Two to Lead

Chapter 18: Turning

"While the dead may still hunt their young, the young can still turn and in that turning learn how the very definition of whim prevents the killing."

-Mark Z. Danielewski, 'House of Leaves'

*******

When Thera Castelar opened the door, Harry stepped back, surprised. He wasn't surprised that she'd opened the door - he'd been knocking, after all - but rather at her appearance. Thera looked as if she'd just lost a wrestling match with a troll. And then challenged the troll to a rematch and lost that, too.

She seemed skittish, her eyes darting from him to the hallway behind him. He'd obviously woken her up, even though it was nearly suppertime.

"Harry Potter," she said blandly. It wasn't a greeting, necessarily, but more of a clarification of his identity.

"I'm sorry; I didn't know you were sleeping."

Suddenly, she grabbed him by the front of his robes and hauled him into her room, slamming him against the wall next to the door. Harry couldn't hold back a grunt.

Kicking the door shut, she let him go abruptly, then turned and strode over to her desk. Picking up her wand, she tapped one of the drawers. Immediately the top opened to reveal...

"A bar?" Harry asked, aghast. "You have a bar in your room?"

"It's not like it was here when I moved in," she said. "Do you want something?"

Harry shook his head, watching as she mixed Troll Juice, Fairy Pollen, Shnozzleberry Schnapps and what looked and smelled like PepperUp Potion into a glass with an expert's hand. Mixing it together, she took a gulp, turning to him.

"What is that?" he asked. It certainly couldn't taste very good.

"Magical Red-Eye. I created it myself." A short burst of steam came out of her ears and she blinked once or twice, waking up a little more. She tapped the drawer again, sending the bar back into hiding.

"Why did you yank me in here?"

"Because Harry Potter strolling around in the dungeons alone is every Slytherin's dream come true. They have a set of handcuffs reserved especially for you, engraved with your name and everything. They have ten parchments listing the things they'd do to you, and it would turn your stomach to know what's on it."

Harry's eyes took in her bed. Half the covers were on the floor. She must sleep like Ron, tossing and turning and ending up in all kinds of weird positions.

Weird positions reminded him of his point in coming here: she was the only girl he could think of who would just have sex with him without making him jump through hoops. Harry wondered if he could just come out and ask her. It seemed silly to go beating around the bush - so to speak - when she'd already admitted she was interested.

"Do you want to have sex?" he asked casually. Simultaneously she asked, "Why are you here?"

She frowned at him. "What did you say?"

There was a time for dignity. This wasn't it. "Do you want to have sex with me?"

In response, she pulled out the desk chair and sat down on it, thinking for a moment. "Do you mean in general, or right now?"

Harry had spent all morning coaching himself in the mirror, remembering his persona with Lucy this summer. The 'what are you looking at?' firm-jawed glare. The cool stare-down. The last time he'd been in this room, he'd entirely forgotten about them. He vowed to himself they wouldn't be this time.

"Is there a better time than right now?" he asked coyly, wondering if anybody would ever bother to have sex with the real Harry Potter.

Thera rubbed a hand against her forehead as if thinking about his offer. Harry expected the temptress to re-emerge. Instead she put her hands in her lap and stared down at her feet pensively, hanging off the chair without touching the floor. Her hair was still in disarray, and she looked for all the world like a child who'd just been asked a question she didn't know the answer to.

Harry would much rather have gotten the temptress.

Finally, she sat up and looked at him, neither the sex goddess nor the little girl, but something in between.

"I can't right now."

Harry faltered. "Oh. Okay." He couldn't bring himself to say 'Come on, baby.'

She looked away. "I'm all for the idea in general, but not right at this moment. It's just too..." She waved a hand, as if the explanation were too complicated to bother with. In fact, she looked repulsed. It didn't help Harry's confidence much.

An idea sparked in his mind.

"Are you staying here over the holidays?" He might as well stay, he figured. If Ron was going to visit Hermione, he could hardly bum around at the Burrow with nobody to talk to, and he wouldn't even let himself entertain the idea of staying at Hermione's with Ron.

The more Ron and Hermione's 'relationship' progressed, the more Harry felt like the only child of dysfunctional parents. If or when they ever broke up, there was going to be one nasty custody battle.

She nodded, smiling wryly. "In the service of my sadly lacking education."

Some part of Harry - a part he wasn't particularly fond of, for what it was worth, and probably the same part that nearly got him sorted into Slytherin - didn't like her explanation, didn't like her refusal to take part in immediate sexual gratification. He didn't want a person with reasons and thoughts. He wanted a convenient sex toy.

He had no interest in getting to know Thera Castelar. He just wanted to have sex with her. It was hardly a crime, but Harry felt vaguely ashamed of it nonetheless. If he was supposed to be this great force for good in the wizarding world, shouldn't he hold himself to a slightly higher standard? Shouldn't he have gotten it out of his system with Lucy?

His Slytherin voice answered, Hell no. It's about time your fame starting working for you. And furthermore, if you keep thinking like that, you're never going to get laid. He wondered if he could persuade her to change her mind if he really tried.

Harry paused so he could beat that part of himself back with a mental bat. He couldn't bring himself to sacrifice quite the amount of dignity required to beg for sex.

Consider the alternative... the Slytherin side got in before he shut it out.

"Well, then I'm sure we can meet up then," Harry said out loud, backing towards the door, not trusting himself with her any longer.

His hand was fumbling for the doorknob when she shot forward.

"Wait," she said shortly, shoving him aside, opening the door and glancing up and down the hallway. The movement pressed her body against his and Harry remembered why he'd come. Because he was acutely horny.

"Okay," she whispered. "Put on the invisibility cloak first."

Harry looked down at the cloak clutched in his right hand. Then he wrapped his left hand around her waist and kissed her.

Her hands braced against his chest, but she allowed the kiss. She didn't, however, return it. Drawing back, Harry felt slightly guilty, as he had when he'd kissed Hermione. For all the girls who supposedly wanted him, nobody was falling all over themselves to get in his trousers.

Thera Castelar looked at him oddly and took his invisibility cloak, spreading it over him.

"You should go while there's nobody in the hallway."

"Thera," he said.

"Go," she repeated.

So Harry went up to Gryffindor tower, trying to call up memories of her in the silky nightgown and finding he couldn't. He would have to settle for his imagination. Parvati Patil in a French maid outfit. Mmmm... Why don't we put that feather duster of yours to good use? He grinned.

*******

When she finally got Potter out the door, Thera sat on the edge of the bed, trying to think about the past half-hour of her life and put it in perspective.

She'd said no to Potter. Never before had it occurred to her that there was such a thing as denying sex to a guy, much less that he would comply with her wishes.

It opened up a whole new world of possibilities at the same time that it incurred a slimy, slithery feeling in her stomach. 'Men love you, Thera,' her father had said. And they did. They always had, since she was young. And she had always let them.

