Living with Danger

Chapter 40: What Can We Do?

Ron's mouth fell open. "They are not."

"They are," Meghan said. "And we can prove it. Up in your room."

The cavalcade of four children and three animals clattered up the stairs and into the small, orange room. With Ginny and Luna sitting on the bed, Meghan on the windowsill between the tank full of frogspawn and the pile of comic books, and the wolf curled on the floor around the cat and fox, everyone fit.

Ron shut the door and turned to Meghan. "How?" he demanded.

"Ask Harry something," Meghan said, pointing to the wolf. "Ask him something only he would know the answer to."

"All right." Ron closed his eyes in thought. "Got one. The last time we played chess, who won, and how?" He looked confident, as if sure the next few seconds would prove that his best friend's little sister had gone out of her mind, and his world was still just as boring as it had been the day before.

The wolf stood up and gently nudged Ginny's feet out of the way, sticking its head under the bed. It emerged a moment later with the battered box containing Ron's wizard chess pieces in its mouth. Carefully, it pawed the box open and looked in at the pieces, which all screamed and tried to hide. The cat and fox stood up to watch.

Exceedingly delicately, the wolf opened its mouth and picked up one of the chess pieces, pulling back quickly as the others attacked his face. He delivered the kicking, yelling piece to Ron, who looked it over.

It was a white knight.

The wolf nudged Ron on the knee and barked once, quietly.

Ron nodded. "I did win," he said shakily, still staring at the knight. "And I had white, and I checkmated Harry's king with my knight." He looked at the wolf. "Harry?"

The wolf nodded firmly.

Ron leaned back against the door, his freckles standing out against his pale face. "This is way too weird for me," he said fervently.

The wolf - Harry - rubbed against him, in the manner of a friend patting another on the back after a shocking experience.

Ron looked at the wolf again. "Its - your - the eyes are the same," he said slowly. "Green. Bright green. And a darker ring of fur around the outside, like your glasses."

"Drake's eyes are the same," Luna put in. "Grey, like mine. That's what made me think to look."

"Hermione?" Ginny asked, holding out her hand for the cat, who came to her delicately and looked into her face. "They're hazel for sure - and I don't think cats have that color naturally."

"So it's true, then," Ron said, exhaling a long breath and sitting down on the floor. "I'm sorry, Meghan. It just - it sounded - "

"Weird?" Meghan finished. "The rest of it's even worse."

"How can it be weirder than it already is?" Ron asked.

Meghan looked at the floor. "We've been lying to you," she said very quietly. "We've been lying a lot."

"Lying? About what?"

"About who we are. And what we look like. Do you remember the first day we met? Well, I wasn't there. But the first day you met Harry and Drake and Neenie?"

Ron nodded. "Never forget it."

"And Luna asked if Harry was Harry Potter."

Ginny was starting, for no reason she could explain, to get excited.

"And he said no."

Ron nodded suspiciously.

Meghan swallowed. "He lied. He is."

"I knew it!" Ginny exploded, jumping to her feet. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!"

Everyone was staring at her. She quickly sat back down on the bed.

"You did?" Ron asked, looking totally dumbfounded. "How?"

Ginny shook her head. "I don't know. I just... I... I just did. I knew he had a secret. He would say things that didn't quite fit with what you were telling everyone. I covered for him a couple times. He's really Harry Potter?"

Meghan gave a little smile and a nod. "Has been all his life."

"No way," Ron said. "No freaking way. Come on, Meghan, there's only so much you're going to get me to believe. What's next, your dad is Sirius Black?"

Meghan gasped. "How did you know?"

Ron stared at her. "I was joking."

"She's not," Luna observed.

Ron made an incoherent noise halfway between a squawk and a moan.

"Your dad is really Sirius Black?" Ginny asked incredulously, looking at Meghan.

Meghan nodded. "The Ministry found him," she said sadly. "They found all of us. That's why I had to run away, so they wouldn't take me and put me with another family. Unless all the grownups ran away too, they got arrested."

"Good!" Ron finally managed to articulate a word. "What he deserves! He's a bloody murderer!"

"He is not!" Meghan shouted, then stopped, staring at the wolf. When she next spoke, it was with an obvious effort to keep herself under control. "My father never killed anyone. It was someone else, who made it look like it was him, but it wasn't. He's innocent. And he's the reason we've always been hiding."

"Where did you really live before you lived here?" Ginny asked.

"London. My mum was Aletha Freeman. She still is, really, but now she's Aletha Freeman-Black."

"My dad talks about her!" Ron said suddenly. "She worked for the Ministry, she's a big mystery, ever since she disappeared a couple years ago - her and her... daughter..." He trailed off, looking at Meghan.

"We went to America," Meghan said. "And then we changed our faces and names and came here." She looked like she was going to cry. "I'm really sorry we had to lie to you. We never wanted to lie to anyone."

"Who was the other person?" Luna asked. "The one who made it look like your father killed people?"

"His name is Peter Pettigrew. He can turn into a rat - that's how he got away from the crime, by running away as a rat. His friends called him Wormtail because of that."

Ginny frowned. Wormtail. Why does that sound familiar?

"So he could be hiding anywhere, as a rat," Luna said. "Rats are small. They're hard to find."

"Percy's got a rat for a pet," Ginny pointed out. "His name's Scabbers."

"Mum says if Percy makes prefect, he can have an owl, and then I get Scabbers to take to Hogwarts," Ron said, a little mechanically, as if his brain was still trying to digest all the information it had been given.

Ginny finally decided which question, out of the million or so swarming her brain, she wanted to ask first. "Harry."

The wolf looked up at her.

