one', Remus stated, "Well obviously Holly's going to be smarter than that, knowing what happened to you and Charisse." Sirius stopped pacing suddenly, and his face faded into a strange shade of gray. Remus sighed. "You haven't told her," he said, without inclining his voice at the end to indicate an inquiry. The color of his visage was confirmation enough.

Sirius sat down on his bed and began rummaging frantically through the drawer of his nightstand. He extracted a half-empty pack of Melas cigarettes and pulled one out, shoving it into his mouth and lighting it with an Oppiz lighter.

"I thought you said you didn't smoke."

"I took it up recently for my health," replied Sirius in a rushed murmur.

Remus slid the old ashtray over the floor toward Sirius and questioned, "Why haven't you told her?"

"I don't know... the trauma?" he suggested.

"Half a year ago she didn't know you existed," Remus stated. "I think finding out that you never married Charisse would have been easier on her in July than it will be--well, whenever she figures it out."

"Well what was I supposed to do?" Sirius asked criminally. "I didn't want to tear up that illusion of her finding a perfect family..."

"Having a 'perfect family' usually doesn't include an orphan back-story and a single dad who's recently escaped from prison." Sirius frowned. "Nor does it include a screaming portrait of her grandmother in a London house infested with Dark Magic." Remus straightened up in his chair. "And that's not even the beginning of it."

"Hey," Sirius said warningly, flicking some ashes into the ashtray, "do you wanna try this 'fatherhood' thing on for size?"

Remus rolled his eyes. "I was merely stating that you should have told Holly that you and Charisse weren't married instead of lying about it for her to just find out and throw a fit later."

"I didn't lie about it," Sirius corrected him. "I--just--sort of--implied an untruth." He took a long drag from his Melas and put it out before saying, "She filled in the blanks. Now back to killing Malfoy..."

"As far as I know, Padfoot," Remus said placatingly, "they're only friends. The--sex thing is just an assumption."

"Oh." A pause. "Well, I'll just kill him anyway. Extra, precautionary sort of thing..."

Remus rubbed his eyes and frowned. He would, too. "I'll strike a bargain with you, then." Sirius raised his eyebrows in interest. "You lay a hand on Malfoy before we have the full story behind whatever he and your daughter have together, I tell Holly she's a punk rock, counterculture-y love child."

"Whoa," said Sirius. "Whoa. You wouldn't." His sunken, deadly glare was enough to send most men running--but not Remus.

He puffed out his lower lip in a fashion that nearly mocked Sirius' manner of making a puppy face and said, "Wouldn't I?"

The other man didn't say anything, so Remus began a verbal demonstration. "'Here, Holly, have a seat. Tea? Yes, I know you hate tea--but I reckoned it was worth a go, anyway. What did I want to talk to you about? Well, your father never decided to tell you this, because he doesn't think you're ready to hear it. It wouldn't be as bad if you'd heard this up front, but that didn't happen. You weren't planned. At all. No, my explanation will not be ending with 'born in a manger,' so try not to be violently ill--that's a new rug.

"'Your parents were never married, though if Charisse had lived I'm sure they would have gotten hitched. In the meantime, your father was a sex-crazed maniac, and your mother was the nearest girl who would spread her legs for him. I'm surprised he doesn't have more children. Your father was a bit of a roué, actually.'" Remus rubbed his temple and concluded, "And I would exaggerate, Padfoot--just to spite you. I can see it all, now. She'd stare at me for a moment with nothing to say, before things started catching fire, though that's just a guess, because that's what happened when you were furious. Then she'd be out the door and running toward Hogsmeade at top speed, until she was past the Apparation wards. She'd Splinch herself in rage on attempt to Apparate to Bolkinwick and then you'd have even more business and papers in London."

Sirius looked as if he was prepared to spring and kill Remus, but the werewolf bravely plunged on.

"Not that she wouldn't be right pissed off at you anyway, since for me to tell her that information it would mean that you'd just killed Draco Malfoy."

Sirius stared at him, radiating Darkness and the capability to snap him in half written on his face. Remus tensed and watched his friend carefully. Part of the reason very few Blacks were alive to that day was that all of them possessed Sirius' fashion of temper, he was sure.

A long moment passed, the name 'Draco Malfoy' hanging on the air, before Sirius spoke. "Fine." He continued, "I won't touch Malfoy. I won't owl him, I won't think of him--I won't even consider him to be a part of Holly's life."

"Good."

Sirius paused, tapping his fingers on the mattress, before saying, "But if anything goes wrong, Remus... anything at all--I don't want you to sit around assessing it before coming to me."

"I know," Remus said. "She's your child."

"She is." An expression passed over Sirius' face that nearly said that this was the first time he'd truly thought about that. He nodded to himself and added, "My child."

"Is it strange?" he murmured.

Pensively, Sirius affirmed, "It is." His eyes swept the room. "All along I was waiting for a one-year-old to come back to me. I thought I was prepared to meet a sixteen-year-old--" he hesitated before saying, "witch who didn't know my name or recognize my face. But I wasn't."

Remus sighed and nodded. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you."

Sirius vaguely waved a hand in dissent. "It was the strangest thing, Moony. When Dumbledore was leading Holly through the train station, I recognized her instantly. I saw Charisse in her, but I'm told I'm the only one who can."

"I see a Black," asserted Remus.

"Yeah." Sirius rumpled his too-long hair. "She looked right at me and I thought that was it--she'd know. But she didn't. She kept looking about the place, completely oblivious to who I was. And when Dumbledore showed her to me, instead of running to me with open arms she approached slowly, and she stuck out her hand a few seconds later, timidly introducing herself." He shut his eyes and said, "It was just as hard as meeting Harry when he thought I'd betrayed Lily and James."

"It's better now, though," Remus interjected with a hopeful smile. "Holly's very comfortable around you, and, if I say so myself, I think she's a rather proud that she's an ex-convict's child. It suits her."

"She still calls me 'Sirius' more than 'Dad'." His lips twitched in a pained smile. "But--things are better, now, yes..."

Remus told him, "And I know that Harry's proud. He loves you." Sirius looked down and smiled that smile that he always got when they talked about Harry--it lit up his face. "They both love you." He waited a junction before inquiring, "What's that like? --Acting as Harry Potter's father?"

"I'm not his father."

"I know that."

Sirius shrugged. "I took it upon myself to protect him, even before my name was cleared. You knew that. But he's still like James to me. Everything he does, with the exception of that frequent conquer of urges to do horrid things to people because he has Lily's common sense, reminds me of James." He exhaled sharply and repeated, "Everything he does."

Remus looked down into his lap. Though he'd very much like to identify Harry and James as two completely separate people, it was difficult. The elder Potter was so alive within the younger, anyone could make the mistake. James was simply the hero without the scar.

*()%()*

Harry walked along the wall, trailing his fingertips along the stone as he made his way down into the common room. He'd been experiencing a lot of visions lately, none of them clear, but all of them terrifying. Snippets of Varian hard at work, humans being handed over to monsters, dungeons, Dementors. His patterns of sleep had been very disrupted, and he frequently awoke wondering of Ginny's condition. It had been several days since her first transformation.

His fright for her had nearly driven his mind completely off his own Supantoris. Nearly.

He sat down in the dark common room on the nearer edge of the sofa, watching the fire. It wasn't until she moved that Harry noticed Holly sitting on the other end of the same davenport.

She'd covered her eyes with her fingers, and had one leg tucked beneath the other. "Holly?" he said uncertainly.

"What?"

Harry blinked and shifted his position so his back was against the rounded armrest of the sofa (it had taken some time, but everything that Holly destroyed in the Gryffindor common room had been put right). "What're you doing awake?"

She raised her face from her hands and feverishly wiped her cheeks with the edges of her sleeves. Her face was very pale, and her eyes very red and damp. She had dark circles beneath her eyes that were practically violet, and her face was sunken with something vampiric and unexplainable.

"I've been having trouble sleeping," she told him. Apparently, she'd been having problems with slumber for more than one night. "What are you doing up?"

"Same reason. Lots of Voldemort dreams." Harry crossed his arms over his chest and inquired, "Why are you having trouble sleeping?"

She didn't answer for a long time. Tears began welling up in her eyes, which she angrily swiped away as they fell. Finally, she said, "Did you know that about one percent of the Muggle population is made up of Soul-Switchers?"

"Really?" said Harry, wondering what this had to do with her not sleeping.

"Yeah." She sniffled and looked darkly over at him. "All the long-term consequences are the same as in wizards, but since second souls can't transform in Muggles, symptoms differ." She wiped her eyes and inquired, "Do you know what doctors diagnose Muggle Soul Switchers with?"

Harry stared at her. This was leading somewhere, wasn't it? "No," he stated. "What?"

She coughed shortly and said, "Schizophrenia." Harry stared at her. "The worst cases are diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder." She covered one of her eyes with her bony fingers and contorted her lips.

He'd never thought of Ginny and Tom in that way. The condition of the youngest Weasley was frightening on its own without Harry's narrow knowledge of schizophrenia to back it up.

But watching Holly try to stop the flow of tears, now--Harry imagined that his narrow knowledge of both the Muggle disease and the warlock's Supantoris was too narrow. There was more. There had to be.

She dropped her hand and shut her eyes in what looked like an attempt to control her emotions. Harry didn't say anything--crying made him horribly uncomfortable. "I checked out every book on Soul Switching I could find so no one else would know Ginny's full condition--I--I only showed her the articles and volumes that were simple explanations." Holly cut one of her sobs short and said, "I shouldn't carry this on my own--"

"Let Hermione help, then," Harry attempted. "Or Ron. Or me! We can all work this out, together."

"I've got it worked out!" she proclaimed, voice cracking and shaky. "I know exactly what's going to happen to her, everything that can help it, everything that might result, and roughly how long all of this should take!" Harry stared at her, unsure of her meaning. "It's knowing all of this when no one else does that's difficult--not researching it. I've read every fucking book on Soul-Switching twice over! I know what's going to happen!"

She wiped the increasing tears out of her eyes and held in sobs.

"Then what's wrong?" Harry demanded softly, trying to contain his temper with her stubbornness.

"I can't tell her!" she cried.

Harry searched her dual-colored eyes, but saw nothing there that would help him. "It's her condition, Holly," he said. "Why can't you tell her?"

Holly looked up at him, her lips quivering and her eyes savage. "Because if someone told me what I should tell her, I'd kill myself." Harry gaped at the girl, mouth open. Her face contorted with a sob and she covered it with her hands.

"Holly. Holly." Harry scooted forward on the sofa and pulled the girl's hands roughly away from her face. "Tell me," he told her quietly, hoping not to ignite a sudden, unexpected fury. "Tell me--it'll help. And I can tell Ginny, if you want..."

She laughed harshly and said, "You won't be able to retain a scrap of this information. This is my problem..."

"No," he stated, a little harshly, leaning forward, "it's not." Holly knitted her brows and raised her chin in some manner of tear-streaked defiance. "It's Ginny's. And she should know."

"I know that," Holly said, bearing her teeth in a grimace.

"Then why is this so difficult for you?" Harry asked, becoming impatient.

Holly glared over at some unseen person to her left for a moment like so many girls Harry knew did when they felt he should know something that he didn't and was losing forbearance with his stupidity. "What would you do," she asked weakly, switching her gaze back over to him, "if I told you that as time passed you will develop signs that run parallel with those related to Muggle Soul-Switchers? Trouble telling the difference between reality and make-believe, logical and illogical, or appropriate and inappropriate? That your ability to work, attend school, enjoy relationships with others, or even take care of yourself will be severely impaired?"

Harry stared at the girl, and she glared fiercely back. He didn't say a word, and let her continue. "From anywhere from five to fifteen years she'll start developing strong symptoms of psychosis--delusions, hallucinations, bizarre behavior, strange movements, disorganized thought and speech, and social withdrawal. About twenty-five percent of warlock Soul-Switchers can avoid these things--and here Ginny could be lucky." Holly paused to suck in her cheeks, jaw quivering. "But there's no avoiding anxiety and depression. Ten percent of Muggle Soul-Switchers, or schizophrenics and MPDs, commit suicide. And many more attempt it."

She stared hollowly at him, waiting for his rejoinder. Harry let the information he'd just gotten sink in for a moment before rethinking her last statements. "Ginny wouldn't do that to herself," he told her.

"Wouldn't she?" Holly swiped at her cheek again and said, "She's just as brave and noble as you are." She inquired, "What would you do, Harry? What would you do if Voldemort was coming through you, possibly trying to harm those around you?"

"He is--"

"Not like this, he isn't." Harry watched her intently. "You can try with all your might to make it look like you're the only one Voldemort's affecting, but you're not." He'd heard this one before. "The wizard you're battling can die without you dying as well. If you committed suicide, Harry, it'd be foolhardy and selfish. It wouldn't keep your loved ones from being hurt--it would leave them open and unguarded. They might be the bait, now--but at least then there's some hope. Without you, they'd die for their allegiance without you to protect them."

"I never asked for anyone's allegiance," he growled quietly.

"Well, you've got it!" she told him with mock happiness. As if that fake bright tone had drained her, Holly shakily concluded, "Frankly, I'm not worried about you right now."

Harry's mind focused back on Ginny rather than on his argument against Holly's comments. He thought of her, and how torn she was simply because she was a Soul-Switcher. What was to happen when she knew more about her condition? Or when it was her condition that was eating away at her?

"Treatment," he said suddenly. Harry looked at Holly who fixed a careful gaze back on him. "If Muggles can treat Soul-Switching, so can we, right?"

"Well... yes, but--"

"But what?" rejoined Harry, face breaking into a sudden smile.

Holly looked around, heavy lines of thought marring her face. "Treatment isn't simple." Harry awaited her elaboration, which, after a few moment, she gave. "With many years of treatment and rehabilitation, significant numbers of people with schizophrenia, and, obviously, Soul-Switchers, experience at least partial remission of their symptoms. That's true. But..." She grimaced, rubbing her temple with her fingertips.

"What is it?"

"Side-effects. They're horrible. And Soul-Switching treatment isn't fun in the first place--and it won't get rid of everything! Violence, post-traumatic stress disorder, instability, anxiety, depression--it's all still there!"

"But those can be treated too, can't they?" Harry pressed, leaning forward.

"I doubt Ginny will let herself be exposed to that many medications and therapy sessions," Holly responded, turning her face as if Harry had drawn too close.

"Well, tell me about the treatment, then."

Holly swallowed and said, "She'd have to take antipsychotic potions--they help reduce dangerous symptoms in 80 to 90 percent of Soul-Switchers."

"See! That's great!"

"Don't forget who her second soul is."

"Will it make a difference?" Harry inquired, thinking of Tom.

"It may." She wrung her hands and stared her knees. "Newer potions tend to prevent the side effects, but the worst of them are muscle spasms or cramps, tremors, and tardive dyskinesia." Holly glanced fleetingly at him, eyes leading him in either direction.

"What's that?"

"A condition marked by uncontrollable movements of the lips, mouth, and tongue," she replied smartly. Her veneer dimmed and she added, "It's irreversible. At least in the Muggle community." Harry sighed. She continued, "Some of the potions even cause agranulocytosis, Harry!" He looked at her blankly and she growled, "A significant reduction in white blood cells necessary to fight infections." He grimaced. "That can be deadly."

"So are you going to suggest she doesn't seek help for this?" Harry said, an edge of frustration on his voice.

"No," Holly snapped, burning him with a look. "One of the immediate purposes of the potions is to aid the host in holding down the second soul. The potion should bind the second soul to the mind and will of the host." She paused and looked at Harry in a way that proposed he finished the thought. He shook his head, watching her intently. "Antipsychotic potions will keep Tom from taking over at will. Ginny would have to give up the use of her body to him for he to take shape."

"Oh." Harry blinked languidly. "I didn't think he's shown up lately--has he?"