Of course, Thera had never viewed it as something she let them do. It was simply that - as Draco had once observed - she used sex the way other people used the word 'please.' It had occurred to her that this behavior might possibly stem from the Dark Lord's sneaky little spell. Now she'd read the spell, and she knew it didn't.

But if that wasn't the only spell...well, then she was in a whole world of trouble. Draco, too. Their fathers were two imaginative boys.

"It was just a stupid dream," she said out loud, as if saying it out loud would make it more convincing. Harry Potter propositioning her for sex was surreal enough; she wasn't about to entertain the idea that her father had suddenly decided to engage in a spot of child abuse from beyond the grave. Was the afterlife really that boring? And what was a sadistic murderer like her father doing listening to classical music in his study for eternity, anyway? Wasn't there a hell, and shouldn't he be there? Had it gotten overcrowded or something? Was this some sort of hell-release program?

Thera wanted to find Draco, who was at least in roughly the same situation, but he was in a bitchy mood today.

Plus she had homework to do - loads of it, in fact - but she couldn't bring herself to do it. In the whole scheme of her future and her fate, her Herbology paper didn't stand a chance. Which meant it was time for Plan B.

Dragging her ass off the bed, Thera went into the Common Room in search of Kim. She found him laughing uproariously with the other Slytherin first-year boys, one of whom had just been hit with a Gibberish Hex.

"Zabba doo, zabba doo, zabba dooooooo!" the kid yelled, waving his arms around angrily. The rest of the table laughed even louder.

Thera noticed that Draco was not at his usual chair in front of the fire, which meant it was empty. It was widely known that any ass cheek besides his own that touched Draco's chair would be promptly cursed off, though the older Slytherins liked to let the first years figure that out for themselves. It was highly entertaining.

Trying another tack, the unfortunate first year took out a piece of parchment and wrote something on it, then pressed his lips together and held it up.

In big block letters, it read, "ZABBA DOO MOOPSY-WOOPSY, BADA-BING!!!"

The rest of the boys fell over each other with laughter.

"Kiss your mother with that mouth?" Thera asked. As if a switch had been turned off somewhere, the boys all stopped laughing at once.

"Hey, Thera," Kim greeted her, looking around at the rest of the table importantly.

"I need a Herbology paper written - an original one mind you, a decent summary of our Potions reading for tomorrow and a trustworthy referral for my Muggle Studies assignment," Thera listed off. "I'll sit here with you for exactly five minutes in exchange. Deal?"

The boys all nodded, wide-eyed and silent.

"Okay. Who's best in Potions?" Unanimously, the boys pointed at the kid currently under the influence of the Gibberish Hex.

"Take the curse off of him and the rest of you get cracking on my paper."

The Potions whiz had light brown hair and a Scottish brogue so thick that Thera initially thought they hadn't taken the curse off yet.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," she stopped him. "Slow down. Pronounce all of the syllables."

He nodded quickly. "So we reed abou' Polishin' Potions, righ'? Fer shinin' up farniture an' all tha' shite. So all ye really needta knoo is 'at..." And so it went on. Had Kim and his cronies not been quivering first years, she would have thought they were being funny.

"Just write it down," she finally said impatiently. "So who's my Muggle Studies go-to?" she asked the larger table.

They exchanged glances. "Uh, Blaise Zabini, I guess," Kim finally said.

"What?" Thera asked suspiciously. "What was that look all about?"

"Well," Archibald Nott finally put in, "he's the only Slytherin besides you taking Muggle Studies, but he's...ummm..." His eyes dropped to the table.

"We're not sure he talks," a rat-faced kid at the end of the table supplied.

"Or exists," Kim muttered.

"Fantastic," Thera said sarcastically, crossing her arms. "Just for that, I'm cutting off two minutes of my time here. What year is he in?"

"Sixth," Kim said quickly. "At least, I think he is."

Thera raised her eyes to the ceiling. "How can you not know?"

"We've neever actually seen 'im," the Scot said in low, hushed tones.

"Never seen him," Thera said slowly.

They all shook their heads, looking around fearfully, as if Blaise Zabini might be lurking somewhere nearby, ready to pounce on them for speaking his name aloud.

"Fine. Okay. Done with that?" Thera asked, snatching the parchment with her Potions summary written on it away from the Scottish kid. "Just slide the essay under my door when you're done," she instructed the rest of them, heading up to the boys' dormitories. She could feel the first years' eyes on her back as she left.

She knew the dormitory because it was the same one Draco lived in, but he'd never mentioned anything about this kid before. Her knock was promptly answered by Goyle.

"Thera," he said, grinning at her lasciviously, proving that teenage boys were even more gossipy than teenage girls.

"I'm here for Zabini," she said briskly.

He looked confused. "Who?"

"Za-bi-ni," Thera sounded out for him.

Crabbe's head appeared at Goyle's shoulder. "Hi, Thera," he said, smiling at her broadly. Crabbe's idea of flirtation, no doubt.

"Do you know where Zabini is?" she asked him.

"I'm right here," said a voice from behind the towering wall of stupidity.

Both ape's faces relaxed into shock, turning around and looking at the boy behind him as if he'd appeared out of thin air, which - if Kim and his buddies' reactions could be trusted - he might very well be capable of doing.

The sea of flesh parted to reveal a relatively short, unassuming boy with dark brown hair and eyes to match.

"You were looking for me?"

"You take Muggle Studies, right?" Thera asked, desperate now to just get all of this shit taken care of. So far today, she had gotten a wake-up call from Professor Snape, been forced to imagine the Dark Lord doing the nasty, had a heart-to-heart with her long-dead psychotic father while wearing a wedding dress, and gotten a booty-call from The Boy Who Lived. Enough was enough.

Zabini's eyes flickered to Crabbe and Goyle, still hunkering next to the doorway. "You have your own room. Let's go there."

It was the only place they could talk privately, and if he was the kind of loser he appeared to be, then she might get him to do her assignment with a few sultry looks.

"Fine," she agreed. "Follow me."

She let them into her room, which was still a wreck from her episode earlier. Thera sat down at the desk carefully, crossing her legs so that the t-shirt rose up her thighs and slumping to let the neckline fall down her shoulder. Zabini remained standing.

"So I have this Muggle Studies assignment, and I thought you might be able to help me with it," she said, looking up at him from beneath her lashes.

"What's the assignment?" he asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Thera shrugged, and shifted slightly, drawing the neckline down a little further and the hemline up a little more. "Oh, you know," she said breezily. "Some essay about electricity and wiring or something."

"Do you want help or do you want me to do it for you?"

The bluntness of his question was odd to her. Didn't he know how these things worked?

"Whatever you want," she purred, leaving the statement open for interpretation.

He stared at her, then nodded. "I'll do it for you, but I want something in return."

Well, duh...

"Oh?" Thera asked, feigning surprise. "What would you want?"

He shoved his hands farther into his pockets and looked away. "I want to know about the Dark Lord."

