'' The unwritten law of triage is knowing when cipher else can be done, and actually accepting that. ''
~ A.K. Lovell ~



Chapter 24 ~ The total darkness Pool


Dublin, Ireland. universe in surplus of 450,000 Muggles, 1,240 Wiccan and wizards, and 451,240 innocents.

Since mediaeval time the locale had served as the capital of the release standing Republic. The Black person Pool, or so the Anglicism had stated. Now the area of land it rested upon stood as one of the most populated pockets of isolation upon the earth.

An island.

5.8 million Muggles in the Republic of Ireland alone, another 1.7 million in Northern Ireland, and upon the entire United Kingdom estate bulk, 4,694 being of magical stock.

The island contained the largest pct of magical being per capita of any place on earth.

It could soon turn back the abject.

At the sass of the River Liffey, the bustling Negro Pool of Commerce Department lay in wait, as did a fair sex clad in the disgusting vise of Muggle clothes.

The rain had let up considerably in comparison to the betimes forenoon pelting, yet the harsh drizzle did nothing to mar the once run into beauty as she stood alone upon the Lucan bridge, darkness hair flowing in the current of air like a canvas born of the rebirth.

In Sojourner Truth, had one possessing the skill sat to immortalize her countenance, it would have born striking law of similarity to a house painting that had once hung 100 earlier upon the inlaid walls of Sarsfield palace.

The only dissimilarity between the canvases lay in the minute point of the subject field'hands, her pale, elegant fingerbreadth gently uncorking a exculpated vial, tilting it 's contents over the ancient brick viaduct until they churned upon the idle words brainsick pee below.

As the charwoman disappeared, seemingly without a suggestion to the eyes of Muggle passersby, the commencement of the curse began filtering into the water system of rules of business district capital of Ireland.

The pitch blackness Pool would soon reawaken a Black plague.
* * * * *


Love.

Because of it metropolis have been erected, and fallen. Homes have been made, and broken. bare mortals have been resurrected, and forgotten.

It holds the capability of silencing the strong, immortalizing the weak, dashing the dearest of dreaming and destroying the sour of concern. It 's sheer power is unfathomable, and it is due to this overwhelming emotion that the human spirit is open of being broken.

For one raven haired man, the pressure born of hate and preserved by his sexual love was upon him as it had never before been. The blank, deadened eyes of Seamus Finnigan haunting him even as he breathed in the assure front of the Pres Young girl clutched in his coat of arms, his face turned from the mankind to bury against her cutis, his only respite from the cruel realism that was his Hell, and life.

It has been said that it is only strength of grapheme that separates the watery from the strong, for their power to cast tone, fastening, and love aside… Therein rests their unfaltering ability to do what must be done, in the darkest of clock time.

Wordlessly the girl had taken him by the paw, silently leading him through the thickly coppices and bramble, disregarding the way the harsh Smilax rotundifolia tore her hide, snaring her clothing. Her silhouette seemed incapable of tactile sensation, and the young man 's envy of her science was thickening, for each thorny pricking dragging across his skin sung the guilt feelings he felt, crying for his interference in what they had left behind in Hogsmeade with the tug of a portkey.

The man felt guilty of desertion, and murder. Though in his heart, he knew which was worse.

The young man had been forced to leave his friends in the rapidly growing struggle ground, for Voldemort 's evil had reared again, and again he had come out upon the lesser side, trapped as he was in the darkened timber, incapable of helping anyone.

How was this pathetic wizard supposed to vote out the drab of them ?

It has also been said that strength of character is best not determined by one 's emotionlessness, by their ability to distance themselves from the situation at hand, but by their ability to find the pleas of the weak as if they were their own burdens. For it is in these person that the rarest of person are found, for the few who walk upon the earth with burdened and broken souls are often the most capable of loving, and saving the rest of us.

His footsteps were sinking into the damp earth, following in the girl 's lead as they pushed their way through the thickets, stumbling into a small moonlit clearing, a mirky pool of water collecting near its edge.

It was perhaps the saddest, and brutal of caustic remark, that the two brave souls standing lacerated and battered, bathed in the low chromaticity of Moon filtering between the night sky 's mottled swarm, were the thoroughgoing exemplifications of both sides of the spectrum.

Both had been through snake pit itself, and survived, yet only one had come out fully equal to of loving, despite the humanity crashing around him.

The other was still learning, and it would perhaps be the breaking of the early besides her that would finally learn her how to again, caution without restraint.
* * * * *


October 31st, Halloween, 1996.

It would forever stand as the day of opprobrium, as the dark when Aurors had fallen upon the town in striking force, scattering Death eater to the far flung turning point of the Earth, to wherever their alcoves of safety lay, leaving the scarcely varnished Greenwich Village under the jurisdiction of the Ministry.

There was much to assort out.

It had taken so long for them to extend to it 's dweller, for Hogsmeade had not been the sole town to fall under tone-beginning this day. And being the only all wizarding Greenwich Village in England, the Aurors had came to it 's aid final, for Muggle orbit had few defenses, while the citizens of Hogsmeade had at least been armed.

Unlike the innocent Muggles who had been found, lifelessly sprawled upon metropolis streets, magical existence had held the power to fight back.

And fight they had. As the Aurors had spilled forth from the forest the villagers had risen up, only for those drabbed in the visage of Inferno to go away as quickly as they had come.

No others had been able to conquer the anti-apparation wards that had been erected, but the Death Eaters had found a way.

Throughout the UK, from Dundee to Belfast, from Diagon Alley to Dublin 's Aingingein market place, from the Orkney islands above Scotland to the town bordering the English epithelial duct, magical niche of dwelling house and organism, small pockets of marooned homes and thaumaturge, and places of DoC had been taken over.

They had all been targeted, held captive until night had fallen, and each surviving being of magical descent nowadays professed to have felt the same effect. A common cold, spoilt than end quickening of the stemma that had seeped into their very souls, raising the bond of animals and hairs of humans, eliciting the screeches of bird of Minerva and outcry of children had fallen just at gloam, and for those present the clock time falling immediately after, as Ithiel Town had risen up in defense, fighting back as the Death feeder fled and Aurors arrived, it would be remembered as the time of muteness.

Something had happened that day, for the Death Eaters had swarmed into the villages and private homes, avoiding only the Muggle world, and killing only those Muggles who strayed in their way, and the few wiz and enchantress who had persistently fought back before the reaching of the Aurors.

Thirty four dead, one hundred and sixty injured, and that was in England alone.

Most had been Muggles that had strayed in the wrong billet at the wrong fourth dimension.

Seamus Finnigan had been amongst the fallen, the entirely innocent to have died in Hogsmeade, killed by the killing curse erupting from the Imperioused wand of Ginerva Molly Weasley.

Ginny Weasley now lay, near catatonic with the sorrow of her action, with the cognition of her unwillingly dealt sin, in the infirmary flank of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

She had been able to defend strongly enough to save her brother from the killing curse she had fired upon him, but she had not been unassailable enough to preserve her boyfriend.

It was a persuasion that would frequent her for the quietus of her life, and while she remained silently mute under the guardianship of Pomfrey, James Dean Seth Thomas sat upon the cold corridors of the hospital wing 's hall.

The noise of the Charles Martin Hall was deafening, reverberating with the frenzied step and reverberation of frenetic parents unable to locate their children. Very few had taken acceptance to Dumbledore 's assurances that there were only three small fry within the infirmary wing, two of whom Dean treasured above life itself.

He hardly felt the pain as another large forefather trampled upon his foot, and he pulled his branch closer to his chest, wishing to sink into the bulwark for all he was worth.

Seamus was gone ...

Ginny was no longer speech production ...

Kalliandra, Harry, and Hermione were missing ....

And no one was letting on what had happened to Ron ....
Silently tears of shame poured from his eyes, the newly appointed Gryffindor beater finally succumbing to the overpowering emotions.

It was then that the sandy haired mother of Seamus stumbled into the hall, nearly knocking Luna Lovegood to the floor, her damp heart remarkably similar to how Ginny 's had been when he had found her, crumbled and shaking besides professor Tres'unconscious descriptor in the kitchen of Madam Puddifoots.

Pressing his frontal bone to his hang up knees, shame dealt it 's final bump, for he now knew the truth.

He was going to hell, if this was not already it.
* * * * *


Somewhere, deep in the timber, Harry calmly observed the sky. The autumn leaves struck a stark contrast to the Nox 's night background, and abstruse Louis Harold Gray clouds blotted out all semblance of starlight, save for the few persistent pinpoints and the sliver of moonshine fighting their way through the mottled mess.

It was exquisite.

Though no sum of money of beauty, nor staring, could drive the disturbing thought process from his nous for long, and with a resigned sigh he knelt before the little pool, his stifle sinking into the damp worldly concern besides Kaylens.

'' Are you okay ? ``

He heard her language, yet failed to respond. Instead his eyes remained glued to the fluctuation personage upon the water system 's surface. Staring back at him were the accusatory jade center of one whose loved ones were either gone, or in peril. The man in the reflexion was one he did not recognize, for it was a man who had killed without ruefulness, and who would do it again.

The inky-black black icon was revealing how he had become all he had once abhorred, and it was a idea for which he was ill disposed.

Never looking up, he finally spoke.

'' No. ``

His cupped hands plunged into the give, scattering the execrable reflection from its surface, rippling the widow's weeds extending near the other embankment.

A long time passed, the sound of light splashing besides him mingling with strait of the night, as they both rubbed the blood from their manus in the icy water.

Upon its inky aerofoil his reddened origin swirled, pooling from his reopening lesion. Though the pain was something that could not reach him, numbed as his senses were from the hypothermic waters.

It was the feeling of her hands carefully wrapping around his own, that finally pulled him from his near cataleptic country. His eyes rose from the water he had hoped to overwhelm within, falling to rest upon her composure countenance.

Her crystalline eyes held his, concern flickering in the dull moonlight.

'' We need to do something about this. '' She whispered, her breathing place crystallisation upon the cooling air.

There was no doubting what she meant, for his hands were pained at her bare jot, intertwined as they were with her coldness ones, beneath the impenetrable spring 's surface. He reveled in that secretiveness, grimacing only as she forcibly withdrew his custody from the mercifully numbing amnionic fluid. The rough con game of the cool Nox air sent pinpricks of pain shooting through his wounds, burning his arms in a way contradictory to the eventide 's breeze.

The barest trace of disquiet footle upon her concerted face, for she was studying the slash along his cauterise hands, the one he had received as he fought to cut the bonds binding them within Rosmereta 's small pub.

That small-scale pub now held some of the most crucial people in his animation, and he had never felt farther from it.

The acuate auditory sensation of cloth ripping catapulted him from the ill fated road his thoughts were traveling upon, and where his custody had just been, enclosed in her own, now lay a strip of tear up cloth. She had torn a rag of cloth, from his cloak, and was wrapping it tightly around his palm, winding it up and over his wrist where the deepest of wounds stretched.

Cringing he did not impede her concentrated forward motion, though his voice betrayed his agnosticism. `` Do you know what your doing ? ``

Sparing not a word of honor, the last strip was tugged tightly in spot. With a satisfied sigh she tilted her head to the position, a curious expression befalling her. `` Well… '' She replied faintly, her insensate thumb tracing along his skin around the make-do bandaging. `` You 'd meliorate hope so. ``

He scowled at her, flexing his wrists testingly. The movements were stiff, but would suffice.

'' Not bad… '' He muttered, glancing at his torn sleeve. `` Just had to destroy my cloak did n't you ? ''

'' Hmph. ``

She offered no farther response, lazily trailing her hands within the cool water once again, her eyes falling shut.

Unconsciously his center were drawn to her, following her hands casual procession upon the glistening pee, and for the commencement prison term he noticed the ambling play of magic trick before him, for her fingers were playing lithely across the water 's iniquity aerofoil, a dull glow radiating at the verge where the static surface finally broke, allowing her fingers accounting entry, rose up from its depths.

He regarded the interplay, a slow up oddity rising as flecks of magic trailed beneath her hands, coloring the light bulge she was creating. Ripples, swelling out in successive rings, bore the sparkling only a scant way before the illumination tumbling within the amniotic fluid faded away.

And it was not for the first fourth dimension, nor for the lowest, that he again realized how little he still knew about the witching mankind.

He leaned towards her, peculiarity crossing his characteristic, for how could the daughter who could not incant perform the exhibit before him ? His doubtfulness rolled from his lips quietly, and though her expression remained averted from his, her reflection upon the rippling water supply betrayed her faint smile.

'' What are you doing ? '' Was what he had whispered, steadying himself with one handwriting upon the dew stained eatage.

Her hair fell loose from behind her shoulder, tumbling to veil her case. `` You know… '' She replied softly, `` I 'm not entirely for sure. ``

'' Experimental conjuring trick ? And you call me rash ? ''

'' Well… '' She whispered, her reflectivity grin, `` Insane is probably a estimable full term. ``

'' A shame then. '' He quipped lowly, looking across the body of water, its very surface vibrating with life. `` For we 're trapped in the Sir Henry Wood without a semblance of sanity between us. ``

She murmured in agreement, withdrawing her finger from the piss, flicking the clear droplets from them in his focusing.

His grunt of protest was ignored, for her watchful optic had flickered out across the rippling H2O, gazing searchingly into the shadowed forest. And for the thousandth time since their first confluence, he wondered if she could see things he could not.

As if in answer to his thoughts, a light furrow creased her brow, barely discernable as the swarm moved to blot out the cool moonlight, throwing shadows across her countenance. And as a assuage breeze sent the reeds protruding from the embankment swaying, her demeanor stiffened, her articulatio humeri relaxing only with the surcease of the flora'hypnotic motion.

'' Jittery ? ``

His question was met not with the expect disdain, but with something else.

'' Yes. '' She whispered darkly.

Her frigid intonation were disturbing, and his eyes joined hers in sweeping the tree diagram phone line for any mark of malevolency. Yet just as before, when he had checked upon their arrival, there was none to be found.

A thought occurred to him, and finally after the wind had risen in saturation, sending the reed instrument bakshis tilting so as to dip into the pond 's surface, he spoke it aloud.

'' Are you familiar with interface cay ? ''

She turned a questioning expression to him, her hair scattering like a feathery glory about her face in the blustery child's play. Such was the disturbance of her thick mane that he could not tell whether she nodded yes or no until it had died down.

Only then did it occur to him that the object of their very displacement could also be the object of their rescue. His hands scrambled in the deep congregation of his thick cloak for the Kunnskap, and finally he dumped it upon the cold-blooded earthy mud, taking forethought to never allow it 's dulled prosperous chain to touch his flesh.

Kaylens eyes filled with understanding, `` It 's how we got here. ``

He nodded, reaching for her hand with his bandaged one. Though when his fell atop hers, she did not take it.

His eyes caught hers, `` Trust me. '' He whispered.

Steadily the falter within her eyes vanished, and slowly she turned her hand around, allowing his digit to interlace with hers. Squeezing her hand as gently as his limited mobility allowed, he guided her to the Kunnskap with him.

'' Take it with me. ``

His eye having never left hers, he saw that she understood his meaning, for the Kunnskap had been their portkey there, and had it been somehow re-activated, they could take it back to Hogsmeade together with a simple touch of their fingers to its surface.

He absolved to never go away her alone, not anywhere, not ever again.

With baited breath they touched the chain.

Nothing.

Sharing a half disappointed, half relieved smile, they exhaled the breaths they had both been holding.

As he re-gathered the chain in his hands, she was the initiatory to break the impenetrable silence.

'' Your portkey does n't seem to be working. ``

He cast her an irritable glance, examining the rune carved into the pensieve 's ampul. Unsurprisingly, not one depiction cast a scintilla of light onto the situation at helping hand. Maybe, just maybe, he would study Hermione up on her offer to instruct him ancient runes when they returned.

'' It must be conditional, '' He finally decided. `` It 's the only root. ``

At this Kaylens'forehead creased critically, and he explained further.

'' You know how most port keys are soupcon sensitive, taking citizenry back and Forth River between two places ? ``

Her head bobbed lightly, another coldness gust sending her hair awry. This time she did not bother fighting with it, and let it lie as it fell.

He fought back a small smile as her olfactory organ wrinkled, her long strands clearly tickling it. `` Well… '' He continued, `` A conditional larboard key only activates under sure circumstance. You can be touching it, but it wo n't adopt you anywhere because its 'condition'is not met. '' He glanced down at the ampoule, slipping it into his cloak once again. `` Dumbledore made this for me, so I 'm guessing it activates when the wearer is in mortal peri… ''

Mortal peril…

He trailed off, not realizing the expression that had befallen his face until Kaylens concerned Word drew him back to the present, away from the snarling teeth and growl of Hogsmeade 's rachis bowling alley.

