Two to Lead

Rain, Trains and Automobiles

As Cho gushed about how much she loved them all and what a great time she'd had at Hogwarts, Ginny turned her gaze to the soggy countryside flying past the window. She had never been so tired in her entire life. The O.W.L.s had left her feeling as if everything speck of knowledge in her brain was now stored on a stack of exam parchments, and the week after exams had been even more tiring. Avoiding Draco Malfoy required more constant vigilance than avoiding Voldemort.

She could not, unfortunately, avoid him at the prefect's meeting on the train ride home.

Openly crying now, the Head Girl wished them all the best and told them to keep in touch. Ginny yawned.

The meeting broke up, forcing her to move a drowsy, pliant Vendetta from her lap into her arms. She trailed behind Ron and Hermione as they made their way back to the compartment. The two of them were sniping at each other about...well, the subject wasn't really the point, the sniping was, especially since it was loud enough that they didn't hear the squeaking sound she made as an arm wrapped around her from behind, a hand clapped over her mouth and she was dragged into a train compartment.

"Get out," Draco ordered the four young Ravenclaw girls in the compartment. They nearly trampled each other in their rush to get away from the dreaded Malfoy.

Releasing her, he put about fifteen different locking spells on the door. Resigned to having to talk to him, Ginny sank into a chair. His movements were quick and controlled, a sure sign of rage. More than anything else, Draco hated being ignored.

"Now," he said, facing the door, "would you like to tell me what the hell is going on? Because you're not leaving this compartment until you answer the question."

"Draco..."

"My name is not the correct answer to the question," he hissed, turning around.

"Don't pull your Lucius act on me," Ginny hissed back.

His eyes flashed. "Exactly what has been the point of the past two weeks? Are you trying to punish me for something? I'd really like to know what, considering I've barely even seen you since you tra-la-la'd your way into near-pregnancy. Come now, tell me what outlandish notions that hamster wheel inside your head has been churning out and why they involve pretending I don't exist."

"You didn't do anything," Ginny said loudly. "Why do boys always think that everything we do revolves around them?"

"Let's see," Draco said mockingly, tapping a finger against his lips. "Why would I come to the conclusion that it might have something to do with me? I'm not completely sure, but I think it might have been the fact that you weren't avoiding anybody but me."

Ginny stood, waking up Vendetta. "Did it ever occur to you that I was avoiding you because I didn't want to be interrogated? That I just needed some time to think?"

"Ah. So you were thinking. Yes, I can see how you'd need to devote a good block of time to figuring out how that works."

"Don't be an ass. It's not like you haven't ignored me before," Ginny spat.

"Yes, I have. I admit it. I also had a very good reason, and it involved trying to figure out exactly what the hell to do with you. Let me hold the kitty. You're scrunching him."

"You make me sound like a piece of furniture," Ginny grumbled, handing Vendetta over.

"You know what I meant. So what's your very good reason?" Ginny looked away. "Sorry, you'll have to speak up. I don't hear internal monologues as well as I used to."

Ginny had three options. She could spend the rest of the train ride beating around the bush, she could maul him in an end-of-term sex frenzy, or she could tell him what was going on and hope he understood. "I don't know what I should do," she said at last.

"About what, exactly?"

"About everything. I just..." Ginny took a deep breath and tried to put her thoughts in order. "You know what happened to Harry in the ballroom, and I did that."

"You grabbed his ass, insulted his manhood and threw crucios at him?" Draco asked with a smirk, scratching a nearly orgasmic Vendetta behind the ears.

"Draco, I've spent the past two weeks with the trio following me around everywhere and all of the adults assuring me that everything's taken care of. Nobody will give me any details, of course, not that that's anything new. The only thing I want to know and the only thing they won't tell me is what I should do. They all think he got us because they messed up somehow, but they all keep ignoring the fact that he didn't get us because the wards weren't strong enough; he got us through a much easier route: me."

"So you've been avoiding me because the Good Side won't tell you what steps you can take to protect yourself from the Dark Lord? That's stupid."

"No, I've been avoiding you because he's very good at finding weak spots. He came after me because I'm a weak spot. And you, in turn, happen to be my weak spot."

Draco looked thoughtful. "Well, nobody's even called me a weak spot before."

"I didn't mean it like that," Ginny said, rubbing her eyes. "It's just that he always seems to know what I want the most. I don't want him to be able to use you against me or to use us against me. I wanted to try to figure out what to do about it. So I avoided you."

"As opposed to just telling me this two weeks ago."

Ginny gritted her teeth. "It's not your problem."

"I would have to disagree."

"Disagree all you want, just help me figure out what to do, because aside from holing myself up at Headquarters and shunning all human contact until Harry defeats him, I don't really have any ideas. So if you do, I'd love to hear them."