"What?" The surprise this time wasn't feigned.

"I want to know about the Dark Lord," he said in a stronger voice.

"What about him?" Thera asked blankly.

He shrugged. "Everything."

"And you'll do the assignment for me if I tell you," Thera concluded.

"Of course."

"He's obsessed with immortality and for some reason I can't imagine, looks like a snake because of it. He wants to rule the world - doesn't everybody? - and destroy the Muggles, but he's willing to settle for killing all the Mudbloods," Thera said, picking up her Muggle Studies textbook and thrusting it at him. "One roll of parchment if you will, and write neatly. She wants a diagram, too. Don't forget that."

"That's not an answer," he said in a tight voice, ignoring the textbook.

He probably didn't know it, but he'd chosen a very bad time to push her. Thera let the textbook drop to the floor with a loud thud that made Zabini jump.

"So you want to know what he's really like?" she asked, slinking over to him. In a t-shirt. I really am far too good at this.

"Yes, I do," he said, gulping.

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Doesn't everybody?"

Wondering where he was going with this, Thera bent down to pick up her textbook. And that's when she saw the Nikes peeking out from underneath his robes.

No Slytherin wore Nikes. No Slytherin wore any Muggle shoe or article of clothing at all. For a moment after realizing the kid was Muggleborn, Thera was amazed at his stupidity. Then she decided it actually wasn't all that stupid. The other Muggleborn kids in other houses wouldn't think anything of it, and the purebloods wouldn't know a pair of Air Jordans if they put on a set of robes and declared themselves the next Dark Lord.

Slowly straightening up, Thera watched him carefully. "Football's a pansy sport and the Queen is a dirty old cunt."

The visceral reaction jolted through him before he could hide it. If they were in a British Muggle pub right now, he'd be going for her jugular with a broken beer bottle. "I don't remember learning that in Muggle Studies," he commented smoothly.

"Pointless to take it, if one's Muggleborn, isn't it?"

He gritted his teeth. "I'm not a Mudblood."

Thera smiled. "Sure, you're not. Effective toeing of the party line, there, though. What did you tell them all to cover it up?"

"Do your own fucking homework," he spat at her, turning for the door.

"Oh, I'd be a little nicer to me, if I were you. I can't imagine this is the sort of thing you want to get around." It was like winning a million galleons in the lottery. She'd never have to do homework ever again. Thera's mind began working. Some Polyjuice Potion - surely he knew how to make it - and she wouldn't even have to take exams.

"You don't know anything," he shot back at her, but he didn't leave. How could he, knowing that the only person standing between him and the whole of Slytherin house ripping him to pieces was her?

After the day she'd had, it felt so indescribably good to hold that kind of power over somebody that she felt like jumping up and down with joy. And she did. On the inside.

The outside had a job to do.

"I know what happens to Muggles who stumble across the Dark Lord's path. The last one ended up in two entirely unconnected pieces. It was pretty gross, let me tell you."

Zabini spun around. "That's not going to happen to me, because I'm not a Mudblood."

"Zabini, do you know what's really funny about this situation? I don't even care. But they do, you see. I'll have plenty of time over the holidays to spend in the library, trying to find out about your parents. But I won't find anything, will I?" He stared at her stonily. "Will I?" Thera reiterated.

He remained silent and Thera sighed.

"Listen, my price isn't even that high. First year homework. It'll be a breeze. In return, I'll keep my mouth shut about you. Deal?"

Zabini crossed his arms. "What sort of assurances do I have?"

"It's a magical contract. I can't go back on it, and neither can you."

A long moment passed before he nodded slightly. "Shake on it."

They did, and Thera happily saw Zabini off with her Muggle Studies homework. Crawling back into bed, she smiled to herself. Finally, things were looking up.

*******

"Bill and I have decided to have a baby," Tonks said one morning at breakfast.

Remus decided he must not have heard her correctly. "I'm sorry?"

"A baby. Bill and I want to have one."

"So you two are together, then," he said, trying to figure out if she was serious.

Frighteningly enough, she seemed to be. "No, but we're going to move in together." She patted him on the arm and grinned. "See? I told you I'd find a place."

Remus scratched his head and looked at her. "Is this a joke?"

She shook her head.

"Is this some really strange arrangement for paying your half of the rent with Bill?"

"Nope."

"So one day you and Bill were talking, and he happened to say something along the lines of 'wouldn't it be nice to have kids?' and then you said, 'yes, you know, I think it would,' and then the two of you decided to just go and have one outside of marriage for no discernible reason aside from your own whimsy?"

"Well, we both want kids, but we don't want to get married, and neither of seems to be able to find anybody we'd consider marrying anyway. The two of us get along great, so why not? And isn't having a child whimsy no matter what nowadays, even if you're married? It's not like people have them to work the farm anymore."

It was a reasonable argument...sort of. And that's what scared Remus the most. Because it sounded like the two of them had actually thought this through. That meant it was going to be nearly impossible to talk them out of it.

For this reason, Remus decided to use his trump card immediately.

"Molly will kill her son before she lets him go through with this. You know that."

"Oh, we're not going to tell her until it's a done deal. Bill thinks it's better to wait, so that she'll be more caught up in the being a grandmother thing, as opposed to the circumstances themselves. We're not stupid."

Remus thought that was highly debatable. There were so many reasons for the two of them not to do this that he couldn't even pick one to start arguing with her. How drunk would two people have to be for something like this to sound like a good idea?

"This...baby...hasn't been conceived yet, right?"

"No, we're going to start trying..." Tonks screwed up her face, calculating in her head.

"I don't want to know," Remus said quickly, holding up a hand.

"But isn't it exciting, though?"

Remus leaned over and put his face in his hands, rubbing it vigorously. "Why are you telling me about all of this?" he asked, sitting back up.

"Because we want you to be the godfather," Tonks said, suddenly shy. "I mean, Bill and I started spending time together because of you." Noting his silence, she backed off a bit. "You don't have to do it if you don't want to."

Torn between not wanting to condone this foolishness and being sort of touched, Remus wasn't sure what to say.

"Tonks," he said slowly, "you're an Auror and a member of the Order of the Phoenix. How are you going to run around catching Death Eaters when you're pregnant?"

She shrugged. "The higher ups will just move me to desk duty at the Ministry. Don't get me wrong; it'll be dead boring, but I'll deal. As for the Order, well..."

"There's a war going on. This isn't exactly the best time to have a child." The moment the words were out of his mouth, Remus remembered saying them before. To James. And as if the memory had somehow channeled his old friend's spirit, Tonks gave him more or less the same answer he'd gotten the first time.

"We can't just stop living because there's a war on, Remus," she said.

James, lounging as he always used to with his feet on the kitchen table, which would earn him a whack on the head if Lily were home. "So when is the best time, oh cautious one? When the war's over? Who knows when that's gonna be. We can't put all of our lives on hold because of the sodding war."