"Do you really have a scar on your forehead?"

The wolf snorted as if laughing, got up, and came over to her. "He says to look and see," Meghan said.

Ginny looked, and to her mingled astonishment and satisfaction, the wolf did indeed have a thin streak of white fur - such as might grow over scar tissue - on the front of his head, above and between his eyes, in the shape of a lightning bolt.

"Who are Mr. John and Mrs. Danger, really?" Luna asked.

"Their last name is Lupin. We call him Moony, but Danger is still Danger. Moony was really good friends with my dad at school. At Hogwarts."

"Was he friends with - the rat - too?" Ginny asked.

Meghan nodded.

"Moony," Ginny said slowly. "Wormtail." She closed her eyes. "Padfoot." She heard Meghan's gasp and the fox's yip. "And Prongs." The wolf whined slightly.

She opened her eyes. "The twins have something made by four people named Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. I don't know what, but I know those names."

"A map," Meghan whispered. "A magic map of Hogwarts. They told us about it. Padfoot is my dad. Prongs was Harry's. They were really good friends."

"Until Harry's dad died," Luna said matter-of-factly.

The cat rubbed up against the wolf, purring.

"Hermione," Ron said, looking at her. "Is she really Hermione?"

The cat walked over to him deliberately, looked him in the face, and gave him a very definite nod, punctuating it with a swat to his knee with the backside of her paw.

"I suppose that's a yes, then," Ron said weakly.

"Her real name is Hermione Granger," Meghan added. "And her hair's bushier. And she's Danger's sister, not her daughter. That's the only difference."

"What about Drake?" Ginny asked.

Luna stared at the fox. Ginny, looking sideways at her, saw her eyes do an odd sort of drifting thing, then come back into focus in a different way, as if she had been looking at her reflection in a window and was now looking through the glass. "His hair is a lighter color than it usually is," she said dreamily. "Silvery. It's handsome." Her eyes returned to normal. "He looks familiar. Like somebody I saw a picture of."

The fox looked back at Meghan. "Luna, has your father's magazine ever done an article on Draco Malfoy?" she asked.

Luna nodded. "Last year. Why - " She stopped and changed her focus again, staring hard at the fox, who stared hard back. She broke contact first. "You are Draco Malfoy," she said with certainty.

"He used to be," Meghan put in. "He changed his name when he came to live with us. He's Draco Black now."

Ron stared from the fox, to the wolf, to Meghan, and couldn't seem to speak at all.

"This is really, really weird," Ginny said, looking straight at the wolf.

----------

You don't know the half of it, Harry commented.

Someone pounded on the door. "Ron! Ron, open up!"

"Percy," Ron gasped, coming back to life. "Harry - Neenie - Drake, or whatever your name is - hide!"

The animals scattered. Harry secreted himself behind the door as Ron pulled it open. "What's wrong?" he asked his brother.

"Have you heard the news?" Percy panted, one hand on his shoulder as if holding something there - Harry could see him through the hinges. "Sirius Black's been arrested!"

Meghan made a little moaning noise. Ginny went over to her and hugged her.

"I heard," Ron said.

Percy frowned. "You did? How? Dad's only just got home and told us."

"Er... I mean no, I didn't hear. But now I did. What's that?" Ron asked, pointing at the thing on Percy's shoulder.

"Just Scabbers. Mum won't let me have him out of his cage when your friends are here, so I thought I could let him have a little free time now, when they're not." Percy took his hand away.

Harry's breath caught in his throat.

The rat on Percy's shoulder looked... wrong.

Harry couldn't say what it was. It wasn't anything about his shape, or his size, or his color exactly, though color was closest. It was as if he had some kind of faint blueness to him, or greenness perhaps, some color that animals of his sort were not supposed to be. Or perhaps it was a sparkle, or maybe it wasn't anything like that. He didn't care. He knew what it meant.

The same sort of aura surrounded Draco and Hermione when he looked at them.

Percy's rat was not a rat.

Percy's rat was a human being.

Stay where you are! he commanded his siblings as he sensed them getting ready to charge out and look for themselves. If we can see him, he can see us. Meghan. Ask Percy how long he's had the rat.

"Percy?" Meghan sounded very young, very unsure of herself. "Can I pet your rat?"

"All right." Percy sounded pleased to be asked. Harry scrunched himself back as the door opened wider to allow Percy in, then watched as the tall boy crossed the room and handed the rat to Meghan, who stroked its fur with a trembling hand.

"How old is he?" she asked.

"I don't know," Percy said, pressing a finger against his lips in thought. "He must be at least nine or ten, I've had him since I was five, and he was full grown when I found him."

Since he was five, Draco said. He's four years older than us, right?

Ron said he was going to be a prefect. That makes him a fifth year next year, and we'll be first years. Yes, four years older, Hermione calculated rapidly.

Which means, when he was five, we were one, Harry said slowly, watching Percy pick up the rat again. And when I was one...

"Seek the one whose cry you hear," Hermione recited. "For where she is, your prey is near."

He's our prey, Draco said, his voice half a snarl. That's what it means. She sent us rat-hunting.

Harry felt his lips lift away from his teeth in something that could have been a growl or a grin - he was feeling savage and jubilant in equal measure. And we did it. We found him.

But what do we do now? Hermione asked.

"What's going to happen to Sirius Black?" Meghan asked Percy as he put Scabbers back on his shoulder.

"Well, Dad says his trial's been scheduled for tomorrow morning," Percy said to the room at large. "I don't know why they're bothering to give him a trial, he should have been given the Dementor's Kiss straight away, but apparently someone high up insisted on going through the formalities. Oh, and something odd - he wasn't alone. There were other people arrested with him, three of them, a man and two women."