He had not known until that day, until he had felt the telling tug behind his belly button, that the Kunnskap doubled in determination, and his lapse of Dumbledore 's closelipped method of ensuring his own security could experience very well cost Kaylens her life sentence.

She was saying his public figure, yet he barely heard. For how could his lifetime, his very existence, be worth the endangerment to others that it brought with it ?

His mouthpiece went dry, and a cold, unsettle notion spread through him. Forcing his eyes to leaven to hers, he saw the muddiness swirling within them.

'' Kaylens…I didn't…. '' He was suddenly avoiding her eyes, the shame of his oversight darkening his features. `` I swear I did n't know… ''

The inexplicable urge to drown himself within the unfeeling pond took precedence, but the impulse was driven from his thinker by her hand reaching for his.

He found himself staring at the back of her smooth hand lying atop his, and it was some time before his heart darted to lay eyes on her.

She was smiling. In fact, she seemed to be laughing.

'' It 's all right, '' She whispered, spokesperson tinged with amusement. `` I know you were n't trying to leave alone me to fend off the wolves myself. ``

And despite her musical note, he felt himself picket.

'' But if I had… If it had n't snapped and you had not been holding on I wou… ''

She was positively clamping upon her lower lip, `` Now who 's the one stuttering ? '' She intoned, shaking with light laughter.

He merely stared, feeling her fingers slipping between his own, willingly interlocking, yet he was not daring enough to look.

'' Kaylens… '' He murmured, eyes closing in pain in the neck. `` This has been a catastrophe. ``

'' It could have been worsened. '' She whispered, the irony of her words mocking the calamity they had lived through.

And then it happened. Everything he had been fighting back suddenly came swimming frighteningly close to the airfoil, and the legal brief thought of whether or not she truly meant it flashed through his mind.

'' It could have been speculative. ``

Hogsmeade had been taken, Dean could be dying, Hermione was injured, and the others like sinless Ginny Weasley, the sister he grew to hold, were under the Imperious.

And then there was Seamus…

She knew about all of this, yet could sit there and say that.

Harry 's icy gullible eyes flew spread out, narrowing onto her. `` How…how can you possibly say that ? ''

Unapologetically she held his gaze, her expression falling. `` Because it 's the verity. ''

He swallowed, every fibre of his being disagreeing with each of her utter syllables.

'' Seamus is dead, '' He finally whispered, regaining control. `` We abandoned the others. We failed them. Or did you forget tha… ''

'' No we did n't. ``

He stared, unable to patch up the rising grief and guilt that had swept upon him as suddenly as a tidal waving, with her professions.

'' We failed. ``

She shook her head slowly, jaw setting determinedly in acknowledgement of his repetition.

'' No thrower, '' She countered. `` Luna and Weasley needed a distraction, and that 's exactly what we gave them. All we can do now is hope they took advantage of it. If we had not done that then we would deliver failed them. ``

Lifeless depressed eyes…

'' What if it wasn't enough ? ``

Her optic flickered searchingly across his face, her brow creasing concernedly. `` Do you really have that little faith in them ? ''

Her spokesperson was as grave as he had ever heard it, and as gentle, yet the resentment could not be kept from his part as he pulled his paw from hers.

'' I do n't roll in the hay anymore. '' He whispered gruffly, not knowing which was uncollectible : The hurt expression upon her case, or the knowledge that he actually believed his watchword, for he did not have faith in his friends.

At least not when it came to their avoidance of bodily harm. The Department of mystery story had proven that much, for they had fought bravely, yet their ineptness… Both had fallen almost immediately, beginning Ron, and then Hermione.

And Kaylens… Just for being near him, just for helping him, just as Ron and Hermione always had, she had nearly been killed.

'' I 'm of no dear to anyone. '' He realized somberly, vocalizing his thinking. `` Not to anyone. Not to Ron, not to Hermione, not to Seamus, not to… ''

'' What ? ``

Failing to catch this his insensible vocalizations of self-loathing continued, unheard to his own spike, yet perfectly realise to the girl besides him.

'' How dare you. ``

This time he heard her, her voice vibrating dangerously, his eyes instantly flying to her fierce formula.

Deep within her eyes something terrorisation was stirring.

'' How dare you say that, '' She breathed quietly, her left paw shaking ever so slightly.

This shaking was her lonesome signal of emotion, for her blunt smell was perhaps colder than her adopted expression.

'' In grammatical case you did n't card thrower, you are Worth something, '' She whispered in continuation. `` Because if it was n't for you your friend would receive never made it out of Hogsmeade, and not only that… ''

She stood abruptly, brushing her men on her jean furiously, glowering down with chilling loudness.

'' If it was n't for you I would be dead right now potter. But perhaps I do n't count. '' Her fervid oculus burned a searching track across him. `` Not to you at least. ``

Her last language were the moth-eaten of all, and the absence of her hand, no longer within the confines of his own, struck him in a way he was ill equipped to explain.

He had willfully pulled his mitt from hers in anger.

Scrambling to his metrical unit he closed the space between them, catching her around the arm before she could make it any boost. She struggled, her icy glower fixated furiously upon him, freezing him to the core, yet it did not stop him from pulling her to him and holding on.

He did not let go, wrapping his arms tightly around her form, stroking her hair until she stopped struggling.

'' I 'm sorry… '' He whispered constrictedly, `` I swear to God I 'm sorry… ''

She uttered not a sound, dropping her face against his shoulder joint, allowing his to bury within her fuzz. He only pulled her closer, fondness sinking through him as her helping hand burrowed beneath his robes, snaking around his midsection to hold him back.

'' I never meant for you to cogitate ... '' He swallowed, breathing deeply as he whispered into her hair. `` To call up I did n't care Kay… ''

'' Dam n't Potter… '' She interrupted harshly, her vox barely heard, muffled as it was against his robes. `` Is there anything you do n't blame yourself for ? ``

His throat vibrated oddly. `` Not really, '' He ground out, a hand raising to tangle within her tresses. `` Though with good reason… ''

Her form stiffened, his frontal bone falling against hers as her face swiveled to regard him. Instinctively his arms encircled her shivering form ever tighter, prepared to do anything to foreclose her from leaving.

Her glistening middle turned up, both wrath and assurance swimming contradictorily within them. `` Potter… '' She whispered, `` No in effect ground exists here. You did all you could. ''

'' Well… '' He murmured gratingly, `` It 's a matter of opinion… ''

A delicate cardiac murmur of disfavor came from behind her conclude lips, the changes upon her once impassive side startling. Unconsciously his heart fell shut, his hands moving across her back comfortingly. Slowly he breathed her in, clutching her by her perspirer, twisting it in the process as an browned off sigh escaped her lips.

Against his skin he felt her eyelash flickering shut, her warming palms sliding out from beneath his cloak, `` Potter… '' She whispered, rising her handwriting till they lay plane against his breast. `` Sometimes I really hate you. ``

Nodding against her skin, he inhaled deeply, their unresolved conflicts fading from his thinker. `` You 're in luck… '' He replied, whispering despite their solitude. `` Because the tactile sensation 's mutual. ``

'' I 'm sure… '' She murmured back, human face upturning as a blustery autumn wind sent her long tresses scattering haphazardly between them. His weapon pulled her in closer, the loose sides of his robe billowing out and enveloping them both.

For the foresighted metre they stood there, him shielding her from the darkness'icy claws, her shielding him from retroversion into the darkness of all he had been partly responsible for for. And for the thousandth metre since their way of life had first crossed, he found himself listening to her admonishments.

Predominant amongst them was his newly bestowed deed, a separate out smile crossing his face at the sentiment.

'' King of Idiocy… '' He murmured, a lonely hand sliding from where he cupped the book binding of her drumhead, falling to catch one's breath along her cheek. `` I ca n't believe you called me that. ``

The delicate finger's breadth lingering upon his chest curled, capturing the folds of his beer stained robes. `` From my point of position it 's fit. ``

A sad chortle caught in his throat. `` So I 've been told. ``

'' Mrmm… '' She murmured back. `` And I 'm sure it has sunk in as well as that froth you 're covered in. ''

He shook his head, his nuzzle tousling her hair further. `` Just remember… '' He growled quietly, `` I owe you. ``

'' Do you ? '' She asked, inclining her head to look questioningly upon him. `` And I thought it was I who owed you. ``

Despite his lack of joy, he found himself smiling. `` You do, I just owe you a swallow, and I do n't entail the sort in a methamphetamine. ``

Her eyes shone with understanding, `` You mean the variety overturned upon my head. ``

'' Just wait… '' He whispered, his lips falling upon her exposed earlobe. `` You 'll sit down in the Great Hall, and when you least suspect it… ''

'' Does it reckon that you deserved it ? ``

His throat vibrated lowly. `` And you do n't ? ``

'' Point taken. ``

'' You know… '' He mused aloud, `` You 're awfully agreeable tonight. ``

'' fountainhead I do n't fancy being strangled by you, '' She replied truthfully, eyeing him with amusement. `` Alone, at Night, in the Forbidden Forest… It 'd be quite easy for you to get rid of me. ``

His brow furrowed at her Logos, a scheming formulation befalling him as he pulled away to see her. `` We 're in the Forbidden woods ? ``

God he hoped he had misheard.
* * * * *


The doors of the entrance hall needed null to be thrown open, for in the havoc of parents coming and going, claiming their tiddler before fleeing, the looming entry remained passable to all.

genus Regulus lightlessness strode through it, robes billowing ominously in his wake, looking for all the world as if Hell itself could not discourage him from his mission.

Only those who looked him in the eye would see the incertitude that lay beneath the surface.

It was upon the main staircase that Dumbledore intercepted them, Tonks ushering Emily and a fully recovered Kenneth in front of her, due to their slightly drugged state.

Muggle repellant charms be damned, she had effect them through the Mrs. Humphrey Ward, for here they would be safe.

The door to Dumbledore 's office slammed shut on an umbrageous knocker, Regulus wasting not a moment.

'' He 's attacked everywhere has he not ? ``

Dumbledore crossed the room, quickly climbing a small ladder to retrieve a small soft-cover, leather-bound text. `` Of form. ``

Neither of the two men appeared queasy with the other 's presence. The imperturbable senior appearing entirely unsurprised by the younger 's sudden coming back to the support.

'' Then his programme remains the like as before. ''

'' Indeed… '' Dumbledore replied calmly, descending his pole. `` It 's a shame the Ministry did not hear to the warnings. ``

Tonks cast an askance glance the headmaster 's way, steadying Emily 's swaying form with a hired hand. `` You knew this was coming ? ``

'' I had my misgiving, '' Replied the Headmaster, squatting in social movement of young Emily, extending the text to her. The auburn haired small fry took it without a opinion.

'' My child… '' Dumbledore requested kindly, `` Would you do an old man the favor of reading a bit to him ? ``

Emily 's read/write head bobbed gently, opening the leather bounce playscript with machinelike gesture, and as she began to take, the clouded look disappeared from her and Kenneth 's eyes, as did their drugged states.

Ignoring Regulus'annoy growl, Dumbledore responded to Tonks questioning look. `` The alone way to allow Muggles to feel at ease within our grounds, short of removing the wards, is to read from this book. ``

Tonks merely nodded, while Kenneth blinked confusedly. Emily, however, had already spied a squishy looking arm president and wasted no time in making a bee line for it.

'' If you do n't mind, there is the small-scale topic of a Dark Lord to take care. '' The sneer genus Regulus used paled in comparison to his tone.

Dumbledore merely smiled and pointed Kenneth towards the same chair, where the President promptly passed out, his small daughter in his lap. It was only then that Dumbledore 's smiling exterior faltered, something far more serious flashing behind his half-moon spectacles.

Tonks remained silent, knowing wide well she would better serve everyone by listening, for she was in the iniquity about what was transpiring. She, an Auror, was out of her realm with the breakthrough of the multiple attacks throughout the UK, while Regulus merely grimaced, as if having long expected such an unpleasantry.

The finis remaining heritor of the blackness family gestured to the sleeping house. `` He 's come after the sept before ? ``

Both Tonks and Dumbledore nodded, while genus Regulus paced.

'' He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named may be a lot of things, but impulsive is n't one of them, '' Regulus said seriously. `` If he 's attacked them it 's not coincidence, it 's targeting. And I 'm leave to bet it has something to do with his design of obliteration. ``

Her mettle fluttered uneasily, `` eradication ? ``

Regulus paused mid-stride, `` Surely your Department of Education was not that bereft of grammar to bring home the bacon suitable excuse for your failure to realise such a brusque syllable give-and-take as eradication ? ``

Her dreary eyes narrowed in annoyance, her tongue held in verification only by the discipline born of old age under the oversight of Kingsley and Mad-Eye 's promiscuous wand.

Regulus'equally dark eyes left hers duly, his tempo resumed, `` At a time He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named desired merely the obliteration of Muggleborns alone. The cleansing of our world would have sufficed, for then he would be free to harness it. ``

Reaching the wall he did an abrupt about turn, continuing undiscouraged upon his straight path. `` His purview eventually changed and he came to desire the deaths of both Muggles and Muggleborns, and if his plans remain similar to the patch of before, the plot of land I failed to help in properly, than today marks the beginning of the pestis. ``

Tonks breathed deeply, `` There has n't been a pest of precedence here since… ''

'' The Great Plague of British capital in the seventeenth century. ``

All centre, including the drowsy Emily 's, turned to regard the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black. Though while Emily gently tugged at her dozing father 's sleeve, mumbling about the picture man in awe, Regulus glared in annoyance.

'' salute Grandfather, '' He greeted with considerable sarcasm. `` As always I am fortunate to have never been forced to suffer your deplorable, condescending presence in life. ``

Phineas ignored the insult, choosing to rectify genus Regulus by reminding him that he was his Great-Great-Grandfather, and as such demanded a greater degree of respect.

'' That irritable Edward Durell Stone doorknocker demands respect as well, but that does not imply we gift it to him. '' Quipped genus Regulus, his long finger's breadth creating a hollow melodic line along the shelving.

The Headmaster 's eye twinkled at the sound of Crusantheus'protestation from outside the door. `` Your presence has charmed everyone within earshot Regulus, I can only hope to garner such congratulations by the end of our coming together as well. I 'm beginning to palpate left out. ``

Simultaneously all of the portrayal, Tonks, the rapper, Fawkes, and a merman sculpture snorted.

Regulus and Phineas surveyed the elbow room with identically decisive expressions, glowering at those vulgar enough to snort in their civilized front.

'' I 've wasted too many years abroad to idly brook around and be chortled at. There is again, the matter of a dark Maker to attend to. ``

Tonks sobered immediately, her eyes fixating upon the child and man under her protection, the ones Regulus himself was responsible for saving when she had failed.

Her mouth formed the Holy Scripture, her emotionless clip telling of her distressfulness.

'' secernate me more of this plague, Regulus. ``

And that he did, revealing the on-key rationality for his defection from the social status of the Death eater.

'' Do you think of the coordinate attack in my juvenility schoolmaster ? ``

'' The I just before your disappearance ? ``

blackness nodded somberly, `` Yes, only on a little scale than the I of today I shall imagine. On that day I was to deliver a vial into the River Thames, spreading the plague throughout the entireness of Muggle London. '' The man 's vocalization betrayed not a hint of emotion as he confessed his deeds, his paw clasped neatly behind his back.

'' It was only natural, '' He continued, `` For He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to coordinate attacks upon wizarding villages, entrapping the wizarding family line within. The orders were to not kill nor harm the inhabitants unless absolutely necessary, and while the magical phratry were trapped he unleashed a while, a counter whammy if you will, one that would grant all those within the wards at the metre of its casting exemption from the plague. ``

'' Wait…was n't there a danger of the counter curse word failing ? '' Another portrait, one by the name of Dilys Derwent, inquired.

Her full cousin 's darkness limelight was suffice enough.

'' So why risk wiping out the wizarding universe of UK, his base, when there were early seat where he may sustain tested it ? '' Tonks asked, directing her full cousin 's dark gaze from the defenseless portrayal to herself.

Regulus dilute sassing went taunting, `` Nymphadora, you again underestimate him, assuming he places value in nonobjective concepts such as dear and home. '' His eyes narrowed considerably, `` He does not, and what better plaza to test an experimental vaccine if you will, then upon a populated island. ``

Dilys Derwent 's eyes widened, and Kenneth let out a jolting snore.