Draco shook his head. "Red, Little Hangleton should never have happened, because those idiots shouldn't have let him have that kind of opportunity in the first place."

Ginny laughed shortly. "You sound just like them. I shouldn't be surprised. Maybe if you'd all stop cleaning up my messes, I'd figure out how to clean them up myself."

"Fine," he said icily. "You're a big girl. You're chomping at the bit to take responsibility for yourself. Do you want my brutally honest opinion of the matter?"

Ginny raised her chin. "Yes, I do."

"You lied to them about not remembering anything that happened in the Chamber of Secrets, because I know for a fact that you do remember some of it. But instead of telling them, you just keep lying about it, because you're actually that worried about what they think of you. If you put any effort into remembering what else happened in the Chamber and in Little Hangleton, you just might find out a whole bunch of information that could be the key to stopping the spell. Unfortunately, you'll never do it, because you're too afraid that you did something really horrible, and what will they think of you then?"

Tears gathered in her eyes and Ginny bowed her head, stuffing her hands in her pockets and watching as individual tears fell, making soft plops on the carpet of the train compartment. It was stupid to cry. She'd only gotten what she'd asked for.

She could practically hear him rolling his eyes. "Red, crying is for babies and men who've just had their ears ripped off."

Ginny tried to glare at him, but gave up. "You know," she said shakily, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her robe, "my parents always told me that as long as you tried to do the right thing, that was what really mattered."

"Yeah, well," he sighed, "that just means they're as full of shit as everybody else's parents." Against her will, Ginny half-laughed, quickly trying to cover it up.

"You should go," he said, stepping back and handing over the perturbed mumra. "Your babysitters are probably on a compartment-to-compartment manhunt..."

Right on cue, there was a rap at the door. Ginny saw Hermione in the window.

"Don't worry," Draco assured her. "Nobody can see in." He made a rude gesture that elicited no response from Hermione. "See?" He turned his head to the door and raised his voice. "Go away! Can't anybody shag in peace on this bloody train?"

Knowing that Hermione couldn't see them helped Ginny enjoy the look on her friend's face more than she normally could have. "Stop it right now!" Hermione ordered, rattling the handle, sounding like McGonagall. "You're both prefects, for Merlin's sake!"

"And as always when Granger enters the picture, the fun is over," Draco said mournfully. Leaning down, he kissed her. Wrapping her fingers in the folds of his cloak, Ginny pulled him close and gave him a few things to think about over the summer holiday.

"Merlin," he whispered, drawing back. "There goes my theory that Granger has the power to eradicate all traces of male arousal within a fifty-foot radius."

Ginny stood back as he took the charms off the door and opened it. "You two..." Hermione began, stopping abruptly as she found them fully clothed.

"It was a joke, Granger," Draco drawled. "Alas, you haven't the sense of humor required to appreciate it."

"Don't be a jerk, Malfoy," Hermione said repressively. "You're just lucky I'm not Ron." Stepped forward, she snatched Ginny's hand and led her from the room.

"Be careful this summer," Ginny admonished him over her shoulder.

Draco gave her a look. "I'm always careful. Follow your own advice."

"I love you," she called as she was dragged out of sight.

"I know," his arrogant voice sounded from inside the compartment.

"Ginny, I really don't know about your taste in boys," Hermione muttered.

*******

Harry looked away from his rainy window brooding as the compartment door opened to admit Ron and Hermione, fresh from the prefects' meeting. "That," Ron said as he threw himself into a seat, "was awful. It was soggier in there than it is outside."

"Cho got a bit...emotional," Hermione explained, pausing as she turned to shut the door. "What happened to Ginny?"

"Dunno," Ron said, stretching out across the seats so that he could lie down.

"She knows she's not supposed to go wandering off on her own."

"Hermione, she's not a toddler. We're on the Hogwarts Express. Calm down."

"Fine. I'll go find her then," she said huffily, fleeing the room.

Harry watched her go, shifting uncomfortably. Ron hadn't been openly hostile to him since Little Hangleton, but he also hadn't been terribly friendly, either. The two of them also hadn't been alone together yet. There was a sort of tacit agreement that Hermione's mediating presence was required to keep their interactions civil.

The silence stretched. Finally, Harry cleared his throat. "So how are things going with you two?" he asked, deciding that Hermione was a nice, safe topic.

"Okay," Ron said carefully, looking over at him. "I mean, you know how we are together. At least there's never a dull moment."

"No, I can't imagine there is," Harry said, looking down at his hands in his lap and smiling a little. A simple sort of contentment curled around in his chest at the knowledge that the two of them were together. This is how it should have been all along, he realized. Ron talking to him about Hermione, him talking to Ron about...

Well, that was the problem, wasn't it? That was where all of this had started, before the spell and Ginny and Malfoy and all of the lying. It had started with Harry leapfrogging over all of the late-night hushed conversations he should have had with Ron about the first time they french-kissed a girl or went under the bra and just going directly to sex without bringing along his best friend.