Holly looked at him, lips parted and eyes dead. "I've been staying in Ginny's dormitory since her first transformation, and stopping Tom from leaving it at least twice a night. I don't know where he's going, but it's best we don't bother to find out."

Something cold seized his entrails and froze them. The dark circles beneath her eyes and the sunken, pallid face made perfect sense, now. He gaped at her for a long junction before finding his voice and saying, "Why haven't you said anything about this before?!"

She shrugged, nonchalant, and remarked, "No one asked."

Suddenly he inquired, "Well, does Ginny remember the transformations?"

"Sometimes."

"Why doesn't she remember the transformations?!" he demanded frantically, eyes wide.

"Because she's sleeping!" Holly retorted, tired with his incompetence. "And it's not like I don't tell her about them!"

"Well how do you know that you stop him every time?" Harry demanded. "You're a hard sleeper..."

"I--don't--sleep."

That hung on the air between them until Harry said, "At all?"

"I lie down when she stirs. She wakes me soon as she's up and I go to my own dormitory to 'continue' sleeping," explained Holly. "I sleep into the afternoon, when she decides to get me up and tease me for being horribly lazy." She shrugged. "It's thrown off my clock completely, but I'll live with it."

"You can't keep doing this."

Holly yawned widely and retorted, "Sure I can."

"It's not that long until the end of the holidays!" he reminded her. "What are you going to do when class starts again?"

"I'd been planning to talk to Lupin today about antipsychotic potions--"

"Why Lupin?" Harry interjected.

"Because," she explained, "Lupin teaches that stuff. Darkness and defending yourself against it. And even though Soul-Switching usually doesn't mean Darkness--he can also talk to Snape for me." She laced her fingers together and added, "Y'know?"

"Why not just talk to Dumbledore?" Harry inquired.

"Because I'm not quite as comfortable waltzing into the headmaster's office when something goes wrong as you are," Holly said quickly, wrinkling her nose. "I say, start with closest thing to family and work my way up the chain."

"So, you think talking to Lupin will get you these potions for Ginny?" Holly nodded. "All right--when is this going to happen?"

"Well it was going to happen today, but he wasn't around." A look of dawning realization spread over her face and she murmured, "Oh. Okay..."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Harry watched the girl with suspicion before inquiring, "So were you planning on just slipping this potion into Ginny's pumpkin juice every morning when she wasn't looking, or was she going to find out about it first?"

Tears gathered in Holly's eyes, and Harry considered telling her to get some sleep so she could better balance her emotions. "Of course she was going to find out about it." Harry blew air through his lips and Holly went on, "I'd tell her everything. Every detail I'd ever read, every reason for my not telling her earlier, and every suggestion I had. She would take the potion willingly--forcing medication on anyone only bends their will against it." She shifted her sitting position then said, "And willpower is a potent, magical thing."

"So, when are you--"

"Shh!" Holly had sat up abruptly, and her eyes were focusing on something behind his head.

"Wh--"

"Shut up!" Holly leaned forward, eyebrows knotted. "Oh, shit.... Get up."

"What?"

"Just get up!"

Holly picked her wand up from the table in front of the sofa and Summoned a golden shield from its hanging place on the wall. She caught it in one hand and walked toward the dormitory doors. Harry followed her, slowly.

"Just stand against the wall, and get out your wand." Harry tensed and leaned against a tapestry next to the boys' dormitories door. "Don't make a sound," she whispered from her post to the left of the entry to the girls' dormitories.

Holly tucked her wand into her pocket and grasped the golden shield, staring at the door she stood parallel with. Many seconds passed, and Harry was prepared to speak up again as the girls' door began to move outward. A white hand appeared around the edge of the port as it was pushed leisurely open.

Holly moved with uncertain grace yet positive power as she lifted the shield high and pivoted, rolling her body in front of the doorframe and bringing the thing sharply downward. A body fell out from behind the open door and crumpled on the floor.

Harry rushed forward as Holly Banished the shield and knelt down at Tom Riddle's side. He was looking battered and bruised; Harry wondered why it was Riddle hadn't once managed to escape Holly and her heavy objects. "This isn't fair," she murmured, looking down at the boy's face. "Everything Ginny has--everything we take for granted--is going to be stripped from her simply because the parasite must feed."

Harry examined Holly's hunched back and rumpled hair. He watched the weak, shaking way that she moved about Tom's body and saw exhaustion thinning her very bones. "I can do this for you," he told her. "I can watch over Ginny tonight--or maybe tomorrow night--whatever. You need rest, Holly."

"I'll live." She cleared her throat and pushed her hair behind her ears. "Maybe another time." Harry sighed and stared down at his bare feet. There was no use arguing.

Holly brushed hair out of Tom's face in a nearly affectionate fashion before saying, "You should go. She wouldn't want you to see her like this."

"I've seen it before--"

"Once." Holly turned to look at him over her shoulder, sections of her face cast into shadow. "She's ashamed. As long as Ginny can think that maybe you've all forgotten about her episodes, she'll be all right."

"But we can't act as if--"

"For now," she barked, "you can." Harry shut his mouth and attenuated his eyes. "Go back to your dormitory and let it be." Holly ran her palm over another tear on her cheek and said, "You're not the only one here who's cursed."

*()%()*

For some reason, Draco wasn't at all surprised to find the hunched-over heap of Muggle clothing and dark hair that was Holly Black in the dustiest corner of the library. Her head was in her arms, which rested on an open book. Her hand curled loosely around a polished ebon-colored wand on the table.

"Black," he said, leaning over her. "Black." She didn't move. Draco crouched down and looked at her sleeping face, which was hidden behind several locks of untidy hair. He reached forward and brushed his fingertips along her forehead, making to pull the hair away from her veneer.

Very suddenly, Holly jumped from her seat. The chair went flying backward, and she grabbed Draco by the collar, pressing her wand against his throat.

Draco swallowed and reached for her glasses. Breathing a little too fast and holding the spectacles up to her, he said, "Bonsoir, ma cherie."

"Malfoy!" she yelped, dropping his robes. "I'm sorry--" she took her glasses from him, "I thought you were someone else."

"I haven't seen you for a few days," he said as nonchalantly as he could, trying to get a look at the text she was sleeping on. "What's up?"

Holly began to pull her hair back, extracting the ever-present hair tie from beneath her sleeve. "Oh... nothing..."

The mask was so weak it sounded as if Holly wanted him to question it. As she gathered up the books on the table, Draco snatched one and read aloud, "Soul-Switching and Effective Treatment" from its cover.

Holly took it back. "What time is it?"

"Quarter to eight," he told her. "So--how is Ickle Red?"

Holly walked past him and said, "Fine. She's great."

Draco followed her progress through the library and out its doors. "Someone's feeling sorry for herself," he remarked.

Holly rounded on him, very suddenly eight feet tall and iron wrought. "What?"

Draco examined her face, the pallid shade of her skin and the purple half-circles beneath her eyes. "Are you sick?" he asked her, opting not to repeat his previous statement.

"No." She turned back round and started walking.

Draco jogged to catch up with her. "Look, Black," he said. She didn't stop. "Whatever is going on, I have a strong feeling that you're making it far too hard for yourself."

"Am I?" she demanded smoothly.

Draco looked down at her and remarked, "See? I don't even know what's happening and you're jumping all over me!"

Holly took a short, deep breath. "Tom is taking over Ginny's body on a daily basis, I stay up all night to make sure he doesn't get very far, and Harry and I are the only ones that know what the outcomes of her condition are going to be." She turned her eyes on his and her lips twitched in a weak, split-second smile. "Okay?"

"You mean the anxiety, depression, difficulty sorting out absolutes, and social withdrawal?" Draco returned the split-second smile, with some effort. It was difficult to hold happiness for such a short time.

Holly stopped and stared at him. "Fine: you, Harry, and me. Better?"

"Certainly." Draco trotted alongside her silently for a second before asking, "So, have you looked into antipsychotic potions and cognitive-behavioral therapy and all that?"

"God," she breathed sharply, "since when are you the Soul-Switching pundit, Malfoy?"

"Pundit?" he repeated in a drawl. "It's just common knowledge, treasure."

"Cognitive-behavioral therapy is common knowledge?" She arced her eyebrows and continued walking. "'Kay."

"Look," he continued, "why don't you let me take some of this for a while?" He reached for a book but Holly shifted her shoulders and made the texts inaccessible. "Black. Your one-witch emotional circus is becoming irksome."

"Y'know what?" she growled. Holly spun and piled all the books into his arms, tore the Cretionis Charm from her neck and put it atop the stack, and took off her glasses and sat them on his head. "You can be me for a while."

Draco stood still for a few seconds, blinking and staring at her retreating back, before rushing forward. "Look, you lunatic," he said, a sudden idea consuming him, "c'mere."

He grabbed Holly's shoulder and stepped in front of her. "Take your glasses," he took them off his head, "and your necklace," he let it slide off the books and into her hands. "I'll help you carry the books to Gryffindor tower if you hear me out."

"I was going to see Professor Lupin," she snarled.

"To the first floor, then!" Draco began walking and Holly followed, though a little reluctantly. "D'you want to hear my idea?"

"Hit me," she deadpanned.

"We switch places in a month." She gave him a look. "You follow the Slytherins, I'll follow the Gryffindors. We'll switch duties, with the exception of homework. I watch over Ickle Red, you taunt your friends during Potions and Care of Magical Creatures."

"Great idea, Malfoy," she enunciated, walking faster.

"Polyjuice," he stated, expanding on the information. "We can take each other's lives for, say, a week."

She shook her head slightly. "So I get a break from Soul-Switching studies and you get to hear all Harry, Ron, and Hermione's plans to vanquish the Dark Lord?"

"You also can freely insult your fellows," Draco reminded her. "You're a brilliant liar--an actress--you could be Draco Malfoy for a week, couldn't you?"

"I'd make a better Draco Malfoy than you do," she said.

A challenge, he thought. There's nothing like a challenge and an underestimating chauvinist to get her going. "A better Draco Malfoy?" He inserted a sharp laugh and continued, "You barely make a decent Holly Black."

She paled another shade and her lips tightened. Her mouth opened as if she was prepared to retort, but it promptly closed again.

"Polyjuice?" he offered.

She took her books back from him; they'd reached the first floor. She didn't say anything as she turned and began making her way to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

"One month, then, princess!" he cried as she drew further and further away. Draco smirked and turned. As he descended to the ground floor and from there into the dungeons, he took into consideration all the possibilities woven into a week as Holly Black.

*()%()*

"Professor?" she called, leaning toward the door. "Professor?"

She heard movement from within the office, but didn't dare open the door. "Professor Lupin, it's Holly."

"Holly?" His voice sounded a little muffled as he continued, "Oh! Come in, come in..."

She pushed the door open, slowly, peering inside. It was dark for a moment before she heard a metallic clinking and the shuffling of fabric as the curtains were thrown open. Light flooded the room, which looked uncharacteristically untidy.

Lupin was hurrying around, putting objects away and sliding things over and beneath one another. She entered the office, standing uncertainly inside the doorframe. Holly trained her eyes on him and after a moment inquired, "You okay?"

"Yes, of course." Holly caught sight of his face and grinned. Lupin's eyes were puffy and one side of his head was marred with red wrinkle marks.

"Evening nap?"

He glanced quickly at her with his newly familiar aureate eyes and smirked. "Nothing gets past you, Holly," he said in a tone that was much like one Ron Weasley would put to use.

"That's so true." She sat without an invite, and put the stack of books down on the floor.

"I've been having a little trouble sleeping, actually." Lupin closed up a cabinet and looked at her over his shoulder.

"Imagine that..." she murmured. Holly didn't get any reaction, but she imagined that he did hear her. "So," she continued, "I've got something to talk to you about."

Lupin sat behind the desk and leaned forward. "What is it?"

"Antipsychotic potions." She got a small thrill of enjoyment watching lines sear the professor's forehead and concern mingled with confusion appear in his eyes.

Lupin looked about to suggest a trip to the hospital wing but thought better of it with a, "For whom?" She picked up Soul-Switching and Effective Treatment and sat it on his desk. "Ah," he said, running a hand over the cover and flipping it open with curiosity. "Ginny Weasley."

Holly gave him a look of confirmation. "Did you know before this?"

"I'd suspected the possibility when I first got word of Tom Riddle overtaking a Hogwarts student," he said. "I suppose I forgot about it once I became familiar with Ginny."

"Do you know much about the condition?"

"No. Nothing, really." He slid his hand off the text and steepled his fingers under his nose for a moment, a pensive expression on his face. Then Lupin began, "Are all those books...?"

"Uh-huh."

He furrowed his brow and nodded. "Have you finished with them?"

"I can't see what else I can do with them at this point." She lifted the rest and dropped them on his desk, which rattled and sent up a small cloud of dust. "I've read them all a dozen times, so you can trust me with the potion thing."

"If you want a potion, you should speak with Professor Snape," he told her, setting Soul-Switching and Effective Treatment atop the other books and sliding the stack to the edge of the desk.

"Yeah, I thought of that," said Holly, sitting back in her chair. "Then it occurred to me that I'd take a famished vampire as a roommate before speaking to him willingly." Lupin looked at her dubiously and she added, "I'm not kidding."

"I believe you." He sighed. "So what do you want me to tell Professor Snape when I walk into his office asking for Antipsychotic potions?"

Holly scratched her head. "That you're madly in love with him and you demand a cure?" The professor stared at her in horror. "Or--or! You could tell him what's going on and just say that... I was too frightened to come forward." A smile flickered over her face--it was nearly painful to do, she was so exhausted. "He might not give me such a hard time in class."

"I highly doubt that." Lupin was peering at the books she'd given him. "I'll read these, find what I need to know. Professor Snape isn't in the castle right now--"

"Where is he?" The man leveled her with a look--it was meant to be stern, but from her point of view it seemed tainted with a little uncertainty. "Oh," she inferred. "On a mission for the--whaddyacallem--Dumbledore groupies?"

He smiled--just a little. "The Order."

"Sure."

"I'll speak with him upon his return."

"Great." Holly stood and made for the door.

"Wait--" She turned. Lupin was silent for a moment, a question on his lips. "Does--does Ginny Weasley know about the--the--" he stammered.

That wasn't what he was going to ask, but she ignored it. "She will." His eyebrows rose and he bit his lip. His vague nod was statement enough. "Study hard."

Holly left and walked treaded to the seventh floor. She wasn't so quick on her feet as she usually was--even she noticed this. Her eyes were sore from lack of rest; Holly had read more in the past week than ever before in her life... she was sure of it. Her face was a little hot, but when she caught her reflection in a over-polished shield kept behind equally shimmery glass on the fifth floor she saw that her skin was paler than Malfoy's. With the exception, of course, of the blackened rings beneath her eyes.

"I must be catching something," she muttered.

Holly was on the sixth floor before that registered. She stopped and clumsily felt along her neck for a thin chain. After finding it, she yanked her Charm up from beneath her T-shirt and pulled the chain from her throat with ease.

Holly turned the pendant gem side-down in her palm and stared at it. Many months before, when dreams of Cliodna were frequent, three avifauna had appeared on the Charm's golden casing. They were etchings of the magical birds the deity kept with her at all times, those that aided in Healing others. Those that protected Holly from physical harm.

And now, they'd vanished. With them, she realized, went the Charm's old powers. She rubbed her thumb against the flat casing and frowned. She wasn't sure if she'd said the words aloud or not, but the phrase "Well, this sucks..." formed, at the very least, in her mind. Holly continued walking, her eyes on the heirloom. There went her protection against outside forces--hexes, viruses, parasites....

Parasites...

Holly dodged a ghost and subsequently hit her shoulder on a low torch. Sparks went flying as it dangled loose, and she dodged around the corner, deciding to leave it for Filch.

She'd been thinking of something. Augh, what was it? The more she tried to remember, the further it drifted from her. She let go of the thought and scaled the final staircase to the seventh floor. Past the Fat Lady's portrait and inside the common room sat the Trio, who she passed without a word. She entered the girls' dormitories turret and climbed upward. At the fifth years' door, she knocked.