Meghan's lip trembled. "Are they in trouble too?"

"I'd assume so," Percy said, a trifle patronizingly. "You don't get arrested unless you're guilty of something. Well, I'll go now, I just wanted to make sure you all knew, it's important news, after all, history in the making..."

Ron closed the door behind him. "At least one thing hasn't changed," he said with an air of relief. "Percy's still boring."

"That rat isn't a rat," Luna said.

Meghan threw her arms around Luna. "You saw it too!"

"Saw what?" Ginny asked.

"Percy's rat is a man," Luna said. "He's not very tall, and kind of fat, and his hair is falling out. He looks nervous."

"Wormtail," Meghan said with a snarl in her own voice.

The other three cubs nodded.

Ron sat down hard on the floor.

Ginny was very pale. "We have to do something," she said intensely. "They're going to try the wrong man."

"But what can we do?" Ron said blankly. "We're just kids. Just a bunch of kids. Just seven kids."

Seven, Harry said. Neenie - the poem - there was something about seven -

"Pack of seven, Pack-friends two, bring him unto justice true." Pack of seven - but we're the Pack now, and there's only four of us -

I know, Harry said. And I think I know what that means. Meghan -

He explained what he needed her to say.

All right. I'll try.

Meghan got up. "Ron," she said, getting his attention. "Ginny, Luna... this is from everybody." She indicated Harry, Draco, and Hermione, who closed in behind her. "You've been our friends. You've been really great friends. Now we want to know if you want to be something more."

"What?" Ron asked almost suspiciously.

"We want you to be Pack with us."

"What does that mean?" Ginny asked.

"A Pack is like a family. It's people who swear to care for each other and watch out for each other always."

"Is your family a Pack?" asked Luna.

"Yes. We took an oath to each other. It joins us together. Will you take the oath with us, and be Pack with us?"

"What kind of oath?" asked Ron, who looked interested in spite of himself.

Meghan recited it.

"My hand in yours,

"My wand with yours,

"My life for yours,

"Now and always.

"You join hands and say it three times." Harry had instructed her to leave the part about the blood out, since they knew they weren't supposed to use knives and things by themselves, and they didn't have any adults here with them to help them. "Will you be Pack with us? Please?"

"Yes," Luna said without fanfare.

Ginny stared at the ceiling, obviously thinking hard, then brought her head down and gave a quick nod. "Yes. I will."

Ron looked unsure.

Meghan, repeat after me, Hermione said quickly. Ron, you wanted to know what we could do...

"Ron, you wanted to know what we could do," Meghan said, pausing after each sentence to let Hermione finish. "This is what. If we're Pack, we can do anything together. We'll be strong. Much stronger than we are alone. Please. We need you."

"You need me?" Ron repeated. He looked from Hermione, to Draco, to Meghan, and finally settled on Harry. "You need me?"

Harry nodded. We really do. Pearl, tell him.

"Harry says we really need you, Ron," Meghan said. "Please?"

Ron hesitated one more second, then nodded. "All right."

They took the Pack-oath together, there in Ron's room, in a circle on the floor, holding hands and paws, and reciting the words together, aloud or silently, depending on their nature. There was no tingling this time, no feeling associated with the oath - they simply said it three times together, and after an awkward moment, released everyone's hands.

"Did it work?" Ginny asked. "I don't feel any different."

I don't think it works like that, Draco said.

Ginny jumped. "Who said that?"

Er, I did, Draco said hesitantly. Can you hear me?

"You can talk!" Ron blurted.

You can hear us! Hermione said excitedly. It must be the Pack-oath - it made us all like brothers and sisters, and now you can hear us too!

Well, that makes everything easier, Harry said. Meg won't have to translate so much. Let's get going. We have a rat to catch.

----------

Molly Weasley was in her bedroom, folding clothes, when there was a knock at the door. "Come in," she called.

Meghan Black opened the door just wide enough to admit herself. "Hi, Mrs. Weasley," she said shyly. "I just wanted to know where you were."

Molly felt her heart melt. "Oh, you darling." Impulsively, she walked over to Meghan and hugged her.

The girl hugged her back tightly. "Thank you," she said, smiling up at Molly. "You're a nice mum. Ron and Ginny are really lucky."

"And you're a flatterer," Molly said, smiling in spite of herself. "Go on, now, shoo."

Meghan slipped back out, closing the door behind her.

----------

Got it, Meghan called.

"Got what?" Ginny asked.

"A wand," Luna said, with her tone implying "of course".

Meghan arrived in the room, breathless and triumphant. "Here it is," she said, holding it up.

Ron gawked. "That's Mum's!"

Meghan giggled. "I nicked it out of her pocket."

Ron stared at her.

She only looks sweet and innocent, Harry said. I speak from experience. Go on, Meg, activate it.

Meghan bent over the tattered piece of parchment Draco had "borrowed" from the twins' room and touched the wand to its center. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," she said.

----------

Hagrid sat alone in his house, staring at the fire.

He checked the clock on the mantel. It was almost three o'clock. Two hours since he'd heard.

He'd been up at the castle for a late lunch, when Professor Flitwick had come running into the Hall, utterly excited about something. "Sirius Black!" he'd squeaked out. "Sirius Black's been arrested!"

Of course, everyone had wanted details. Flitwick had only known a few. But the few were enough to make Hagrid feel ill.

Sirius had been arrested at his home, along with another man and two women. No children had been found in the home. The four would be tried the next day, and if Sirius were convicted, he would surely be Kissed. Even if he could escape that, he would be back in Azkaban.