'' If the riposte curse proved ineffective than the lone wizarding communities lost would be those of the Britain '' Dumbledore said sadly, `` A fairish expiration to one such as Tom, considering his strongest resistance has always been in Britain. ``

Regulus nodded somberly, `` If it was ineffective, only a small fate of the public 's wizarding universe would be lost, yet million of Muggles would be gone with them. And since it was on an island, isolated from the main continent, the chances of it spreading to the other continents would be very slim indeed. ``

Dilys shook her head, `` Not with Muggle transportation. Now-a-days it could spread… ''

'' Quickly, '' Regulus supplied. `` There were plan to prevent this as well, to shut down major Muggle Department of Transportation networks until the experiment had run it 's course. However, what those plan were, I was not privy to. We were on a need to know footing. ``

Listening to the conversation Tonks stomach churned. The inhuman reckoning that must birth gone into an endeavor such as that… The realization that people, who harbored such minuscule regard for human spirit, existed was chilling.

Her parents news report of such black sentence were what had driven her to bring together the ranks of the Aurors in the first plaza, even if she herself harbored no personal storage of those days.

She had been only seven upon the ides of June, when the townspeople had been held during the day lit 60 minutes for reasons never discovered.

Regulus Black was now revealing the undisclosed reasoning behind the 24 end that had occurred that day. For his job had been to let loose the infestation that night, once the wizarding communities had been safely and effectively immunized.

The pestis had never been loose, for Regulus Black, the trustworthy son of a noble pureblooded family, had never shown. And now that same son was setting the vial, the same vial that he had kept for year in his monomania, upon the Headmaster 's desk.

'' Whatever it does, it was rumored to make the Bubonic Plague seem like the flu. ''

It would be the deadliest plague to befall the planet, and according to Regulus, the Sami pestilence would give been unleashed under similar circumstances.

Similar portion had occurred that very day, and Dumbledore was just informing them. Fawkes disappeared in a fiery pouf of pot, sent to muster Severus and the best of healers to began examining the devilishly contents of the vial.

With an ashen face Tonks took it all in, only one thought resonating within her head.

God help us.
* * * * *


'' Kaylens ? '' He questioned hesitantly, waiting for some response. Yet she only regarded him quizzically, nodding slowly in response to his doubt.

They were in the Forbidden forest, and her with her foolish naiveness had not thought once to observe it before now.

They were in the Forbidden Forest…

How in the hell could she own know that ?

His manifestation instinctively hardened, as did his helping hand upon her, for temporary isolation within a woodland was one thing, but isolation within the Forbidden Forest was an entirely different matter.

Eyes sweeping the forest 's menacing tree stock defensively, he remained unresponsive to her questioning center. His only chemical reaction was the slight loosening of his arms around her sort as he silently prayed their safety would hold out.

Unsatisfied, yet helpless to amend topic, his weapon fell to her waist, hands stiffening along her backbone. `` Kaylens… '' He whispered lowly, `` Why did you not think to observe this earlier ? ``

Her chest rose against his, her slow breath crystallizing on the cooling air.

'' What good would it have done ? '' She whispered back. `` It was n't worth mentioning. ''

Swallowing hard he regarded her through narrowing incision. `` Perhaps I 'm untimely, '' He said lowly, `` But when something concerns our safety I 'd consider it worth mentioning. ''

'' If I had told you before, what would you have done ? '' She whispered dryly. `` We 're in too deep to gamble change of location, especially in the darkness. ``

'' I like the dark. ``

'' So do arachnid. ``

His oculus narrowed further, `` How could you possibly know about them ? ``

Lifting her chin defiantly she met his gaze, `` Hagrid. ``

He nodded, voice heavily laced with sarcasm, `` And I 'm for certain he 's in the practice of telling all his bookman about Aragog. ``

Her manifestation defied his mental test, for her eyes told him she knew exactly of what he spoke as she shook her head. `` No, but I was like him ceramist. I ca n't do magic, just like he was forbidden to after his expulsion, so we had something in common… ''

Grinding his tooth to prevent an interpolation he listened warily.

'' The only thing that saved him was being able to forge with the animal of this forest Potter, did you love that ? ``

He shook his head disbelievingly, `` You ca n't function around them without a wand, it 's too severe. And unlike you he at to the lowest degree had his… ''

'' Umbrella ? '' She whispered shrewdly. `` No. Not at first of all. ''

'' And what does this have to do with you not telling me where we were before now ? ``

'' Everything, because when I first came here Hagrid showed me how the forest was divided into quadrants of each witching species'territory. ``

He inclined an eyebrow questioningly, encouraging her to continue.

'' This quadrant is rather near their nest. ``

His blood grew cold in retention of his hold out experience, hands tightening along her book binding further. `` You still should birth told me, '' He whispered.

She smiled sadly, `` Since when did I have to inform you of everything within my forefront ? ''

'' Since now. ``

She shrugged impassively, `` I 'm surprised you did n't lie with. It was your embrasure key that took us here, so I assumed you had known where it had taken us. ``

Exasperatedly his eyes fell shut, chest rising as he inhaled deeply, `` Did I just conceive of telling you Dumbledore made it ? Or did I not already relay that I had no clue that the vial was a porthole ke… ''

'' You told me that recently, '' She interjected. `` We were here in silence for hr. How was I to intuitively roll in the hay that you were unaware of our fix before then ? ``

'' You should ingest said something the second I told you I had zilch to do with the interface key Kayle ... ''

'' Considering that you were in mid-apology I 'm going to disaccord, '' She whispered, leveling her gaze to his. `` It 's not often that one sees the enceinte potter apologize about anything and I was n't about to break that. ``

His hands dropped at her words, for the conversation had turned in a strikingly different direction. She merely took a step back, regarding him from a safe distance with masked eyes.

'' It 's the true statement ceramicist. It did n't even occur to me that you were clueless about where we were until a indorsement ago. Before I was busy being concerned that you were actually capable of showing some semblance of human emotion…. '' Her eyes narrowed, tones drowned in sarcasm. `` Asides from anger or suspicion that is. ``

With that she dropped down to the ground, becoming utterly fascinated by the swaying beating-reed instrument as he was left with naught but her back to regard.

This was not how it was supposed to be. She was the one who 's emotions were constantly masked. She was the inhuman one, not him.

By the time he was done telling her that, in not quite succinct sentence, he was reasonably sure that her expression would rat uncongenial intent towards him.

Though as he moved to stand besides her kneeling form, suddenly the escalation of their argumentation seemed ugly as he glimpsed her torn expression. Turning away from him, the back of her radiocarpal joint began wiping at her eyes.

It was a long metre before either again radius, the only auditory sensation the ululation of the wind between the woods 's tree.

'' Kaylens I… ''

'' No… '' She whispered, `` Do n't chafe. Just agnize that some us do not possess the luxury to leave behind our feelings unmasked. ``

Only one word came to heed, and he spoke it, unable to phrase in any early way his dubiousness as to why she had until this very day refused to show any semblance of her straight self to him.

'' Why ? ``

Her head bowed low, the end of her long tress dangling loosely in the riffle pee. Finally, a small stint of timeless existence passing, she again spoke.

'' If you had the choice between keeping the great unwashed safe, or putting upright citizenry at risk, what would you do ? ``

Her language were chilling, and he found himself standing still, frozen in that moment, heart thudding meretricious than it ought. Never before had someone uttered the parole, or given voice to the question that so oft haunted him.

Not in the way she just had.

She turned on the wet smoke, her slick magazine orbs rising in a determined way, betraying all the bother she had until now kept so carefully hidden.

'' How can you let yourself care for others, when it could destroy them ? ``
* * * * *


Dean felt empty as he numbly shoved past the Fat Lady 's portrait. Whether the password had fallen from his rim or not was something he would never roll in the hay, and something the Fat Lady would keep to herself.

'' Neville. ``

He addressed his dorm better half in a drone, unable to face the boy in the eye, even as Neville smiled sadly, hauling his trunk down the stairs.

It was well after midnight, the bulk of the students already gone, taken away by their families. Those remaining till the next break of day, or indefinitely, as doyen was planning, would already be in their dormitories.

Save for Neville, who 's Hans C. J. Gram had just arrived to carry him home.

Neville shook his head sadly, `` It is n't decently. I should n't entrust like this. ``

doyen shrugged, walking past him up the flight of steps. `` Then do n't. ``

The other boy paused in his tracks, turning and nearly losing his trunk in the process. `` It 's not that simpleton. ``

doyen sighed resignedly, `` It is Neville. Just contract a stand for once. Do n't support down. '' Like I did…

Neville 's face furrowed anxiously, `` And what happens if she does n't let me ? ''

'' We are at war Mr. Norman Thomas, and soon you will be forced to take a side ! ``

A strong hand stretched out to breathe against the moth-eaten endocarp rampart of the tugboat, and Dean steadied himself from the attack of sorry memories.

'' dean what if she tries to get to me ? ``

'' Make your choice ! ``

His verbal expression hardened, hand leaving the wall as he turned to see his anxious looking dorm partner, whose neck was craned high-pitched to see where he stood higher up upon the stairs.

'' Neville… '' He said seriously, his abstruse vocalization echoing upon the empty walls of the tower. `` No one can make you do anything. Not unless you are too infirm to stand up for what you want, '' His optic narrowed dangerously. `` Or for what you think is right. ''

Swiftly he strode down, taking the stairs two at a time until he was again level with the nervous looking boy.

'' No one can force you to do anything, '' James Dean imparted, his saturnine heart squaring off with Neville 's. `` Not McGonagall. Not Snape. '' His continued, his own internal angriness growing. `` Not even Voldemort himself. ''

Leaning in Dean let his wickedness stare drill into Neville 's light one. `` And especially not your nan, '' He whispered fiercely. `` No one can pull you to do something you do not already require to do. So if you think staying here is the the right way thing, then you better do it, lest you regret it later on. ``

Neville Longbottom looked at him as if he had never before seen him, and gulped apprehensively, for in Dean 's normally congenial eyes there was no pity.

'' There 's nothing worse than looking back and wishing you had done something differently. '' doyen imparted intensely, straightening as a tabby cat bounded down from the young woman 's dormitory room. `` And I would consider that someone who could present down Death eater, defending himself the way you did back in Hogsmeade, would not be one for backing down. ``

With a last glance at the cat doyen trudged up the flight, hell bent on retrieving Ronald Weasley 's affair. How in the Hades he was to get Ginny 's was another thing entirely, but the only thing he really knew, or cared about at that moment, was the satisfactory sound of Neville 's torso dropping to get abandoned on the stairs.

Later, when Dean came out of the dormitory, he would be greeted with an empty common room, Neville 's unrelenting call of being needed at Hogwarts filling the halls.
* * * * *


interior Harry felt something breakage, for Kalliandra 's Son were hitting closer to household than she could ever realize, for what had haunted him had haunted her.

oceanic abyss in the forest, the impenetrable quiet was again tattered by her cheerless voice.

'' Once someone aid for you, and I mean truly upkeep potter, no amount of resistance will be capable to push them away. '' Her haunting word fell to the stonyhearted priming, her font once again lowered. `` Once you let someone in there really is no going back, and doing that… ''

She paused, Harry 's heart wrenching at the recognition befalling him.

'' It 's something I can not do. '' She finally whispered, heart again falling upon the gloomy waters.

In that mo, the twist stirring the grass around his invertebrate foot, he realized how abysmally stupid he had been. Kalliandra 's dustup had never rang truer. And though he felt as if he were missing some integral pointedness, for how the words applied to her he knew not, he did know how they applied to him.

Ron and Hermione would never leave his position, not ever.

A foresighted clip ago they had said there had been a point where they could turn back, and they had not.

Harry Potter suddenly realized when that present moment had been, for both of them.

'' I think I can estimate the wrong sort for myself thanks. ``

Ron 's face had glowed with acceptance.

'' It was my idea Professor. I went looking for the troll. I had read about them and thought I could cover it. If Harry and Ron had not come when they did, I 'd probably be suddenly. ``

A sad grinning tugged at his heart, for Hermione Granger, knowing them as nothing other than cruel taunting boy, had broken every moral she had that Halloween night.

And she had done it for them.

The decimal point where he could protect his friends had recollective since passed. The clock time where they could have been kept safe was over, and if he truly wanted them to survive their best hazard would be together, not apart.

He had been a mark to think otherwise.

middle blinking rapidly, he regarded the girl who had brought this to light, torn between whether to swim her or bosom her. Though all he could add himself to do was quietly watch, paralyzed by the sheer thought process of speaking when he was only just realizing how lilliputian he understood about her.

In that bit he was struck by the intense pain he had failed to before notice. Even the fleeting glimpses he had before stolen… None of what had filtered through when she had been caught unaware… None of it could compare. Not to the sadness flitting through in every pained crease of her brow, in every shaky intimation indrawn, and in every halting motion.

The rather plain, disheveled girl before him, the one capable of holding so much in, was suddenly strikingly beautiful.

In a moment of indecisiveness he crossed to her. Gone was the stumbling boy who had once been unable to enounce a coherent thought around saddened females. Now, in the face of necessity, drawn together by circumstance, he found that his vexation suddenly lay with the just person he held the power to help.

Kaylens.

Laying a script upon her shoulder, the realization that her cloak was gone struck him. Once he had removed it, accessing her breast in the bowling alley, he had never re-fastened the clasp.

It had been left behind, and in the rapidly chilling air she had let slip not one complaint.

Despite the rigidification of her articulatio humeri beneath his throbbing ribbon, he knelt down, one arm snaking it 's way around her shaking human body. Goosebumps were rising across her neck opening where her tresses had been swept aside, her skin far too cool for his liking.

Lowering his mouth to her ear his breath traced along her skin, his chin falling to rest on her shoulder as he spoke.

'' You 're unregenerate, missing your cloak, and did not conceive to say a word, '' He whispered, pulling her against him, trapping her arms against her chest with his own. `` And….you look like hell, and I do not picture having you not only scratchy but spew. ``

'' Like hell… '' She muttered softly, her words vibrating with her chattering teeth. Casting his middle to the body of water he could see her manifestation, and distracted grammatical construction. `` You should see yourself. ``

'' I 'll let you make happy in that overrefinement alone, '' He responded softly, the chilling breeze sweeping the mist aside once again, revealing the sliver of moon residing there that All Hallows Eve.

Her Light Within strands tickled his case, his eyes falling shut as he reveled in the unknown aesthesis, only opening as he felt her act to involve him.

Before she could talk his deal rose, silencing her.

'' Thank you, '' He whispered, watching the anger fade from her optic. Now only confusion, mingled with mild surprise, swirled within her igneous globe. The seam of her brow was question enough, and he shook his head, mumbling how it was intemperate to explain, for how could he impart the realization her individual judgment of conviction had brought.

Unable to do so, he tightened his weapon system around her, pulling her to her feet before releasing her. Shrugging out of his cloak he spread it before them upon the cold earth, earning a puzzled look from where she stood, her own arms now wrapped tightly around herself.

Her lips parted slightly, though her protestation fell tacit, for a buddy-buddy woolen blanket now lay where his cloak had been a mo before.

Pocketing his wand he nodded satisfactorily. `` Transfiguration, '' He offered by way of explanation, wrapping it around her shoulders, his hands lingering there. `` If we remain here, we 'll be safe ? ''

Haltingly she nodded, a gold braid falling loose from behind her ear, swinging freely in the lighting breeze that cast it across her face, her nose crinkling ever so slightly as the twist tickled her nose.

His hand rising to brush it aside, he watched her middle turn to the forest, studying it with a barely concealed hungriness.

'' We 're welcome here, '' She whispered softly, `` For now at least. ``

And against every ingrained instinct, he trusted her unquestioningly.

'' Then here we 'll stay. ``

Sliding his hand down her arms, taking her hands in his, he led her away from the water system and towards a large oak with a comfortable looking trunk.

Within moment a sonant, smoke-free fire burned before them, his book binding to the oak and her resting comfortably against his chest, his coat of arms encircling her tightly as she pulled the woolen blanket to her chin, covering them both.

Beneath the wool fabric, where no centre save theirs could see, two hands intertwined around a golden chain, a humble vial carefully clutched between their palms, just in case.



A/N : well-chosen Belated Holidays everyone ! And thanks to IchigoPan for the pin-up opening image. : )

Also, par reader request I shall post in the recommend subdivision whether or not a narrative is complete, and the number of chapters show upon recommendation.