Holly pressed her ear to the door, and heard voices inside--accompanied by the sounds of the WWN. She knocked harder, jiggled the handle, and pushed the door open.

"Hey, I--"

"Shh!"

Justin and Ginny were sitting on Ginny's bed, both cross-legged and wide-eyed, listening to the conclusion of Fey of the Ravishing on Lila's radio. Holly fell silent, staring at the ceiling.

"'It's time for your... check-up... Miss Daniels,' the Muggle healer said with a leer directed at the young woman sitting, so vulnerable, on the bed.

"'Will you be drawing blood, Doctor?' Hillarie inquired innocently. 'It always frightens me when my normal doctor, Doctor Bartinski, does it--and the puncture mark twinges for days afterward...'

"'I'm deeply sorry to say that ve must, Miss Daniels,' crooned the mad healer, pulling on gloves. 'It vill only be a little prick...'"

Justin and Ginny gasped simultaneously and leaned nearer to the radio. "Stay tuned for a preview of tomorrow's Fey of the Ravishing, here on the WWN!" They both groaned and Holly rubbed her forehead, waiting for her chance to budge in.

"I can't believe they're giving Hillarie over to Dr. Acula!" Ginny moaned.

"I know!" concurred Justin. "She's so innocent--why would the writers kill off their greatest creation?"

"Well, she'll still be alive--but, in essence--"

"--they've killed her off!" finished Justin.

"Exactly!" Ginny frowned. "She'll be a ravenous, blood sucking... ick."

Justin nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe Michael, in his swarthy greatness, will burst in at the last moment and--"

"--slay Dr. Acula!" Ginny said excitedly.

"Fantastic!"

"Okay," Holly interrupted finally, "I left my mail in here yesterday." Justin gave her a resentful look and she shot a corrosive glare back at him. "There was a Floo card and a letter from Warlock Eyewear in there--I need to order from them so..."

"Oh!" Ginny got up from her spot on the mattress and picked up a stack of letters on Kylie's bedside table. "There you are."

"Thanks."

Ginny narrowed her eyes and inquired, "Are you feeling all right?"

"Fine," replied Holly shortly, grasping the envelopes and scrolls tightly. "So--" she lowered her voice, "did you give him the password into the tower, or what?"

"No," she murmured, "he used Floo powder."

She knitted her eyebrows. "You can do that?" she said, a little louder than before.

"Yep."

Holly blinked and stared Ginny down. "Don't lie."

Ginny flinched a little then admitted, "Okay, so I snuck him in. He's harmless--nothing to worry about."

Holly looked over the girl's shoulder at her friend. Justin was serenely rearranging and de-frizzing his curls with one hand, staring at the radio. "That's true." She cleared her throat and said, "Well, girls, I'll leave you to it." She opened the door. "Sorry about Dr. Acula and all that--but what's Hillarie doing at a Muggle doctor anyway?"

Ginny began to explain, "She needs to go there because she's a direct descendent of Uric the Oddball and if any Healer tests her blood--"

"Okay, I really don't need to know, sorry." Holly began to step out. "With a little luck maybe Hillarie'll turn out to be a sexy vampiress siren or some such. Move into a big ol' castle with a hunky vampire, live happily ever after." Holly smiled fakely over at Justin, who stared at her with a look of mild contempt. "What?" she said, "I'd do it!" She touched Ginny on the arm and whispered, "I need to talk to you later..."

With that, she left. Only two more things left to do...

*()%()*

Ron looked intently at his inkbottle, scratching his quill on the edge of his parchment. "How d'you know when you've run out of invisible ink?" he inquired.

Harry looked up at him and grinned.

"Stick something in the inkbottle, Ron," Hermione sighed, turning a page of Pepperup Potion for the Psyche. "See if it's wet."

"Oh..."

The girls' dormitories door opened and Holly emerged, carrying a small box in one hand and a piece of parchment in the other. She didn't look around at any of them. She simply knelt down in front of the fireplace and pulled a silvery Floo card from her pocket.

Ron watched her as she checked that the black Location Strip was facing downward before tossing the powder-covered card into the fire.

A BANG erupted from the grate, and the head of a man in his mid-thirties with square glasses and dundrearies appeared in the fire. He blinked and looked up at Holly before beginning to announce, "You've reached Warlock Eyewear's free, 24-hour Floo card ordering provision. You have approximately six minutes until this Floo time is charged to y--"

"I know," Holly snapped, cutting the man short. "Time is precious, so, I'd like to order a box of contacts."

A parchment appeared in front of the wizard's head, already equipped with a quill. "How many boxes, miss?" he inquired.

"One," she deadpanned. The quill marked her order in a box.

"And your prescription?" the man asked.

Holly lifted the box she'd been holding and read, "-4.75 2008-08." The quill scratched the numbers on the parchment. "DIA: 14.5."

"Is this a non-magical contact prescription?"

"Yeah. And I'm pretty sure the only part of that that's prescribed is the '-4.75' bit." She looked at the head. "I just read off the box. You can go off that, right?"

"Certainly. Would you prefer the myopia-correcting lenses, the preserving--"

"What's cheapest?"

The head blinked. "Uncharmed soft contact lenses. Those are forty-five percent phemfilcon A, with UV absorbing chromophores, and fifty-five percent water, contained in borate buf--"

"I'll take a box. Holly Black, November 2nd, 1980, 'no' to all the medical questions involving allergies, and I'd love to sign on the line." She grabbed the quill, which was in the middle of frantically filling in her personal information, and scribbled her name on a line at the bottom of the parchment.

The head blinked again, looking a little unsettled. "Your bill will be sent with your order. Thank you for taking up your optic requisition with Warlock Eyewear."

"No prob."

The man's head disappeared and Holly got to her feet. Ron watched her eyes shoot over to Hermione, who was again immersed in her book, and then to him. She moved her left hand over and in front of him, and released something from her fist... a small scrap of parchment. It fluttered down into his lap, and she walked out of the common room without looking back.

Harry had seen the act, but Hermione appeared oblivious. Ron glanced at Harry before picking up the scratch paper and unfolding it. In Holly's wild, looping handwriting it read:

"It's a long story. If you really want to know it, and you can escape from your girlfriend's talons, I'll be outside."

*()%()*

Thankfully, Hermione decided to turn in not long after Holly's departure. After the door to the girls' dormitories was shut and a few seconds had passed, Ron showed Harry the slip of parchment covered in Holly's partially legible scrawl. Next, he dashed up to their dormitory, Harry on his heels, to grab his cloak.

"I was considering coming with you," Harry said. "But then I figured that I didn't want to get involved in your mad... little... whatever it is."

"What?" he inquired lowly, knitting his brows.

"You, Hermione... Holly... your little love-hate triangle." Harry shook his head gravely. "No desire to become part of it."

"We don't have a love-hate triangle," Ron groaned, pulling his cloak from its hook and shrugging it on.

"I don't know what to call it," admitted Harry, "but it reminds me of a Blast-Ended Skrewt, all right? I'm avoiding it until it comes to blows, at which point I hope someone breaks your face."

Ron threw his scarf over his shoulders and gave his friend an odd look. "You hope someone--'breaks my face'?"

"I hate to abandon our everlasting struggle against the forces of witch-kind," Harry told him, "but this one's really your fault."

Ron blinked. "You want someone to break my face?"

Harry moaned. "Just get out of here, all right?"

Ron grinned, though he felt uneasy, and left. He skirted along the shadows of the corridor walls, ducking beneath a low torch or two. When he stood outside the oak doors into the Entrance Hall, Ron stopped.

Okay. Where outside? He searched for movement on the grounds, but saw none. He looked to the snow, and found one set of fresh footprints (divided by long strides) that led away from the rest--solitary.

He followed the tracks and, sure enough, found Holly sitting in the courtyard within the smaller of the cloisters, watching the fountain spurt clear water forth from her perch on a stone bench. She didn't look at him, but did begin to speak.

"The Valar," stated Holly, "are to the Elves what all the deities and such are to us. Melkor is to the Elves what Grindelwald is to people our age. He's to the Valar what Voldemort is to us." Ron sat down on the bench, but Holly continued to stare forward as if eye contact was a rarely used thing in storytelling and conversation. "But he had more of a tendency to wreck objects than to kill people. Either way, he wanted to bend all things to his own will and always took advantage of his great power. Angainor is the chain of Melkor, and the Valar used it to hold him captive for three ages in the Halls of Mandos."

"That wasn't that long of a story."

"I know," she said. "But I thought you'd have questions."

"Well, I do." Ron pulled up the sleeve of his cloak and showed her the thin, albescent chain that he'd wrapped several times around his wrist. "Does Againor--"

Quite like Hermione helping them in Potions, Holly murmured, "Angainor."

"--whatever--hold any freaky Elvish purposes?"

She blinked. "Like... a tool for kinky immortal sex?" Holly wrinkled her nose at him in both confusion and disgust at her own response. "What're you talking about?"

"Weird spiritual meanings and stuff," he elaborated. "Y'know, things that only Elves, Centaurs, and mystics seem to care about."

"Maybe. But if there are 'spiritual meanings' and whatnot, they didn't seem to work too well on Melkor. I think he ended up escaping and wreaking more havoc on the ancient world, and he wore that sucker for, like, centuries." She shrugged. "I guess it could increase determination."

Ron looked at the chain and nodded. "Perfect for a Weasley, yes, all we need is to be even more Graphorn-headed."

Holly lifted her shoulders again and said, "I don't make the rules." She tapped her fingers on her knees for a few moments and Ron watched the unfrozen fountain water sparkle in the moonlight. "Hey--" she said suddenly, looking up and cutting the silence, "let me see that."

"See what?"

"The chain." Ron looked warily at her before unclasping the chain and handing it over. Holly wrapped one end of it around the base of her fingers and stood up. She strode to the edge of the cloister.

"What're you doing?"

Holly didn't answer, but reached around one of the wide, oak pillars that separated the ceiling of the cloister and the base. She wrapped the other end of the chain around her other hand and said, "Watch out."

Ron took heed of these words and stood, backing up a few steps. Holly braced herself with one foot on the cloister base and pulled sharply backward. With a loud cracking, Holly tore the pillar from the wall and threw it sideways as she released the chain from one fist. It hit a spare stone bench with a sonorous BANG and fell to the ground.

When Ron had finished staring at the oak pillar and looked back to the girl, she tossed the chain to him. He caught it in his hands and Holly said, "Never doubt practicality." She repaired the damage she'd done with an incantation and a flick of her wand before sitting back down at the bench. Ron joined her.

"I got a light from Eowilindë," she told him. "Now, I ignored the bull shit about any possibility to erase Darkness from the soul and cut to it--it provides light. Probably a lot more than a lousy Lumos." Her wand lit itself from the pocket of her cloak and she cursed softly before putting it out. "It also doubles as a fancy paperweight." She looked over at him, the eerie polar difference of her eyes just as apparent in the dark as it was in the light. "The Elves can appreciate things as they are. They're capable. But after hundreds of thousands of years, they tend to see everything with extra meaning." A smirk pulled at her lips. "That's wisdom. We're kids until we can understand the importance of things unseen."

Ron nodded. "I take things at face value," he stated.

"You're a kid."

"So are you," he rejoined.

"When I can be."

A silence developed between them. The night was very still, as winter nights could be, and the only sounds were that of the water in the fountain and their own breathing--the only movement was that of the mist their breath made and the sparkle of the flowing water off the moon and the lit-up castle windows. Ron sliced the moment and asked, "So a pendant promising bits of wisdom, power, and strength could also be... jewelry?"

"Or a token that would made you recognized by Elves, depending on the symbol."

"Like a tree?"

"A symbol of Feanor's sons, I bet." Ron nodded. "Yeah, that's famous. It's like a Dark Mark, but not--evil. If you wear something so clearly Elvish, Elves probably won't shoot you for walking into their forest or onto their mountain, y'know?"

"Unless they can't see the picture."

"Wear it in a visible place, they'll see it five miles off." She pulled her hair from places where it was caught beneath her cloak. "I guess Harry has a tree pendant?"

Ron nodded. "He thinks it's useless."

"Probably is, for the most part."

They ceased speaking. Ron had a lot he wished to say, but couldn't. Simply sitting near the girl was crossing the line--bending if not breaking the rules. He'd found himself in a position he hadn't foreseen, a position he was positive he didn't favor. Ron was caught in an abandoned desert hut in high winds. Inside, he would starve; outside, the sandstorm would surely kill him. The safe inn he'd abandoned and left behind still waited, but was so far from where he stood now that heading back may be impossible. A few more Galleons for another night, and security might have been his.

Ron looked over at Holly, who was staring stonily forward. She appeared starved, fatigued, plagued, and all conditions between. She'd pulled her glasses off and was cleaning them with the sleeve of her cloak, a mild frown on her face. The dead, cold night suited her--as did her sick, haunted appearance. Next to Ron's fire-red Weasley hair, summer sky-blue eyes, and boyish freckles Holly was a black hole. He wanted to ask whether she felt all right, but didn't want the sharp glare that would surely rejoin his inquiry.

Instead of stating anything that was on his mind, Ron murmured, "Thank you," and walked away. He imagined Holly's polar glare on his back until he was gone from the small cloister, and even then an icy grip seemed to hold tight onto his spine.

*()%()*

Ginny was asleep. Of course, that was only natural; when Holly had pertinent and dire news to break to the girl, she was deep in slumber. Harry was sitting in a wooden chair against one of the beds, resting his chin on the heel of his hand whilst watching the girl peacefully. His stationary form was thrown completely into shadow, and when she noticed his presence, she jumped.

Regaining composure, Holly inquired, "How long's she been out?"

He shrugged. "She was asleep when I came in."

She moved toward him and looked down at the top of his head. "What did you come in for?" she inquired, trying to keep her key completely level while sweeping his unkempt hair with her gaze.

"Just to check on her. I'm not about to leave you to be the only one watching over Ginny." Harry continued to look at the sleeping redhead rather than make eye contact with the other half of the conversation. With a sideways glance Holly noticed a discolored orange patch sitting in the girl's hair--the kitten she'd given her for Christmas.

"I don't know whether that was supposed to mean that you don't trust me or that you're tying to help out, but thanks anyway." Holly sat down on one of the many vacant four-posters and looked at him. "But I'm sure that Ginny wouldn't be too fond of the fact that she needs to be watched over. I certainly wouldn't--and I don't think it's in the Weasley family to accept someone believing they can't take care of themselves either."

"Well, what do you suggest we do?" asked Harry, a little sharply.

"Lupin is reading up on Soul-Switching as we speak," she said, imagining the professor poring over the books in his office now that he'd had a good power nap, "and he'll talk to Snape about the anti-psychotic potions once he's back from the Dumbledore groupie mission."

"He's on a mission for the Order?" Harry echoed, finally looking at her and shifting from his Thinker-like position.

"Sure." Holly rested her elbows on her knees and bent her back, rubbing her eyes beneath her glasses. She yawned widely, not bothering to hold it in. Halfway though the exhalation it turned into a violent cough, which left her heaving for air with damp eyes.

"Holly, I'll watch Ginny tonight," offered Harry. "You need sleep and Pepperup Potion."

"No, I've become rather accustomed to the nocturnal way of life--I'm like a big... African... cat." Harry stared at her. "Yeah. My eyes have started to glow in the moonlight and everything."

"You look more like a raccoon to me," he stated.

"Yeah," she concurred, "I s'pose I wouldn't make much of a hunter. I'm more likely to resort to other peoples' garbage."

"I'm talking about the rings under your eyes, you great... I don't know..." sighed Harry, casting an exasperated look in the girl's direction and sighing loudly.

"Raccoons are nocturnal too, though, right?"

Harry rubbed his forehead. "Not the point I was trying to make, but all right, Holly. Yes. Raccoons are very nocturnal. Whatever you say..." he murmured. "Go to bed--I've been drinking coffee. I don't want to sleep tonight."