Figuratively, that is.

"I heard that Slytherin girl broke up with you," Ron said without accusation.

"Yeah, she did," Harry said blandly, feeling the gap widen. He couldn't talk to Ron about Thera. He could barely believe he'd talked to Hermione about her.

"Well, you're better off, mate. Even if Hermione said that article was a pack of lies, that chick was still completely barmy, if you ask me, tying people up and all."

Harry frowned. "Article? What article?"

"You mean Hermione didn't show it to you?" Confused, Harry shook his head. Reaching into Hermione's schoolbag, Ron pulled out a copy of the Daily Prophet and tossed it to him.

"Thanks," Harry said, catching it. The Littlest Death Eater? the headline read. Harry swore under his breath. Underneath it was a picture of Thera looking the way she did on the rare occasions when he caught a glimpse of her in the hallways between classes: like she'd just rolled out of bed and would like to go back, if possible. Hermione was right; the article was a pack of lies. Thera was no saint, but she didn't skin puppies.

Hermione returned with Ginny, who plopped down across from him and directed her gaze out the window, one hair shy of outright pouting.

"Ah, yes," Hermione said dryly. "The article."

"Not very flattering, is it?"

"It's a smear campaign. The question is: why?"

"Why the smear campaign, you mean?" Ron asked, only mildly interested.

"Yes. Why would Voldemort want to out one of the children in the spell, especially when she's been pretty much flying under the radar?"

"What makes you think Voldemort was behind it?" Harry asked.

"Because I guarantee that all of the information in that article was given to The Daily Prophet by those Death Eaters who were captured. Members of the inner circle, I might add. They wouldn't do something like this unless they were told to."

"So?" Ron asked, digging out his chess set. "What does it matter?"

"Think about it," Hermione said exasperatedly. "She can't go anywhere in the magical world; everyone's read that article by now. Voldemort doesn't trust her. It might just be because she spent the past ten months with Dumbledore, and in his mind, I suppose that's reason enough. But it could also be..."

"...because he knows something about what's been going on with all of us at Hogwarts," Harry finished numbly, watching Ron set up the chess game.

"I don't think he knows anything for sure," Hermione said, looking at him, "but I do think he suspects something. If you put it together with Lucius Malfoy telling her and Malfoy that the spell was complete when it wasn't, then it just adds up to a lot of effort that doesn't seem to make sense if Voldemort can make them do whatever he wants."

"It's because they can still do things that aren't in direct opposition to him," Harry said slowly, "like giving the other side information."

"Exactly," Hermione said. "And even though the two of them swore that he can't read their thoughts, he must think something's going on or he wouldn't have done this."

Every ounce of his contentment gone now, Harry put the paper down on the seat beside him with the picture of yawning-Thera facing down.

"Well, that was a jolly nice conversation, now, wasn't it?" Ron asked sarcastically.

Hermione scowled at him. "Don't you care at all what's going on?"

"Sure I do. But we don't know why he did it, so what's the point in talking about it?"

Hermione looked like she wanted to argue with him, then decided it was pointless. "Have you signed up for apparation lessons yet, Harry?"

Disoriented by the change in topic, Harry blinked at her. "Apparation lessons?"

"Yes. At the Ministry, so that you can pass your apparation test?" At his continued stare, her voice entered the warning zone. "Didn't you see the notice on the bulletin board?"

There being nothing to advertise but old schoolbooks to sell at the end of term, Harry had not, in fact, seen the notice on the bulletin board. "Er..."

"Well, you should sign up soon, because they fill up quickly. If you put in for the last session - the one the second week of August - we can take it together."

"Okay."

"He'll already be seventeen then. Why would he wait for you?" Ron asked, a distinct edge to his voice. Harry had a feeling it stemmed from the fact that Hermione was taking the last session because she wouldn't be back from her apprenticeship until August.

"Which one are you taking, Ron?" Harry asked, feeling a tiny hope that the two of them could spend some time together this summer.

"I'm not. Bill's teaching me as soon as I get home."

"Oh," Harry said, looking away.

"I'm also taking a course on Emergency Medical Magic," Hermione continued. "You should both take it, also. Merlin knows when it will come in handy."

"If you take it, why do we have to?" Ron asked with a grin.

*******

Every year, Hermione Granger dreaded stepping off the Hogwarts Express to go home for summer holidays because every year, unfailingly, Harry Potter broke her heart.

He didn't do it in the romantic sense, and he didn't do it intentionally. But every year, when the train came to a stop in King's Cross Station, right before they all stood up to collect their things, Harry's face went completely blank.

He always lost the look by the time they reached the barrier, but every year Hermione saw it, and every year it killed her. This year was no different. The only positive in her mind was that this was hopefully the last time she'd ever have to see it.