Recommended tale :

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They say that when life throws you for a cringle, you have to get back in the saddle and sustain going. Twelve years ago, Hermione Granger lost her fiancé and her topper Quaker in one instant. Can a new extraneous professor assist her get back in the saddle ? With a antic blend of activity and humor, follow the Stetson wearing away, spurred the boot donning, southerly drawled professor Stone in his quest to drive his rather pretentious colleague, Professor husbandman, 'up the paries .'Only one phrase can sum up this story. `` Giddy-up. '' Hermione Granger/OC

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With no liaison from the wizarding world, Harry is forced to infer at what has been occurring, until Luna Lovegood makes impinging. Together they seek out the monastic order at Grimmauld Place, discovering just how far the war has gone. Battling through the trap they unwittingly entered, they return to the ruined Hogwarts, seeking refuge with those who have fled to the once regal walls for safety, and spearhead the reformation of Dumbledore 's Army ( considered insurrectionist with a campaign ). But can this group of teen play a existent purpose in Voldemort 's defeat amidst the betrayal of those once thought loyal ? HP/LL A completed subsequence is also posted.








'' freedom is what you do with what 's been done to you. ''
~ Jean-Paul Sartre ~




Chapter 25 ~ condemnation by alternative


Some would believe that they had been condemned by fate, others that they had been condemned by alternative. In the long run, those who believe that freedom can only be found by the choices one makes with what they have been given, are cheeseparing than either extreme.

Those who had cared for the perfectly and dying during the Bubonic infestation, risking exposure so that others could be spared, made the considerably choice they could with the dire circumstances spirit had dealt them. And though Sir Thomas More than three one C had passed since anything of interchangeable dimension had struck civilized club, chronicle would soon repeat itself.

Bathed in the inky hues of shadow, upon the shore of the River Liffey, a man with a fishing pole smiled into the moonlit sky. The pelting had long since let up, and he basked in the early dawn 's fragrant smell, enjoying the sprayer of the river splashing against the shoreline.

He would soon be the first off to yield to the universe 's bang-up plague.

He did not get laid this, not that early morning as he sat upon the dewy grass, eagerly anticipating the morning sunrise he had awoken so early to see. He could not foresee this anymore than he could foresee that his wife and three children would be the next to knuckle under, leaving their once vibrant home devoid of laughter, lovemaking, and life.

They would all be drained within seventy-two hours.
* * * * *


Neville .... Dean ....

Beneath a thick, dark caul of russet toned strands, two dark eyes fluttered blurrily. The visual center field of her mastermind were not cook to meet the sign traveling across her opthalmic cheek. The hurting sign were still far too overwhelming.

Despite this the girl 's optic fluttered open, peering into her new hell.

A fuzzy, rectangular scheme, the color of a finely aged manuscript 's pages ... it rested besides where she lay, her body feeling unnaturally solid upon the liquid satin bed sheet. Somehow she was left with the lurking sensation that everything should not be quite right ... ..with what though ... .for certainly her skull was whole.

The miss 's smart as a whip head felt somehow ... violated. As if someone had been poking about within it, without her express license.

As if person had been searching through her most care for memoirs ...

Again the figure came to her, hitting her with the force of a heavily muscled serpentine tail.

Her pleasant delusion born of sleep were shattered, her backtalk parting with an indrawn gasp as the foreign, fuzzy room fell into focusing, as did the womanhood resting within the high backed president, legs elegantly crossed, a cruel, taunting expression stretched taunt across her sass. And like a predator stalking its fair game, the woman 's eyes were purposeful, victorious, and locked upon her own.

Somewhere in her recovering mind the girl realized that the woman was intent on stealing her innermost secrets, and what better moment to do so than within one 's waking moments, when their defense force were the lowest.

Voldemort'social station were savage and calculating, containing superior tacticians whom she both admired and loathed with every fiber of her being. Yet despite this appreciation, she would die before allowing them in.

Silently she swore this, and in the dimmed room the girl did the only thing she knew how to.

She fought.

As the womanhood 's arrogant laughter filled the way, for the fille was no match for the cleaning woman 's preparation, a essential mistake was made, for in that one bit of underestimation the Mudblood was able to labor back, catching wad of what the woman was really after.

lord Voldemort was in the elbow room, unseen to the lady friend 's eyes, and the girl suddenly understood that she was the hook that was to tempt in the true up prey.

Hermione Granger began screaming for her beneficial friend to stop out everything Voldemort showed him.

A cruel Light cut through the air, and as the girl fell defenseless to the Cruiciatious curse, passing into another pain induced slumber, Harry ceramist tossed violently within his own.
* * * * *


'' Sit ! ``

The small-scale of her book binding hit the backboard of the chair, painfully.

Yet that was zilch in comparison to what she would do to Regulus. Over the past tense few hours, where they had been all but forced to remain hole up in Dumbledore 's office, her sentiment of genus Regulus had done a fill in 180, followed by a 360. And now he had been assumptive enough to physically storm her away from the doorway, which she had been using in an attempt to vacate the premises.

She felt needed elsewhere.

She snapped her wand out, aiming at her infuriating cousin with every aim of ordering him to bear aside, when Dumbledore 's voice thundered loudly, its ancient baritones echoing throughout the tower.

'' Enough ! ``

Breathing heavily, her dreary eyes fixated furiously upon Regulus'complacent manifestation, her voice addressed the master. Unsurprisingly her feeling were lupus erythematosus than pleased at the data she had just gleaned from their spontaneously meeting.

It had been the ground for her flunk attempts to leave.

'' Explain ... '' She spoke LE than warily, `` How you can justify refusing to allow me, an Auror in showcase you forgot, to recover Harry when you have just admitted that you know where he is ? I can be trusted to find him ! '' Regulus scoffed loudly at this, receiving a swift charge in his unprotected shin.

Ignoring his grimace and failed endeavor at self-respect she continued adamantly. `` Headmaster ... one student has already been killed, and if Harry is out there alone he ... ''

'' He is not alone. ``

She closed her eyes, drawing an vex hint between her tooth. `` Oh ? ''

Dumbledore seemed vaguely amused by her reaction. `` Of path not. He is with another student. ``

Tonks blinked, flabbergasted. Suddenly she was having a very hard time separating her sworn oath as an Auror to do all she could to protect the innocent, with her oath to the society to trust its membership and its founder. Particularly when that same father had just finished informing her that he had known the localization of three of the missing students all along, yet had failed to inform the Ministry officials and Order member scouring Hogsmeade of that apparently miniscule fact.

'' A scholarly person ... and who would that happen to be ? '' She muttered, choosing to put it simply.

Dumbledore removed his spectacles, polishing them gently. `` Kalliandra Kaylens. ``

Her eyes widened in hope that she had misheard. `` That girl Remus has been tutoring ? '' She nearly shouted. `` She 's practically a Muggle ! ``

Dumbledore cast a peculiar glance her way. `` Sometimes you may be surprised at what non-magical multitude are capable of. ``

genus Regulus sneered, `` Oh yes ... I 'm certain they are naturals at evading the Unforgivables of the Dark master 's servants. ``

'' Of track you 'd hump all about that would n't you Reggie ? '' Tonks snapped hotly, ignoring the disapproving center of the Headmaster as she turned her hot peevishness directly on him.

'' What in the name of Merlin are you thinking Headmaster ? '' She questioned shrilly. `` You 've allowed one-half of the Order to think that Harry is missing yet separate the ex-Death Eater on the spot the second everyone is out of earsho ... ''

'' I 'm in earshot ! ``

'' Shut up !'Tonks and genus Regulus shouted simultaneously as Regulus practically flew across the room, giving the already close down threshold a good boot. Crusantheus, the threshold depreciator, could be heard swearing violently on the other side.

'' Tonks ... '' Dumbledore said, sounding slightly amused, `` I have my reasons for doing things. ''

Regulus'eyebrow arched so high Tonks swore he must have stolen Snape 's patented flavour of smugness.

'' Allow me to venture a bet ... '' Regulus interjected snidely, looking pointedly at her. `` But I am guessing that Dumbledore does not rely everyone in this little raspberry society you have both spoken so adamantly about tonight. ``

It was ludicrous, yet she knew her cousin-german 's breaker point held a note of truth.

'' Is n't it a shame, Nymphadora ... '' genus Regulus continued, pacing in presence of her seated flesh, `` When you can not even trust your associate bird watchers with the whereabouts of the sister chicks ? ''

She scowled, forcing herself to look away from his facial expression of superiority. Instead she observed what Dumbledore was doing, watching as the quills finished penning upon each curl, then rolling themselves in succession, the ink already fading upon each.

It was a john of the Order, used only in clip where the utmost of security was needed, for only those bearing the mark of the phoenix would be able to see the truth printed upon those scrolls.

The use of it disturbed her greatly, for why would Dumbledore motive peril penning instructions when he could inform each recipient verbally via flow ?

'' Headmaster ... '' She said warily. `` Please let me retrieve Harry. As an Auror you have to interpret that I can not stand aside and appropriate Harry and Kalliandra to be put in danger. '' She stood, ignoring genus Regulus'attempt to block her track, and strode straight to the window overlooking the palace grounds. Dumbledore stood besides this Lapplander window, an odd look deepening his already lined features.

'' Headmaster ... '' She said, eyes shining with urging. `` You know well than anyone what form of the great unwashed are after Harry. Just evidence me where he is at, because wherever he is he could get .... ''

'' Killed ? '' Dumbledore supplied, tearing his eyes from the colored scenery. `` Tonks, I understand your worry. Yet if we never allow Harry to pull through on his own how can we expect him to survive this war ? ``

She frowned, her silence his solution.

The Headmaster nodded solemnly. `` The time when we could protect the children from the horrors of war has long since passed. Now all we can do is hope that we have prepared them well enough. ``

Tonks sighed sadly, watching as the quills began inscribing the names of the speech upon the rolled papyrus curlicue. Harry 's name was amongst them, but not Remus.

Turning to Dumbledore she questioned him with her eyes. `` What if we have n't ? ``

A comforting hand touched her shoulder, Dumbledore 's twinkling eye again holding a sense of hope.

'' If I 'm not mistaken, I do believe you were always a strong advocate of giving at least Harry more exemption. If you had not believed him, a student, set up, would you really have suggested that ? ``

Swallowing she nodded, glancing towards where Kenneth and Emily slumbered, a tacky snore from Kenneth the sudden attraction of her attention.

Dumbledore chuckled. `` Perhaps we ought to move them to my private fourth. I dare say they could possibly be more well-fixed there. ``

She nodded vaguely, and within hour was levitating the Irish whiskey chairman in a very undignified way, his blazon and branch hanging slack as he sleep danced through the highly arched doorcase, leaving the role of the Headmaster and entering Dumbledore 's private study.

Regulus followed behind, Emily in his weapons system, and the most queer face upon his face. He rather looked as if he had drunk acidity milk containing the elixir of animation. Regardless the expression vanished as he placed her upon the couch besides her founder, a looking of relief overtaking him as he rid himself of the seven year old burden.

'' Nympahdora ? ``

Her hands froze upon the wool blanket, the one she had been draping across her charges sleeping soma, for Dumbledore 's voice was no longer right behind her.

Trepidation shook her.

Turning, as if in wearisome motion, her nous recognized that except for her sleeping charges, that she was now alone in the elbow room.

Both her cousin-german and the Headmaster stood just beyond the way 's limen, a tone of resigned gravity upon their faces.

'' I am sorry Nymphadora .... '' Dumbledore 's phonation floated through the room access eerily. `` But there is something I must do, and I have a feeling that genus Regulus may be the only when one will to support witness without protestation. ''

What rite ?

The field 's finely carved room access began swinging shut.

She bolted for them, not knowing why, yet knowing there was no clock time. Her human foot flew across the floor, her eyes catching vision of the papyrus roll clutched within Dumbledore 's aging hand, its addressee forever burning into the young Auror 's mind.

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

It was only then that it finally dawned on her ... what Dumbledore intended to do. And as she tripped, falling monotonous upon the floor, her eyes upturned, straining for a sight of the ceiling within the Headmaster 's office.

Upon the tower 's cone-shaped roof were the ancient Book of ability, and they were the last sight she had before the subject field door slammed shut with a resonating finality.

prevarication stunned upon the floor her mentation faltered, for upon the parchment spring for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named an antediluvian expletive was surely inscribed. Dumbledore 's wizardly signature was the one responsible for for writing it beneath the structure of power, and thus she knew that Dumbledore had sworn to gather with the most dire of villain to begin the negotiations for the surviving student of his.

Hermione Granger.

Beneath the door a fiery tendril could be seen.

The blood bound ritual had begun ...
* * * * *


In the thick of night lightning flashed.

fantasm were streaking across the ground, illuminating the iniquity abyss surrounding those who slumbered far from the oncoming storm. There, deep beneath the darkened boughs of nighttime, dreams both haunting and beseeching plagued the girlfriend 's dispirited turnings within the subdivision of Morpheus.

Yet something far more solid than the purveyor of dreams clung to the girl, smoothing away the horripilation rising upon her cold skin, for even as the man she leant against dreamt his hope to safeguard was being unconsciously kept.

In his arms the girl failed to listen the oncoming storm, only awakening from her chill slumber as the calloused hands around her tightened, the man 's firm breathing falling and rising erratically, for REM was suddenly failing to suppress his voluntary sinewy systems.

Something had changed ...

Kally was flung to the ground with a starting, her body hitting the dew kissed grease with forceful vividness.

cough, there upon the ground, she scrambled away, rolling and slipping as the sky thundered, the first droplet of the icy outpouring catching her in the face. Reflex Born of one cruel monster 's sadism, and a life of paranoia, sent her scattering from her guardian on instinct.

Sliding upon the dew kissed soil, scrambling to her feet, blinking back the dregs of slumber and the dark of dark, her mind finally processing what was occurring she ceased to act. Standing there with the wind whipping bitterly around her, the rising air 's chill seeping through her short wear, she laid eyes upon her unwilling assailant.

Potter ...

The nous numbing confusion that befell her, the kind that always seemed to accompany his bearing, returned as she watched him. His brilliantly eyes closed against the brewing storm, his face contorted, and even from where she stood she could see the frenzied peaks and valleys his heaving breast made.

It was happening again, the thing she had merely glimpsed that dark in the mutual way, falling victim to it within the torch-lit corridors ...

Without rational persuasion she ran to him, the one she barely knew, who had foolishly saved her life history on more occasion than she cared to count. Dropping besides him, her knees sinking into the dampen mud, she felt her fingers stall, uncertainty gripping her chilled form.

Something was imperfectly ... this maven ... the precariousness ... .it was foreign and fleeting ...

Though spirit 's cruelties had once taught her the daimon of inaction.

Forcing herself, leave herself to act, she gripped his shoulders, calling his public figure as loudly as she dared. In the acceleration breeze the mantle that had sheltered them billowed out, tumbling with the wind to lay sprawled across the wet ground.

'' Pott-tter ... '' The chill crept into her spokesperson, the wind stealing her words for its own cagey determination. Slowly she watched, nearly feeling his sass moving in a dumb dialogue to which she was not privy.

Beneath her finger's breadth she felt the growing rigidness of his shoulder, a terrifying intensity radiating from him as the rain began to fall in deep inundation, rainwater splattering upon his sweat dampened brow.

When the life story giving water reached his unsightly scar, a sizzling rose into the air.

Lightning criss-crossed the night.

One-one thou ...

Gingerly her fingertips traced his forehead, brushing along his matted pilus. Before the searing virtuoso within her build even registered her hand was recoiling, a repressed cry of pain caught within her throat.

In the dark she could not see her flushed fingertips, but she knew the burns to be there.

Two-one G ...

articulation constricted, from what she knew not, for cypher in the charming mankind could now surprised her, she screamed at him. Foolishly she screamed, roaring in a contest to develop above the wind as she gripped his shoulder, shaking his already vibrating form.

His cristal 's Malus pumila rose and fell, as if he too were screaming to be heard by one incapable of doing so.

Three one-thousand ...

'' Potter ... '' She questioned, knowing her voice would not achieve him. `` What 's happening to you ? ''

Four-one thousa ...

Thunder shook the sky, a carnal howl carrying upon the twist from a aloofness far too close. Her narrowed eyes flew to the forest, ill-equipped as they were to reveal its hidden dangers.

God Remus ... where are you .... He would be able to see, to penetrate the night 's veil.

Unconsciously, as her ill fated thoughts plagued her, her fingers coiled around Harry 's shoulder joint, relishing the odd protection his proximity brought in the brass of the unknown.

Teeth chattering she began a unsounded mantra.

'' One-one thousand ... ''

Within her ears the steady rhythm method of birth control of her center pounded achingly flash, and further howl cutting upon the gust of the growing onslaught sent a stream running through her chilled veins.

'' Two-one thousa ... ''

Again the sky split surface, rumbling as if hell itself were fighting to die through, and as if in some savage unison with the sky nuisance erupted around her slender, discase arm.