And he'd rather die than go back, Hagrid thought. Can't say I blame him.

Someone pounded on his door.

"Comin'," he called, getting up and grabbing Fang's collar. "Back, Fang. Back."

He opened the door to expose one person he'd never seen before - and one he had.

"Meghan!" He released Fang, who bounded at the tall boy accompanying her and began to lick him, and embraced the little girl, who was crying.

"I'm so happy to see you," she explained, smiling at him through her tears. "Please, may we come in?"

"Oh, o' course, o' course," Hagrid said, heartily embarrassed. He stepped aside, allowing them entrance.

"It's my rat, sir," the boy explained, putting a cage containing said animal on the table and pulling down the hood of his cloak to expose flaming red hair - a Weasley, then. And about Harry and Draco's age, unless Hagrid missed his guess. "He hasn't been sleeping well. Do you have something that could help him?"

Meghan handed Hagrid a small note, done in her childish handwriting, and pressed a finger to her lips. He read it over.

Please, give the rat something that will make him sleep for a whole day. We'll explain afterwards.

"Righ', then," Hagrid said, going to his pantry. "I got just the thing." He quickly mixed some of the knock-out potion he used when he needed to doctor one of the wild animals of the forest with some honey, then scooped up a rat-size dose on a spoon. "Bring him right over here, young feller - what's yer name, anyway?"

"Ron, sir. Ron Weasley."

"Ah, I'm no sir," Hagrid said, offering the rat the spoon. It sniffed at the honey, then began to lick it up. "Jus' Hagrid, tha's what ev'ryone calls me."

The rat finished the honey and began to clean its whiskers.

"Powerful stuff, that," Hagrid said, watching the rat. "Should start working any - ah, there we go."

The rat yawned. Ron quickly returned it to its cage. "There," he said, closing and latching it with an expression of grim satisfaction.

"Now?" Meghan asked, with an air of stifled excitement.

"Not yet," Ron said, staring at the rat. "Just another moment..."

The rat yawned again, then curled up in a heap and closed its eyes.

"Now," Ron said, nodding to Meghan.

Meghan turned to Hagrid. "He's not a rat," she said, her grin seeming too big to be contained on her tiny face. "Not really. He's Wormtail. We found him. We can save the Pack."

Hagrid gaped at her for a second. Then it sank in.

Wormtail. Found. His friends were saved.

His yell of joy could probably have been heard all the way up at the castle.

----------

Luna walked down the road toward the Den. Draco trotted beside her, almost invisible with the snow still thickly falling. The article about you was very interesting, she said.

What did it say?

It said your mother had sacrificed herself to convince a secret cult in the mountains of Wales to take you in.

Draco laughed. No secret cult. Just the Pack. But my mother did sacrifice herself. His voice lost all its humor. She died so no one could ever use her against me. So I would never have to wonder who I should be more loyal to, her or the Pack.

Luna pulled up her left sleeve and regarded her arm solemnly. I have a scar here, she said. Where the splinters of my mother's bowl hit me.

Draco looked. A crescent-shaped pattern of seven dots marked the inside of Luna's forearm. It's pretty, he said. Like a moon. Like your name.

Luna smiled at him. Here we are, she said, turning in at the gate of the Den. How are we going to get in?

There's a special latch on the ground. You step on it and the door opens. Draco began to dig where he knew the latch was covered by snow.

Why do you have that?

We just do, Draco said. Pack or no Pack, he wasn't about to tell Luna about Padfoot and Moony without their permission. Here it is. He pressed his paw down on the latch, hard, and the front door swung open.

They went inside quickly and shut the door behind them. The study is back this way, Draco said, leading the way. Moony keeps all the important papers in his desk. The password is...

"Katherine," Luna said to the desk, which obediently unlocked. She opened it and began to sort through the papers within.

Draco jumped up to the chair and put his front paws on the ledge. He sniffed. In there, he said, pointing with a paw. I can smell the blood.

Luna reached into the indicated cubbyhole and pulled out a scroll. This?

Open it.

Luna did.

That's it, Draco said, looking it over. I'm glad Neenie remembered about it.

She's good at remembering things, Luna said. I hope she has good things to remember about tomorrow.

I hope so too.

Girl and fox left the house, locking the door behind them.

----------

Minerva McGonagall was at her sister's house when an excited neighbor firecalled to tell the family about Sirius Black's arrest, and those of his friends. She had to pardon herself for a few minutes to regain her composure.

Dear God, is there no justice at all in the world? she raged, pacing the guest bedroom which was hers. Haven't they suffered enough?

It was then that she realized how attached she'd grown to the Pack.

An owl tapped at her bedroom window. She quickly opened it and let the bird in.

The letter was from Dumbledore, and was in his characteristic style - brief and to the point.

Minerva -

Be on the lookout for a communication from Hagrid, and if one should come, do what he desires of you. Do not despair. Our friends may yet be saved.

Albus

She read it three times over, then dried her eyes and went downstairs to rejoin her family.

The second owl arrived about an hour and a half later. The grandfather clock in the corner was just chiming three-thirty as the bird rapped on the windowpane.

"It's for you, Aunt Minerva," said her niece Julia, stroking the owl's head feathers.

"Thank you," Minerva said, accepting the letter. Julia had finished Hogwarts three years previously, with Severus Snape her bitter adversary every step of the way. I considered it practice for Harry Potter's years there.

She broke the seal and began to read.

Professor -

Can you meet me at ten tomorrow in the Atrium at the Ministry?

Hagrid

That was all. No explanation, no postscripts, nothing.