Upon walking through the barrier, they were swarmed by Weasleys. For some reason, the twins were sporting identical black dragon-hide bodysuits and cowboy hats. Her parents hung back a little the way they always did when surrounded by magical people. Hermione went over so they could hug her and fuss over her. They knew very little about her nastier experiences at Hogwarts, and she had every intention of keeping it that way. If they were like this after not seeing her for a few months, they'd probably spontaneously combust if they knew how often she found herself in mortal peril.

She spotted Harry's family standing off to the side, surrounded by Aurors and not looking remotely pleased about it. "Hey, look," Fred said, elbowing George in the ribs, "Harry gets an armed escort."

"Think they'll give him a twenty-one wand salute in the parking lot?" George asked.

"Maybe they're here to arrest you two for dressing like that," Ginny suggested.

"Ginny, dear," George sighed, "we're expected to dress like this."

"If we don't keep outdoing ourselves, people might think we've died," Fred shrugged.

"Or even worse..." Fred shuddered, "...turned over a new leaf."

"Why on earth do I need a dozen Aurors to protect me in the middle of King's Cross Station?" Harry asked, looking pained.

"It was Fudge's idea," Mr. Weasley said flatly. "After Little Hangleton...well, we can't be too careful now, can we?" he finished with a great deal of false brightness.

"Or too obvious about it," Hermione said under her breath.

Harry heard her and his mouth quirked. "Merlin forbid the Hogwarts parents think that Fudge isn't doing enough to keep the Boy Who Lived alive. On the other hand, it seems to be pissing the Dursleys off a good bit, so it can't be all bad."

Hermione pulled him into a hug. "Take care of yourself. And write me."

"I will," he promised as she kissed him on the cheek.

Sure. "Hmph. We'll see." Turning to Ron, Hermione gave him an awkward sort of hug, wanting to repeat their real goodbye in the prefect's lounge that morning and yet unable to do it in front of the Weasleys, much less her own parents.

"Go on," he said, releasing her. "Go enjoy your time with the smart people and then come back and bore us all to tears with your stories."

"I'll miss you," she said, knowing it was what he needed to hear.

"Just don't replace me with a book. I'd never live it down."

She leaned in to whisper in his ear. "Books can't do that thing you did with your tongue this morning. Where did you learn that, anyway?"

"Uh...nowhere," Ron said, going scarlet and backing away. "Have a nice summer."

Hermione heaved a sigh. Even on the Ronald Weasley Romance Scale, that was a dud.

"You too," she said, pasting a smile on her face and turning back to her parents.

*******

Most people doubted that Severus Snape had a sense of humor. Thera was no longer one of those people. When Bellatrix and Rodolphus had downed the polyjuice potion, they'd turned into your average handsome, boring couple. She, on the other hand, had turned into an overweight teenager with spots. Mummy and Daddy had found this hilarious. Professor Snape had merely smirked and returned to Hogwarts, probably because it wouldn't be properly Snape-like to wet himself with laughter in front of other people.

Thera had just hoped the expanding spells on her clothes held up.

By the time she managed to floo to The Leaky Cauldron (an interesting experience with three times the usual amount of weight on board), hail a cab, get to the train station and find Bellatrix and Rodolphus, they had twenty minutes left on the polyjuice.

The train must have already arrived. Teens and pre-teens chattered happily with their parents as they pushed trolleys laden with trunks and owls. The magical parents were easy to spot. Silk blouses were paired with bermuda shorts, navy blazers with flip-flops. Thera wondered how many Muggle fashion trends had been accidentally created by an innocent witch or wizard's attempt to blend in.

A group of Aurors approached them and Thera's heart thudded twice, painfully, then stopped completely. Once she realized the Aurors weren't coming to arrest them, it began beating again. The Aurors surrounded a hulking man with a mustache, a skinny blonde woman, a teenage boy who put Crabbe and Goyle to shame and...Harry Potter.

Her heart stopped once more.

"He's right there, Dolphie," Bellatrix whispered to her husband. "We could just grab him and apparate away before they even knew..."

On some level, she'd known he would be here. That level had been obscured completely by denial. She'd only killed one person, and that was something she planned on feeling plenty guilty about when she had the time, long after all of this was over. But she'd never had to face anybody she'd hurt before, until now.

"Lucius said not to cause trouble. Besides, we'd never get away," Rodolphus answered.

She wasn't even really facing him right now, but he wasn't doing anything to assuage her newborn conscience that no harm had been done. Instead, he looked angry. It wasn't his Clint Eastwood angry or his sullen teenager angry or even his frustrated, wildly gesticulating angry. Instead, it was the sort of deep-seated, nihilistic anger that made a kid compare the situation at home to a cardboard box and decide that a cardboard box didn't sound all that bad. She was hardly unfamiliar with the feeling, though her taste ran less to boxes and more to men with passable hygiene and a lot of cash in their wallets.