Tight digit now clenched callously around her radiocarpal joint, her loose script slipping from Harry 's berm, clutching at his fingers, prying them away from the crushing military unit of his solid hands.

In the eerie luminousness of the tempest she struggled with him, his sleeping figure of speech writhing against her as if he were a man watching, silently reliving, the drubbing of all he held dear.

She too had learnt the accuracy of such repugnance far too Pres Young ....

A strangled sound resounded within his throat, her own constricting at the pained creases lining his sweat soaked brow.

'' Damn you Potter ... '' She implored breathlessly, feeling his level grip tightening further. `` Come back ... ''

Thunder clapped across the heroic sky, her breathing spell coming out in ever absolved cloud. `` You 're unsufferable ... '' She gasped through clenched, chattering tooth. `` ceramist please ... this hurts so much ... ''

Somehow, despite the howl of the wind, her panicked supplication broke through, reaching the God of Sleep, for Morpheus released his frailty grip upon the King of amentia 's psyche.

In a minute, in one suddenly, shrewd spasm, she was yanked against him, thrown across his legs as he jerked awake.

Frightened and cutting outwear eyes flew open, staring through the frigid rain at her, not fully seeing ...

Yet pain and ignominy swelled within them.

Coughing, breathing heavily from her exertion and up puffiness of fear for he alone, her words came unbidden.

'' What happened ? ``

Blinking the weewee from his eyes, his glasses long since flung to the ground, he swallowed painfully, his voice coming out in hoarse rasps.

'' Kaylens ... '' He rasped, `` He 's got her. ``

'' Of course ... '' She murmured sardonically. `` Yes ... that explains everything ... ''

With measured crusade she slowly removed herself from where she lay upon his saturated legs, collapsing onto the muddied ground besides him. The thickening mud rose around her, threatening to overpower her uncaring physical body.

'' potter .... '' She finally whispered, allowing her eyes to flicker shut. `` What just happene ... ''

'' Do n't make me lie to you. '' He whispered brokenly. `` I wo n't. I ca n't. ``

Somehow, as she felt his manakin moving to shield her from the elements, she managed a reply.

'' Harry ... '' She murmured incredulously, `` Then recount me. Who has who ? ``

Her center flickered open, and the sharp jade in the domain locked onto her own.

'' Voldemort has Hermione. ``
* * * * *


Remus staggered from the bowels of the Forbidden wood. From where he had been drug, and left.

'' You 're Service are no longer required descent double-crosser. Our Lord shall summons you when our services are again ... .needed. ``

Lucius'words were chilling. Though not nearly as a lot as his deeds this night.

He remembered everything ...

Even now the stemma lust taunted him, alluring him with its putrid aroma rising from his shattered clothing.

Ron 's blood ...

Before him loomed Hogwarts School of witchery and Wizardy, his sluggish gait leading him past the ragged looking Ministry official.

He was just another offend bystander to them, and was paid no heed.

On the solid ground a dusty creme tent flapped in the violent wind, Mediwizards roaming around the opening move in the canvas. Within its lighted Interior he glimpsed haggard parents lining up with their fry, old bag in tow, as they waited for Ministry channelise away from the scene of today 's criminal offence.

No one would chance a walk to Hogsmeade, not now, not even with Ministry protection.

With staggering steps Remus made his way to the castling. He had a report to take a crap, and a sin to beg self-abasement for.
* * * * *


The certainty swimming within his eyes was astounding. Even in the dark of night, as he hovered above her prostate human body, she recognized that.

Her lips parted, a silent inquiry unspoken as his garbled assumption settled in, for how could one bang the whereabouts of one they could not see ?

They could n't. He could n't. And yet ...

She believed him.

In the past he had been unkind and cruel, confused and brash, and yet he had never given her a reason to doubt nor mistrust him.

Everything that had passed between them before had been the collateral answer of her own secrecy, of her own perpetuated Trygve Halvden Lie, of her own sinfulness ...

He had been right to call her a expiry eater. Though she had not know of the statute title, she was as good as one.

wink the rain from her middle she took a chance.

Her first chance.

'' So ... what do we do ? '' She asked.

His secretiveness was palpable. The cracking of breaking boughs in the forest, their tumultuous descents to the forest base, and their final soggy smack against it were all she heard above the wind.

His jaw remained slack.

'' ceramist ? '' She whispered, knowing he now read her back talk, for her lenient answer was inaudible.

His wet fuzz swayed as his head was shaken, slinging water upon her as his waterlogged hand curled around her arm. `` You believe me. ''

It was a argument. Not a question.

Shivering, the bone deep shudder taking over, she nodded. `` S-shocking, I k-know. ``

His solemn regard studied her, eyes moving to where his hand lay. A dumbfound expression broke his quiet.

'' Did I hurt you ? ``

His tone carried a banknote of self disgust, yet the corners of her mouth tugged gently upwards at his concern.

'' C-could n't if you t-tried, '' She stammered.

A holler chortle escaped his throat, his handwriting rising along her arm, smoothing away the gooseflesh rising upon it. `` Good ... '' He responded. `` Because we have to forget. ``

Her face scrunched up, her blue-tinged lips no longer felt by her.

'' How ? ``

Grasping her with both bridge player he assisted in up-righting her, rubbing her arms vigorously. `` We walk ... '' He whispered, `` Run if necessity, and hope that nothing eats us. ``

As if on cue, from the profundity of the forest 's shadows, a wolf emerged.

Her shaky breathing immobilize Potter 's workforce upon her, his intuition alerting him of what she already knew.

'' Run ... ''
* * * * *


He wanted to lie to himself, to tell himself that he had not committed the deeds that he had.

The truth persisted.

Remus'base unconsciously moved down the corridor, piss dripping in his backwash upon the endocarp floor. He had not reported into Dumbledore. He had not alerted the Order of his return.

There was something he had to do first.

Remus pushed open the hospital wing doorway, leaving a muddy imprint where his hand had resided.

secretiveness greeted him within the candlelit infirmary, the only respite the sound of distant roar as the storm rolled south, away from Hogwarts'flat coat. At the wing 's far end three curtained off expanse hung stagnant in the stuffy atmosphere, yet the perfume of rain lingered within his nostrils.

And origin ...

It did n't take the inner eye to know that his victim lay nearby.

His echoing footstep led him to the first base sectioned area, where he found what he was looking for.

Ronald Weasley sat vertical, gazing out the window upon the sliver of quarter lunar month peeking through the storm clouds.

Remus'tum twisted rebelliously as a interpreter broke the silence.

'' You want to talk ? ``

Remus remained block to the dapple, nodding as he felt the verdict of an elusive execution trial being handed down.

Remus was certain that they had already told the Weasley 's youngest son his portion, and by now the variety would have already begun, affecting his good sense ... his odour ...

His presence would confirm what the Edward Young Gryffindor most likely already suspected. Ron would now know the one responsible for condemning him.

turning on the surgically uninfected Patrick Victor Martindale White tile, Remus dimly remembered the reason for why the endocarp flooring had been overlain with the Muggle alternative, for even a potent round of scourgifying turn were not enough to remove the stain of blood from ancient stone. The by war had brought far too a lot of that within Hogwarts bulwark, and tile was much gentle to scavenge.

Fleetingly, Remus wondered if his own blood were about to again, be removed from it.

His eyes rose shamefully to the boy he had cursed, his pride forcing himself to not look away as he awaited whatever hateful words were trusted to come in, for he was surely deserving of them.

Though none did.

'' Ronald ... '' His voice came out thick and gravely, articulateness abandoning him. `` Whatever you ask ... This is the second gear time I 've endangered you and I ... '' He faltered. `` I am sorry ... ''

It took every ounce of his rapidly diminishing bravery to remain standing in the presence of one he had so horribly wronged.

Lightning illuminated the room, filtering in through the hospital annexe windows, and Ron set his jaw. `` You did n't entail to bite me, so do n't occupy about it. ''

Thunder rolled, vibrating the roofing tile beneath his soles.

Ron cringed, obviously unaccustomed to the sudden amplification of all surrounding sounds.

Such was the outcome of becoming a lycan.

As the thunder diminished, his former pupil frowned pensively. `` For the offset time in my life history Professor.. I 'm different. '' The stripling extended five of his digits, frowning further at the sight of the abnormality lying just beneath the open. `` Everything ... from now on ... '' He continued oddly, `` It is all going to be different. ``

Shame nearly sent Remus tumbling to his knees. `` All because of my rashness ... again ... you could have been ki ... ''

'' So could accept you, '' Ron cut in sharply. `` Yet that did n't contain you from doing your obligation, Professor. ``

In the moment of silence that followed, the vernal Weasley son suddenly did something completely unexpected. A wearisome, sad grinning crept across his features, and then Ronald Billius Weasley looked him directly in the eye.

'' Whatever the reason was for sending you out to romp with those other ... '' Ron swallowed hard, `` werewolves ... It had to be important, otherwise you would n't have been there. ``

Remus remained silent. He could not give into his own self-deprecating desire to wrench and flee, he owed the new lycanthrope to a greater extent than that.

'' This is a war. Before you bit me I had no real talent to offer. '' The young man 's words were slow, and for once, painstakingly thought out. `` To everyone I was just ... a hindrance, just another mediocre wizar ... ''

'' Your power was never mediocre, '' Remus interjected painfully.

Ron shook his head, his fingers scrunching the stark T. H. White of the hospital sheets. `` It does n't matter ... I simply could n't do anything the others could n't already do skilful than I. But now .... ''

twinkle blueing eyes looked up, meeting his haunted ones. `` But now prof ... ''

Remus again nearly choked at the ill-bestowed title of respect. `` I have n't been your Professor for some time Ronald. ``

A rather life-threatening expression touched Ron 's oral cavity. `` Well ... '' He said, flexing his finger's breadth. `` That 's about to change. ``

And with reflexive pronoun speed, right where Ron 's clenched fist had been clenched around them, Remus realized that the hospital plane now lay shredded.

Where Ron 's fingers should be, there were claws.

Cold comprehension dawned upon him, for somehow the boy had inherited the ability to transubstantiate at will, yet the bloodlust Remus felt running within his own veins was nowhere to be seen within the boy 's eyes.

All that lay there was a serious glint.

'' My champion are out there, and I intend to find them. '' Ron avowed. `` So ... ''

A carnal quality edged into the young Weasley son 's voice.

Blue, ovular eyes, met his own.

'' So lupin ... How 'd the Order fancy a secondly set of edacious fangs ? ``










A quick bill : The medical and biology caramel may catch a few matter in this chapter and the upcoming ones, so please be forewarned that any slip on the characters'parts regarding such things is entirely intentional. I want to express that they are imperfect and not entirely knowing about certain affair. It would n't be fun if the characters never made fault. *cackles*

Thank you to Njhill22 for all of your help with this chapter. I may very well have lost my saneness had it not been for the 5 am late night writing seance that we had to resort to ! And thank you to IchigoPan for putting up with a bit of lovely rambling as well ! Now on with the chapter !








'' Amidst hell there is always perch, it is just a matter of finding it. ``
~ terra incognita ~


Chapter 26 ~ The Reason for the War



It had taken her all of ten minutes to envision it out.

Breathing heavily, her mousy hair strewn about, she again rose her leg to drive the full military unit of her weight against the mahogany doorframe. The sound reverberated throughout the room, echoing from the ancient stone walls in a way that mirrored her increasing, self-directed anger.

She should have known.

Cursing she stepped back from the unmoving entryway, her feet stumbling clumsily across the uneven trading floor boards. Her dark centre swept the high rafters criss crossing the cylindrical tug, at a exit.

Dumbledore had recollective since earned the form of address normally reserved for Remus alone, for that 'damnable man'had thought of every conceivable dodging attack and blocked her procession at every turn. One thing was sure : The master was surely against anyone knowing of his architectural plan, and from the looks of things she would not be escaping any sentence soon. Certainly not in time to alert anyone before it was too late.

If only she had realized ! Then she would n't be trapped like some mythical Rapunzel caught in a hellish fairy tale.

Her eyes landed upon the dark window frame, her mind briefly mulling over the possibility of growing her hair into a long enough plait to mail Emily scurrying down.

She snorted. Even if the Bothans were not under an enchanted eternal sleep Kenneth would surely struggle her live before allowing her to turn his daughter into an impromptu acrobatic chimpanzee. Of track Emily had seemed rather taken by that exhibit at the Phoenix Park Zoo ...

As if reading her thoughts Kenneth growled a little.

Men ... She thought angrily. Even in their sleep they shot down her estimate !

turning her attention to the door frame she did the sole matter she could remember of, and rearing back her leg she charged. Only this time the threshold swung open as if in sync with the graven image of clumsiness, and she found herself sprawled across the master 's emptier office.

rolling onto her back, flopping like a Fish on the floor, her dark middle fixated furiously upon her cousin.

'' You ... '' She roared, kicking the door to the study shut with her feet. She was not eagre for Kenneth nor Emily to get wind this if they awoke at this rather untimely interval.

Regulus gazed down his nose in astonishment. `` cousin were you really waging war on his written report door the entire metre ? You do actualise that is handmade mahogany ? ``

Growling she scrambled to her fundament, `` I swear to merlin genus Regulus ... you tricked me ! You allowed him to ... ''

He scoffed loudly. `` No one allows Albus Dumbledore to do anything cousin. He merely does it whether you are in concurrency with his decisions or not. Surely you would be mindful of that by now. ``

'' He 's properly you kno ... ''

'' Shut up Crusantheus ! ``

Regulus cast an unnaturally sympathetic look at the door as she again rounded on him.

'' He made the Unbreakable vow did n't he ? '' She demanded. `` He 's going to trade himself for Hermione Granger if he can is n't he ? And you let him ! ``

'' Like I could bar him ? Besides, it was n't that bad of an ide ... ''

'' You could have refused to support witnesser ! '' She hollered. `` He could n't let done it without one ! ``

Regulus'eyes roamed the room curiously, as if she were an inconsequential bug, before his eyes finally landed upon a little console. `` Well ... '' He commented, walking towards it. `` If not I he would have found another person to ... ''

'' The Order needs him Regulus ! '' She shouted, tailing him closer than a trace. `` We ca n't pull through witho ... ''

Regulus spun to front her. `` Do n't devalue yourself cousin. From what he said he may stimulate founded your little aviary administration, but he is no more important than the rest of you within it. ``

She gasped. `` You jest ? ``

The perfect tense image of Lucy Stone glowered back. `` Do I look like one to jest ? ``

Her breath came in angered puffs as he began rummaging through the contents of Dumbledore 's deceptively small liquor console. A considerable time passing before he emerged, a tight, satisfied line straining his mouth, and a garnet hued nursing bottle in hand.

She was barely collecting herself, her wand arm vellication dangerously as she seriously contemplated whether or not her first cousin was an alien species.

'' Le Vin de Chateau Latour ... '' Regulus commented admiringly, ignoring her as if nothing of significance had occurred. `` Dix-neuf soixante-dix, une belle année. ``

Her teeth footing so hard she swore to God he would be receiving the dental bill.

'' For the less refined in the room, '' He continued, his unfaltering oculus never leaving his recently procured prize, `` nineteen seventy was an excellent class. ``

A flash pop resonated within the room, the rising hue of her impertinence evidencing her increasing blood pressure. pigeon hawk ... she was getting as bad as Kingsley with that !

'' This particular time of origin, '' Regulus continued undiscouraged, `` Presently runs over one hundred and twenty four pounds a bottle. Just ideate what it may suffer run once fully matured. A shame this Latour takes ten to fifteen years ... ''

Between her gritted teeth she managed a growling. Regulus ignored this, painstakingly choosing a rather raddled and lustrous orange tree mug from Dumbledore 's limited glass survival. His nose crinkled in distaste as the mug 's emblem Go carom sparkled up at him.

'' Allowing his vintages to go to waste ... '' Regulus grumbled disapprovingly, pouring the opaque, yet red tempestuousness into his mug moodily. `` I would have thought better of the old man ... ''

'' That old man has more moral fiber than you could ever wish to have, '' She snapped.

'' I do n't doubt that, '' He replied evenly.

Her eyes widened furiously. `` Why in the hell would Dumbledore take you into his confidence ? You were a cowardous traito ... ''

Regulus'meth slammed down, shattering.

'' NEVER PRESUME YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT NYMPHADORA ! '' He roared, eyes igniting dangerously. `` I am far Sir Thomas More familiar with each one of my treacherous, treasonous human action than you shall ever be. But know this ... ''

Regulus'bearing rose, despite his already rigidly set up posture.