Minerva found quill and ink. Yes, I will, she scribbled quickly, refolded and readdressed the parchment, and handed it back to the owl.

Hagrid appears to have learned a few things from Albus after all these years.

Specifically, how to be maddeningly obscure while he thinks he is being blindingly obvious.

The hours until ten tomorrow are going to seem very long indeed.

----------

Chapter 41: Debts and Deals

Danger awoke in light.

She lay in a patch of sunlight, on a smooth green lawn, by the edge of a very blue lake.

I know this place. I've been here before.

Or have I?

The place looked familiar, true, but as if she had seen a picture of it... a bad picture, dirty and discolored... and yet she knew she had been there, walked these grounds, skipped stones on this lake...

It's Hogwarts. The castle should be... over there. And as she sat up and looked around, there the castle was, indeed, rising majestically into a sky as blue as the water of the lake, its stones gleaming in the sunlight...

Wait a minute. Something's wrong here. It's the middle of winter. Why is everything green and sunny?

She stood up, and discovered a few other odd things. She was wearing white, a gown made of flowing, filmy material and trimmed with lace. Her shoes were soft slippers, also white. She reached up to her hair and found it unbound, but surprisingly soft and submissive to her hands. Usually it had a mind of its own, springing out of whatever she tried to curtail it with.

An idea came to her. She pressed her foot down hard on the ground.

It recoiled ever so slightly under the pressure.

That explains a lot.

The place was a dream. Or something similar to a dream. At any rate, she wasn't physically at Hogwarts, nor had she time-traveled into the middle of the summer.

"Wonder what I look like in this getup," she murmured. "Wish I had a mirror."

A full-length mirror materialized in front of her.

Of course. Dream rules. Get what you ask for. She scrutinized herself. Looks pretty good. I wonder what happens if I wish my hair blond?

It abruptly was.

Danger studied her reflection. Nah, I look better brunette. She changed it back, then looked more closely at her face and frowned. Something's wrong there.

She started at the bottom. Chin, no. Lips, no. Cheeks, no. Eyes - yes. Something's the matter with my eyes...

But what it could be, she couldn't imagine. The same as ever, frank and brown, her reflection's eyes met hers in the mirror without shame or guilt...

Brown. All brown. No blue in them.

Remus!

Danger whirled away from the mirror, searching her mind. The place in it usually filled by the dryly humorous and reliable presence of her husband, her love, her best friend, was echoingly, painfully empty.

No. This can't be happening.

But she knew it was.

The last part of the instructions. After they told me what to say to the cubs. "You will then leave your home and your people behind you and come to be judged. You will be allowed no communication with those you leave behind. They must undergo their testing separately, as you must undergo yours."

And I never stopped to think that it included our connection...

God, he must be frantic, he'll think I'm dead, I have to go back...

A sound like a bark, from the grass near her feet, drew her attention.

A black-and-white creature looked up at her with sharp, intelligent, black eyes. When it saw that it had her attention, it began deliberately to walk in the direction of the castle.

"Do I follow you?"

The animal nodded.

"All right." Danger vanished the mirror by willing it gone and followed the badger toward the castle. They had only gone a few yards before they were joined by another creature, this one long and thin and sinuous, who wound across their path in front of them and made Danger scream before she realized what it was.

"I'm sorry..." She pressed a hand to her racing heart and laughed weakly. "I wasn't expecting you. But I should have been, shouldn't I?"

The snake nodded, making a sound which Danger was sure Harry would have said was laughter. It fell into step (or slither) beside her.

She was more prepared for the scream which echoed out of the sky above her, and lifted her arm to receive the great bird quite calmly. "Oh, you are a beauty," she said admiringly, stroking the eagle's plumage. "And not nearly as heavy as I would have expected. But I suppose that's more of the dream working."

The bird bobbed its head yes.

As they approached the castle, Danger was, by now, completely unsurprised to see the majestic form which rose up to meet them. She bowed slightly, and was gratified when the big cat bowed back.

Escorted by lion, eagle, badger, and serpent, she ascended the steps of Hogwarts and passed through the great doors, which opened before her and closed behind her, like magic.

Which is, of course, what it is.

They entered the empty Great Hall. Danger glanced up, as she always did, to see the enchanted ceiling, today so incredibly blue, with the occasional fluffy white cloud scudding past.

Everything's so bright, so clear and crisp. Usually dreams are less real than reality.

The eagle took wing, circling the Hall once, then folded its wings and swooped down, past Danger, who dodged almost involuntarily, and through a small door to one side of the teachers' dais. The badger and the snake followed it in.

"I go in there?" she asked the lion, who nodded solemnly.

She took a deep breath and stepped forward, towards the chamber. One step. Two. Three.

She could see inside now. There were people in there. Men and women both, dressed in bright colors.

Four. Five. Six.

They were all waiting for something - for her...

Seven. Eight. Nine.

Oh God, don't let me pass out now...

Ten. She was inside.

Three walls of the small room were lined with chairs - three to her left, three to her right, and four directly in front of her. Every chair was occupied, and every occupant was looking closely at her.

Am I blushing? I have to be blushing. I know I'm blushing, I can feel it...

"Gertrude Kelly Granger, daughter of David, daughter of Rose, we bid you welcome," said a man who sat almost directly in front of her, rising.

He looked rather like an old lion. There were streaks of grey in his mane of tawny hair and his bushy eyebrows; he had keen yellowish eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and (she noticed as he came forward and bowed to her) a certain rangy, loping grace even though he walked with a slight limp. His robes were red and fit him well, looking neither new enough to be uncomfortable nor old enough to be shabby.