Considering his family seemed to treat him and feed him like your average prisoner at a concentration camp, she probably shouldn't have been surprised, but she was.

In general, impetuousness was not part of her modus operandi. Nevertheless, she took a step forward, faked tripping over something and plowed sideways through the Aurors, her extra bulk allowing her to knock Harry's uncle to the floor.

"I'm so terribly sorry! How clumsy of me!" she cried loudly. Pretending that she was about to get up - which might not be an option without a forklift - Thera leaned down into the man's face. "Treat Harry Potter like anything less than the Bloody Queen Mother and we'll kill you, Dursley," she threatened. "Tell anybody about this little conversation, and we'll do it slowly." With a deep sense of satisfaction, Thera watched as the man's face faded from puce to chalk white. It took the combined efforts of five Aurors to get them both standing again while Thera kept up a steady stream of apologies.

"Draco!" Bellatrix trilled, rushing to her nephew. Rodolphus trailed after her, splitting his glare between his wife and Thera. Noting the look of unconcealed amusement on Harry's face, Thera slid off to join them, smiling to herself.

"Your father sent us to pick you up, dear," Bellatrix was saying to a puzzled, wary Draco. "It's Aunt Bella," she whispered out of the side of her mouth. His face lost its puzzlement and grew a lot more wary. Rodolphus stepped forward to collect his trunk, and Thera fell into step beside Draco as they made their way out to the taxi stand.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"It's Thera."

Sending her a sideways glance, he smirked. "You've grown."

"It's not all bad. I'm having my first experience with actual breasts."

"...and cellulite and acne. So what's with the welcome wagon?"

"We're picking up my present," Thera said, digging around in her pocket for the address.

"Does this mean we get to drive it home?"

Thera glanced at him. "Draco, do you have any idea how long it would take to get from London to Shirag Castle?"

He made a face. "I thought this thing went really fast."

"It does, you idiot. It's just that the two places are a tad far apart."

"Fine, fine. So we shrink it and drive it when we get home."

"We?" Thera laughed. "Not a fucking chance."

"I bought it, you know."

"Yes, and it was very expensive and I doubt you'd like to see it wrapped around a tree."

"I thought metal was sturdy and whatnot. How can something made out of metal wrap around a tree?"

"By hitting it at 120 kilometers per hour. Remind me to pick you up a Physics book."

*******

Draco Malfoy was a connoisseur of beauty. He had been raised to appreciate it, and he did, quite a bit. He appreciated it in himself. He appreciated it in women. He especially appreciated it in inanimate objects that didn't have the power to open their mouth and ruin it. The Muggle pictures in Thera's magazine didn't do the Ferrari justice.

It was surprising that Muggles could create something like this, something that shone like a diamond against the dull stone of the carriage house at Shirag Castle. Draco knew that when it came to being sexually attractive, he was a force to be reckoned with. In that automobile, he would be utterly unstoppable. Red flattered him.

Nobody spoke as they stood there taking it all in. Now back to her normal size, Thera kissed him full on the mouth. "I told you that you wouldn't regret it," she breathed.

Draco smiled. "Believe me. I don't."

Thera opened the driver's side door and they all peered inside.

"It's awfully small, isn't it?" the idiot...er, his uncle commented.

"Small but powerful," his aunt purred, running her hands over the leather seat and sending his uncle a look that implied things Draco wasn't interested in figuring out.

"You know how to work this thing?" his uncle asked Thera dubiously.

"I know how to work an automobile, and they're all pretty much the same. I barely ever run into things anymore," Thera said breezily. "I'm sure it won't take more than one or two accidents to get back into the swing of things."

"Accidents?" Aunt Bella asked, straightening up. "What do you mean, accidents?"

"Oh, you know. Running into things while driving really fast. They can be a bit messy, but with some healing charms and a few obliviated policemen..."

"Do you always have to drive fast?" his uncle asked.

"Yes, all the time," Thera answered seriously. "It's Muggle law."

"Those people outside the train station weren't going that fast," his aunt argued.

"Not in the city, Mummy. Just on the highway. It can get ugly, too. You can't see it, but under my hair there's a nasty scar from the time I ran into the back of an eighteen-wheeler truck. Nearly split my head in two," Thera said cheerfully. "And one time, we came upon this accident involving a Hyundai and a freight train." She chuckled. "The two people in the front seat were completely decapitated. The heads flew all the way over the train crossing and were just lying there, right in the middle of the road. Of course, this car only seats two..."

Thera grinned at the three of them as they took a step back from the Ferrari in unison. "So who wants to go first?"

Draco was ninety-nine percent sure she was bullshitting them. The other one percent convinced him to take another step back.