'' If it were not for those cowardly deeds of mine then the Muggle world would have been wiped out a retentive ... time ... ago. '' He hissed quietly. `` My cowardly nature preserved the knowledge of what could have happened ... .keeping it safe until it was needed again ... ''

'' You should have come forth with it sooner, '' She challenged. `` As soon as you heard He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was back you should feature ... ''

'' Oh ? '' He snapped condescendingly. `` And how was I supposed to know that my former slithering God Almighty had crawled back from the grave whilst in the Muggle realm Nymphadora ? Particularly when those of you at the Ministry do your in effect to keep apart our world from the Muggle kingdom ? Well kudos Nymphadora ! Because despite Voldemort 's effective cause at mayhem and misery your precious Ministry has done its job well ! Not a watchword of his coming back leaked to me, even though I was listening for word ! ``

Seething venomously she leveled her scepter at him, eliciting a derisive jape. `` Where 's Dumbledore ? ``

'' Why at a meeting with that slithering snake of a Dark Maker I suspect. Surely you could have guessed that at least. ``

Her heart thudded unnaturally.

'' Let me out Regulus. ``

'' I wish I could cousin, '' He said, turning back to the vino. `` But it was his desire for neither of us to leave until the tidy sum was nail. Something about pesky, meddlesome, bullheaded Aurors ... ''

She growled, resisting the itch to attack.

Regulus merely snorted. `` I would cerebrate that you, being component part of his fiddling bird sanctuary society, would by now realize that he knows what he is doing. Even I know tha ... ''

Swearing loudly she kicked the wall, rattling Phineas'portrait, forcing their long perfectly relative to hang onto his systema skeletale 's sharpness for care of being dislodged from it.

Regulus mouth twitched wickedly, ignoring the choice Holy Scripture that came flying their way as he addressed his cousin. `` Now if you want to destroy the portraits then by all agency, do so Nymphadora. However, in the lag it seems that your safe bet is to unlax and receive a potable, because you clearly need one. ``

Scowling she slapped the proffer glassful away.

Now it was Regulus'turn to consider her as if she were an alien species.


* * * * *

Elsewhere in the palace Remus had discovered that he had developed a phantasm, one with a distinct hitch and a blinding jolt of red hair.

'' You 're sure about this ? '' Remus asked, sprinting around a recession with a flying Weasley trailing behind. Ron had just finished recounting what he had overheard the adults speaking about as he and Ginny had feigned sleep in the wing, and Remus was left with an queasy feeling of coldness.

Not only were Harry and Hermione missing, but so was Kalliandra. Ron had had no info regarding Tonks, and knowing her profession ....

Remus had felt slightly ill at the thought of any of them suffering while he had strolled leisurely down the castle 's corridors, unable to go faster for care of leaving the chuck ward 's escapee behind, which was precisely why he had thrown a levitation charm at the young man, sparing Ron the trouble of having to press with his self-sizing crutches.

mollie Weasley would birth him shipped to St. Mungos in individually plastic wrapped slice if she ever caught air current of this.

Ron 's side, screwed in thrifty compactness as he attempted to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling, shot him a withering look.

'' My friends are out there Remus, and I do n't intend to sit idly by while the edict hems and haws over what the right course of activeness is. I want into the Order, and I want to help. ``

'' And if they vote against that ? ``

Ron grinned tensely. `` I 'll threaten to present them a friendly nip on the leg. After all, I 've missed dinner tonight. ``

Remus nearly laughed, caught off guard. `` think of cannibalism are we ? ''

'' Nah, Snape hardly qualifies as human so I seriously doubt it would numerate as cannibalizing. Especially since he 's likely the only one to vote against me. ``

'' You 're forgetting your mother. ``

Ron paled considerably, his lentigo standing out. `` She 'll just sustain to understand, '' He growled determinedly. `` About Ginny too, she 'll bounce back, and when she does she can help me detect the bastard that Imperious-ed her. ``

Remus smiled sadly. Ron was more alike to Dog Star than he would ever know. Perhaps that, Thomas More than anything, was why he had agreed to take Ron with him to give Dumbledore his shabby report.

As Ron had said, the estimable wolfman had to stick together, and he deserved to bang of the underground werewolf bodily function as much as anyone.

The other loup-garou could still be out there ...

The persuasion spurred him into a faster sprint, and ignoring the Gryffindor 's sudden protest Remus began dashing down the Stone corridors, his concern rising exponentially at the affected quiet upon the school.

Snapping the word he and the floating Ron mounted the stairs to Dumbledore 's office, a riotous argument increasing in loudness as they approached. Forgoing formalities he set Ron down hastily, grasping the door handle and tugging.

It was locked.

'' Headmaster ? ! '' He shouted, pounding upon it fiercely. `` master I ne ... ''

'' Remus ? ! ``

At the voice his clenched fist froze, inches above the cringing bronze Crusantheus, the statement within the office grinding to an unceremonious halt.

'' Tonks ! '' He shouted with barely concealed alleviation. `` Tonks wha ... ''

'' Oh thank God ! '' Interrupted Crusantheus, moaning. `` They 've been going at it for an hour ! I ca n't use up it anymore ! ''

Remus was about to wonder as to 'who'precisely had been going at it when Ron 's baffled mussitation interrupted him.

'' Since when did Dumbledore get a talking door doorknocker ? ``

'' Since his blood brother had me imported from Scotland piddling man, '' Snapped Crusantheus indignantly.

Ron bristled, `` Little ? ``

Remus dropped a persist hand upon Ron 's shoulder. `` in effect not to engage in conversation ... '' He muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

Crusantheus'own dropped wide. `` I heard ... ''

'' We know ! '' Shouted two part simultaneously from the opposite English of the doorway.

Remus'auricle reflexively picked up, the closeness of the unidentified vocalization unnerving. `` Tonks let us in, '' He shouted, frowning.

'' We ca n't ! '' He heard her moaning, `` Dumbledore made an Unbreakable vow and has left to speak to You-Know-Who and he 's locked us in here ! We ca n't get out and no one can get in ! ``

It took a moment for her speech to process correctly, and apparently it did for Ron as well because simultaneously they both voiced aloud their thoughts.

'' What ? ``

A trenchant battering could be heard from within the agency, as if person had taken to kicking random objects.

Again, the unknown masculine voice floated beneath the doorway. `` You might as well severalize them ... ''

'' Tonks who is that ? '' Remus interjected.

There was a pause.

A very farsighted pause.

'' You would n't trust me if I told you. ``

'' Try me, '' Remus insisted.

'' Later Wolfy. ``

He groaned, while Crusantheus snickered. In reception Ron grabbed the knocker and began banging vigorously, only ceasing the hostilities when Crusantheus nearly bit off his fingers.

Remus ignored this. `` Tonks tell me I misheard ... ''

'' You did n't, '' She groaned. `` Hermione farmer is missing. '' Ron paled considerably, his berm stiffening at the reminder. `` You-Know-Who has got her, and Dumbledore thinks it 's to entice Harry into telling him the prophe ... ''

'' WHAT ! ? '' Ron shouted, clearly having been deprived of this noesis. `` Tonks did they find Harry ? He ca n't do tha ... ''

'' Remus what the Hell is Ron Weasley doing with you ? Is n't he supposed to be in the ... ''

'' infirmary offstage, '' Remus supplied.

'' I 'd care to put him in the infirmary annex, '' Growled Crusantheus menacingly, snapping eagerly with his jaw 's hinge.

'' bugger off you rusted piece of ... ''

'' RONALD ! ``

Crusantheus bronze tongue began clinking out a gleeful line, clearly rhapsodic at Tonks'reprehension. `` Aha ! Better stifle it Fingers or Ms. Windpipes in there will shut you up for me before you can say Hoggy, Hoggy, Hogwa ... ''

Remus finally gave in to the itch to shut up the damn thing, ineffectual to call back. Crusantheus'sudden secretiveness earned him a loud exclamation as the unidentified voice from within began praising the lord and maker.

He knew that vox ...

'' So Nympahdora you want to tell them or should I ? '' Asked the man, sounding as if he were clearly enjoying something.

Behind him Ron made a smothered sound of realization.

'' Sirius ? ''

A loud thump evidenced the unidentified man 's displeasure.

'' If I get mistaken for Sirius one more time I 'll hex that room access tit ... ''

Crusantheus began pounding his grip furiously, a frightened look in his bronze eyes.

Tonks, on the other mitt, sounded like she was tap-dancing. `` Ah-ha ! I 'm not the entirely one who made that mista ... ''

'' You 're my cousin ! You have no excuse ! ``

'' sod off ! We thought you were dead ! ``

'' Really Nymphadora you have no creativity ... ''

Really ... You Gryffindors have no creativeness ...

Remus'nous spun, an replication from the past striking a inharmonic chord.

Staring at the locked door something clicked.

'' Regulus ! `` He growled, smashing himself against the room access. `` I swear to God if you 've harmed her ... ''

'' Nymphadora were you and your admirer hit with a paranoia good luck charm ? You can reply me honestly with full trust that this conversation will persist secret. ``

'' Oh yes, do n't mind us ! '' Chimed in several unseen portraits.

'' So you 're a shrink and a physician ! ? '' Tonks spluttered.

'' Tonks ! ? '' He shouted through the door. `` Tonks ! What the hell is going on in there ? ``

'' Apparently an epiphany, '' Drawled Regulus lazily.

'' Shut it both of you ! '' Tonks snapped furiously, the sound of stamping feet reaching his perked ears.

He withdrew his ear from the threshold just in fourth dimension, its entire frame shuddering violently as she kicked it from the other side, rendering Crusantheus cross-eyed.

mahogany door or not, Remus suddenly wondered if that were thick enough to protect him from whatever hex the pissed off Auror had in judgment for him. He knew her far too well to entertain any hope of escaping completely unscathed.

Sneakily, with stealth indicative mood of the low marks she had received on the stealth and Tracking portion of her Auror test, a wand tip snuck beneath the snap between the room access and floor.

Remus stared at this odd action mechanism, obfuscation the gens of his expression. Unfortunately he hesitated just a second too long, for a hot stream of searing sparks suddenly ignited his trouser, a absolved Ah-ha resounding from the pink haired inquire witch as Remus hopped around, nearly tumbling down the winding staircase in his attempts to dip them.

'' Made her angry did you ? ''

As Ron snickered he had to forcibly keep himself from snarling in the Weasley 's general direction.

'' Tonks, '' He groaned hoarsely, leg still steaming. `` What on land is wrong ? ``

'' What 's amiss ! ? What 's wrong ? '' She clipped with disbelief. `` You show up after nearly a month and ... ''

'' Two calendar week, '' He corrected, re-approaching the threshold as if it were a shark.

'' fine ... Two workweek and ... ''

'' Did the estimate of talking it through like rational adult ever occur to either of you ? '' genus Regulus'smother voice interjected curiously.

'' material a air sock in it Reggie, '' She barked. `` The fanged wonder has emerged from his self-induced isolation and now he wants to know what 's wrong. ``

Another garish thump shook the door, his abdomen wrenching as he practically felt her leaning against the other side.

Cautiously approaching he ignored Ron 's startled stare, pressing his helping hand against the jumpy grain. `` Tonks ... '' He whispered gratingly, `` I ... .We do n't accept time for this now ... ''

'' Gee, what a surprise ! '' She exclaimed sardonically. `` Wolfy does n't stimulate clock time for me, who would 've thought ? ``

Regulus emitted a low whistle, clearly closer than before. `` Trouble in paradise Lupin ? Honestly is n't she a footling vernal for you ? ``

The distinct phone of person being smacked echoed through the threshold and down the stairwell. The heavy sensation within his chest flunk to better.

'' At risk of being hexed ... ''

Remus turned, eyeing Ron with barely concealed annoyance.

The Gryffindor swallowed loudly. `` Harry 's still out there and we have to receive him. We could send Hedwig ... ''

'' Dumbledore already sent Fawkes, '' Tonks muttered. `` He 's a step ahead of us as always, yet kept muttering about how Harry could fend for himself now. ``

Remus'brow furrowed. It was not like Dumbledore to give someone unaided. Not at all.

'' Slow to catch on as always Nympahdora, '' Regulus remarked condescendingly. `` Did it ever occur to you that in position of sending a potentially slow guide ... ''

'' I am not behind ... ''

'' Of course not, '' Regulus snorted. `` But rather than letting a search party gallivant around the area, risking further exit of sprightliness, he did the smart thing. ``

'' Which is ? '' Remus could hear Tonks practically hiss through her teeth.

'' He sent the dissolute messenger he could, '' He responded smugly. `` Surely you do n't visualize yourself in the same family of speed as a phoenix, do you cousin ? ``

Remus'eyes widened in understanding. `` He sent them a portkey. ``

'' Exactly ... ''
Suddenly everything came together, and it gave him an idea.

'' Ron, Tonks ... '' He stumbled to explain. `` I have to ... ''

'' We know, '' Tonks muttered. `` You have to go. ``

He hesitated.

'' What 's the hold up lupin, you 're quite good at that so get on with it already. ''

Cringing inwardly he turned and ran for the owlery.

'' I 'll just stay here then ? '' Ron yelled sarcastically after his retreating figure.

On the other side of the door Tonks growled, dropped cross-legged to the ground, banged the back of her point against the door, and extended a pointed hand to Regulus.

Her cousin-german smirked, filling her a well needed glass.


* * * * *



Harry 's mettle skipped unnaturally. His breather froze. Instinctual alert ignited a fiery anger within him.

As if in response his calloused fists unconsciously coiled smashed around her shoulder joint, clenching the stiff folds of her torn sweater as if doing so could somehow drive out the presence lurking within the shadows.

It could not.

A feral growl cut through the wind, the frigid duck soup snaking around them, biting bitterly against his cutis, whipping Kaylen 's hook whisker around her ashen face.

There was nowhere to run ... but they had to try.

Like a phantom sound upon the wind came the slap of monstrous claws upon cunning mud, the telling sound of a beast bent-grass on savagery as it stalked its prey across water-laden hunting grounds.

They were its prey ...

belongings her resolute eyes with his, watching as her visage screwed into that of grim firmness of purpose, Harry knew he had no option.

Loosening his cargo deck upon her quietly heaving shoulders, watching the bloody bandages binding his palm tree sway in the wind, he ground out a exclusive command.

'' Run ... ''

His nighttime whisper was met with immediate natural process, for she took flying, mud splattering beneath her foundation as she fled for the tree line, her tattered sweater billowing in the wind as she went.

Lightning from the war rupture vault of heaven illuminated the desolate battle ground, sending her shadowy silhouette stretching across the matted stretch of grass separating them.

Tensely he watched her, standing his ground.

He refused to follow.

Around him the index of the violent storm surged, thunder shaking the world as his scarred fist clenched tightly around the fateful feathering of the genus Phoenix that lay deeply imbedded in his congregation holly, his wand arm hanging loosely by his side.

blink the piss from his eyes he watched in muted captivation. Kaylens was suddenly aware of her solitude, her metrical unit halting into a troubled slip across the search ground as she fought to block off against the raging wind. The mud finally ceased to reach, resisting her sliding feet as her form went slipping beneath the forest 's verge, the dripping canopy throwing shadows across her countenance as she whorled around to view him.

Beneath the branches her eyes flashed dangerously, for his deception and what it could entail had finally struck her with frightening force. With the degage sensation of an looker-on observing an unstoppable tragedy he watched as her build went rigid.

She knew there was no time to reach him. His stratagem had worked.

Merely six meters separated he from her, yet the distance was uncrossable.

It was how he wanted it.

Thump, clunk ...

The swift access of the werewolf 's claws beatnik against the suctioning ground.

The woman chaser was charging him, yet he did not move.

Silently his centre plead with Kaylens, urging her to run.

Thump, thump ...

She did not. Her magnificent center regarded him with profound trauma and choler, reflecting the lightning shocking through the heavens.

thumping, thumping ...

He stood still, feeling decease 's swift feeler for another moment, closing his oculus in surrender for whatever would amount to pass.

It was stupid, it was brash, it was the act of a true Gryffindor.

He had known there was no time for them to both run, so he had sent her unwittingly to what he could only pray was relative safety.

Thump, thump ...

If he survived this she would surely vote down him, and an odd smile crept upon his cracked lips at the absurdity of the thought.

Thump, clunk ...

All of it transpired in a second, his center flying wide as the sky split outdoors, roaring as the gods themselves sent their electric fist hurtling down to join the fray.

Lightning struck as he hit the ground hard, ducking as he felt the savage springing into the air to seize him. Jaws snapped around lose weight air, right where the binding of his neck had been a second before.

The wolf 's rearward chela slashed out, grazing his back, shredding the cloth of his shirt, just scratching his skin 's surface. A ail groan shot from his mouth, yet it was unheard as a fiery bolt of lightning of electric death struck the tree diagram furrow with fearsome loudness.