She curtsied to him. "I thank you, good sir," she said, feeling the language of Sirius' period stories coming almost naturally to her after six years of proofreading them for him. "You seem to know quite well who I am. May I in return know who you are, and why you have called me here?"

It was not quite a demand. The man smiled as a ripple went through the room, the sounds of people murmuring to their neighbors or readjusting themselves in their seats. "Direct - one might even say blunt - yet polite. Both are valued among us. You may know these things. Will you sit?" His wave created a chair behind her.

"I will." No sense standing all day. She seated herself and, under pretense of adjusting her skirts, had a good look around the room.

Besides the man who had spoken to her, there were two others dressed in red, another man, somewhat younger, and a woman, who both shared the tawny hair of the older man. The man reminded her slightly of Sirius - he had the same look of being relaxed, no matter what posture he was in. The woman redoubled her feeling of familiarity, for she had Aletha's regal bearing and poise.

They sat next to a veritable gaggle of women in blue, all of whom were probably somehow related, if one could judge by their faces. The oldest of them, if her snow-white hair was any indicator, wore a soothing azure. The others ranged from a frail-seeming blonde woman in the palest and gentlest sky-blue imaginable, through a redhead in the homey color of faded blue jeans, into a dark-haired woman in stern but not unapproachable navy.

On the opposite wall sat a young man and an older woman, both brown-haired (though the woman's was turning silver in places) and wearing a sunny yellow. They looked like people one could confide in, people whose word was their bond, and as Danger looked more closely, she spotted flecks of dirt under the woman's fingernails, and a small greenish stain on the man's right hand.

A black-haired man, no longer quite young but certainly not old, sat beside them, unique in his robes of grass-green. His face was confident and appraising, and he was the only one of the ten to have noticed that she was looking at them. His eyes, green as his robes, met hers frankly, and she blushed again and sat up quickly, facing the man in red who had spoken to her.

"You wished to know who we are, and what our business may be with you," he said, and Danger thought suddenly of Sirius and Narcissa, using formal speech to make a difficult matter easier to handle. "You know of three of us already."

He indicated himself, the white-haired woman in blue, and the older woman in yellow, both of whom rose and came to stand beside him, blue, red, and yellow somehow harmonizing rather than clashing.

"We are the Founders of Hogwarts."

Danger closed her mouth quickly, before she drooled on her dress. "But..." she managed to articulate.

"Let me guess," said the woman in yellow, who was surely Helga Hufflepuff. "We're dead."

Danger nodded weakly.

"We did die, it is true," said the other woman - Rowena Ravenclaw, she must be. "But after our deaths, we chose - "

"We were chosen," Hufflepuff interrupted.

"We accepted being chosen," the man corrected further - the man who must, she realized, be Godric Gryffindor. "To remain close to the world we once dwelt in, and help to direct its day-to-day activities."

"These others are our children," Ravenclaw said, gesturing behind her at the three seated women - her daughters, Danger recalled. "They too were offered this choice, and one and all they joined us in it."

Danger turned to look at the man in green. He rose. "I am, as you may have guessed, the so-called 'good' son of Salazar Slytherin," he said with a trace of irony in his voice. "He and my brother Matthias quarreled with the other Founders about the subject of purity of blood - the story has survived to your day, I believe."

"It has," Danger said, surprised by the steadiness of her voice. "What has not survived is your name. If I may make so bold as to ask."

"Alexander. I alone, from the three Slytherin men who swore the oath, remain true to my given word. My father and brother broke their vows and deserted our company, and now they will never find rest, by day or by night, in life or in death." It had the sound of a ritual speech to it.

Abruptly Danger realized where she had heard it before. "The oath - you have sworn an oath to one another - "

"My hand in yours," Gryffindor said, extending his hands to the man and woman in red, who must be his son and daughter.

"My wand with yours," the rest of the company joined in, with Alexander and the darkest Ravenclaw daughter lifting their hands to one another, since they could not reach to hold them.

"My life for yours." The line seemed to hold a bitter double meaning for Alexander, as his face twisted into a wry smile.

"Now and always." The words rang in the chamber, seeming to echo far past the point they should have.

"None who have not sworn this oath may enter this castle," Gryffindor said, looking back at Danger. "We, the four Founders, so swore to one another before embarking upon our great task - the building of a school of magic. These, our children, so swore to one another and to us when they were of age and could choose to do so or not. May I make known to you my son, Paul, and my daughter, Maura."

Danger returned their half-bows.

"May I make known to you my son, Adam," said Hufflepuff, and Danger bowed to him as well.

"My daughters," Ravenclaw said, and each rose and curtsied as her mother spoke her name. "Sophia." The frail-seeming blonde. "Brenna." The dark-haired woman. "Margaret." The redhead.

"I'm still amazed that I was allowed to be part of this," Margaret said frankly, remaining standing where her sisters had sat down. "You may not know this, but I was a Squib. No magic at all. I married a Muggle, and none of our children turned out magic. I've always wondered if any of my later descendants did. You wouldn't know, would you?"

Danger shook her head regretfully. "They say the records from your time are inconsistent," she said. "So no one can even tell if there are any descendants left, from any of the Founders, much less sort out who's descended from whom."

"Well, there's one sure way to tell," Paul Gryffindor said. "The family talents." He snapped his fingers, and was abruptly holding a handful of fire. "Know anyone who can do this?"

"Paul!" Maura Gryffindor snapped. "Forgive my brother," she said to Danger. "He's still not entirely housetrained, even after all these years."

"I wish Salazar and Matthias hadn't left," Adam Hufflepuff said ruefully, looking around the room. "Without them, we're outnumbered."