"Why don't you try it out yourself first?" his aunt offered. "Alone."

"After all, it's your present," his uncle added as they edged out of the carriage house.

Draco watched them leave before turning back to Thera. "That was all a lie, right?"

She grinned in a way that didn't reassure him a bit. "Sure it was. Get in."

Against his better judgment, he did. Thera leaned over him to fasten him into a harness-thingy and got in the other side, putting a key into a little slot and turning it.

Draco gasped and pulled his feet up as the floor under them vibrated and the entire automobile emitted a roar that quickly settled into a Muggle-ish mechanical hum.

"Listen to that," Thera whispered. She dropped her head back against the seat and smiled the way any other girl would right after an orgasm.

"I always thought you only got turned on if somebody beat you with something."

Thera opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him. "Don't tell me you're not hard as a rock right now."

"Hardly. So it makes noise? Big deal. Make it move and we'll see."

"Just wait." Thera pressed some buttons and with a whirring sound, the window next to him rolled down. Taking hold of a lever sort of thing between them, she pressed a button and pushed it down. Grabbing another lever, she moved it to the side and then forward.

"Ready?" she asked him, her eyes facing forward.

"Sure," he answered, amused by the whirring and buttons and levers.

"Then hold on."

Before the advice could be processed, there was a squealing sound and Draco was pressed back against the seat as the Ferrari shot forward and they peeled off onto the path leading away from Shirag Castle. As a rule, Malfoys did not scream like little girls. But if they did, Draco Malfoy would have been doing so just then.

As they reached the edge of the property, Thera yanked the steering wheel hard to the left and the Ferrari turned, its back end sliding out a bit. She sped up and the wind caught their hair as Draco's initial fear slowly gave way to exhilaration.

Releasing his grip on the seat, he leaned back and tried not to imagine what his hair was going to look like when they got back. Despite her tall tales, Thera seemed to know what she was doing, so he just sat back and enjoyed the ride, feeling free despite the fact that he was strapped into a Muggle deathmobile and...yes, quite hard indeed.

*******

"No," Remus and Balder said simultaneously. As heartwarming as it was to see two people who disliked each other agree on something, Vivian was annoyed.

"No way," Remus clarified.

"Not a chance in hell," Balder added.

"Oh, go off and bugger each other," Vivian griped. "We're not talking about a raid on a couple of fluffy bunnies. We're talking about a raid on a settlement of over a hundred dark creatures. We need all the people we can get. Specifically, we need individuals who know how to battle dark creatures, i.e. me. Aside from that, I'm also a former Auror and I happen to be a member of the Order, and I was led to believe by Dumbledore that this was to be a joint operation. So I'm going."

"No," they both answered, again simultaneously.

"I'll kill David," Remus said reasonably, in an attempt to temper the overprotective testosterone stonewalling tactic. "If it will make you happy, I'll collect his ashes in a sack for you to dance on or spit on or do whatever on."

"But you're not going," Balder finished for him. The two of them glanced at each other, then nodded in a superior way that set Vivian's teeth on edge.

The administrative hearing was not going the way she'd planned. It was supposed to involve Balder being angry about her escaping from St. Mungo's before he had a chance to pick her unprotected brain. It ended up being a planning session on the upcoming attack on Voldemort's dark creatures, which was fine. What was not fine was Remus and Balder in cahoots. Against her.

"What about what I did at the Diagon Alley attack?" Vivian argued. "I saved someone."

"Didn't David almost kill her then, too?" Remus asked Balder.

"He tried to have a dementor suck out her soul," Balder answered.

"Right."

"I made a mistake," Vivian bit out. "I admit it. I thought that despite the vampirism and the divorce and the working-for-Voldemort thing, there was still a certain level of respect between David and I. I was wrong. I've learned my lesson."

"He had you under mind control for over a month," Balder said.

"Which you haven't completely recovered from yet," Remus interjected.

"Thank you, Madame Pomfrey, but I believe I have," Vivian said scathingly.

Balder held his hands out. "For all we know, if you got close to him, he could put you under again. Sorry, Vivian, but we can't take the risk."

"And won't," Remus said, as if that made it all final.

Reason and rationality weren't going to work, which was fine, because Vivian was feeling less and less reasonable and rational.

"First of all, I'll break dance on the bloody table if it will convince you once and for all that I'm fine; second of all, unless you've forgotten, David used me to put four of my students in mortal danger. This is personal. And I'm going."

"No, you're not," they answered, simultaneously.

Vivian smacked the table. "Dear Merlin, did you hold a rehearsal or something?!"

"We have to think about the mission. If there's a possibility you could be a liability, we can't risk it," Balder said.

Well, emotion wasn't working. Back to reason and rationality, then.