He was already screaming for Kaylens'to move.

A fleshly growl emanated before him, the werewolf 's escape ending as its colossal physique crashed back onto the worldly concern with one sickening splat of mud and rain, its colossal figure skidding on the slick magazine priming as if upon ice.

'' Kaylens move ! '' He screamed, watching as a fiery shower of ember rained down from the split trunk upon her.

Her golden head word disappeared within the gage, a burning tree limb crashing to where she had stood only a second before.

His tummy lurched sickeningly, a choking scream tearing through him, silenced only as the wolf 's snarling beak reared around to face him again.

His eye darkened in craze behind his rain streaked glass, his wand arm flying out, a cutting hex ripping from his throat as he dove to the incline, rolling in the thick sludge.

A ail ululation signified that his aim had been true.

Desperately, heart pounding, he again let the cutting hex fly, followed by an attack of ash grey molecule as he staggered to his feet, stumbling backwards in a frenzy as the Hugo Wolf 's brutalized fur sent its recoiling trunk to the ground.

The silver particle were lodging within the brute 's open wounds, and the alloy 's toxicity was quickly infiltrating its bloodstream.

He felt no pity, only agony as a fiery tendril coiled upwards from the ablaze branch, igniting the soaked canopy.

'' Kaylens ! '' He screamed, bolting for the tree line, watching in horror as smoke began pluming upwards.

It was his fault ... she had n't seen it in time ... she had been watching his personal struggle instead of running farther ...

And he had sent her there.

The noxious fumes came hurtling at him upon an icy blast, choking his lungs, and her name, which his lips had been expelling, came out instead as a ragged cough.

His crank were somehow lost, filth and smoke mote replacing them to cut against his retinas, a numbing sensation overtaking him.

He did not see the setback coming.

A massive paw struck him down, sending him hurtling face down into a puddle, his panicked humans morphing into a watery brown blur.

His wand flew from his handle, skidding out of scope as he flailed, feeling the free weight of the tool atop him as it forced his body to make a new imprint in the malleable dry land.

The shallow water lapped around his capitulum, his rima oris flapping around the ill-tasting dirt, organic structure sputtering as his traitorous lungs continued their ill-fated endeavor to expel the venomous smoke fumes from them, inhaling water instead.

The spine-crushing weight unit of the creature was suddenly dispelled, his chief snapping up to gasp for breath, his hand blindly summoning his sceptre to it. The wandless act was lost upon him as a beastly forepaw smashed besides his aching head, an inch shy of shattering his skull.

Above him a new brute growled venomously.

Flipping onto his back, rolling out of the way, he saw a tree arm lash out, striking the brute hovering above him with a sickening crunch.

The second werewolf, the one he had failed to see in time, fell limp to the ground.

Emerging from the burning alcove of trees Kalliandra callously threw the branch at the creature, ensuring another reverse to its question as she appraised her handiwork. A second later her burning eyes were fixated upon him, a furious expression crossing her soot stained lineament as he was left sputtering upon the ground.

'' What the hell were you thinking ceramist ? ! '' She coughed out, her representative a harsh rasp. `` This is the same stunt you pulled in Hogsmeade ! Are you that daft ? ! ``

Still gasping for hint he realized that he had been right. She was going to kill him.

A ridiculously affectionate virtuoso flooded him. `` Y-you 're ... ''

'' Pissed ! '' She hissed exasperatedly, clearly irked more by him than by the wolves who had attempted to make a meal of them. `` You are single handedly the most brash, preposterous, self-centered, suicidal somebody that I have ever met ! Next time, I 'll let the savage eat you ! ``

He blinked exhaustedly up at her, chest heaving with offended exertion as the disheveled, slightly charred girl above him ignored the insanely mud ridden, werewolf infested, ablaze universe around them, contenting herself with staring him down.

He could n't assist it A small, rest filled smirk tugged at his mouth.

'' What, '' She grunted wearily, `` Could you possibly incur peculiar about this ? ''

He grinned. `` A lot actually. ``

Her jaw dropped, flapping soundlessly as the breaking wind sent hummer billowing in a dark cloud behind her, her deal instantly rising to shield her eyes from its thick rest.

'' Kaylens, '' He commented, wiping mud from his face, `` You 're a rather angry someone you know that ? ''

For a second she appeared to bumble. `` Potter ... '' She threatened raspily, `` I 'm going to kill you. ``

He nodded solemnly, gingerly up-righting himself. `` Well ... '' He grunted, painful sensation searing his shoulder. `` Get in business line. ``

'' shag that. I get the number one crack at ... ''

Her Holy Scripture ended in a grating cry, a chameleon-like hand having shaft forth unseen in the billowing bullet, snatching her thick whisker within its pitiless confines. Her soaked twist were used as an anchor, the disillusion man callously snapping her head back to endanger the slender flesh of her cervix to the splintered wood of a blackened wand.

Rain droplets splattered eerily in mid-air against the spiritual domain resister.

'' dip it potter, '' Growled a voice as dark as the night.

The croaky growl sent something dangerous stirring within him, his forest colour in eyes remaining glued to Kaylens'cringing countenance.

His supercilium furrowed as a strange estimation began to take shape, his finger loosened around the holly coated wand.

'' Potter do n't ... '' Kaylens'sharp cry was cut off as she was shoved forwards, nearly thrown from her groundwork by the demise feeder 's swift prodding.

The Death feeder was holding her ahead of him, using her as a shield.

'' I said cliff it boy, or I 'll ready surely she stays dead this time. ''

Harry 's hand went rigid, his wand falling into the mud.

'' Attaboy. ``

The heel counter of the disillusionment charm was muttered as the villain advanced through the coiling smoke, holding Kalliandra ahead of him, the flames'orange light throwing the dying eater 's splanchnic face into consummate focus.

Harry 's rake ran cold.

Broussard 's companion, the very one Harry had struck down with the killing curse that afternoon, the Saami one whom he had left for beat in Hogsemead 's back alley, now stood shepparding Kaylens before him.

The utterly man was alive and well.

'' Ah ... .So you do think me, '' The man hissed, eyes gleaming malevolently. `` Perhaps you remember my buddy, Broussard. I do believe you slashed his throat. ``

Kaylens hand shot up, yanking at the end Eater 's frailty grip. `` No lupus erythematosus than he deserved you filth ... ''

A red articulatio genus to the vertebral column sent Kaylens crumbling to her knees, her variant suspended by the pachydermatous hairgrip on her prospicient locks.

'' To fall behind one 's remaining kin ... '' Continued the expiry eater with deadly calm, `` In such a manner does not endear one to mercy. ``

'' Now you know what it feels like ! '' fuss Kaylens, her workforce clawing tightly at the man 's massive forearms as he drug her forward.

The dying Eater ignored her, his foul gaze fixated upon him. `` You 're a gooselike boy Potter ... dabbling in Unforgivables ... I 'd kill you if I could ... ''

Harry vibrated with repressed fad, eyes darkening. `` Then why do n't you ? '' He challenged, `` Get rid of the fifth wheel, and it 'll be just you and I. ``

The villain laughed bitterly, `` I 'm not as stunned as some of the other sycophant boy. You 'll have to improve your manipulation if you expect that to work. ``

'' Fine, '' He spat darkly. `` I 'm disarm, you 're not. deal to let her go before that changes ? ``

'' Wandless magic is a bit get on for you bo ... ''

Something within him snapped, the unconscious magic he had drawn upon in moments of indigence finally snapping into place.

A scene of energy flew through him, the fellow wooden handle flying back to his deal, quickly summoned, drawn, and aimed.

Only where the expiry eater 's heart had been now rested Kaylens, for the baddie had yanked her forcibly from her genu to again shield him. Her cry of painful sensation echoed through the clearing, rising above the crackle of burning wood.

'' As intriguing as this is thrower, we came to drive home a message. Nothing more. ``

Harry 's voice dropped to a growl, `` Since when did a message entail taking my heading off ? ``

The man 's lips curled into a snarl. `` It did n't. That was just fun. ``

'' A rather perverse mind of fun, do n't you opine ? ``

'' Considering what you did to my brother, I 'd say I 'm in the presence of similar company. ``

'' He 's zero like you ! '' Kaylens shouted furiously.

A right Yankee sent her head snapping back, his insides lurching as the resounding crack of her protesting vertebrae.

'' Quiet girlie ! '' Hissed the scoundrel, spit dribbling as he spoke. `` You 're already an endangered coinage, I 'd hate for you to go nonextant. ``

'' Ah yes, '' She spat scathingly, straining against the man 's weaponry. `` And I 'm indisputable your treasured sea captain would be pleased with that. ''

quivering violently he watched as she writhed against her capturer, the cauterize man glaring vindictively down.

Hands coiling into tight fists, Harry began inching to the side, the speech sound of mud suctioning against skid soh masked by the resounding thunder.

If he could get an slant around her, he could make his shooting ...

'' And to call back, I thought catching Veelas was the uncollectible assignment ... but no matter ... ''

It took everything he had to suppress his outward repugnance, for the man had already drawn and used the unobserved dagger, plunging it shallowly into the flesh of her articulatio humeri, dragging it across her cutis. A second later the scoundrel had a cylindrical phial held beneath her freely flowing blood, bottling it as her optic scrunched in a painful face, her mind doubtless feeling history repeating itself.

'' There, that oughta appease my Godhead in the event of your untimely ... '' The man was running his scepter along her wound, a black light radiating as her physical body sealed beneath it. `` Well ... .end anyway ... ''

Blinded by rain, Harry 's heart went Patrick Victor Martindale White with anger.

'' You wo n't lay a fingerbreadth on her. ``

In the tincture the man smiled. `` It seems I 've already lain several. ``

As he stood there, the running mud curling around his feet, he felt sick. He was cornered, for if he acted brusquely Kaylens was suddenly. And if he failed to act, they could both meet the same fate.

His treated eyes narrowed, chest rising with stressful exertion, as the vile man continued speaking.

'' All the Dark Lord wants is the prophecy potter, yet if you continue this refractory refusal that little mudblooded booster of yours will wind up utterly. '' The man grinned evilly. `` And we all know you do n't want that to befall. ``

His wand shook, so knockout was his clench upon it.

'' Just suppose ... what has your stubborn refusal gotten you thus far ? Certainly it did wonderment for improving that blood traitor pitch blackness 's current commonwealth howeve ... ''

'' Sirius was a good man, '' He heard himself hissing.

The man merely inclined an eyebrow. `` Ah yes, I seem to recollect him fancying himself as such even during our school old age. He, the nobleman Black, always criticizing Broussard and I ... the two Detreck brothers were worthless to him, even the one from his own House ... ''

Harry felt unwell, anger and hate vibrating unceremoniously within.

'' Your Padre was much the same ... both never sparing even a idea for the noble Black 's own kin ... '' He continued, the Saami tone of transcendence dripping from his password. `` Sirius always wondered what finally sent Regulus to the rank and file of the Death feeder. Would you like me to tell you ? ``

Kaylens attempted to twist away, the massive man easily batting her attempt aside.

'' The deciding cistron you see, was Sirius'stubborn refusal to know his comrade as an adequate, '' He revealed. `` The arrogant patsy followed those resisting the dark master blindly, never stopping to consider who was really in the right wing. He and the eternal rest of those Gryffindor fools following Dumbledore never even read our rationality ... ''

'' Oh ? '' Harry shot out, `` And how are we justifying cold-blooded murder these years ? ``

The man 's teeth glinted in the firelight. `` There 's no need to rationalize anything, because the war hungry Muggles will not be content to get out our variety alone forever. It 's killing or be killed Potter. The Dark lord is simply acting preemptively, before those dirty Muggles get the chance. ``

'' And what of the anti-Muggle wards ? '' Harry asked scathingly, thinking quickly. `` If you 're really as superior to them as you 'd like to believe, then all of your 'pureblood'magic trick ought to forestall that, would n't you believe ? ``

The dying Eater Detreck laughed. He actually laughed.

'' Tell me ceramist, with all of the inter-marrying between adept and Muggles, how would you purport keeping our existence forever hidden ? Eventually we will become exposed, and when that happens the Muggles will recognize the potential scourge we hold. ``

Inching towards the heating plant of the fire, and its embryonic membrane of roll of tobacco, Harry allowed him to talk, wracking his nous for a plan.

'' Once that happens I 'm quite certainly they will be keen in showing us mercy. Perhaps the same kind that was given to the Jews of their irregular human race War, or that which was shown to the autochthonal people of the America when the new body politic were discovered. Or to the beldam of Salem ... ''

Kaylens cut him off.

'' You ca n't possibly believe every Muggle is like tha ... ''

A dagger was thrust to her throat, silencing her words as line of descent prickled her hide. A sadistic look of calm crossed the firstborn Detreck 's fount as he held it there.

'' You see Harry, Muggles are unlike us, '' Continued the monster. `` They have yet to inhibit their animalistic natures, and for that they must be silenced, before they can still us. ``

'' And all of this entails killing Muggleborns how ? '' Harry pointed out, desperate to keep the man talking.

'' Every war has casualties Potter, and in this one anyone sympathetic to those primitive tool runs the danger of becoming one. ``

'' They 're not primitive ... ''

'' Yet they salary war upon early countries, killing their own kind without thought, acti ... ''

'' Since Death Eaters do the Saame affair I guess you would cognise. ``

'' Our killing is at least educated, and justified by Thomas More than war over boundaries. ``

Harry 's vocalism shook with suppressed rage. `` Nothing can rationalise cold blooded murder ... ''

'' You would bonk then, '' Hissed the man, sneering spitefully. `` After all, once a killer, always a killer, or am I wrong on that ceramist ? ``

He remained soundless, watching as Detreck slowly lowered his blade from her throat.

'' Despite what you think, you are very a great deal alike us Potter, and thus my Lord has a marriage proposal of sorts for you. ``

Watching the tautness leave Kalliandra 's neck opening, her case slumping gratefully forward without fright of impalement upon the knife 's blade, he grunted. `` So what deal is it this time ? Join him and he spares my spirit ? ``

'' No, simply reveal the missing role of the prophecy in interchange for your friend 's family 's lives. ``

'' And Hermione ? ``

The man 's eyes glittered evilly, blistering pot billowing out with a change of the flatus.

'' In the Department of closed book, in the lobby of prognostication, you remember the ledge upon shelves filled with the divination of seers past ? ``

'' Yes. ``

'' Then surely you were not arrogant enough to believe that yours was the solely foretold regarding this war. ``

His shoulders stiffened, for he actually had.

From the forest 's border, stint m away, resounded the cracking of a Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree limb as it finally burnt away. It fell into the electrocution underbrush, sending a ostentation of flame bulging outwards on impact.

In the cacophonous yowl of heat and flame all political party scattered, the roll of tobacco clarification in time for Harry to see Kaylens still in the villain 's vice clutch, her unmistakable bolt for freedom hindered by the man 's sinewy arm which had tightened around her.

Her elbow to his torso went ignored, the monolithic man 's sinew protecting him. Detreck merely grunted, hauling her to her feet as the skunk dispersed, the rain beginning to smoother the flames.

'' We waste meter. In the hall of prophecies there is another with your gens on it, or did that decrepit old man fail to inform of you of its existence as well ? ``

Somehow he managed to debar snapping his sceptre, despite the shaking of his fists.

'' When you find that, and divulge its contents, only then will our Godhead release your precious Mudblooded admirer. ``

'' You 're lying, '' Harry tiff, the acrid taste of bullet on his tongue. `` If I told you, he 'd bolt down her anyway. ``

The man 's brim curled. `` Perhaps ... but if you had something else to extend him, something in gain to that ... something he very much desired ... than perhaps once you 'd unveil the moment vaticination, he 'd give back her if your word was given to reveal another once the exchange was made. ``

Harry shook his brain disbelievingly, `` Since when has ole conundrum trusted my word ? ``

'' How daring you defile his figure ... ''

Harry nearly laughed, `` gorge ? Just so you know, as someone well acquainted with his Muggle founding father 's keystone, I can assure you that is indeed his epithet. ``

Kalliandra 's question was suddenly yanked violently back, the baton again to her throat. All thinking of traumatizing the Death Eater with mockery of its loss leader flew from his nous, his eyes glued to her pale, soaked face.

'' What else does he require to get laid ? ``

The firstborn Detreck leered triumphantly, `` When you find the vaticination regarding 'the girl of a man of exponent upon Gaelic soil'you will have what he is looking for. There is no public figure attached, therefore it may be seized by anyone. ``

Through the malarkey Harry 's vociferation seemed almost faint. `` And if I do n't regain it ? ``

'' Then that Mudblood of yours dies. Unless you find something better to offer. ``

With icy certainty Harry realized that the conversation was nearly over, Kaylens'fate hanging in the balance.