"If we could return to the subject at hand," Gryffindor said, in a mild-seeming voice that nonetheless cut through the indignant feminine chatter at Adam's remark. "We are now known to one another, Gertrude Granger. We shall address the second half of your question. Our business with you."

Danger sat up straighter.

"You must know that you are unique among witches and wizards. You have talents seldom, if ever, seen before. Your ability to tell the future or see the truth of the present or past in your dreams. Your ability to 'tame' a werewolf at his time of change, with the related mind connection between you and him. And your ability to do one otherwise impossible act which must be accomplished to save one whom you love."

"I do know this," Danger answered warily.

"We are responsible for these abilities."

The chamber was utterly silent. The lion, which lay beside Danger, lifted its head at the unusual lack of sound. The eagle, perched on the back of her chair, mantled its wings uneasily. The badger stirred beneath her, and the snake wound its way up the leg and onto the arm of the chair.

Automatically, Danger stroked the smooth scales. She was still trying to comprehend what Gryffindor had said to her. Responsible for my abilities? But I got my magic when...

"Does this mean that you are responsible for the deaths of my parents?" she asked in a deadly quiet voice.

"No." She had never heard something so definitely negated in her life. "We were not. Your magic, awakened by that most unfortunate happening, was wild and without form. We gave it form and definition. That is all."

Some of Danger's tension left her. But not all, by a long shot. So why are they telling me this?

"I suppose I should thank you," she said tentatively. "You made my life, as it is, possible. I would probably never have started babysitting Harry if I hadn't recognized him from my dreams. I would certainly never have met Remus. Sirius would still be in Azkaban - Draco would still be a Malfoy - Meghan wouldn't even exist - and I don't know what Aletha would have done. So thank you. From all of us."

"Your thanks are received and appreciated," Gryffindor said, with what looked like an approving smile. "And in recompense, we will show you something you have long wanted to see."

He gestured, and an area of the air before her turned opaque, first black, then silver, like a mirror. An image came into being there - the kitchen of the Burrow, Danger realized after a confused moment.

"Mum!" she heard a girl's voice shout. Ginny. "Mum, where are you?"

"I'm in the living room," Molly Weasley's voice answered. "Why?"

"I want to show you something!" Ginny came hurtling down the stairs, closely followed by a half-grown, dark grey wolf and a kitten on the verge of being called cat, a lighter shade of grey than the wolf. "Look, they do tricks!"

The scene froze. "Do you know them?" Ravenclaw asked gently.

"Who? The girl? I know her, she's our neighbor..."

"The animals," Hufflepuff said. "Do you recognize your own work?"

"My work?" Danger looked again at the creatures, frozen in their places. "Does this thing move around? I mean, the scene? Can I see it from another angle?"

"Of course," Gryffindor said. "Direct it with your mind."

I want to see the wolf's face, Danger thought towards the viewer, which obediently angled around to give her a look.

One look was all she needed. There was no mistaking those eyes.

"Harry," she said flatly. "And that would make the kitten Hermione - it's Remus' name for her, I should have realized - and is there a fox with them, by any chance?"

"How interesting that you should ask that," Ravenclaw said with a smile as the scene reanimated and Ginny charged through the kitchen, wolf and cat in tow.

"Watch, they play chase, and then they turn around and do it the other way," Ginny was saying excitedly. "And then the cat rides on the wolf..."

Another person came cautiously down the stairs, peering around. "Meghan," Danger said in relief. "She made it all right."

Meghan turned and waved at someone up the stairs. Luna Lovegood and a small white fox appeared, hurrying across the kitchen and to the outer door, stopping only long enough for Luna to don cloak and boots before exiting the house. "And that's Draco," Danger said, shaking her head in disbelief. "Lord, when I do magic, I really do magic, don't I?"

Ron Weasley was the next into the kitchen. He carried a wooden cage. Inside the cage was something small and gray and furry...

"Is that a rat?" Danger asked cautiously.

"Yes," Gryffindor said in a strange voice. Danger paused the scene and looked up at him. He looked... not angry, not quite, she thought. Possibly... annoyed? Put out?

"Have I done something?"

"No, not at all. It's what you didn't do."

"I'm sorry?"

"Do you remember the first dream you ever had?" Hufflepuff asked.

"My first true-dream? The poem? I think so. 'Black to red and red to brown shall truly bring the darkness down. Find the red and find the rat whose cunning plot...'"

Danger stopped and looked back at the viewer.

Find the red. And we thought it might mean red hair. And then we didn't think about it any more. Not even when we moved practically next door to a notoriously red-haired family...

"How stupid should I be feeling right now?" she asked in a small voice.

"Very," Gryffindor said in thunderous tones that would have been much more impressive if Danger hadn't had the impression he was trying not to laugh. "Three years - three years - you've been living practically on top of the man..."

"There's a prohibition on us telling you things more than once in your dreams," Ravenclaw said. "So we couldn't remind you of it. Luckily for you, your cubs are quite perceptive."

Danger restarted the scene. Ron handed the cage to Meghan, reached up onto the mantelpiece for a flowerpot, and removed two handfuls of glittering powder from it. He threw one handful directly into the fire, turning the flames green. "Hogwarts kitchens," Meghan said in hushed tones as she stepped into the fire.

The flames whirled her out of sight.

Ron pulled a tattered piece of parchment from his pocket and studied it. After a moment, he nodded in satisfaction, tucked it away again, and tossed in his own handful of Floo powder. "Hogwarts kitchens," he said, and disappeared in the green flames.

"They seek your friend Hagrid," Hufflepuff said as the viewer vanished. "He will help them. They plan to present the rat as evidence at the trial tomorrow."