"Well put, James," Sirius agreed, sitting in a chair turned around backwards. "Wonder if I could talk one of the girls into letting me knock her up."

"Name it after me, James," Peter chimed in, laughing. "Peter Potter."

James winced. "I'm not trying to put the kid in St. Mungo's, Wormtail."

In the present, Remus grinned. "If it's a girl, are you going to name it Nymphadora?"

Tonks punched him in the arm good-naturedly. "Of course not."

"That's too bad, because it really is a lovely name."

She made a gagging sound.

"I can't imagine why you dislike it so much."

"Is this your way of giving me your blessing?"

Remus thought of something. "Is it going to be Tonks or Weasley? Just wondering."

"Weasley," she said firmly. "I'm Tonks."

"The one and only, that's for sure," Remus said, shaking his head.

Tonks looked at the clock. "I should get to work."

"Yes, well, don't get cursed or anything," he said lightly, wanting her to go. "I hear kids with more than one head don't get asked out on many dates."

"Hey, are you coming for Christmas? Mum and Dad'd love to have you."

He shook his head. "Full moon. On the other hand, bringing a snarling beast home to meet the parents might make Bill look like a catch."

Tonks grinned at him, then glanced at the clock and the fireplace. She seemed hesitant to leave. For his part, Remus was increasingly impatient for her departure. What he was about to do, he didn't want to do in front of her.

"You're going to be late," he commented.

She shrugged. "I'm always late. I just feel like an arse leaving you in this mausoleum all by yourself when I move out."

"Tonks," he assured her, "I'll be fine. Don't worry about me."

"I can find you another roommate!" she suggested, sounding ecstatic. "You know, some of my girlfriends are looking for a place."

Remus had visions of a passel of twenty-something girls invading Number Twelve. As a pornographic fantasy, it had its merits. The reality, however, would drive him nuts.

"Tonks," he said curmudgeonly, "Number Twelve is for Order members only."

She bit her lip. "Yeah, I suppose you're right."

"Go. Get out of here. I don't need any bloody roommates."

"Alright, alright, alright," she muttered, getting up and walking over to the fireplace. "I'm just trying to save you from drowning in your books, all locked up in your room every weekend night like a mad scientist."

"Bras drying in the shower does nothing to remedy my desire to dominate the world, Tonks. But thanks anyway."

Shaking her head at him, she flooed to work. Remus placed his hands on the table and closed his eyes. He didn't want it to come. He truly didn't. But if it didn't come out now, it would come out next week during the full moon, a hundred times worse.

Aside from the legal restrictions against them doing so, werewolves couldn't reproduce physically, which is to say that the closest they could get to parenthood was the creation of another werewolf. And yet just about any human, no matter what the circumstances or the selfish justifications, could have a child - Muggle or wizard - anytime.

As much as he knew the rage needed to get out, the part of him that was entirely Remus fought it back. It always did, and it always lost.

He remembered arguing silently with Vivian's back as she fled from him a few weeks ago. Someday long ago, she might have stayed with him regardless of the fact that they'd never have children, or that he, as a werewolf, could never legally marry her. He'd never know, because he'd never given her the choice. He should have, though. He realized that now. Fifteen years too late, unfortunately.

The ancient table snapped under his crushing grip, half of it buckling in on the other half. Remus clenched the strip of wood remaining in his hands and it snapped also. It wasn't enough, though. Not nearly enough.

Yelling, he hauled the two pieces of wood in his hands at the unctuous stove. It didn't even react. Hauling up the rest of the broken half of the table, he smashed the porcelain sink, feeling a surge of satisfaction as it smashed.

Hadn't they all paid enough? His family, rearranging their lives around the one week a month they had to lock their son in a cage to keep him from ripping them apart? Vivian, and the awful, painful notion that she'd come to him for comfort, knowing the only way he could provide it anymore was by fucking her when asked to? Harry, pale and sweating in his classroom, trying to dig up a happy enough memory to combat his parents' murder or looking at him in the Department of Mysteries and realizing that even the thin imitation of a father he'd gotten late in life was gone? When did it fucking end?

Remus picked up the remainder of the table with the idea of throwing it through the kitchen door, then decided to put it down and bash it to pieces with his bare hands. It felt better, satisfying. The wood breaking underneath his fists, turning to pulp, the splinters embedding themselves in his knuckles.

Sobbing was hardly more humiliating than what he was doing at the moment, so Remus gave in, his breath gasping in time with the pulverizing force of his inhuman strength, the violence of the action reminding him of the utter, vast shithole that Bill and Tonks were about to thrust an innocent child into. A child he'd never have, even in better times.

Once his knuckles made contact with the hard stone floor enough times, Remus collapsed on the floor, the sobs still coming at random intervals, his strength returning with plenty of time to repair the damage before anyone saw it.

*******

As the Hogwarts Express rumbled cheerily away from Hogsmeade Station carrying a host of giddy, holiday-minded students, Ginny strode down the corridor purposefully, Vendetta under her arm, checking every compartment until she found her brother.

Clenching the paper more tightly in her hand, Ginny opened the door with a very forced sense of calm. Ron and Hermione were sitting comfortably, holding hands. Hermione's head rested on Ron's shoulder. Had her brother not been such a humongous, idiotic, overbearing git, it would have been sweet.

As it was, she felt a surge of satisfaction as they jumped apart guiltily upon her entrance.

"Ginny. Hey." Ron said, blushing mightily.

Ginny curled her lips up into a smile that must have been frightening, because he recoiled slightly. Vendetta mewed questioningly, uncertain whether or not to do anything to him.

"Hello, Ronniekins," she said sweetly. "You forgot about the picture, didn't you? That's very unfortunate, because I have it in a very safe place and it would look very adorable hanging in the Great Hall, wouldn't it?" Ginny forced her fist to unclench and dropped the offending letter in his lap. A letter to Seamus, written anonymously by her brother. Because she never would have figured out who wrote it or anything.

"What's this?" Ron asked, his brow furrowing as he picked up the letter.

"Picture?" Hermione asked, puzzled. "What picture?"

"Uh, It's nothing," he muttered to her, turning his attention back to the letter in his lap.

"That, dear brother, is the letter you wrote to Seamus, threatening him with bodily harm if he laid a finger on me. He just gave it to me. Do you really think this is funny, Ron?"

Vendetta stiffened and Ginny stroked him soothingly. If anybody was going to throw something at Ron's head, it was going to be her.

Ron read the letter. Frowning, he read it again as Hermione looked over his shoulder.

"Ginny," he said finally, "I didn't write this."

"Do you really expect me to believe that?"

"It's not his handwriting," Hermione said. "And aside from that, it's just not a Ron-type letter. He doesn't even know what a semi-colon is, much less how to use one. And anyway, he likes Seamus. Why would he write these kinds of things to him?"

Snatching the letter back, Ginny read through it again.