"Personally," Holly stated, "I'd rather deal with Voldemort in my dreams than Voldemort in my dormitory. You go, I'm running on Tokyo time."

"I'm not kidding," Harry said seriously. "I've got the Marauder's Map, I've got several wardrobes to go through. Really, this could be fun."

She noted, "You've also got a vulnerable, sleeping girl who's possibly wearing no undergarments and lying on a bed." Harry glared at her in a cross of fury and horror. "What?"

He shook his head and blinked several times. "You're a trip, Holly," he deadpanned.

"So I've been told." Holly didn't move from her post on the mattress, and Harry didn't stand up from his spot on the chair. She watched him with an entreating grin, awaiting his departure, but it didn't come.

Harry knitted his brow with a sudden thought or dawning realization and his lips shaped into an 'O' for a junction before he said, "I've just remembered something."

"Hm?"

"I'm supposed to ask you something."

"What's that?" she prompted.

"How to lie."

Holly blinked languidly but didn't avert her gaze. That was a new one--it caught her more than a little off guard and she wasn't certain she'd heard it right. "Huh?"

"It's the first step to successful Occlumency." Holly shook her head blankly, not at his ambition to become an Occlumens but at his manner of start-up training. Harry continued to explain that Dumbledore had told him that storytellers and flatterers tend to be low-level Occlumens and that by learning the "art of lying" he was on his way to completely blocking out a Legilimens' intrusion.

"...So?" he pressed, after leaving Holly with a few seconds for the story to sink in. "Can you do it?"

Still a little thrown by his desire to learn how to lie, it took her a junction to reply. "It's hard to say," she said, finally. "You're a horribly honest kid."

"Horribly honest?" Harry repeated, face contorting with confusion. "I've never seen those two lines coincide."

"Well, it's true. Honesty is a good thing, but it isn't profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control," she quoted smartly. "It's dangerous to be sincere--unless you're also stupid."

"There's a defense I haven't heard before..." murmured the boy darkly.

"Read more," she told him simply. "My point is, you look like the type that would get shifty and conscience-y whenever you fibbed." She shook her head. "All guilt is null and void so long as no one could be seriously hurt. You can't write anything off."

"Can too!" Harry responded, voice breaking to emphasize the point. "And I've told some good lies in my day, too!"

"Mmm. Without sweating profusely, stammering, or clenching your fists?"

"Yes!" Harry retreated a little, glaring at her. "Okay, no, not really." Holly rubbed the side of her face and looked away. "What?" he demanded, "Not everyone can lie simpler than tell the truth!"

"Everyone lies. You just have to be good at it if you want to be an Occlumens about it." She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "Story-telling is a gift, if you ask me," said Holly, thinking of Draco. "Not many people can lie like there's no tomorrow--and there are far too many criminals out there getting caught to make all liars good liars."

"Well where should I start, then?" Harry asked, a little shortly.

"Little white lies, of course," she replied without a moment of thought. He didn't speak, and allowed her to go on. "Y'know, instead of saying you forgot to buy someone a souvenir you can tell them that theirs broke and give them a flimsy key chain as a replacement. Instead of telling Filch that you were out for a pointless late-night stroll tell him you just got back from your grandmother's funeral in London."

"I don't have a grandmother," Harry reminded her.

"Exactly. If he believes you, you know you're getting good." She smiled. "Then you might want to try some pointless, extravagant tales to see if people buy it... crocodile-wrestling, skydiving, a rowdy night in Mexico... and then maybe you can move on to ridiculous reasoning and persuasion."

"What d'you mean by that?" Harry asked her.

She thought back for a moment before inquiring, "Do you remember what I told you about Ginny and how she felt when Justin told her he was gay?" Harry nodded. "And how she felt utterly unappealing and was really down on herself because she thought she was what turned him?" He nodded again. "And how when you wouldn't go for it every time your near-kiss was interrupted really bothered her?" He made a noise of consent, but his eyes grew dark. "And, with a little swearing, this all caused you to burst into her dormitory and make out with her?" He didn't give any sign of agreement this time, just stared uncertainly forward. "Yeah, all lies."

Harry's mouth fell open before his eyes narrowed and nose wrinkled in a disgusted scowl. "Wench."

"You're gullible, what was I supposed to do? I got what I wanted out of it, didn't I?"

"Riddle coming through?" he growled.

Holly kept her snickers inside and stated, "Well, that was just a bonus."

"This is a bonus?" he said, voice cracking into a new register. Harry pointed at the sleeping Ginny and Holly looked at the ceiling.

"No, I was thinking more along the lines of you kissing a boy..." She held up her hands in surrender as Harry fired a fresh glare her way. "Anyway, you're crazy after 9:30 so I really don't want to talk to you anymore." She pointed at the door. "Out, maniac."

"No!" he hissed. "I'm staying here--you go to bed."

She watched his fiery eyes--grass green tonight, as always--and frowned. "Fine," she breathed, setting her shoulders and standing up slowly. "You stay with Ginny, and if you fall asleep and fuck this up, I'll pummel you into the ground, so help me God." She stepped toward Ginny's bed and lifted up her wand, throwing it at Harry. "You don't want Riddle grabbing that when he wakes up."

Holly walked out, moving slowly to prevent herself from stalking through the door. She shut the port behind her and felt immediately tugged to items she'd received by owl-post that were, at that moment, sitting beneath her bed. She yielded to the temptation and rushed up the rest of the stairs. The dormitory was empty except for Roux, who slept peacefully in the middle of her mattress.

Holly reached beneath her four-poster and pulled the pair of worn, black hockey skates that her foster parents had sent her two months previous out from their hiding spot. She brushed dust off the golden maple leaf logo emblazoned on the skate and smirked. She thought, Why not? and sharpened the blades with her wand.

*()%()*

Draco sat on the sill of a glass-less window set into the wall of a high turret on the south side of the castle. He wasn't sure who decided that heat rises, because it was sure as hell colder up there than it would be on the ground.

He saw owls shoot by, seemingly unaffected by the biting cold, and lost himself in thought. The few noises that truly sounded out in the silent night weren't heard by him, but rather went completely unnoticed. He stared out at the whitened landscape and focused on nothing but thoughts shooting through his head. For hours he'd sat there, motionless, considering past and future events. He'd found himself fingering the mirror pendant given to him by the Elves more than once. He didn't understand it, and Malfoys didn't ask.

He lit a cigarette--it was a habit founded more from boredom than addiction--and held it betwixt two fingers. He gazed at the bluish smoke that rose from it for so long that the stick was nearly half gone before he bothered to take another drag.

Then he saw it again: that ebony line that bolted across the white grounds that was Holly Black. This time, it appeared to be headed for the lake.

Did he want to? Did he need to? Mysteriously popping up whenever she left the castle would look bad eventually, would it not?

Draco scowled at the girl in the distance and watched her stop and sit down on a stump on the lake's edge.

"Fine," he snapped, as if talking to his mother while she held up a hideous set of dress robes with pleading eyes. "Bloody hell." He slid inside the window and started toward the lake, one stair a time.

*()%()*

When Draco had reached the lake's edge, Holly appeared to be in the middle of a fast lap around the water. Her back was bent, as were her knees, and she flew along the ice with uncommon foot-speed.

She finished her lap, coming to a halt by turning sideways and redistributing her weight so that she stopped in the middle of a brilliant shower of ice shavings. She stood as tall as, if not taller than, Draco at that moment. She smiled at him from beneath a black and white checkered beanie, in a frostbitten sort of innocence, and stated, "I'd forgotten how fun these things were!"

She skated a small, backward circle, smiling at him again as she glided gently away. "I'd ask you to join me, but I imagine Malfoys don't skate." She backed up a few strides, then went forward again. "Correct?" she added.

"We would," he told her, "but figure skating is for the feminine and the weak according to... someone." He smiled feebly at her. "No offense."

"None taken." She lifted a denim trouser leg to better show off her wide, black skates. "Hockey skates," she stated. "Not meant for doing tricks."

"I see." He looked at her. "Can I walk you once around the lake?"

She agreed.

Draco strolled along the lake's edge on the path worn into the snow as Holly glided next to him. Every now and then she would skate forward or backward a bit, sliding in an arc to find herself back at his side.

"Where's Ickle Red tonight?" asked Draco. "Did you finally lock her in a cage and hide her wand?"

Holly shot him a sharp look of distaste and rejoined, "No, my liege, I'm afraid all the iron-wrought cages have been borrowed by the page and stowed in the shrub gardens for the purpose of locking up your hellhounds."

"Okay...Sarcasmo... I get it." He held up his hands in surrender. "Touchy subject."

"As a matter of fact, Malfoy," she barked, "the possession of my best friend by a over-educated future evil overlord is something that has struck mild concern in my heart."

"Anti-psychotic potions, Black, I'm telling you again..." he said, letting a little desperation hang on his voice.

"I know, Malfoy, I KNOW!" Holly skated a very fast circle, rose-brushed face suddenly creased with a deep scowl.

"Dr. Jekyll--you know him, right?" She shot him a look. "So you do," he inferred. "He used potions to switch into Mr. Hyde."

"Yeah. So?"

"So all potions that cause severe physical transformations have a sort of rewind-trigger ingredient. In Polyjuice, for example," he explained, "it's mugwort. It takes approximately an hour to kick in and reverse the effects of the potion--that's what makes Polyjuice fatal. Most potions go back on themselves within minutes, allowing the taker to save themselves from some malady or another."

"I'm not seeing the point of this oration, Malfoy," she said in low, bitter tones.

"The ingredient in Jekyll's altering poisons that triggered a reverse in effect was rue. Rue turned Hyde back into Jekyll." Draco watched her, but she didn't make any face or motion that indicated any sort of feeling or ideas she may have had at the time. "What I'm saying, Black," he elaborated, "is that if antipsychotic potions don't work to keep the Switches down..."

"If someone has a rue solution on hand and can somehow force it on Tom, we can at least get him to change back into Ginny for the present." She smiled a little to herself, and at that moment Draco wished he could read minds. "I hope it doesn't come to that. I want the potions to work."

"I'd keep rue on you nonetheless." Draco looked over at her, but she didn't meet his gaze. "For the future. There's actually a potion that has stronger and more immediate effects than rue itself... I think it has valerian, asafetida, kava, and ginseng in it as well. I can take some out of Snape's cupboard tonight when I get the ingredients for our Polyjuice project."

Holly sighed. "You're seriously going through with that?" she inquired in a low, dubious voice. She turned a slow circle on the front of her blade.

He faked a look of pain. "Of course I am!" She blew air loudly through her lips and stared up at the sky. "Think of all the benefits!"

"All the benefits of being Mr. Draco Malfoy," she said dramatically, jerking her chin a little for emphasis. "Such as?"

"Um, a week in the life of the richest, wittiest, most attractive wizard in Hogwarts history," he stated matter-of-factly.

She asked, "Does it hurt when you bend over and kiss your own ass like that?"

"Black--diamond--haven't you ever wanted to treat Granger like nothing but dirt beneath your shoes?" Holly quieted, and a very solemn look came over her face. "And Potter... don't you tire of treading carefully around this century's Unbalanced Hero Number One?"

Holly didn't speak, and Draco knew he'd found a weak spot. "I'm confident that you needn't even depend on Crabbe and Goyle to do your dirty work. It would work wonders for my reputation if I actually picked a fight without the use of my five-ton bodyguards." He leered, seeing truth in this last statement. He looked at Holly, who continued to appear very serious.

"I don't know why you want to do this," she said, almost warily. She looked sideways at him and added, "I don't see what's in it for you."

"Didn't I just say what was in it for me?" he replied, speaking a little too quickly. "Slytherin House popularity boost!"

"I thought you said that popularity was glory's small change," she reminded him.

"That wasn't me, that was Victor Hugo. Anyway: not only will I be the most popular boy since the founding of the house, but I will proceed to become the Supreme Slytherin Popularity Contest Dictator-for-Life." She looked at him in distaste, but he plunged onward. "I will reign forever Slytherin king and preside over all future Death Eater meetings."

She stared at him, her nose creased and eyes widened in horror. "That was a joke," he muttered.

Something seemed to occur to Holly suddenly, as the look of terror melted off her face. "Who am I kidding?" she murmured. "If the Trio had some plan to vanquish Voldemort they wouldn't let me in on it."

"Exactly," he agreed. "And I know you're dying to raid my wardrobe. I'll let you keep souvenirs if you like. You're not the first witch secretly wishing to substitute my boxers for pajama cutoffs."

Resolve seemed to set in at that moment and, rather coolly, she staked, "I'll do it." Holly squared her shoulders and skated with longer strides. "On one condition."

"What's that, angel?"

"You can't hurt Ginny." Draco opened his mouth to reply, but Holly cut him off. "No crude remarks, no harmful advice, nothing. And if she shares anything with you that appears to be news, you tell me A.S.A.P., but in the meantime be comforting, would you? A hug's never hurt anybody."

"Unless, of course, that hug included slipping a dagger out from beneath one's sleeve and--" he stopped at a silencing look from Holly. "Okay, I get it. Hugs and kisses, bunnies and kittens, hooray for possessed redheads."

This appeared to suffice. Holly didn't speak more on it.

*()%()*

Holly stopped at the landing of the seventh floor and sat down. Sure Gryffindor tower was a matter of meters from where she rested, but who was to say that there was a reason to go back to bed?

She sat her ice skates down next to her, watching ice shavings and snow melt from them and make puddles on the floor for some time--she wasn't sure whether it was several seconds or several minutes. It didn't matter.

"An odd place to be at an hour so very late."

Holly didn't need to turn around to see who the speaker was, but she did anyway. "Hey, Professor."

Dumbledore stood--tall, aged, and venerable--near the statue of Lanolin the Lanky. He still wore his robes from the day before, though they didn't appear to be wrinkled or tarnished by lint he may have happened to pick up. They looked as if they were right out of the wash, which Holly imagined was due to some enchantment or another that she wasn't willing to put on her own clothing.

"Would you care to take a stroll, Miss Black?" he offered. "You don't appear to be making your way to your dormitory any time soon, anyway."

"'Kay." Holly stood, lifting her skates (which were held together by a system of knots between laces) and throwing them over her shoulder.

She made her way up the final stair and followed Dumbledore past the tower and into another corridor. Most people would be shocked at the manner in which she spoke to and acted around the headmaster. This wasn't due to lack of respect, however. She'd met the man while wearing only a bath towel then sat on a train with him for several hours while he told her bits and pieces of her hushed-up past. Little had she known that entire time that he was possibly the most powerful wizard in the world, and so she'd grown accustomed to treating him like any other average old man.

She stuck her hands in her pockets and exhaled loudly, walking along at the aged wizard's side. "You've lost sleep. You look it." She sighed irritably. "And yet, all Blacks tend to look the same when in a sullen mood. You might have noticed this amongst the portraits in Grimmauld Place."

Holly couldn't honestly say that she paid much attention to the many portraits lining the hallways and chamber walls in her father's old house. All she'd really taken time to look at was one familiar face in a family portrait and a tapestry headed The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

"Did you happen to meet your grandparents during your stay there?" he inquired. "Your grandfather, Joseph, specifically?"

Holly blinked. "My grandparents are still alive?"

"No," he said, "but their portraits have quite taken on their personalities. Especially your grandmother's, but you may not wish to speak with her. Joseph would interest you--he was, once, a noble man. And you would find your great-great-great-grandfather Phineas rather intriguing, I imagine." She didn't respond. "There's a portrait of him in my office; I could introduce you to him sometime if you'd like."

She didn't ask--but she imagined Phineas may have been a Hogwarts headmaster at some point in time. It made sense that someone along the bloodline had done something worthwhile. Holly didn't say anything, and they walked many paces in silence. Finally Dumbledore inquired, "What is it that brought along this new friendship?" She glanced up at him. "With Draco Malfoy?"