"Sirius' trial is tomorrow?" Danger said, coming back to her present reality with a jump. "I have to get back - they'll need me - "

"That need may go unfulfilled," Ravenclaw said, a trifle frostily, Danger thought.

"What? Why?"

"As has been stated, the present form of your magic owes its life to us," Hufflepuff said. "But there is another debt owing between us. On the night of April 12, 1982, you and your husband invoked a curse upon a pair of Muggles. Do you recall doing so?"

Danger didn't even have to think about it. "Yes, of course - the night we rescued Harry, the night we cursed the Dursleys - "

"The Threefold Curse of the Righteous," Gryffindor said. "And it took its desired effect. It is an immensely powerful piece of magic. Did it ever cross your mind that some recompense might be required?"

"Recompense?" Danger repeated blankly.

"It's quite a job, fouling up someone's life that consistently," said Sophia Ravenclaw. "And doing it so they don't realize they've been cursed - that takes finesse. We've had to spend an awful lot of time on those two over the past several years. You do owe us."

Danger stared at the blonde woman, an awful fear growing in her. "What, exactly, do I owe you?"

"You mean, in what coin can you pay us back?" asked Brenna, the darkest of the Ravenclaw sisters.

Danger nodded.

"Oh, I don't know. A lifetime of service, perhaps." Brenna smiled at Danger's astounded face. "You knit, I understand."

"Yes."

"Then you're used to handling yarn and thread. You could help me with my spinning."

"Spinning." Danger looked at Sophia and Margaret. "Which of you measures and which one cuts?"

"I measure," Sophia said with an approving smile. "Margaret cuts. And I see someone knows her mythology."

"This is beside the point," Gryffindor said. "The point is, you do owe us a great deal, Madame Granger. Brenna is quite accurate - you invoked the Curse to last for the lives of its victims, so I would say you owe us your own life in recompense."

"You wouldn't die, of course," Alexander put in, leaning forward. "You'd simply live out your life here. It's a very pleasant place, nothing to harm you or frighten you, and work that truly means something. And when you die, if you've done well, you might be offered the choice to remain among us - you have sworn the oath, after all, even if you didn't quite understand what it meant at the time."

Danger swallowed hard against a feeling of impending panic. I have to think. I have to think.

What can I possibly offer them instead of my life?

"What if I asked you to lift the Curse?" she said in desperation, looking at Gryffindor. "Would that affect how much I owe you?"

"It might," Gryffindor said slowly. "It might. Would you ask this?"

"I would. Even if it does not affect my debt." Danger spoke at a measured pace, giving her racing thoughts time to collect themselves. "The Curse has been in effect on Vernon and Petunia Dursley for nearly nine years. That is at least ten times as long as my Pack-son suffered under their care. It is enough, and past enough. I do ask that the Curse be lifted from them. So I speak, so I intend."

"And so it shall be done," Gryffindor said, looking thoughtful.

"Madame Granger, you place us in a dilemma," Hufflepuff said with a wry smile. "The fact is that with the Curse gone, your debt is diminished by a significant amount. By almost half, in fact."

"But half of it remains," Maura Gryffindor said. "And that half must be paid."

"So we offer you a choice," Ravenclaw said smoothly. "This choice. Listen well. You may return to your world and your people, bereft of those unusual talents of magic which were spoken of earlier - your dreams, your wild abilities, and your, what do you call it, your werewolf taming. You will, of course, retain the common magical power which awakened in you on your parents' deaths. You will live out your life with no further intervention from us beyond that which is normal to the lives of all those who have magic in the land of Britain."

"Or," Hufflepuff said, "you could stay here, and send your magic back."

Danger stared at the yellow-robed woman. "I don't understand."

"Your dreams warn your family, your Pack, of danger - no pun intended, dear - do they not? If you choose to send your magic back, they will always be warned of approaching peril in time to avoid or deflect it. Your wild magic holds them safe against unexpected disasters - something will always happen to avert those disasters from them. And your werewolf taming - well, that's easy. Your Remus will simply no longer be a werewolf."

"If you chose this course, your Pack-brother's name would be cleared right away," Paul said. "He and the rest of your Pack would be home and safe tonight."

"Your cubs would grow happy and healthy," Maura said.

"Your friends would prosper, and grow in friendship for one another," said Adam.

"Their children would be many," said Brenna.

"Their lives would be long," Sophia said.

"Their deaths would be painless," said Margaret.

"And they wouldn't miss you," said Alexander quietly. "No one would grieve for you. They would either know you were somewhere better, or simply forget about you altogether."

"So the choice lies before you now," Gryffindor concluded. "To give up either your life, or your magic. The decision is yours, and yours alone, to make."

"May I have some time to think?" Danger asked in a voice she hardly recognized as her own.

"Of course. All the time you wish."

"And... may I be alone for it?"

"You may." Gryffindor clapped his hands once. Danger was abruptly outside, by the lake again, seated on a boulder instead of the chair.

She stared out over the lake, shivering, although the day was warm.

My life, or my magic.

Go back, and watch my love's pain every month - or stay, and know that he will never hurt again.

Go back, and fight for my brother's freedom - or stay, and by that action make him free.

Go back, and dry my sister's tears - or stay, and ensure she never sheds them.

Go back, and battle over the custody of the cubs - or stay, and know they are safe and happy with the rest of the Pack.

She rose, pressing her lips together to deny herself tears.

I know what I must do. What I want must play no part.

As she turned, she found herself again in the chamber of the Founders.

"Have you reached a decision?" Gryffindor asked.

Danger looked him in the eye. "I have."