Finnegan,

Just a friendly note to inform you that if you ever lay your filthy Mick hands on Ginny Weasley; if you ever have so much as a dirty thought in her presence; if you ever even stand too close to her for my liking, I will know and I will kill you.

I will take you to a location where nobody can hear you scream, and I will slowly strip every last bit of flesh off of your body. Then I will pour a cauldron full of salt onto what is left. Assuming you're still alive at this point, I will dismember you and feed you to a Man-Eating Scaraptula.

I seriously doubt that anyone will miss you.

Sincerely,

A Friend

Now that she thought about it objectively, Ginny had to admit that it didn't sound like anything Ron would write. In fact, it sounded more like Malfoy.

Her hand clenched once more around the parchment.

"Well, that's settled, then," she said in a brittle voice. "See you at the station."

"Ginny!" Hermione called after her as she left the compartment. "We have a Prefect's Meeting in ten minutes."

"I'll be there," Ginny said without stopping. Unsurprisingly, the object of her search was sitting with Crabbe and Goyle.

"Cho sent me to get Malfoy. She needs to talk to him before the Prefect's meeting," Ginny trilled, striding into the compartment, grabbing Draco's arm and none-too-gently dragging him into the corridor.

"Weasley, if you want my affections, all you have to do is ask nicely," he drawled to his companions. Ginny could hear laughter as the compartment door slid shut. Vendetta's tail twitched and a crash sounded from within.

Draco peeked into the compartment. "Seat collapsed." Looking down at Vendetta, he grinned. "Hello, there, little kitty." He scratched the cat behind his ears and Ginny felt him purr. "Aren't you a cute little kitty?" he cooed, scratching him under the chin.

"Traitor," Ginny muttered to the feline. She shoved the letter at Malfoy. "What is the meaning of this, exactly?"

He read through it, smirking. "What did Finnegan's face look like when he got it?"

"He looked like he wanted to kill somebody," Ginny said flatly.

"Really?" Draco seemed disappointed. "You mean he wasn't scared?"

Ginny shook her head.

Draco hummed and studied the letter. "Perhaps I wasn't descriptive enough..."

"Mal-foy," Ginny growled warningly.

He looked utterly innocent. "What? I'm just trying to secure your virtue, Red."

Ginny had actually broken up with Seamus following the Malfoy incident by the lake. She was sick of cheating on her boyfriends, and she could have sworn she'd been very clear about the matter. As in saying outright, 'I'm breaking up with you, Seamus.'

Seamus, for his part, had considered and continued to consider the entire conversation topic as a joke on her part. 'Stop messing around, Ginny,' he said, slapping her on the arm playfully every time she reopened the discussion.

Ginny was quickly becoming a veteran at break-ups, but she hadn't the faintest clue how to handle that particular reaction. Until she did, they were apparently still together.

"Listen," she sighed. "I have more brothers ready to strip the skin off of any would-be boyfriends than I need. So I don't need this, and I certainly don't need it from you."

He laughed shortly. "You think this was meant to be a protective, brotherly gesture?"

"If you didn't, then what were your motivations, exactly?"

"Well, for one, I wanted to scare the kid shitless. That didn't exactly work out as planned." He sighed. "I shouldn't have taken out the part about the ass-raping."

Ginny raised her eyebrows. "Ass-raping?"

"Not courtesy of myself, of course. I don't even think I could bear to be in the room, if it meant seeing Finnegan's bare bum." Draco shuddered delicately.

"Malfoy? The point?"

"Yes, of course." He glanced up and down the corridor to make sure they were alone, then leaned in close, as if sharing a secret. "Well, you may not know this, Red, but Finnegan is a moron." He stood back. "I'm just trying to save you from yourself."

Ginny studied him, a slow smile spreading across her face. "You're jealous."

Draco snorted. "Listen, just tell Finnegan who wrote the letter. Then he'll be scared."

The smile left her face abruptly. "Oh no," she whispered. "Seamus thinks it was Ron."

"Your brother?! He can't even form a complete sentence, much less write the well-styled prose contained in this letter."

"Oh no, no, no..." Brushing past him, she sprinted down the corridor.

"Red?" he called. "Prefect's meeting is the other way."

She kept running, slamming through the train cars until she once again found the one Ron had been in. Seeing the situation inside, she skidded to a halt. Seamus was unconscious on the floor. For some reason, Lavender Brown was standing beside him, her hand over her heart. Ron looked surprised and Hermione was putting her wand away.

"Ginny, I really think you need to re-evaluate your relationship with Seamus," Lavender said, surveying over his unconscious form.

"Come on. We don't want to be late," Hermione said. "Thanks, Lavender," she threw over her shoulder as they trudged off to the prefect's meeting.

Ginny left Vendetta in the compartment. As they walked away, she heard a thunk that sounded suspiciously like somebody's bookbag landing on Seamus' head.

*******

Draco had to chuckle as Red walked into the Prefect's Compartment sweaty and out of breath, cute kitten-less. He wondered how many times she'd run the length of the train since Finnegan had received his little warning.

He couldn't imagine why they desperately needed to have a prefect's meeting on the way home for the holidays. It probably had a great deal to do with Cho Chang's love for holding meetings for the sake of holding meetings and her equal love for hearing the sound of her own voice. With those two attributes, she'd be Minister of Magic someday.

Because there was a tacit understanding that no meeting could start without Draco insulting the Gryffindor prefect crew and Cho snapping at him, he proceeded as planned.

"When are they going to get an exterminator in here to deal with the rodent infestation?"

"Shut up, Malfoy," Cho snapped, officially calling the meeting to order. "I'm sorry to do this to you all on the way home, but Dumbledore wanted us to talk to you about the Hogsmeade visit being canceled, and what we're going to be doing next term."

There had been a near rebellion over the Headmaster's decision to cancel the pre-Christmas Hogsmeade visit. The Great Hall had been like an owl depot, with everybody forced to order their presents through the post. Cho had been angling for a school dance to make up for it. Draco prayed she hadn't succeeded. Pansy was sitting right next to him. She would ask him. He would say no. She would cry and blubber and then he wouldn't be able to talk her into a quickie in the toilet before they got to London.

"First of all," Cho said excitedly as Draco's stomach dropped, "Dumbledore's agreed to let us have a ball for Valentine's Day." There were squeals from the girls and groans from the boys and Weasel and the Mudblood looked at each other in a mushy way that made Draco want to retch. The only good thing that could possibly come from that match-up would be a drastic rise in the overall Weasley family IQ.

"We're going to have to do a lot of the work, though. I figure the fifth years can handle the set-up and decorations. That way you all can spend the holiday studying for your O.W.L.s. The sixth years need to split up the students - fourth year and above only - and send notices to everybody about the ball, reminding them to bring dress robes next term."

Draco cleared his throat.

"What is it, Malfoy?" she asked peevishly.

"I'm grounded for the holidays. No owls. Much as I'd love to help you," he said, sighing heavily, "I simply can't."