"I only saw it fit to stick-with the breeding standard set out for us by our ancestors--purebred pureblood," she lied. "Whether our offspring chooses to be a Healer at St. Mungo's or a fervent follower of the Dark Lord, it doesn't matter--so long as little Draco Jr. is of the purest of pure wizarding blood."

She smirked up at the headmaster and noticed a laughing twinkle in his eyes. "A story sure to convince Lucius Malfoy when you're caught sneaking ice cream from an icebox in the manor." He smiled. "You may want to hold onto that."

She laughed lightly, picturing herself sticking out her stomach and talking to the elder of the Malfoys--trying to convince him that she was holding a can of chocolate syrup strictly for breeding purposes.

"Now, truthfully."

Dumbledore was still smiling, and somehow his quiet confidence in her was encouraging. She explained, "After exchanging blows trapped inside the Cave of Quiet, I came to realize that maybe he isn't as wretched as he seems. That, and after using him for body warmth I felt somewhat compelled to talk to him again after the cave incident."

He didn't say anything, and Holly promptly narrowed her eyes. "Why?" she demanded, suddenly suspicious. "My father didn't send you to talk to me about him too, did he?" She groaned loudly, not waiting for an answer. "Go on, then: tell me why my enjoying Malfoy's company is an absolute atrocity."

"I do not think it's an atrocity, Miss Black. Not in the least." Holly stared at him in amazement. "No matter how strange a friendship appears to the spectator, one thing remains the same: friendship--true, strong friendship--improves happiness and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief."

She blinked several times, looking at the professor. The wrinkles on his aged face looked darker and deeper in the half-light, and if it weren't for his perpetually sparkling sky-blue eyes, Dumbledore would look grizzly and grim. "...But?" she prompted.

"But nothing."

"What do you think of Malfoy, then?" she asked, raising her chin. "What is it that makes you think that he's someone worthy of my trust?"

"Trust?" repeated Dumbledore, looking at her with his alpine eyebrows raised. "Not all friendships are founded on trust. As I see it, a relationship that begins with a moment of trust or liking is a relationship that may very well turn out badly. Things that happen suddenly are rarely stable. Hogwarts wasn't founded in a day.

"Things must develop slowly to remain strong. Would you trust Draco Malfoy with your life, Miss Black?"

Holly thought of the Polyjuice Potion. "No," she said. "I don't think I could trust anyone with my life."

"I'm rather sure," Dumbledore said, "that Mister Malfoy feels quite the same. Similarity should be the original base of friendship--trust, I believe, should follow and seal the base much later."

Holly nodded a little, thinking. It sounded like a very backward philosophy at first. Yet, men trusted prostitutes not to spread the secrets of their dealings; wizards put their Galleons into banks and trusted the goblins to watch over them. This was strictly trust, and it constructed no base for friendship.

"So, do you think me and Malfoy are similar?"

"In ways, I'm certain you are." Dumbledore looked a little sad. "Just as many have advised you not to befriend Malfoy, it is certain that many have advised their friends and children against befriending you." Holly knew on some level that she should feel insulted, but she also knew that that was probably the truth. "I believe you will surprise each other many times before and after you reach the milestone of trust."

Holly didn't say a word, and they walked many more paces in silence. When they again reached the entrance to Gryffindor tower, Holly turned and looked at the headmaster. "You never did answer my question."

"Oh?" He furrowed his brow. "Which question?"

"What do you think about Malfoy?"

A look passed over Dumbledore's face then that she couldn't describe. It was a look that was signature of the experienced and wise. He had the appearance of someone who had felt so many things that over time he was capable of feeling them all at once. "Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem. I can only hope the same comes from Draco Malfoy."

Holly frowned, despising his manner of indirect reply. She gave the password to the Fat Lady and stopped before climbing into the common room. "Professor?" she said, turning around.

Dumbledore turned to look at her, a mild smile on his face.

"D'you know how to work a Pensieve?"

*()%()*

Harry woke with a start. He found himself slouched down in a hard-backed chair, nearly falling off the edge of it. He gripped the arms of the chair and pushed himself up, blinking slowly and examining his surroundings.

It was a moment before Harry realized where he was--Ginny's dormitory. In a few more seconds, he would remember why he was there.

Harry's eyes shot to Ginny's four-poster. The bedcovers were tossed to the side, and it had been left completely empty. He scrambled to his feet, pushing back the chair and letting it bang loudly against the wall. He jerked open the dormitory door and flew down the staircase, through the common room, and out the portrait hole.

Where did he go? Harry thought frantically. Where?

Surely if it was simply Ginny, awaking in the middle of the night and crawling out of bed to use the lavatory she would have noticed him in the chair and roused him, inquiring as to why he was sleeping in her dormitory. Right?

Harry danced on the spot, looking around him in all directions. Where could he be?

Harry dug into his pocket and extracted the Marauder's Map. He'd been looking at it only minutes (or perhaps hours) before. His eyes skimmed the parchment with urgency, looking for movement in the castle. He found the correct dot after several seconds--Tom Riddle. He was standing completely stationary, dead center in the Great Hall.

Harry bolted down the stairway, and the next, and the next one after that. He darted through shortcuts at random, checking the map again when he was halfway there. Riddle hadn't moved. Harry careened through a few corridors before reaching the last stretch of the Grand Staircase and rushing down the steps, taking them three at a time.

Harry skittered to a stop in the entrance hall, facing the gilded doors of the Great Hall. He checked the map once more, and then silently pushed one of the double-doors open. He sucked in his stomach and held his breath, sliding through the smallest possible gap he could fit through.

The Great Hall was unlit by torches, so the golden firelight from the entrance hall poured into it through the small crack he'd left between the doors. He shut the port quickly, and looked around. Tom was standing in the middle of the hall, facing the head table. Everything was cast over by a bluish illumination from the great windows that let in the moonlight and from ceiling, which lit the room with its charmed replica of the starry sky.

Tom didn't appear to have noticed Harry's entrance. Harry tiptoed over to the nearest grate and drew a poker from the stand at its side. He then extracted his wand from his pocket and held it in front of him. He'd just get a little closer then aim and fire. The metal poker was simply backup.

Harry was halfway to Tom when he stopped, his wand arm steady and trained on the boy's back. Then, a thought occurred to him.

If Tom wanted to kill him, why didn't he do so when Harry was sound asleep in Ginny's dormitory? Had he not seen him? And what was he doing standing in the middle of the Great Hall anyway? Enjoying a midnight stroll--a walk down memory lane?

Reminding himself of the troubles at hand, Harry chose not to dwell on the background information. Myriad spells and their incantations shot through Harry's head until his mind came to rest on a conversation he and Ginny had had on the first day of Tom's arrival.

"The Full-Body Bind might've worked," Ginny had told him. The incantation was on his lips just as he remembered her adding, "But then, maybe not."

He swallowed, making up his mind. It's worth a shot. It all had to be said very fast--Voldemort wasn't a be played with. "Petrificus--"

Tom turned around, a wand in his left hand and a would-be sweet smile drawing out his pale lips. He disarmed Harry with a simple jerk of his arm. In reaction, Harry rushed toward him with the metal poker raised like a baseball bat.

At this, Tom nearly laughed. He deftly caught Harry's wand in his right hand, switched it over to his left so he was armed with two wands, and magically wrenched the bar from Harry's grip. He brought the poker down sharply, and it caught Harry beneath both arms. With a flick of Tom's wrist it pulled upward, lifting Harry's feet from the ground.

Harry stared at him, horrified, unable to move. Jutting his arm outward, Tom sent the bar away, banishing Harry with it. Harry flew backward, legs banging painfully against two tables before he hit the wall. Harry yelled when his back came in contact with the rough stone, and involuntarily cried out again with a pained groan as Tom raised him until the top of his head collided with the shelf trimming halfway between the torches and the hall's ceiling.

Harry was breathing heavily, blinking stars out of his eyes, determined not to black out. He wouldn't--he couldn't. The poker dug deep into his chest, shortening his breath further yet. Harry coughed and watched Tom walk calmly around the tables, struggling to keep hold onto both the bar and his consciousness. Tears leaked from his eyes, and the top of his head throbbed. He thought he felt something hot and wet gathering in his hair, but tried hard to ignore it.

There was a torch directly beneath his feet; the light danced around his shadow. Harry didn't want to fall onto it, but he didn't have much choice. He struggled against the bar as discreetly as he could, but the magical force with which it pressed into his chest was far greater than his ability to squirm around it.

Finally coming to rest beneath him with the wands raised high in the air, Tom said belatedly, "This simply won't do."

Harry wanted to yell out, to scream for Ginny to wake up and fight Tom back into submission. His vocal cords didn't cooperate, however, and he resorted to coughing and heaving some more.

"You've served as an obstacle in times past, and I won't have it happen again." Harry felt an outward yank from the poker, and he was moved away from the shelf for a second then slid painfully over it as Tom raised him higher and higher, until he was pinned against the beginning of the wooden bearing arcs on the ceiling. The stars in his eyes were now pictures from the enchantment--his head had broken through the first layer of wispy clouds, and the moon shone brighter up here.

"This can't be the first time you've found yourself with the end so near and help only a shout away," Tom said slowly, nonchalantly. It didn't seem that he'd raised his voice whatsoever, but it reached Harry with the same clarity from this altitude as it had when he was barely feet from the boy. "Without aid, you're no hero. You mustn't underestimate me, for I have power and logic over your own in every age and predicament."

Harry blinked feverishly, feeling and hearing his heart pounding frantically inside his ribcage. What was he to do? What clever plan could possibly strike him now?

He just saw a flash of brilliant aureate light filling the hall as he was sent sharply upward again, past the first of the wooden bearings and higher. Harry flew higher and higher yet; he wove through crisscrossing planks and beams, which were covered thickly in the dust and filth of ages. Harry broke through the enchantments completely and saw clearly, for the first time, the ceiling of the Great Hall above him.

He pulled himself over the bar, instinctively putting his back to the ceiling as he hurtled toward it. If he let go now, he'd tumble down through the beams to his death. If he held onto the poker with his hands only, he'd crush his fingers and fall. If Harry imagined the pain, pictured himself hitting the stone and wood ceiling and then losing grip, sailing downward and landing headfirst on the stone floor. They would find him there in the morning, dead, his death--his murder--a mystery.

He began sliding down with uncertainty while reckoning that hooking his arms around the instrument would only shatter his elbows, but he would be less likely to lose control. Looking back on it, it probably wasn't a good idea, either.

And then it stopped. The force behind the poker gave way and he and the bar began to fly with the dreaded downward pull of gravity.

*()%()*

Holly watched a familiar scene spin and sink down into the silvery surface of the Pensieve and she smiled. With a quiet, but no less triumphant, "Ha!" she got to her feet.

Carrying the Pensieve with her, Holly descended a single turn of the spiral staircase until she stood in front of Ginny's dormitory. She had to spread the word on how to work those things.

The door had been left slightly open. She pushed it the rest of the way and entered. Holly looked over at the chair Harry had been sitting in and found it empty. Her eyes quickly raked the rest of the dormitory for him, and she found him nowhere. She set down the Pensieve and her gaze came to rest on Ginny's bed.

...Empty.

Holly cursed and fled from the chamber. She took the stairs three at a time, soared past the furniture in the common room, and hurtled through the portrait hole.

While she would like to think that Harry and Ginny were simply taking a spontaneous walk around the lake, she seriously doubted that anything other than a fresh Riddle escape was at hand. Holly breathed heavily, looking in all directions. If I were an evil overlord, she thought, where would I be?

Holly shut her eyes, trying very hard to picture Tom, to picture Harry. What business does he have here? she wondered. What is left for a Hogwarts veteran, fifty years after his graduation? A midnight stroll?

Holly had no clue where she was going--but she chose the staircase as a starting point.

*()%()*

Draco was just exiting the Potions classroom with a pile of Polyjuice ingredients in his arms and two vials of what he'd dubbed "Normalcy Elixir" in his right hand when he heard distant yelling. It was coming from the direction of--well, up. The entrance hall, maybe?

He sighed resignedly and followed the shouts. He ascended the dungeon stairs into the entrance hall and saw nothing. He listened intently, narrowing his eyes. Then he heard a voice--unfamiliar but chilling.

He followed it to the doors of the Great Hall. Draco pressed his ear to one of the golden doors. Distantly, he made out, "...for I have power and logic over your own in every age and predicament."

Oh, bugger. He could think of very few people who spoke like that: Blaise Zambini when he's had a few drinks, his father whilst reading an inspirational bedtime story, and a particularly smug Lord Voldemort.

Draco sat down the potion ingredients and one of the Normalcy Elixir vials, keeping the other one clenched tightly in a fist. He drew his wand and, sighing, kicked open the doors of the Great Hall.

Tom Riddle stood along the edge of the wall, wand arm raised, completely oblivious to the new light that was flooding into the hall. Draco steadied his hand, training his wand tip on the boy, and shouted, "Expelliarmus!"

Riddle turned sharply and stared as the wands he was armed with flew out of his hand in a high arc and hit the floor across the hall. Draco gripped the Normalcy Elixir tightly in a fist and considered his options. He was distracted, however, by a very loud banging and clanging above him. Draco turned his face up and saw a poker, sharp side down, falling toward him through the enchanted sky. He yelped and jumped out of the way. It clattered against the stone at his feet.

In the split-second he'd looked away, Tom had regained one of the wands. It's a very strong wizard, or a telekinetic, that's capable of retrieving a wand from that distance. He was aiming at Draco, staring at him with a mildly dubious expression. His teal eyes were alight and his cheeks were brushed red with a little anger. "Who are you?"

Draco didn't answer but kept Riddle at wandpoint, raising his chin and grinding his teeth. When he didn't reply, Riddle, completely indifferent to whom Draco happened to be, sent a jet of red light toward him. He'd sensed the attack, and dodged it, sending it ricocheting off a magical shield that he'd conjured at the last possible moment.

"Expelliarmus!" Draco exclaimed, flicking his wrist at Riddle. And then, another voice sounded out.

"STUPEFY!"

Riddle, caught off guard from watching the progress of his own jet of light, looked up just in time to be disarmed and hit with a fresh Stunner. Draco whirled after the wand flew over his head a second time to see a fury-ridden Holly framed within the doorway. Her face was contorted in a snarl as she strode forward, Riddle still beneath her wand.

"He must not be reading his Evil Overlord A-to-Z. Rule number six," Draco stated, regaining a little composure, "I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them." He laughed hollowly and added, "Here--" Holly looked up and caught the vial of Elixir as Draco tossed it over to her.

She knelt next to Riddle, her expression softening very little. It appeared she knew just what to do. She placed her fingers along his chin and jaw and opened his mouth, unscrewing the vial's cap and looking intently at the clear liquid.

"Speaking of enemies," Draco said, sounding bored, "where's Potter?"

Holly looked at him, and then cast her eyes skyward. She pointed toward the ceiling, then switched her gaze back to Riddle.

Draco blinked and turned his face up once more. Just above him, hanging across a low beam as limp as a rag doll, was Harry Potter. As Draco stared, the other boy raised his head and peered down at him in wonderment that was visible even from where he stood.

"Huh." Draco shook his head briefly than looked over at Holly. "Do you want me to get him down, then?"

Simply, surprisingly, she told him, "Nope."

Draco looked back up at Harry, whose head had dropped once more. His arms encircled the beam and his shoulders rose and fell in what appeared to be a great sigh. Draco glanced away and made his trek around the tables to stand behind Holly, who was just pouring the elixir in the vial into Riddle's mouth.

She hadn't even asked what the potion was.

Draco watched in astonishment as Tom's black hair grew longer and faded to dusky brown and proceeded to brighten to scarlet and his every other feature seemed to shrink until it was Ginny Weasley sprawled on the stone floor.