"You're a sad excuse for a Ravenclaw if you haven't even read The Art of War," Vivian said loftily, staring Balder down.

He scowled. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"A liability is only a liability if you aren't imaginative enough to turn it into an asset."

"Why," Remus asked the ceiling, "isn't this argument over yet?"

"What are you proposing we do?" Balder asked with the air of an adult humoring the fanciful notions of a small child.

"David's leading the vampires. We're nearly positive of that, right?" Vivian asked, gazing at them both pointedly. They nodded. "So what makes you think he'd get involved in the fight at all? Why would he allow himself to be put into a position where he could be killed or captured? Vampires are notoriously hierarchical. They'll defend the leader of the coven down to the last vampire, and the last vampire will just be there to hold you off while he escapes. Are you telling me this is your strategy?"

There were a few seconds of silence as they processed that. Then Remus groaned. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Are you suggesting we use you as bait?"

"Asset, Remus," she said firmly. "The word is asset."

"No, it's bait."

"Do you want to get him or not?"

"Of course I do, but not like that. Honestly, Vivian, this is the dumbest conversation we've ever had, and that's saying something."

"Would it work?" Balder asked.

Remus gaped at him. "You really are a cold bastard, aren't you?"

Vivian and Balder ignored him. "If there's anything that would draw him out, it's me. He proved that at Diagon Alley and at Azkaban," Vivian said.

"But that was before he put his plan into action," Balder pointed out. "You aren't of any use to him now."

"I don't think that's true. A newborn vampire doesn't waltz his way into a leadership position on charm alone. David had something that Voldemort wanted. He had an ex-wife who just happened to work for Dumbledore. He didn't deliver on that promise, and yet he's still alive. So I don't believe for one second that he's finished with me."

"This is insane," Remus spat, standing up. "This isn't an attack, it's a farce."

Balder stood to join him, but his eyes stayed on her. "I'll think about it. I don't promise anything." Vivian nodded and he left the room, at which point Remus rounded on her.

"Don't," she said in a low voice, cutting him off. "Not here."

His jaw working angrily, Remus spun around and led the way out of the Ministry.

*******

As they made their way down to the atrium and apparated back to Number Twelve, Remus counted to ten at least fifty times. It did nothing to dispel his anger. It did, however, keep him from exploding until they'd reached the kitchen.

"What the fuck are you thinking?!" he yelled, kicking the door shut.

"So you're going to yell at me now? Is that it?" Vivian asked tiredly.

"Well, you don't seem to comprehend it when I speak in a normal tone of voice, so what do you propose I do, exactly?" he yelled a little louder.

Jerkily, Vivian pulled out a chair and sat down. "Sit and talk to me like a normal human being instead of screaming," she said, some of her own temper leaking out.

With a good deal of effort, Remus walked over to the table and sat down. With even more effort, he pasted a painful smile on his face. "What would you like to talk about?"

"Knock it off, Remus. I know you don't like the idea, but..."

"Don't like it?" Remus interrupted, wide-eyed. "Where did you get that impression?"

Vivian's face hardened. "Fine," she said, standing up. "Sit here and throw dishes at the wall or pound the table into pulp and then put it all back together so that nobody sees it so you can pretend that you're Mr. Easy-Going Remus Lupin who never, ever gets angry and certainly never destroys shit when he does. Do whatever you have to do, because it's impossible to talk to you when you're like this."

In perhaps any other circumstances - read: circumstances that involved neither David Lynes nor Balder Astragand nor one of the last people he cared about who was still alive doing something stupid to endanger their 'alive' status - Remus' temper would have dissolved once her words sank in. In this case, they only fueled the fire. Grabbing the chair she'd vacated, he threw it at the wall to her left, where it smashed into pieces.

"This is what you want, isn't it?!" he shouted. "You want us to have a fucking duel to the death over you?! Is all of this about feeding your ego, Vivian, or are you just trying to build up your fucking martyr resume?"

Vivian had frozen when he'd thrown the chair. Now she turned, slowly. "Is that what you think?" she asked, her voice devoid of emotion.

Remus flipped the table over. "What the hell am I supposed to think?! At every turn, all you do is figure out the best way to put yourself directly in his bloody path!"

She took a long, deep breath. "David and I..."

"Ah," Remus cut her off, laughing bitterly, "David and you. That's the whole problem, isn't it? You know, I don't even think you really want him dead. What would you do then? It's my fault you married him in the first place, right? If he wasn't around anymore, what would you use as your guilt stick to beat me over the head with?"

Like a well-aimed punch, he saw it when his words hit Vivian and he immediately regretted them. Unable to stomach the aftermath, he turned his eyes to the overturned table. Never did he hate himself more than in moments like these.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, bending over to right the table.