"Then you can help the fifth years with the decorations," she said smugly.

Damn. He couldn't even fake a horrible injury, because if he was too hurt to set up for the dance, he'd be - theoretically, of course - too hurt to go to the dance, either. And he'd have to go, or his fucking father would crawl up his ass about being antisocial.

Cho rattled on about finding a band and arranging for food and bunch of other meaningless crap. The Head Boy, whose name Draco could never remember, not that he bothered to try very hard, sat there nodding his head when needed. Draco ruminated on the fact that he wasn't going to get laid before his imprisonment. Well, at least he'd have a few boring weeks to think up a way to get out of hanging hearts all over the Great Hall. Cho's taste in decorating could only run towards the cheesy and utterly obvious.

Draco sent a covert glance at Red, who was watching Cho talk with a mixture of boredom and what could only be described as dislike. He had to chuckle inwardly. All girls detested Cho Chang, largely out of jealousy. Why would Red be jealous of Cho, though? Cho was prettier, but what guy would want to go out with a girl that uptight?

For obvious reasons, Red's standards weren't that high, assuming she had standards in the first place, which he was beginning to doubt. In all honesty, she deserved better than her brainless, coarse, Muggle-loving family, and she certainly deserved better than a pawing Mick with an inferiority complex bigger than Hogwarts. Some urge Draco couldn't quite explain wanted her to see that. He wanted her to want more for herself than a bumbling loser husband and a dozen whiny brats.

Draco jolted, drawing a puzzled glance from Pansy. He yanked his thoughts away from the primrose path of gooey sentimentalism and looked at the situation objectively. Frankly, he had bigger problems than saving Ginny Weasley's blind, sorry ass.

Yes, it had felt nice when she kissed him behind the greenhouses and when she hugged him by the lake. It had felt so nice that he'd had to put a stop to it, the way you put a stop to foreplay once it becomes clear that sex isn't going to be involved. He certainly respected the randy tigress in her that ripped his robes apart, but the Dark Lord had plans for her and plans for him, and Draco wasn't about to go impersonating Harry Potter.

But it did evoke a sense of fear in him, a weird sort of fear. A fear for her? Draco frowned and thought about it. He imagined the Dark Lord killing her, an Avada Kedavra that erased her from the planet. It sent a cold sensation down his chest, as if he had just come in from Quidditch practice when it was hot outside and had a drink of ice water. And that's when Draco knew he was in deep, deep trouble.

Putting a name to the emotion was beyond him, but as the meeting broke up and Red glanced at him quickly, then left with her bovine brother and the bushy-haired Mudblood and Pansy turned to him to ask him to the juvenile Valentine's Day Ball, Draco knew only one thing, as pure and clear and obvious as he knew his own name.

There was no way that he was going to let that happen to her.

*******

Vivian and Balder strolled through Diagon Alley, recalling their Hogwarts days. It was freezing, especially now that night had fallen. It was only a few days before Christmas, and the Alley was packed. Still they stood in front of Quality Quidditch Supplies, jostled by hurried holiday shoppers, bitching about James Potter yanking the Quidditch Cup away from Ravenclaw seventh year.

"Our best team in decades," Balder said, "and we had the Cup that year, and then Potter gets the snitch by a split second, and it all falls to pieces."

"It was like a funeral in the Common Room that night," Vivian supplied as they moved on down the street. Balder's hand caught hers, and she let him hold it, two fully grown adults holding hands while walking down the street like a couple of teenagers.

Vivian was still uncertain about giving Balder any romantic ideas, but frankly, if it came down to using Remus for sex or using Balder for sex, she'd take Balder in a heartbeat and spare herself the guilt.

Balder grinned at her. "But remember winning the House Cup fifth year?"

"I remember Betty Farnsworth flashing her boobs at everybody."

"Hey, now. They were nice boobs."

"They certainly were," Vivian agreed. "They got her out of countless detentions."

"And the cattiness comes out," Balder observed.

Later, Vivian would wonder at the impulsiveness the moment. She wondered if she had seen what was coming, had wanted to have one brief moment of respite before it all went down. Perhaps she was psychic.

In any case, Vivian pulled Balder towards her and kissed him, feeling the hard, unyielding plane of his chest and the meltingly prominent abdominal muscles. Her hands marveled at the definition of his deltoids. She really did want this, she decided.

And then they attacked.

First came the cold, so quickly that Vivian thought her own mind was turning against her. Images flew past: David, looking at her with a hatred that turned her blood to ice; Remus, his face tight, telling her that it was all bad, all wrong, that she needed to go; her first mission, when they'd lost six Aurors and she'd killed her first Death Eater.

Dementors, she realized as Balder's arms tightened around her, shifted her behind him. Well that's stupid, she thought. I'm more qualified to deal with the situation than he is.

When Vivian opened her eyes, it was to a sea of chaos. The dementors were getting closer, and all around her people were screaming, falling to the ground.

For a second, Vivian could only stand and take it all in. Then she snapped to attention.

"Apparate to the Ministry and get the Aurors," she ordered him.

Balder looked at her blankly, still fighting off the effect of the dementors. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to get Dumbledore."

He peered at her for a second, then nodded. "We're going to need him, I think." Taking out his wand, he Apparated away.

Or he would have.

"Apparation wards," Vivian said, and it dawned on her. All these people were sitting ducks for the dementors. "Do you think they've shut off the floo?"

"I certainly hope not," he said in a hard voice. They barged into Quality Quidditch Supplies. The pileup in front of the fireplace gave them their answer.

Gripping his wand, Balder turned to walk out, a determined look on his face.

"Wait!" Vivian cried, reaching into the pocket of her cloak for her Communications Portkey, created by Dumbledore and carried by all members of the Order. It looked like a knut, but allowed their voice to be heard by the desired Order member. It worked much like a regular Portkey, only it transported words instead of people.

"Dumbledore," she whispered, holding the Portkey up to her ear. It was right now vibrating wildly in Dumbledore's pocket, a security measure that allowed him to get away if he wasn't alone. The vibration effect of the Portkey had been highly amusing to Sirius. 'Call me!' he'd order Remus, shoving the Portkey into his pocket and grinning.

Balder looked at her strangely as she waited for Dumbledore to answer. It seemed as if an eternity passed before he finally did.

"Yes?"

"It's Vivian," she said quickly. "Dementors are attacking Diagon Alley." She heard howling in the distance. "Werewolves, too," she said miserably. "And probably a hundred other things. They've gotten Apparation wards up and the floo's blocked. We can't get out, and I don't know if you all can get in."

"Do your best, Vivian. We'll be there as soon as possible."

Vivian put the knut back in her pocket and took out her wand, heading for the door.

"What was that?" Balder asked.

"Dumbledore's coming with help."

He stopped abruptly. "So you are working with him." He said this heavily, as if they'd been married for years and he'd come home from work early to find her in bed with his best friend.