A look of ardent sadness seemed to cross over Holly's face then, as she looked down at her friend. It was almost pitiful to see someone's emotions worn so clearly on their features, Draco thought.

Holly touched the tip of her wand to Ginny's collarbone and whispered the counter to her Stunning Spell. The Weasley's eyelids lifted, and her gaze immediately locked on Holly. First it was a look of calm wonder, but that swiftly evaporated and was replaced by one of terror. Ginny's shoulders shook, and she began to breathe heavier, her eyes darting around and taking in her surroundings. She sat up abruptly, and Holly steadied her.

"Malfoy," Holly said evenly without looking at him, "you can go back to your dormitory." She looked at him briefly over her shoulder and added, "Thanks."

"You're sure you don't want Potter on the ground?"

"Positive." She'd acquired a tone of finality that Draco couldn't ignore. He decided to stop playing the friendly role and leave, as she'd asked.

He turned on his heel and exited the hall. He stooped to gather up the Polyjuice Potion ingredients before descending the dungeon stairs. He set up his cauldron in the corner of his room and went to work.

*()%()*

Hermione slipped silently into her dormitory, expecting to find Holly within--asleep. She didn't.

Hermione shut the door with her back and proceeded inside. She'd been in the library until late--Madam Pince had a nice way with letting the studious remain among her bookshelves after hours. The majority of the ingredients within Snape's mystery potion had been uncovered and identified... with the exception of those assigned to Holly and those assigned to Harry.

She sat her books down on her trunk in a neat stack and turned to look at Holly's four-poster. It was empty, of course, but it appeared that the periodic table that Hermione had copied and marked with magical crayons was lying out on her mattress. New ink had appeared on it--had Holly actually cooperated?

She strode quickly to the other girl's bed. As she reached the edge of it, her foot rolled over something small and cylindrical. There was a sonorous yelping and a sharp pinch over her toes--Roux, she'd stepped on his tail--but she realized this too late. Hermione had promptly jumped backward, and, in an attempt to brace herself against Holly's bedside table, her hand fell into something liquid and cold.

She felt herself pulled sharply downward, and then she was falling... hurtling through a black hole with a pinprick of light at the end. She screamed, but the sound didn't travel far. The light grew larger and larger, slowly becoming a window-shaped void in the darkness.

As she passed through its undefined frame, Hermione felt herself hit bottom.

She groaned, slowly getting to her feet. Where am I?

She looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings, breathed in the foreign scents of what seemed to be an entirely new land, and steadied herself. She'd never been here before.

But, recognizing a tall shadow against the wall, Hermione realized that she knew someone who had been.

*()%()*

"Holly," Ginny gulped, "what's going on?"

Her friend was crouched before her; she appeared pale, sympathetic, and furious all at the same time. "I have a lot of things to tell you," Holly said quietly. "Here, get up..." Holly stood and held out her hands. Ginny hooked her own around them and allowed Holly to help her to her feet. She was guided over to the nearest bench... the Great Hall--I'm in the Great Hall... and told to sit down.

Ginny obeyed, but this was mostly because her legs were so weak she wasn't sure she could do much else. Holly stalked into the middle of the hall, shoving her wand into her jeans pocket. She crossed her arms and tilted her head back. "So," she half-shouted at the ceiling, "I'm assuming that coffee didn't work so well."

Ginny looked toward the ceiling and gasped. "Harry?" She stared into the battered face of the boy who was bent perilously over a beam high above them.

Harry didn't reply to Holly's shout, and she continued. "I must say," she deadpanned, "your intellect is rivaled only by that of garden tools."

"Holly," Ginny murmured, "what's going on?"

She was certain the other girl had heard her quite clearly; Ginny saw the twitch in her shoulders that confirmed that. "The wheel's spinning but the hamster's dead, Harry!" she told him. "Whose fault is it that Riddle got loose? Yours, for seizing the task of security and dozing off? Or mine, for thinking that for even one second you might be able to do something in a manner other than your own WAY?"

Holly grasped her wand and stuck it out high above her head. She picked Harry from the beam and brought him sharply downward, scarcely alleviating the force of his fall. He sat on the floor, bleeding and shivering.

"Do you want to tell her?!" she roared so suddenly Ginny thought that Harry may have cursed at Holly without Ginny hearing. "Do you want to tell her why she woke up in the Great Hall tonight, Harry Potter?!"

Holly was seething--Ginny could picture flames exploding forth from the girl and consuming their surroundings in hot wrath. "I thought Golden Boy could handle the task of staying awake through the night and sparing us from drama. I guess this one's left to me, and I've no intention of feeling sorry for you this time." Holly summoned Harry's wand and threw it at him. "Get to the hospital wing if you want cleaning up; I won't be doing it for you."

Harry stared at her. For a moment he didn't move; he didn't speak, blink, or even breathe. After what felt like an age, he struggled to his feet. Ginny could see that every inch of him ached, and she wanted to rush out to help him. However, Holly's fury struck a chord in her. Weasley rage was a fire of its own; it could be terrible--destructive--and the fire was difficult to put out. But Holly's anger was a black hole. It didn't char the people around her; it pulled them in. Sirius Black was a lynch pin--with his every move, his surroundings were pulled and twisted... effected. Holly, on the other hand, didn't change her surroundings; she obliterated them.

Harry limped grandly out of the Great Hall, not uttering a single word. Was he ashamed? Was he angry? Or, was he simply in too much pain to perform any function that couldn't be run purely by adrenaline? He'd lost most expression and the set of his mouth and shoulders was ambiguous.

"Holly, what's happening?" questioned Ginny for what was probably the hundredth time. Holly turned her bipolar gaze on her and it seemed that her rage had departed with Harry. As she neared Ginny, she noticed Holly's hands twitching nervously.

Holly looked away. "This Soul-Switching thing isn't going to be quite as easy as I told you it would be."

"As easy?" she echoed incredulously.

Holly remained silent for a few seconds before continuing, "Tom's presence isn't limited to affecting your body." She bent her knees and laid her forearms over them. "The consequence of a powerful second soul isn't restricted to the--" she grimaced uncertainly, "to the physical."

"What else does it do, then?" she inquired. Holly didn't answer. Rather, she stared at her with her hard cheekbones and stony eyes. "What else does it do, Holly?"

"It diseases your mind, okay?!" she burst. The muscles in Ginny's face gave way, her lips fell open and the furrowing of her brow smoothed. "Tom is feeding off you and replacing what he's taken with--just--" she wrinkled her nose as her voice rose steadily, then finished, "trauma."

Ginny wasn't sure whether she understood or whether she hadn't the slightest inkling of what was going on. Holly's throat worked rapidly, and, when Ginny noticed the nervous twitch moving from her hands to her shoulders, she felt her own shivers flying up and down her spine.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She wasn't certain if she should be angry, sad, concerned, suspicious... all rationality was lifted from her like sunlight disappearing in a storm and she appeared, to the onlooker, to be emotionless. "Who else knows?"

"I've only told Harry and Professor Lupin." Holly searched Ginny's face. "Lupin might still be reading the books I gave him as we speak--he's going to help us." She flinched and emended, "You. Help you."

Ginny took deep breaths, each one slicing through her lungs. "How will he help me?" she murmured.

"He's willing to talk to Snape for me--us--you. For you. He'll talk to Snape about..." Holly had her next words on her lips, but the look on her face expressed exactly how much she didn't want to speak them.

"About?" Ginny pressed, fearing her reply.

With a whisper no stronger than a dying breath, she finished, "...Antipsychotic Potions."

Antipsychotic Potions. Antipsychotic Potions. Ginny's stomach seemed to dissolve and leave her system unsupported, and she felt an iron clutch close over her throat. Antipsychotic Potions.

"I can't be on Antipsychotic Potions," she buzzed, eyes wide. "I can't--"

"You have to, or you'll start having trouble determining what's logical, appropriate, or even real--Ginny." She shook her head, closing her eyes. "It will lessen symptoms and maybe prevent the serious side-effects of Tom's presence--listen to me!"

"No!" her voice had raised an octave. Ginny wanted to fly to her feet, but she was sure her legs wouldn't hold her. "I can't be--be--medicated!"

"Ginny, it takes years of committed treatment--both therapy and medicine--to rid yourself of symptoms of psychosis..."

"PSYCHOSIS!?" she shrieked, bending at the middle. Holly flinched. "I can't let this put me in the psychiatric ward! This is a Supantoris, not a sickness!"

"Ginny, please... it's important you try th-"

"No!" Logically, she should have been embracing a cure. Her pride, however, wouldn't permit it.

Holly took a deep breath and burst, "Unless you want to wake up every night with the blood of innocents on your hands, you need this medicine!" Ginny contorted her face in horror. "Harry's limping to the hospital wing with a thousand breaks and bruises because you have no way of holding Tom back!"

Ginny recalled a moment, a memory so vivid it was branded on her mind, from years before. She'd woken, as if from a dream, on her feet. She didn't know where she was or why she was standing. Her heart was pounding as though she'd run a mile, but her breathing was even. Ginny had looked down, then, at her hands. They were drenched in blood--it dripped from her fingertips and splashed into sinister puddles on the floor. The gore was so deep, she could practically see her thunderstruck countenance reflected in the pools.

Ginny found herself on her feet in the present with no memory of getting up. She fled without direction--she bolted up stairwell after stairwell. She rushed through corridors and side-hallways; Ginny was aware that she was making circles on nearly every floor she encountered.

She stopped four doors to the left of the statue of Boris the Bewildered and cried, "Spring breeze!"

The door yielded to her password and she entered the grand chamber that was the prefects' bath. If there was any benefit to being chosen to be wear the badge, this was it.

Ginny had hurriedly switched on all the faucets, dismantled her pajamas in a pile by the bath, and sank into the water before she'd thought twice about what she was doing. She dipped underwater, ignoring that feeling that her sinus cavity was filling with scented bubbles, and resurfaced, pushing tendrils of hair behind her ears. She swam to the far corner of the bath and sat against the wall, closing her eyes.

Though she tried, Ginny couldn't rid herself of a metallic cold throbbing in the pit of her stomach. Suddenly, her extraordinary Supantoris was a hazardous infirmity. Medications? Psychotherapy? Even the most benevolent second soul had this effect on its host. Why had no one told her that this unique power was a curse no matter what parasitic personality was involved?

It wasn't fair; she'd written in a diary when she was an eleven-year-old, and it would haunt her until she died from it.

*()%()*

It was a cycle: Hermione understood now. Every time she thought she was far enough ahead to slow down, she'd found that she was actually miles behind. Since she was a tomboy pitcher on a back alley sandlot, Holly had let possibility slip through her fingers and so became the bitter thing she was now.

This playback was less than a year old, however. The room was dark, illuminated only with cyanic light filtered by the windows against the far wall. This was the place where Ron's mind had been rooted the few times Hermione had been tempted to take a look. This place.

"Promises have never done me any good," Holly was saying. She looked menacing, almost vampiric. "Don't promise me a thing if one day it'll saw me in half."

She turned to walk away and drew swiftly near the door with each of her elongated strides. Ron made to reply to the teary girl--the witch that Hermione inferred was the "scorned maiden" Sufree the Puck had spoken of in the Forbidden Forest.

"I--" But Hermione's focus was immediately sliced in half.

She shrieked when she felt a sharp tug at her scalp as if someone had grabbed onto her braid and yanked--hard. Hermione made to turn around, but before she knew it, she found herself back in the unlit dormitory. Her plait was released, a shadow moved in front of her, and Hermione found herself propelled backward by the force of an incredible shove.

Her eyes focused on Holly. This was, however, the Holly of the present, and this Holly was hysterical and, moreover, bloodthirsty.

Hermione stumbled into her four-poster and struggled to maintain balance, grasping at the velvet canopy hangings. Roux was barking madly in his master's defense, but she didn't take much notice.

"IS MIND-READING NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU?!" Holly howled, stomping her foot so hard on the floor Hermione imagined she might break right through the stone. She'd never heard a cry like that--it was comparable to the pandemonium of thousands of windows breaking and the shards clattering on stone.

Hermione watched Roux scamper out the door, still barking. "Holly--" croaked Hermione, "Holly, it was an accident, I swear!"

"I don't care if you swear or NOT!"

"I was only checking to see if you'd left the periodic table on your bed," she pleaded, "and I stepped on Roux's tail and--"

"Get out!"

"Holly--"

"GET OUT!"

And it happened again, the second time in no more that a week: the air in the room crackled like myriad whips, vacuumed inward like a cyclone. And with a stridulatory outcry it was released in a fierce squall. Hermione, along with everything else in the chamber, was swept against the walls. She'd bent almost double and smacked her back against the stone walls so painfully Hermione was sure that she just might have snapped in two.

When the tidal wave of magical force ceased, Hermione fell to the floor amongst window shards, textbooks, and Fairy Face cosmetic containers, breathing hard.

She flew to her feet and worked past the rubble into the center of the room. Holly kneeled on the floor, bent over forward with her forehead lying on the stone. Her bony fingers clutched at her hair, and she shivered with aftershocks.

Hermione dared look for only a split-second before fleeing the dormitory. She didn't notice that she was shaking madly and that her eyes watered from pain in her back until she was nearing the landing of the spiral staircase. She heaved a deep breath, which rather hurt, and pushed through the door.

Ron burst through the port to the boys' dormitories, 40% nude, just as Hermione stumbled out of the doorframe into the common room. "What's going on?" he demanded breathlessly, "What was all that noise?"

"Holly," Hermione said simply, frowning.

Ron rolled his eyes to the ceiling in a very exaggerated show of dissent. "What's it this time?" he inquired. "Chipped fingernail?"

Hermione came out with it without hesitation; "She found me in her Pensieve."

Ron opened and closed his mouth several times, clearly unsure as to whether he should disapprove of this or not. "It's okay," she told him, "it was wrong. But completely accidental!"

He looked like he wanted to question that claim, but didn't speak on it. Hermione elaborated, anyway. "I stumbled when Roux yelped and my hand broke through the surface. I wasn't sure how to get out, so I stuck around."

"What'd you see?" he blurted.

"She's already angry with me, Ron." Hermione made to heave a great breath when a cough tickled her throat, but cut it short with a flinch and a whimper. Her ribs hurt horribly.

"Hermione, are you hurt?" he asked quietly.

"Mmm," she replied, rubbing her ribcage gently and squinting at the floor. "I hit the wall. Then chairs hit me."

"We should get you to the hospital wing," he said cautiously.

"Probably," she concurred. Ron looked shocked at this response; then again, it was usually the heroic Harry that he tried to persuade to get a check-up. "Come with me?"

He smiled and warily wrapped his arm around her back. "Is that okay?" She nodded, leaning into him slightly and breathing slowly. "Let's go."

He helped her out of the portrait hole and through the stairways to the third floor. Hermione didn't really need assistance in descending staircases--or walking, period--but she accepted Ron's aid and warmth.

As they rounded the corner of the corridor, Hermione spotted a dark form slumped against the infirmary double doors. The torchlight didn't quite illuminate the body, but Hermione pointed it out to Ron and they quickened their pace.

As they drew nearer, she gasped--and it hurt. "Harry!"

He slowly lifted his head, and Hermione's jaw dropped when his face caught the light. He was bleeding profusely from somewhere along his hairline, his left eye was horrendously swollen, and he had a bruise forming on his jawbone. His glasses sat crookedly on his face and his shirt was missing a few buttons. He smiled delicately and croaked, "Hospital wing's closed."

"Harry, what are you doing here?" she questioned, falling to her knees and ignoring the physical pain only to feel greater sympathy for her friend.

"Just taking a little rest," answered Harry.

"What happened?" Ron demanded.

"Er--" Harry took a hitched breath and explained, "bad encounter with a forest troll outside Hagrid's hut."

"A forest troll?" Ron replied, wide-eyed, oblivious to the fib. "Where is it now?"

Harry shook his head and Hermione covered for him, finishing, "Most likely back in the Forbidden Forest where it belongs, Ron." She felt for her wand, then thought better of it. "Harry," she said, "can you walk?"