"Oh, don't stop there," she said, her voice brittle. "There's still plenty of ammunition left. Maybe it wasn't always that polyjuiced tart screwing around with Balder. Maybe I did it a few times, too. Come on, Remus. Tell me what you really think of me."

Remus leaned his hands on the table. "I don't think that. I don't even know why I said it. I just don't understand why you keep doing things like this."

"Because I have to make it right," she said simply. "And this time I can."

"You don't have to make it right at all costs, Vivian."

"I'm not planning to. Regardless of what you believe, I don't have a death wish. I'm just...Merlin, I'm so tired of being conditionally happy. I want to be able to go to sleep with you at night without a big sword with David's name on it hanging above our heads. Even in the best of times, our relationship isn't going to be easy. We both know that, but we're both still here, aren't we? All this time and all of this shit that's happened, and we're here right now. We chose this. So isn't that worth something?"

Remus let go of the table and sank down into a chair, feeling suddenly drained. "Of course it is. That's why I don't think you should risk it all on something as stupid as taking down your fucking vampire ex-husband, that's all."

"I'm not," she said. He felt her hand in his hair and looked up as she straddled him so that they were face-to-face. "I'm not trying to win a medal for self-sacrifice, and I'm quite a bit smarter David-wise than I was a few months ago. The only way to get him is to flush him out. Besides," she said, leaning forward to kiss him briefly, "I've got a big, bad wolf covering my back, right?"

He winced. "Don't try to use cutesy-talk to drag me into one of your harebrained schemes. It's insulting."

"Remus," she said patiently, guiding his hand up to her breast, "you're really misinterpreting the purpose of the cutesy-talk."

She knew his weaknesses too well. Remus stroked and squeezed, allowing his other hand to join in the fun. "Even when we haven't solved a damn thing, I still like it when our fights end like this."

"So do I," Vivian said, unbuttoning his shirt. "Of course, if that chair had come an inch closer, you'd be feeling me up with a pair of stumps right now."

"I know. That's why it didn't."

"No, you were lucky."

"My aim's not that bad."

Vivian snorted. "Your aim is shite when you're pissed off. I think you should justify the continued ownership of those hands."

"Well, if you insist..."

*******

Yuri Dashkin opened his eyes to the dull gray light of dawn. One of them would come before the sun reached the foot of his bed. That was the worst part of it all: the routine. They didn't mistreat him; in fact, he ate well and enjoyed comfortable living quarters. Even the fact that they'd kill him if he didn't give them what he wanted didn't particularly bother him anymore, not anymore. But he couldn't stand the dull, unchanging sameness of each day, undiscernable from the one before it.

He found himself growing nostalgic about the alternating terror and elation he'd felt when they'd moved him a few months ago. At least then, there had been a break in the routine, something to think about, to worry over, to analyze. And yet nothing had come of it. He'd ended up in a new set of comfortable rooms with the same routine.

The sun rose and crept closer and he watched it, one half of his brain listening for the telltale footsteps in the hallway, the other half willing it to move no further. Human will - even magical will - not being enough to stop the earth's orbit, the footsteps inevitably sounded, and Yuri roused himself from the bed, running a hand through his thinning hair.

The door opened and three of them entered, two of them laden with books. They dropped them off and took their leave while the third one stayed behind to stand guard. His name was McLaughlin and he was a towering redhead of about twenty. Like everything else, McLaughlin was part of the routine.

"You know the drill. Get to work," the boy said, sounding bored. Yuri pulled on a dressing robe and sat down at the desk. He had dispensed with the proprieties of actually getting dressed months ago. Opening the first text, he spread out a piece of parchment.

On cue, a house elf appeared with coffee. Taking the cup, Yuri took a sip, dipped his quill into the inkpot, and began another endless day of translation for Lord Voldemort.

*******

"Would you like another?" a deep, rumbling Jamaican voice asked. Holding her hand up to block the sun, Fox turned her head to fully appreciate the combination of white shorts, dark skin and what might be the most perfect set of abs on the planet.

"Just keep them coming, Marshall," she said, handing off her empty frou-frou drink glass with an umbrella. Marshall walked off to fulfill her whim and Fox turned around to appreciate the even more enticing play of hard buttocks under tight shorts.

He entered the bar and Fox lay back down, letting the sun's rays erase ten months of Scottish weather. She had two weeks of Cardinal-sanctioned vacation to sit on the beach, drink Pina Coladas and examine Marshall's abs in an up-close and personal way.

Somewhere, members of her own kind plotted against her. Back in dreary old Britain, Severus Snape was preparing to make a choice that few mortals had to make and even fewer made wisely. Somewhere a bit farther south, Harry Potter was halfway through his first day of summer holidays, probably brooding in his room.

Teenagers, Fox sighed. She really couldn't wait for him to grow out of that phase.

But they were all well-protected, all safe for the moment...even her.

Even Guardians deserved a vacation once in a while.