"What the fuck does it matter?!" Vivian said loudly as she yanked open the door to survey the situation outside. "We're all on the same side right now, aren't we?"

Balder joined her in the doorway. The dementors were making their way down the alley, reveling in the fear of their victims. The other creatures had attacked directly in the middle, sending the people running away from them directly into the path of the dementors. Banshees and veela took care of the customers in the shops as vampires and werewolves shared a feeding frenzy in the street. Florian Fortescue's exploded into a rainbow of color, as little men dressed in green zipped away, giggling.

Leprechauns? Honestly.

It wasn't a battle. It was a slaughter. It was also too well planned for Vivian's liking, and there were far too many dark creatures involved. For the past few weeks, there'd been talk, but Severus hadn't been able to get the details, and it was a secretive enough maneuver that their sources at the Ministry had been useless. There had been no warning, and Vivian was scared to death. Then something occurred to her.

David was out there somewhere.

"Stay here," she told Balder, gripping her wand and stepping out of the store.

"Whoa, hold on," he said, yanking her back. "What are you doing?"

"This doesn't concern you," she said shortly, trying to get back out.

"You're not just going to go running out there to stop them, are you? You'll be killed, or worse. There are too many of them, Vivian..."

"Oh, are there? Well, then let's just stand here and do nothing," she spat at him.

"Let's do whatever we can to protect the people in this store."

"You protect them. I'm going out there to kill my ex-husband."

She tried to leave once more, and once more he grabbed her.

"Don't make me hex you to do this, Balder, because I will," she said in a low voice.

"You're wasting time!"

Vivian escaped, casting a shield charm on the doorway that should at least give the banshees and veela pause. Thankfully, Balder didn't follow her. Glancing back, she saw that he was shouting orders at the people in the Quidditch store. Out in the street, the cold, penetrating effect of the dementors was much worse. Vivian searched around for a happy memory to hold onto and found one rather quickly.

Lying on Remus' chest when they were both stupid kids, worn out from sex, his arms wrapped around her, feeling as if nothing in the world could touch them.

A werewolf dodged at her and Vivian jumped out of the way, rolling over quickly to fight it off again, but it was already running down the street to eat somebody else. Memories of Remus made her realize that somewhere in Number Twelve, he was also a werewolf.

Unfortunately, that meant he wouldn't be coming to help her.

Well, if there were Apparation wards and they'd managed to block the floos, then Voldemort was here. He was the only one with the power to manage all that.

As she approached the vampire enclave, Vivian picked up a few of the strewn presents, quickly Transfiguring them into stakes, smiling grimly.

Happy Christmas, motherfuckers.

She put her wand in her pocket, knowing it wouldn't do her any good against vampires and needing both hands to deal with all of the stakes.

A swarthy, middle-aged vampire had a blonde girl by the hair, pulling her head back, fangs bared. Vivian figured the girl was French, considering she was screaming, 'Merde, merde, merde!' at the top of her lungs.

Vivian staked the vampire from behind, throwing an arm over her eyes as he exploded in a cloud of dust. The blonde girl stopped yelling, shocked.

"Go to the Quidditch store," Vivian said urgently, lifting the girl up by the back of her robes. "Quickly! Run!"

Without another thought, the girl ran in the direction of her destination. Turning her focus back to the situation at hand, Vivian saw that she'd gained some unwanted attention. Three vampires now stood before her, grinning hungrily.

"I wouldn't recommend it," Vivian said, nervously fiddling with her stakes. "You know David Lynes? Well, he's got quite a thing for me. He'd be rather angry if you..."

The vampires shared a look. Vivian's voice trailed off.

"She's the one. The wife," the one on the far left said. He was younger than the other two, possibly still a teenager when he'd been changed.

"Really?" asked the rough-looking Australian vampire in the center. He didn't seem very impressed with her. "I thought she'd be better looking."

The one on the right frowned. "He didn't say anything about her being here."

The younger one shrugged. "She knows him, and she's the right age and all."

Vivian knew their reflexes were faster than hers. She backed away carefully, gripping the stakes in her hands, acutely aware of the killing and maiming taking place around her.

With unearthly speed, the vampires seized her arms, the one in the center placing his head against hers.

"I can smell the blood in her. Are you sure?"

"Better to make sure than to die," the younger one said wisely.

Vivian dug in her heels, but they had the strength of vampires, and there were three of them, and she knew she didn't have a chance of escaping. They dragged her down the street, past screaming, shrieking people being ripped apart by the werewolves, drained of blood from the vampires. It was hell, and unending, and Vivian could feel the numbness seep over her, shock acting as a cushion against what she was seeing.

And then, as if the heavens had opened and poured sunlight into the world again, Vivian heard Apparation pops, and she smiled, fighting off the numbness. She needed her wits about her now. She see how any of the new arrivals were faring and she was staring down death or - if Remus' judgment of the situation was correct - a pair of really sharp incisors, but she had saved somebody today, and maybe the Aurors and the Order members could save a few more. In war, she knew, that was all you could hope for.

The vampires reacted to the Apparation wards falling quite differently. "Hurry!" one of them shouted, and her feet left the ground as they dragged her into Madame Malkin's.

David was standing in front of the cash register, shouting out orders like a field general, utterly in his element. Had there been any question in her mind about any remnants of the David she'd known remaining in David Prime here, they were pretty much dispelled.

"We found your wife," one of the vampires called to him.

"Ex-wife," Vivian muttered.

"Hello, darling," he said brightly, grinning at her as if she'd pleasantly surprised him by coming home early for a little afternoon delight. "I didn't expect you to be here. I figured you'd come later to clean up the mess."

"I'm going to kill you, you know," she informed him, careful not to look at him.

He chuckled. "Vivian, darling, you never did know when to quit, did you?"

Vivian felt the need to say her piece before he killed her. "It'll be me, or it'll be Remus, but either way, you're dead, David."

"Undead, darling. That's what we call it around here."

"The Apparation wards are down, darling," Vivian snarled. "Shouldn't you be running back to your master with your tail between your legs?"

He winced. "Well, that is a problem. Nonetheless, I'm sure he'll be pleased with what we've accomplished so far."

Terror. The Ministry would react, tossing anybody into Azkaban that they could get their hands on, denying the right to a trial, shutting down the newspapers if they disagreed. They tended to be unimaginative. Frightened, the population would agree, push them to do even more. The fragile truce forged between the Order and the Ministry would be broken, and the Ministry would play right into Voldemort's hands. Just like before.

"Remind me not to give Voldemort credit for creativity," she remarked.

"Darling, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. How long do you think it will take them to send your little boyfriend up the river?"

"Sweetheart," she said bitingly, "you've obviously got a plan for me, so let's just finish it and move on with our lives."

"Isn't anticipating it the worst? Unfortunately, the loss of the Apparation wards means I have to work faster than I'd initially planned, but you know what they say about the best laid plans." He smiled at her crookedly.