"Made it this far, haven't I?" he replied with a pained grin.

Hermione held her right hand out to him, and he took it with his left. Harry got sloppily to his feet, careful not to rest his weight on his left leg. He leaned on Hermione, shutting his eyes tight in an apparent head-rush. His breathing was hitched and his wrist trembled slightly as she gripped his hand. It was a strange rush--this feeling of relevancy.

"I think I did something funny to my knee," he told them.

"Crutches, then," Ron suggested, making his way around Harry and Hermione.

Harry held up his right arm and showed them swollen flesh from his knuckles to his elbow. "My wrist, I think."

"Merlin, Harry," Ron muttered, clearly holding himself back from reaching forth and giving Harry's forearm a poke. "Did you hop up here?"

"For the past couple corridors, yeah."

Hermione grimaced and Harry lowered his arm. She felt her wand, still secure in her trouser pocket, and raised it. She conjured a stretcher, levitated it, and allowed Harry to grip her wrist as he lowered himself into it.

"Is this a good idea?" he asked, sitting on the edge. "I mean, if I'm caught lying down in a stretcher..."

"It's late," Hermione told him, "and I'll move fast. Lie down." She turned to look at Ron before making sure he listened to her orders and commanded, "Ron, get some ice from the kitchens. A cauldronful or a potful, it doesn't matter. Come back to the common room."

He nodded shortly and jogged away, in the direction of the entrance hall. When Hermione turned, she found Harry had lain down on the stretcher like she'd asked. With a flick of her wand, Harry's stretcher began moving forward. "Let's get up to the seventh floor, shall we?" she said in a soft voice, following the progress of Harry's twisted, bloody body through the corridor.

*()%()*

Ginny had slipped in and out of a dozing state in the bath, snapping her head back up each time she felt her nose fall into the bubbles. To remain awake and avoid drowning, she began singing Abril Lavid.

"And I wanna cherish the idea

That it'll be okay

Yeah, I try to believe you

Not today, today, today, today, today

Tomorrow it may change..."

"I love how girls everywhere are reaching out to embrace punk rock in the form of pop music."

Ginny's eyes snapped open, and she nearly gagged on bath foam when she lowered herself to cover her body more completely. Draco Malfoy was standing along the edge of the bath, barefoot, a towel and bathrobe draped over one arm and a soap bottle clutched in one hand.

Ginny rose an inch so that everything from her chin down remained hidden beneath the bubbles. "Malfoy!" she yelped, "What're you doing here?!"

"Prefects' bath, isn't it?" He smiled in his cool, confident manner that made Ginny cringe. "And, last time I checked..." he looked down and touched his badge. "Yes: prefect."

"I thought the door sealed itself when the room was occupied..." she croaked.

"You thought wrong." Draco dropped his belongings against the wall, tossed the soap bottle into the bath, pulled his jumper over his head, and began un-tucking his white undershirt. "Mind if I join?"

"NO!" she shouted. He smiled, leisurely undoing the buttons from the top to the bottom. "I mean, yes, I mind! I'm--I'm naked!"

Draco cast away his undershirt. He worked at his belt buckle, watching his hands. "I will be too, shortly, so unless you want to watch..." he unhooked the button of his trousers and smiled up at her, letting the rest of the sentence go unfinished.

Ginny bent her head, covering her eyes, and murmured darkly to herself--so much for her relaxing eve in the tub. She was soon to be joined by a sinister beau who happened to be not only conniving but also completely nude--it was bound to be uncomfortable.

She felt the water in the bath move, disturbed, and waited a few moments before uncovering her eyes and taking in the view. -Draco was gone.

Ginny saw the bubbles rippling where he'd dunked underwater, and she immediately drew her knees up and closed her legs in front of her to block most everything from view.

Nothing happened for a long junction, and Ginny felt a blush rising in her cheeks and nervousness clenching her stomach. "Where'd you go, Malfoy?" she snarled, tightening her hold on her knees.

Seconds ticked away, and a little worry came over Ginny. She certainly couldn't hold her breath that long. Then, with half-clenched hands poised on either side of his head, Draco flew out of the water with an echoing "WAAH!"

Ginny shrieked and kicked him in the gut, sending him a foot or two backward. "What the hell did you do that for!?" she exclaimed, eyes wide. A moment too late, she added, "You WANKER!"

He shrugged, running his fingertips along his scalp to un-slick his sopping hair. "I wanted to see whether you'd climb out when I was under." He wiped bubbles from his cheek and smiled in that magnetic fashion that made girls everywhere forget his wicked tendencies.

Ginny's blush had come full on, and she scowled at him. "I didn't."

"I noticed." Draco bobbed back toward the other side of the bath to grab his soap bottle. "Wanker," he muttered, "That's cute. And I didn't see anything, if that's what you're blushing about."

"It's not," she lied, relaxing only a little.

He gave her an incredulous look as he neared her end of the bath once more. "Of course." He flipped the cap off the bottle and squeezed a Knut-sized drop of cyanic soap into his palm. He began working it through his hair insouciantly before inquiring, "So, what demons are you escaping tonight by soaking yourself in the Prefects' bath, Weasley?"

"I'm not escaping demons--" she protested.

"If you weren't escaping anything, you would have found time to stop in your dormitory for shampoo." Draco slid his soap bottle over the surface of the bath and Ginny lifted it as it neared. The bottle was gilded, and silver lettering read "Shampoo de Madame Canard pour des Beaux Enfants."

Ginny looked at it for a moment, then looked back up at Draco. "What, Weasley? I haven't poisoned it."

"Is this French?" she inquired, jabbing at the bottle with her index finger.

"Yes." Draco curved backward and rinsed his hair. Ginny was still staring at the bottle when he straightened up. "Merlin, Weasley, it's a friendly offer, not charity. No need to be proud."

She flipped the bottle, cap side down, and shook a portion of the shampoo out and into her palm. "That's a good girl." Ginny slid it across the surface of the bath water in his direction with a resentful look and began working the soap into her hair. Her scalp tingled pleasantly and her fingers slipped easily through her previously tangled locks.

"Wow," she said approvingly.

"I know." Draco glided through the water and sat down next to her, still smiling. Then he said what she'd been praying he wouldn't mention. "That was quite a show you put on in the Great Hall tonight." Ginny exhaled sharply, clamping her jaw shut. "I assume Holly ran you through the truths of your condition. That's what you're soaking out of your system, isn't it?"

"How'd you know--"

"About Holly spitting it all out?" Ginny nodded. "She's predictable," he replied with mellow simplicity. She watched as he picked something out from beneath his fingernail and flicked it over the water.

Ginny's response came with an incredulous expression. "She is?"

"Of course," he replied. Draco went on to explain, "Her upbringing was unstable, her emotions are intense, she's got a decent mind, but a quiet conscience."

"That doesn't spell out 'predictability' to me, Malfoy," Ginny told him.

"I think it does." He smirked and cast his eyes away. "I think it says that she'll always choose what's worst for her and everyone around her, whether she's trying to do the right thing or not."

"So," inferred Ginny, "having a 'decent mind' doesn't help at all?"

He said, "No--all it will do is make her read too far into things."

"And her telling me the truth was a bad thing, then?"

"I didn't say that." Ginny shot him a peeved look and Draco elaborated, "The bad thing was that she kept it from you until she was quite positive that there wasn't a loophole or some good news to go hand-in-hand with the bad."

Ginny didn't want to jump on the subject just yet, so, using the 'worst choice' comment for tailwind, she inquired, "If Holly always chooses what's worst for her, what's with you being her new friend? Was that a horrible choice?"

"Of course it was. I'm a wicked boy." He looked at Ginny in a manner that quite confirmed that sentiment; his gray eyes lit up and his sneer was a little more crooked than usual. "But let's shorthand the part where you beat around the bush and get right back on topic, shall we?"

Ginny swallowed her discomfort and stared forward, eyes sweeping over the designs in the chamber walls. That's just whom she wanted defense ideas from, a Slytherin with a Death Eater for a father. "What did she tell you?" Ginny didn't speak. "Okay, I know exactly what she told you, but--"

"What?" snapped Ginny, escaping her silent treatment state. "Did she tell you, too?"

"No," Draco said quickly, "no she didn't."

"How'd you know, then, Malfoy?"

"Was it not my father who slipped you Tom Riddle's diary in your first year?"

Ginny's heart got cold and she exhaled slowly. "That was to re-open the Chamber of Secrets and kill some Muggle-borns, Malfoy," she recalled shakily.

"But it didn't exactly turn out that way, did it, Weasley?" Ginny fell silent again, listening against her will. "It was predicted that if the plan fell through, the possessor would remain and later resurface. The soul of man is immortal and imperishable, after all.

"What they didn't predict, however, was that Riddle could be fought with a little willpower and, hate to say it, but a lot of medicine." Draco pushed off the wall, took up his soap bottle, and swam to the other side of the pool. He started his ascent up the bath's stairs and Ginny hid her eyes. After a junction he said, "You can look, Weasley." She peeked through her fingers and saw Draco had adorned a long, green bathrobe. He had a pile of rumpled clothes in his arm, a towel over his shoulder, and his soap bottle in one hand. "Pride sullies the noblest character, and it's the common forerunner of a fall. Take the medicine, Weasley; try the therapy. Things have been worse."

With that he walked away, leaving a trail of wet footsteps behind him.

*()%()*

Ron watched the progress of the cauldronful of ice as he levitated it in front of him. It spun slightly, reflecting the torchlight brilliantly and producing a false illumination--a metallic moon.

He walked on in silence, scarcely taking note of his surroundings until he heard footsteps approaching. Ron considered his options, but since he wasn't sure who was coming, he didn't act on them.

In moments he spotted a dark shape emerge from behind a tapestry at the landing of the next staircase. It was Holly; the squared shoulders and wide hips were recognizable from miles off. She moved quickly, her cloak tied tight around her middle and her Nimbus clenched in one talon. She didn't notice Ron until she was a meter away.

Holly stopped dead in her tracks, and Ron slowed to a gradual cessation. The only thing that remained moving for some time was the cauldron floating in midair in front of him. "And what are you doing?" he asked her paternally.

Holly's startled expression relaxed and was quickly replaced by a brumal one. What had he done to deserve a look like that? "I'm going out."

"You're sure?" he inquired. "Cold outside."

She smiled--or did something like it. "It'll cool my nerves."

Holly made to walk past, but he moved in front of her. "What's wrong with you?" questioned Ron, furrowing his brow. "You shouldn't be on edge during the holidays."

"No--no, probably not." She stepped to her left, but Ron blocked her again.

"It would help if you told someone what's going on." He turned up one corner of his mouth in his simplest, most comforting fashion.

"You're not my outlet, Ron," she said, looking him over with knitted brows.

"Who is?" He snorted and inquired, "Are you seeing a priest on Hogsmeade weekends?"

"--I'm not Catholic."

Ron went on with little but a pause. "Malfoy."

Holly tensed and stared at him, looking like she was caught somewhere between being startled and befuddled. "I don't have time for this right now," she said, a mad glint of happiness webbing within her eyes. She pushed past him easily; he hadn't been much of a barrier in the first place.

Ron watched her stride away, swift and agitated. The warm torch glow repelled her cloaked figure, and she became darker and darker as she moved. Ron lowered the cauldron and commenced in following her down the corridor. He wasn't sure why he was doing it--running behind Holly like a madman trailing a hurricane.

"I don't care who you tell if you'd just stop letting all your pent-up anger out on one innocent person after another!" Holly froze in her tracks at the end of the corridor and Ron neared her swiftly. "It's not fair that you let your own--issues--hurt the people around you."

Ron rounded her tense, unsteady frame and looked at her face. Holly stared up at him, dumbfounded and furiously indignant. She took a deep breath and pressed her lips together, clearly requiring a great deal of courage (or restraint) to say what she wanted to. "Please," she muttered finally, "don't tell me you're talking about Hermione."

He swallowed and took the plunge. "What she did was a mistake, and--"

"I could care less," she told him, drawing out her words and shaking her head. It appeared that a great weight had come to rest on her chest, holding her away from him.

"Why always her?" he asked.

"It's not always her," she spat.

"She's hurt!" Ron exclaimed in desperation. "She was hurt before, and she's hurt again. And why? --Because you can't let things go!"

It was obvious that Holly saw the truth in this statement, so she avoided retaliating to it directly. "Maybe not," she concurred, squaring her shoulders.

"Then why don't you try?"

"Because I'm not the only one holding on." She said this with uncertainty at first; then, some unseen force set her confidence in motion and she raised her chin again. "You need to let me go. All three of you."

Ron rushed to catch up with Holly as she walked away. "What are you talking about?" he demanded, becoming more and more irked by her cryptic madness with every moment that passed.

"I'm not Hermione!" she half-shouted, still moving forward. "I'm nothing like Harry, and God forbid that I'm anything like you."

She spun and walked backward, facing him in all her black annoyance. "You can't induct me as your newest member, because I don't--think--like the rest of you! I'm not much of a protagonist!"

"Let me get this straight," Ron said, moments from laughing aloud, "you're siding with Malfoy, now, because over the holidays you experienced some sort of self-realization and decided you're an antagonist?" He cracked a smile.

Holly's eyebrows rose as she took this into account. It was in that moment, when a brief look of veritable thought overcame her features, that Ron realized perhaps that wasn't the right thing to say. "Yeah," she murmured, fixing her eyes on his after a junction. "I think it'll be a fine adventure." She smiled deviously, face lit with torch light gold and self-imposed scarlet. When Holly walked away this time, Ron didn't follow.

Though he wrote it off as a joke at the time, that became a defining moment. She'd stated her ally, Holly had, and for a long time after never looked back. She was always present in some way or another--she was in his classes, she was friends with Ginny, and she remained Harry's godsister. However, even in the most intimate situation, her allegiance lied with someone else--and he knew this.

*()%()*

Hermione rolled a crimson rag she'd torn from her bed sheets and dabbed it into the first medical solution she had at hand. When the end was sufficiently purpled, she straightened up on her knees and dabbed it gently against the heaviest gash on Harry's cheek. He grimaced, and the wound smoked as the potion rid it of bacteria.

"I'm sorry," she said, pulling the rag away. "I'm sorry, but it needs to be cleaned..."

Harry made a face that she supposed was a smile and told her it was all right. "I'll do my best to pretend it's soothing."

She'd placed him on the longest sofa in the common room, propping his head up with a pillow until she figured out which limbs to elevate. He lay there as she rushed to her dormitory to find a rag, added activating ingredients to her pharmaceutical murtlap solution and wound-cleaning potion, and interrogated him on "where it hurt."

"Think of how clear your pores will be after these heal," she said gently, dipping the rag into the violet potion again.

Harry shut his eyes tight as she neared his face with the dampened rag once more. "Nothing gets me quite as excited as skin care." He held his breath and she administered the potion on the smaller cuts, moving from one to the next.

She did this in silence for a while, moving from the larger, more sensitive cuts to the smaller, less important ones. By the time she was done, Harry's face, neck, and arms were tinted lavender and smoking slightly.

"I'm not much for healing spells," she told him (he rolled his eyes), "but potions I can administer. The friendly potion is next."

"Strained and pickled murtlap tentacles," he inferred, baring his teeth in a painful grin. She'd taken his glasses from him and sat them behind her (once one took off Harry's frames, it was a constant struggle to keep them away from him). He looked very different without them--his eyes were even brighter, and expressions clearer yet. He seemed a little older; their absence took away from his innocent charm. If he held onto those round spectacles, Hermione imagined that Harry might never grow up.

Hermione tore the rag in two and soaked the clean half in the yellow solution, ringing it out carefully before lying it across Harry's cheek. She held it there, watching his eyes fall shut and brow un-knit as his entire form relaxed with the relief the potion provided.

Alleviation wasn't something Harry Potter often experienced.

"So," she began, while lying the rag over his brow, "how did you really get like this?"

"Hermione," he sighed, "I don't really feel like talking much right now. Couldn't you just--" Harry made some vague hand motions and finished, "see for yourself?"

A little too harshly, she replied, "No!" Harry's eyes opened and focused on her. "I mean--no. Harry, I'm not going to do that."

"Why not?" he asked, exasperated. "I'm giving you free--"

"I don't care. Besides," she added, shifting the rag to his other cheek, "at this point in my development, you'd have to think the words for me to hear them. You may just as well say it, Harry."

He sighed, dejected, and Hermione applied the murtlap solution to his jaw line. He paused, then finally began, "I was looking at the Marauders' Map..."

He slipped into a spiel about Riddle--following him into the Great Hall, trying to knock him out, and not succeeding. Hermione could sense in his voice that the tale was coming to an end as he explained, "So the poker gave way and I fell--hitting every beam on the way down." He looked at her mildly and she dropped the rag on his forearm.

"All the way down?"

"Well, no," he said, "I caught myself eventually."

"Then what happened to Riddle?" she interrogated him. Hermione lifted the rag from his arm, dipped it, and wrung it out. "And how did you get down?"

"Holly was there," Harry informed her. "She had Riddle at wandpoint--Stunned him, I'm guessing."

"That didn't work to get Ginny back before," Hermione remembered aloud. "How'd she reverse the transformation?" She wrinkled her nose and inquired, "Did she reverse it?"

"Of course she did."

"But, how?" pressed Hermione.

His response came sharply. "I don't know; I guess I was focusing on other things, like blinking the flashes out of my eyes, not puking, and avoiding the thought of my entrails being splattered across the Great Hall when I fell."

"Sorry," she shook her head, looking away from him. "I didn't mean to pry--I was just--"

"Curious. I know." Harry sighed, watching the ceiling bleakly. "Besides that, she was completely miffed after she let me down--I didn't want to ask questions."

Hermione questioned, "Why was she angry?"

Harry shrugged, grimacing as he did so. "Why is Holly ever angry?"

"Good point." Hermione swallowed a little guilt, reassuring herself that what she'd done was an accident. A complete accident. "Cruel of her, though, to not help you get up to the infirmary."

"I don't think benevolence is in her character." Hermione smoothed a cut on his chin with the rag and sighed. "She stayed in the Hall with Ginny."

Hermione reckoned that she should perhaps check in on Ginny to see how she was holding up. Holly obviously wasn't with her now.

The portrait door opened, announced by a brief deluge of torchlight. Ron entered, preceded by a levitating cauldron filled with ice cubes. He sat it down and Hermione watched as his grim expression transformed into a happy one. "Ice?"

Hermione smiled thankfully at him and responded, "Could you run up to your dormitory and steal some rags? We need to figure out what needs icing."

He nodded, striding off toward the staircase entrance.

Harry was lying. Not entirely--but his story was missing bits and pieces. He had been the owner of the Marauder's Map for three years--didn't watching it get old? How did Holly know Riddle was in the Great Hall? And Hermione knew that unless Holly was directly raging at Harry she would have helped him to the hospital wing.

She didn't express these things, however, and didn't dare dig for these answers with her own efficacious tool. Instead, Hermione smoothed some ebon hair from his brow and assuaged a cut along his hairline that refused to stop bleeding. Harry closed his eyes, hiding the last things that exhibited the truths backing his lies.

*()%()*

Draco stood, unfastened the final button on his shirt, and strode to his dormitory door. He knew who was behind it before she'd finished knocking. He ran a hand through his hair and pulled the door open. He leaned his arm against the port and smiled crookedly at her.

Holly was dressed in her cloak and clutching her Nimbus, scowling at him out of those polar eyes. She had a scar down the center of her lower lip that was very pronounced when she set her mouth the way she was just then.

"You don't look cold enough to have just been outside," he stated. "What's with the broomstick? Bad night?"

She stared at him, expressionless, then elaborated, "I found Hermione with her nose stuck in my Pensieve and continued to unintentionally trash my dormitory."

"So you were going to flee, but--"

"Too fucking cold."

"I see." He moved out of her way and motioned inside. "Come in."

"No."

He furrowed his brow at her and inferred, "You'd rather me come out there?"

Holly looked at the floor inside his dormitory, and then back up to Draco. "Yeah."

He cleared his throat. "Well," he paused, "at least let me take your cloak." He was about to step around her and help her with removing it when she threw her broomstick at him and shrugged the cloak off on her own. He took both items and set them inside the door, and, noticing her twitchy-ness, proffered his arm.

"Let's have a walk." Holly gazed at the offer warily, and Draco remarked, "Oh... bloody hell, Black, it's just an appendage."

"What?" she responded, wrinkling her nose. "So I'm not used to being treated in this--manner."

"Politely?" he substituted.

"No. Like I'm some sort of--debutante."

"Like I said." He smirked at her, and finished, "Politely."

"It's unnatural. Just..." she motioned vaguely, "put the arm down."

He did so and followed her through the doorframe and down to the landing of the staircase that led from his exclusive dormitory to the main corridor. "Talk, Black," he commanded as they started their ascent from the dungeons. "What's bothering you?" She shook her head. "Oh--I get it. No talk. Just... walk," he finished awkwardly.

"All the world's problems have boiled down to speech."

"Ah. So, you're a... rhetorical monist." She looked at him. "Okay, no talking. Drift: caught."

"Thank you."

They strode along in silence for a junction, but just as Holly made her way up the first step of the grand staircase, Draco spoke again. Holding up an index finger and taking a tentative step toward her, he said, "Just--one more thing."

She turned. "Where are we going, exactly?" Holly didn't reply, but continued to look at him as if he were some sort of colossal idiot. Normally he didn't get the 'you, blockhead' daggers. He decided not to lose his urbane temperament entirely and finished with a too-late endearment, "--jewel box."

"I was considering," she replied slowly, pointing uncertainly ahead, "this direction."

"A reputable endeavor."

Holly's face thinned, and she responded, "I thought so." Her tone was lightening, if only a bit.

They walked onward, straight through corridors and stairwells. Holly paid no attention to doors or portraits on either side--her course was set, but her destination was not.

Finally, they reached what appeared to be a dead end--the corridors had run out, and they were in front of sweeping, gothic windows that reflected the pair in their darkness. With focus, however, the grandeur of the Hogwarts grounds was visible, and beyond them, the snowcapped mountains.

Draco stepped forward, looking over Holly's shoulder. He was watching her eyes in the reflection, and she was gazing back at him. The color difference wasn't so noticeable this way--they looked black. Very simply, black.

He hooked his thumbs in his front pockets, put on an intelligent veneer, and hoped Holly was looking their reflection over. "What else happened?" he asked in an undertone, leaning his head forward marginally.

"What?" she replied, her window-self frowning a little.

"I know that Granger further stirring the waters is discomfiting and that the prospect of picking up your dormitory is wearisome." Her gaze moved to rake her own reflection. He did the same for a moment, carefully assessing her stance, before fixing his glance back on her eyes. "But that's simply more of the same, isn't it?"

She swallowed and elaborated, "I made it clear to one of the Trio that I'm not a cookie cutter protagonist like the rest of them. I told him I'm not Hermione Granger, I don't think like them, and that they need to let me go."

"Really?" he replied, eyebrows raised. Using logical conjecture, he continued, "How did Weasley take that one?"

She didn't look at all surprised at his irreproachability on this topic. "He laughed."

"Well, after the cookie cutter thing he was probably thinking about charming gingerbread men as a child and chasing after them with glassfuls of milk--"

She shut her eyes. "'Cookie cutter' wasn't the phrase I actually used."

"What did you say, then?"

"I quoted Shakespeare."

He smiled. "Really?"

"No." His teeth disappeared behind his lips and Holly exhaled. She hadn't turned toward him yet--she was still taking in their reflections it seemed. "On the spur of the moment I confirmed his suspicions that I was siding with you after some self-realization over the holidays, so basically--with no Ginny to back me up--I was just kicked out of Gryffindor."

He smiled. "Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being."

"Well that certainly made me feel better. Do you need a John Bradshaw to follow up? 'Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.'"

"One more." She sighed. "Leon Trotsky--he was a Russian revolutionary. And it'll apply to what I say afterward."

"Hit me."

"Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws." He cleared his throat and went on, "If you really want to show the Trinity that you're an antagonist, you can't be... wishy-washy."

"What do you mean?" she asked flatly. "I'm not proving anything--"

"You may not think so, but in essence--you are." He paused. "Don't talk to them for a while. Restrict your words to me, to Ickle Red, to her poof--whatever. Focus on finding Ginny that wonder cure to her Riddle and on beating Hermione in at least one class."

Holly laughed shortly. She turned her head, facing her angular profile toward him without actually locking eyes. "I'll sure try," she said satirically."

"What?" he demanded. "The Mudblood has books, not instincts, bijou..."

"Which really explains why you, pure-blood, have fallen so far behind."

"I'm ranked second."

She added, "I'm sixth."

"Sixth?!" Draco widened his eyes. "Bloody hell, Black, I thought you were intelligent!"

She looked wounded. "So long as I have your vote, Malfoy, I realize my days at school aren't wasted entirely..."

"You're scarcely in, what, the top 15% of our class?" He raised his eyebrows. "Daddy can't be happy about that..."

"Fuck off, will you? Sixth is good enough for me!" Her cheeks sunk in and she glared at him through the window.

"I don't think it is," he whispered. "What were you in your old school? TW?"

"Second," she spat. The term looked bitter on her tongue. "By .054%." Holly's scowl went deeper yet, and the scar on her lower lip reappeared. "Never first. And, it looks as if I'll never step up." She shook her head. "It's no better than last place."

She was some sort of dictator; hopefully she wouldn't resort to murder anytime soon. "The last ranked would kill for your footing," Draco informed her. "I can assure you, Black, that you'll be on a most wanted list in due time. Already the Trinity are planning how to keep you from the Dark Side."

"Ah no, you see, Ginny's the primary concern there." She smiled weakly. "Quite rightly, too."

"Mmm. But wouldn't you rather be in charge of that crusade? You're quite aware that you're the only Gryffindor who understands the condition." Draco wasn't positive how they spiraled onto this topic. She didn't respond, and he reverted back to what the conversation had been about before. "Listen--you meet me at breakfast for the rest of the hols. Come with me to Hogsmeade--spend library time with me, with Ginny. Carry Roux around lovingly, and, if you need to take that extra measure, start doodling 'Holly Malfoy' on other people's things and talk about visiting me at my chateau over the summer." She snickered lightly, closing her eyes.

He leaned over her shoulder and put his lips to her ear. "If all else fails, I'll give you a monumental hickey just here." He touched her neck and leered at their reflection. She was staring back at him, wide-eyed, and the picture struck him like some scene featuring Eve and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. Draco leaned in closer and kissed the hollow of her cheek, pressing his nose against the apple. "Tomorrow. Breakfast."

*()%()*

"Ginny!" Lupin breathed, looking at her pale figure through the doorframe. She'd frightened him greatly; his nerves were on end so late at night. He had been awake, but he'd been functioning in more of a trance than anything else. "Ginny, what're you doing here?"

"I knew you'd be awake," she murmured. She looked like a ghost--her hair was wet and blood red, her face white and freckles whiter. Her lips were a little blue; they matched the circles forming beneath her eyes. "I wanted to know what, exactly, can be done for me. Your professional opinion."

"I've only started reading about Soul Switching tonight, Gin--"

She cut him off mildly. "And I trust that, with your background in the Dark Arts and all, you can assess my condition more expertly than Holly can." Ginny's tone was relatively even, but she looked at him in an almost desperate manner.

"You know you should go to professionals--or at least to your Head of House with this information before consulting me; besides, more than half of this falls into Professor Snape's field rather than my own," he apprised.

"A degree in any educational field can be attained only if the teacher was trained in basic reversal antidotes." She took a deep breath. "Furthermore, gaining a degree that allows you to practice the Dark Arts professionally in any form involves top courses not only in its defense but in heavy potion instruction. I know you're knowledgeable in his field, too, Professor Lupin."

"You seem to be very approachable on this topic," he remarked, impressed.

Showing signs of chagrin, she informed him, "I used to want to be a teacher."

Lupin nodded. "What do you want to be, now?"

Her eyes moved up from the floor to fix upon his. "Fifteen."

"Fair enough." He took a backward step. "Come in, we'll talk." Ginny slid inside and crossed her arms over her chest. She shivered, and Lupin encouraged her to take a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. He shot a line of flames at the embers in the grate. The fire came alive, and he levitated two logs into the blaze.

"I'm tired, Professor, and I don't want you to pitch the Puffskein." He seated himself and looked at her. She bit her lip and he nodded for her to go on. "If I'm going to die from it, please don't hesitate to tell me."

Confidently he replied, "You aren't going to die from it, Ginny."

"But I'll be completely lost in the end, anyway, won't I?" He stared, his throat working through a swallow. "Won't I?"

"Not if you seize the treatment options available," riposted Lupin. "And why in Merlin's name are you acting like..." he grimaced uncertainly.

"Acting like what?"

"Acting like--" he shut his eyes, "--Sirius." She raised her eyebrows and looked at him inquisitively. "Acting as if you don't want to be treated."

She glanced away, chewing on her tongue. From this action the professor drew an answer. "One has to go on wounded, Ginny: your pride or your sanity." She remained silent, and Lupin took the time to fill her in. "It would be a daily potion--something to put in your tea. Like liquid vitamins, if you will. Appointments with the St. Mungo's psychiatric department would be anything but grueling, I'd think. More in the early stages to keep track of your development, then monthly, then yearly... eventually visits more infrequent than standard check-ups."

"And the money?"

He blinked. "Sorry?"

"The money, Professor," she repeated. Her tone was short but her gaze remained despondent. "It's no secret my family's poor."

He exhaled slowly. "Since it's a requirement to successfully develop a Supantoris to gain your final three N.E.W.T.s I imagine the treatment would be free until you were out of Hogwarts and making a living."

"And if it not?"

He smiled grimly. "If not, Lucius Malfoy is Headmaster, and I'm positively mortified that my employment here continues." Ginny grinned back, if weakly. "Will you try? At the very least?"

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I wake up without knowing where I am or why my head is throbbing. I hate it when the facts register." She looked up at him, laughing a little. "I don't want everyone in Gryffindor to become nocturnal creatures simply because they need to watch over me. I don't need watching over. Holly's clock is already thrown off."

"That's too bad," Lupin added, "because the dragon-lady alarms the underclassmen enough during the daylight hours; imagine if she snuck up on one of them after sunset."

Ginny laughed, stronger this time. "She'd convince me that it's Tom making me crazy if I didn't agree to the treatment soon, anyway."

Lupin had to turn the name over in his head a couple times before he made the connection. "Tom, eh?" he murmured.

She flinched. "Oh, I mean--Riddle."

"You don't need to correct yourself," he assured her. "I imagined you'd be quite familiar with him by now."

"Yes," she muttered, switching her gaze over to the fireplace.

Lupin turned his lips up politely, but she didn't see him. "Do you need anything else?"

"No... I'm going to go, now." She stood, excusing herself. When she'd reached the door, Ginny turned, looking at him. She smiled, or did something like it, and thanked him. Ginny turned the door handle and pulled the port open. "One more thing," she said. Lupin looked up from the open text in front of him that he'd averted his attention to. "You should lock up your sleeping quarters tonight... just in case."

"In case of what?" he inquired, furrowing his brow.

"Tom's awake," she told him. The idea of Voldemort residing in the youngest Weasley's head already disturbed him greatly, but the thought that she was acutely aware of his character and his tendencies somehow irked him more. She already knew the Dark Lord better than most adults who opposed him and maybe better, even, than some of his closest Death Eaters. Ginny gave Lupin a regretful look, and her cheeks pinked--if only a little. "And he doesn't like obstacles."

*()%()*