"And that would entail what, exactly?" Vivian asked worriedly.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" David asked, turning away from her to order around some minions at the back of the store. One left the store; the rest Apparated away.

Unfortunately, that still left three guarding her, and David standing in front of her. If only she could get to her wand...

"Accio wand," he said, giving her even fewer options. "Do you know what happens to you when you lose your soul?"

"They put you in St. Mungo's and you sit and stare out the window all day at nothing."

"Not quite. You actually become the most obedient being on the planet. You'll do absolutely anything that anybody tells you to do."

That's when Vivian felt the wave of cold. The little bell above the door rang out merrily. Not that, she prayed, frozen in terror. Please not that. Anything but that.

"The Dark Lord thinks it might be useful to have a whole bunch of them on hand," David continued. "You never know when they might come in handy. But you and I," he said, placing a hand on her cheek. "We're going to have a lot of fun together."

Vivian closed her eyes and held on to her happy thought like a lifeline. With nothing else left to do, she figured she might as well put up a good struggle. The vampires' hands were like iron grips, though, and she couldn't do anything besides wiggle around a little bit. David laughed at her and she could only imagine how stupid she looked.

The cold got worse, making her shiver, penetrating her mind, and Vivian opened her mouth to scream, but never got to. Suddenly, the cold disappeared and the roaring in her ears subsided. The hands holding her let go and she fell to the floor in a heap of limbs.

Another set of hands grabbed her shoulders and turned her onto her back. Someone said her name and she blinked her eyes open, feeling weak and sick and shaky. She saw Balder. There were other people behind him, but she couldn't make out who they were. She was alive, she realized, soul intact. The knowledge made her giddy.

"Vivian," he sighed, sounding relieved. "Are you okay?"

"My hero," she simpered, giggling.

"Obviously you are." Shaking his head, he helped her stand up. "They've gone, all of them. I don't know how many of the people out there..." his voice faltered. "I can't believe we didn't know anything. All the work we put into infiltration and intelligence gathering and we had no idea this was going to happen, at least not here or now."

"You did your best, Balder."

Frustration leaked into his voice. "I wanted patrols in high-traffic areas! I wanted guards and searches and the Ministry wouldn't fucking fund it!"

"Well, I think they will now," Vivian said dryly.

*******

As the sun rose, Fox surveyed the damage done by Voldemort's forces. Corpses and Christmas presents littered the ground. The snow betrayed large red patches next to bodies and body parts. She'd seen it before, and she knew she'd be seeing it again.

Healers, Aurors and members of the Order were bustling around, bandaging up the wounds that could be healed, laying out the dead in rows along the street to be claimed later. It not being her purpose on the planet to run triage, Fox wandered down the street to The Leaky Cauldron, which was serving as home base for the clean-up effort.

Dumbledore was in one of the upstairs rooms with Professors Snape, McGonagall and Wellbourne, one of the Weasley kids the werewolf. It wasn't a full meeting, and it seemed to be more about plugging the more serious short-term holes than formulating a strategy. Fox knocked and then entered.

"Ah, Fox. Come in. Have you met Bill Weasley? I believe you know everybody else." The tall redhead shook hands with her. He looked like hell; all of them did, except for Professor Snape, who sent her an unreadable look. She had a feeling the chat they'd had was messing with his head a bit. She sensed there would be a reaction in her direction soon. Mortals tended to be overdramatic like that.

"Gautham and Amina are still at Hogwarts? Is everything all right there?"

Fox nodded. "All quiet."

"Are you sure?" Professor McGonagall asked nervously, throwing a glance at the fireplace, looking as if she'd like nothing more than to floo back and check.

"We're in constant contact. If something was happening at Hogwarts, I'd be there adding a few more notches to my belt." One disadvantage of their communications system was that Gautham and Amina were both notoriously forgetful about turning the speaker off when they weren't talking. Sure, they were all used to living in close quarters together, but the line should be drawn at listening to each other pee, or worse.

"What did you use on that banshee? I've never seen one explode," Bill Weasley asked.

"Trade secret," Fox said, smiling at the memory. Merlin, she loved her work.

"Do we know what the Ministry's going to do?" Professor Wellbourne asked Dumbledore, looking at the werewolf, slumped in his chair and looking barely conscious.

"Fudge is moving quickly," Dumbledore said wearily. "He's got teams of Aurors running around all over the country, arresting any known dark creature. Of course, if the Ministry knows who they are and where to find them, I seriously doubt any of them had anything to do with the attack. I also seriously doubt that will matter."

"I'm not going to be leaving the house much, am I?" the werewolf asked hoarsely.

"I'm sorry, Remus," Dumbledore said gravely. The werewolf just nodded.

"The Death Eaters are using the Ministry to get rid of all of the dark creatures who didn't join them," Snape said flatly. "Lucius seemed rather proud of that idea."

"How long before they come after us, Albus?" Professor McGonagall asked wryly.

"That depends on how well I deal with Fudge. He knows I disagree with what he's doing right now, and fighting a war tends to lower the leadership's tolerance for dissent. But I think we've proven several times that we're very useful."

"For doing his dirty work," Professor Wellbourne added.

"Hopefully, he'll be satisfied with character assassination in The Daily Prophet," Dumbledore said lightly. "In the meantime, you all have your assignments and time is not on our side." Everyone nodded and began flooing away. Fox remained.

"So which one of you was responsible for the attack last night?" Snape sneered at her under his breath as he joined the end of the line.

"Voldemort was responsible," Fox answered firmly.

He turned to her, his arms crossed and his face angry. Here we go, Fox thought.

"Do you know where I'm going right now?"

"No."

"To a Death Eater celebration. Do you know what Death Eater celebrations are like?"

"Do you wear party hats?"

He glared at her. "No. The food will be awful because when it comes to feeding the masses, Lucius Malfoy is a cheap bastard. Everyone will get fantastically pissed and Bellatrix LeStrange will take her robes off and make whoever crosses her path wrestle her." He leaned in closer. "And she fights dirty."

"Then," he continued, "the Dark Lord will show up at his leisure and torture a few people. MacNair's sister - who must be beaten with an ugly stick regularly, because she just keeps getting worse - will make a drunken pass at me. Someone will relieve himself in the Malfoy rosebushes and be publicly executed. Because I'll be the only sober one, Lucius will make me Apparate home all of the ones who passed out, a job I only enjoy because he never specifically instructs me to Apparate them to their own homes."

"Sounds like a swinging shindig," Fox commented.

"It's utterly boring," Snape spat. "I don't mind the cloak and dagger foolishness. I don't mind the servility of it all. I don't even mind killing people. But you'd better get Potter to defeat the Dark Lord, because I can't stand the bloody parties any longer."

With that, he turned on his heel and flooed away. Turning to Dumbledore, Fox saw that Dumbledore had a small smile on his face.

"Every once in a while, he reminds me why I like him so much," he said.