'' You see boy, you may consume defied our Almighty thus far, but you ca n't forever. In the end he wins, you lose, and if Dumbledore 's ill-thought resistance continues ... ''

A prod in the shoulder sent Kaylens stumbling forward, her hands suddenly bound.

'' Then all these fifth wheel will meet the same fate as those noble parents of yours. ``

Kalliandra 's oculus flew up, surprisal flitting through them even in the darkness. He met them, painfully holding onto them, grasping for minute through the cloudburst so she could see how sorry he was, for the past, for where his suddenly seeing had landed them, and still ... for what he may give to do.

There was simply no time left.

Somehow, the concern swimming within her favorable orb conveyed what he needed to know.

She understood.

His jaw set determinedly, he re-aimed his wand.

'' Stupefy ... ''

Kalliandra went crumbling to the ground, her limp manikin fabrication in a single mud-sodden mickle, the Death Eater 's nerve torture in surprisal as another stunner flew from Harry 's wand.

He had done the one thing Detreck could not have counted on. Injuring a comrade, thereby removing her from harms way while simultaneously clearing the path to the enemy.

His stunner struck the enemy directly in the chest, a endorse before a cruel voice resounded behind him.

'' Crucio. ``

Harry fell hard, his body imprinting the easy ground as a thousand white hot knives sliced slowly, than brutally at his build. His vision was blinded, by mud, rain, and pain, yet he still saw the hairy man, half-way through the werewolf transformation, walking around him, reviving Detreck ...

The loup-garou Kaylens had taken out had awoken.

As he screamed, convulsing in botheration, rolling in the glossy stream that had become the clearing 's grounds, he heard their controversy voices.

'' ... .belongs to the shadow Creator, not us ... .we ca n't harm him ... .leave it to him ... .dealt with in due time ... .orders were ... .deliver message ... .leave them .... ''

The never-ending torment suddenly lifted, his tortured nervus still spasming as he somehow rolled to face them. His hand flopped around pathetically, finger closing without long suit upon flimsy air, searching for the familiar spirit holly woods he had lost a hold of during his convulsions.

'' You can waste time chasing after us, or her Potter. Think about it. ``

The wet air resonated with the sharp cracks of disapparation, his sinewy synapses finally firing at his command. With soreness outshining the most backbreaking test of human survival he thrust himself up, his work force sinking into the muddy grunge, center frantically scanning the clearing.

Kaylens was nowhere to be seen.

spunk lurching sickeningly, he stumbled to his feet. Sliding, staggering, he peered through the darkness, summoning his wand from where it had sunk beneath the uprooted grass.

Lightning flashed, casting an eerie glowing across the water.

Kaylens lay facedown, floating within it.

His infantry moved, faster than he would have thought potential, plunging into the chest deep water. Quickly he propelled himself to where she lay submerged, floating just below the open. Only her boundary wrists, pushed upwards by the blue urine 's lapping, remained emerged in the air, her hair fanning out behind her head

His munition quickly sought her, wrapping around her articulatio humeri to draw her out, letting her numb free weight fall hard against him.

His hired man fell to her bureau, his spoken words a voicelessness against the storm.

'' Ennervate ... ''

The warmness spread from between his fingers, his unconsciously done magic triggering no reaction in her.

The spell was removed, yet she remained unresponsive. He had expected coughing, shouting, something.

It was only then that he realized it, but no breath came from her graying lips.

defensive measure moral had taught him about more than countering turn, and he was already turning her hitch form to face him, using the pee 's buoyancy to cradle her as her nerve lolled back.

His numbing, pained fingerbreadth quickly wiped the plastered hair's-breadth from her lips, a sick opinion rising in his pectus as his eyes flickered across the vacant grounds.

The Death Eaters were gone ... .they would not come back.

heart and soul wrenching, he acted, pressing his mouth against hers as he pushed wanted oxygen in, breathing for her, listening to the odd hiss of his breath making its way through her air passages.

Pulling away, waiting for the rise of her pectus against his, he felt nothing.

Panicked optic flickered over her passive nerve before his mouth once again descended, capturing her icy lips with his own in another breath of despair. One arm was tightening around her, the other cradling her drumhead as he pinched her nose.

Again he waited.

The rise in her chest as he had breathed had been barely discernable, and now there was nix. A single idea flitted through his affright creative thinker. He was doing this wrong.

In that ace present moment of paralyzing revulsion he suddenly understood. Her air passing was clogged.

He had to light it.

He was already turning her limp figure around, allowing her back to fall against him as his fists sought her midsection. With a single, powerful drive he thrust them in and upwards, feeling her body spasm in a belittled shudder.

Again he repeated the movement, thrusting forcefully. Her hobble class seized violently in reaction, her upper berth body falling forward as a racking cough shook her, the water expelling from her lungs. Harry lunged forward with her, arms wrapping around her chest, preventing her facial expression from again hitting the traitorous water.

His forearms strained against her as she convulsed, choking on the farting, gasping as cough after shuddering cough shook her thin chassis. Shivering in the wintry urine his pounding tenderness calmed until she leaned loosely forward, gasping breathlessly.

Without a word he pulled her against him, clutching her quivering chassis flush to his own, her school principal falling against his berm. Her shallow panting caressed his pelt, the insurrection of her breast against his reassuring him in an inexplicable way.

Slowly he fought to control the hitching of his own dissolute drawn intimation, for after everything he felt fix to fall apart, only he suddenly found himself the column to which she clung.

Resting his chin atop her head, peering into the night, he silently prayed that what he had overheard was exact. For if he was really considered Voldemort 's toy, needed to do a project, then he truly was untouchable.

In theory they would again be condom, until enigma decided to again 'chat .'

As of now, if he were wrong, then their only refuge would be the H2O they stood shivering within, and he had yet to properly control the bubble-head charm for hiding beneath its murky astuteness. Now their alone avowedly protection lay within the veil of cat-tails rising high-pitched above the shimmering water 's surface, obscuring them from all.

Icy steer howled, sending the reeds around them dancing.

respiration unsteadily, the odor of burnt wood filled his anterior naris. The storm was slowly winning the battle against the glare, extinguishing the aflame underbrush and trees, and the light of the attack was slowly dying. Tilting his face down he watched the fiery orange gleaming reflecting from her wet cheeks, lending some warmth to her pale hue.

'' Are you alright ? '' He finally whispered, his shivering manpower smoothing her drag, sopping hair from her face. She simply breathed against him, hair dripping across his shoulder joint, her integral variety quivering.

Tightening his weapon system around her, he again whispered his inquiry, his questioning backtalk brushing along her earlobe. `` Kaylens ? '' He murmured shakily, breathing against her hair. `` You okay ? ``

In his arms she nodded imperceptivity, his trepidation for her alone sending his ticker thundering. His relief was palpable, as was the feel of her beneath his hands.

His personal spitfire was blissfully unaware, but she had scared the pit out of him.

Raindrops continued falling, backbreaking and strong, splattering against the pee with spellbinding melody. Somehow, without grounds, his knuckles were rising, tracing alone her jaw line, a drowsy murmur leaving her picket, cracked lip at his touch.

Instinctively his unattackable arms began enveloping her tighter, pressing her to him needingly, his reasons elusive. Surprisingly her delicate hands were responding, rising to compress against his bureau. Her gentle fingertips brushed his bare skin, sliding along his pectorals where his jumper hung tattered and loose, good manners of the loup-garou'claws and the wood 's snaring bramble.

Beneath the rippling urine a gentle tingling was radiating onto him, traveling wherever her cool down tegument fell into tangency with his own, as if lilliputian turn of atmospherics electricity were passing between them.

Somehow he understood, for he was feeling her reliable magic. She seemed unaware that she was releasing any, but her enjoin signature was trailing across him in a maddening way, just below the rippling surface, veiled from his eyes.

Yet somehow, he could not look away.

Slowly, surely, the maddening virtuoso of her fingers tangling within his jumper drove the unconscious business from his mind, his brightly eyes finally falling shut to the Nox, hiding beneath the dark, matted hair slung dripping across his scar brow.

Upon his neck opening he felt her mouth parting, an exhausted sigh escaping against his skin. His brass dipped in response, burrowing within her rainwater scented hair.

'' You know ... '' He disclosed softly, shivering in the flatus. `` You may be more trouble than you 're worth. ``

A gentle laugh, scarcely there, sent his hide tingling.

'' Oh ? '' She breathed, her hoarsely spoken words tinged with amusement. `` And you 're not ? ''

'' decimal point take, '' He conceded, a low laugh vibrating his throat.

The sky lit up, shining with anomalous brilliance as lightning flashed in the distance. The icy waters lapping against them, the malarky howling eerily between the trees.

'' thrower .... '' She mumbled, his hand rising to fall upon the smooth skin of her neck at the sound. `` What happened ? ''

Her articulation was barely a rustling, trailing away as his fingers went trailing down the suave hide of her neck opening, feeling her pulse beating with regularity beneath them.

'' Apparently, '' He murmured gruffly, her light breathing a plume tracing across his skin, `` I ca n't get out you alone for a minute. ``

'' I could say the same for you, '' She said breathlessly, shivering as his hands rose along the conformation of her form. First his hands were gripping her shank, adjacent rebellion along her sides, sliding to caress the cutis covering her ribcage, just beneath her breasts.

His breather hitched with hers, her arms rising to encircle his neck, cupping the book binding of his question. Quickly her mitt were becoming lost within his untamable hair, the Saami unruliness that he had so oft heard her criticize, yet now felt her reveling in.

The earthy scent of mingled mud and rain was somehow intoxicating upon her, drawing him in more than he could allow, more than he should leave. Yet he was, his backtalk already lowering to hers, the thickly strung tension of a grand harsh exchanges vibrating between the two as his mouth fell upon hers, capturing her lips as he had when pulling her limply from the icy weewee. Only now her backtalk was moving against his, the taste sensation of salty sweat lingering upon his clapper. Her taste sensation was mingling with the refreshing rain pouring upon them, cascading down their faces.

His habiliment clung wetly to him as his handwriting sought out her sweep hair. He frenziedly felt her deepening the contact of their lips, the rough stubble of his chin scratching her in the process. A svelte grumble sent his own sassing trembling against hers with laughter, her helping hand squeezing his shoulder joint in relatiative fashion. His own mouth was parting again, gasping, never relaxing the force per unit area against her brim as he fought for breath against her, feeling her doing the same.

A second later he again seized her, his low-toned lip being tugged gently between her own, an odd growl coming unbidden from his throat. For a tempestuous second she quivered with seeming amusement before his agile hands responded, running along her cervix 's vertebrae, a startle whine falling from her lissome lips.

'' Kaylens ... '' He murmured, his arms desperately gathering her against him, his sassing deliriously relishing her predilection. Suddenly he was ignorant of the pelting pouring around them, cognizant only of her script wicked onslaught as they slipped beneath his shirt 's collar, sliding along the bare peel of his shoulder, caressing his back. His hair dripped into his face, and with rushed breaths their ill-concealed passions radiated, their mouths moving in a stormy fervor. Within his arms was the missy Harry had feared to have lost before he had known what it was to have, and he had no plans of letting go.

Slowly, panting breathlessly, Kalliandra pulled away. Her finger still clung to him, the rain pouring freely upon her flushing hide. piss droplets were dampening her brow, and her fingers slipped out from beneath his shirt to linger upon his collarbone. ineffective to let her leave alone he leaned his eyebrow against hers, cupping her brass in his hands, feeling her eyelashes fluttering open against his cheeks.

His own plug eyes flickered hazily unfold, meeting the bass hazel ones regarding him. She was blinking against the rain, her confused eyes revealing her barely concealed emotion.

ventilation heavily he leaned forward, brushing his lip against hers, kissing her slowly. He was taking his time now ... without the hurry, without the despair, without the awe of having nearly lost her. thumb running along her senior high cheekbones, carefully wiping the mud from her side, his sass moved needingly across hers.

Again they parted, her sassing moving in a soft, disbelieving whisper.

'' You 've lost your judgment ... ''

'' I know, '' He murmured, pressing his backtalk to hers chastely. `` You wo n't recount anyone will you ? ``

She smiled against his lip, shaking her mind slowly. `` No ... '' She whispered, entertainment tingeing her intonations. `` This wo n't leave the glade. ``

'' Good, '' He quipped, smiling deviantly. `` I would have hated to Obliviate you. ``

'' What makes you think I would feature minded ? ``

burying his sass near her ear, he emitted a low growl, `` You would feature. ``

'' Hmph. ``

Combing his digit through her thick, mud-laden tomentum, he felt her slender shape again began to shudder, her quivering more enunciate than before.

Wrapping his arms tighter around her physique, he murmured his oddment. `` Does this mean you 've forgiven me for stunning you ? ``

She grumbled indecipherably for a bit, before suddenly growing tense, her face swiveling towards the seeable clearing, eyes flickering with sudden recollection.

'' Harry .... '' She whispered seriously, all lightness gone from her voice. `` What happened to the destruction Eate ... ''

'' Gone, '' He assured softly, `` They 're gone. They wo n't be back. Minus the dead one. ``

Her eyes remained name, warily gazing through the rain into the wickedness of night.

'' How can you be sure ? ``

He smiled sadly, the warmth within him slowly dissipating as his war filled experiences, the single that had taught him the rules of troth, flew through his mind.

'' Because .... '' He whispered hauntingly, `` They delivered their message. They had their fun. For them that was enough, for the time being. ``

'' So their fun was trying to drown me, '' She questioned bitterly, `` Or threatening you with Hermione 's life ? ``

'' Both. ``

Her eye flickered across his, her expression sending something wrenching inside.

'' That man wanted you to tell him something, `` She said seriously, watching him carefully. `` Yet you would n't. Why ? ``

He swallowed hard, his hug drug 's Malus pumila rising strongly within his throat. `` Because I 'd rather die than allow them the info they need. ``

'' Than what stopped them from forcing you to go with them ? ``

His hired hand rose, trailing across her cheek, her breath faltering at his soupcon. Without rationality his brow was again pressed against hers, her grimace so close that he could see the brown flecks within her sword lily dancing with each flash of lightning.

'' Even if they had, '' He whispered sullenly, `` Even if they had tortured Hermione right in strawman of me, I still would never tell. Because the endorse I did we would take in all been dead. ``

Distant thunder shook the sky, Kalliandra 's center falling shut against the wet onslaught. His remained upon her, never leaving as her pectus rose and fell against his. The entitle rhythm of her ventilation was inexplicably calming.

'' If the man is so ruthless ... '' She finally spoke, `` Why would he proffer you the pick he did ? ``

'' Because as ruthless as he is, he 's also intelligent. Voldemort knows his only chance in blaze of getting anything out of me would be by offering an exchange : Hermione for the information, at a impersonal location. '' He paused, breathing heavily, watching the stirring across her imprimatur.

'' It 's the only way I could ensure her safety, '' He finished solemnly.

Against his frontal bone he felt a light frown creasing her hilltop. A second later her veil oculus fell open, observing him guardedly.

'' How could Voldemort possibly know what you 're thinking ? ''

His fingers clenched and unclenched around her blazon in a tense rhythm. `` Because Kalliandra, Voldemort and I have been playing this biz for a farsighted time. And were both getting dependable at it. ``

Her back talk parted questioningly, his finger rising to press carefully against them, silencing her queries.

'' Please, do n't ask. I do n't want to lie to you, '' He pleaded breathlessly, lips hovering centimeters from her own, praying she understood.

She did.

Against him she nodded, wet droplets cascading down her paling expression. This fourth dimension it was she who sealed the scant space between them, her silken sleeve winding around his neck, her body pressing flush against his.

For some rationality, as her set forth brim allowed his glossa entry, he suddenly felt more afraid than he ever had.

The stake had been raised that day, for with his safe Friend gone he suddenly had so a lot to lose, and it was the girl he remained lace with that had sent fissures running through his heavily erected wall.

Pulling away, gasping fervently, he suddenly was unsure of whether to hate her or love her for that.

'' You 're infuriating ... '' He murmured, nose nuzzling her cheek.

'' Likewise, '' She gasped breathlessly, water-laden filament of hair falling over her eyes

They simply remained, hovering within the embrace of the other, until a news bulletin of red crossed the dark, circling to rest upon the pond 's edge.

Whilst she stiffened, Harry almost laughed in relief.

The fiery Phoenix was watching them silently, something suspiciously like an old rag dropped near its feet, its featherlike question cocked at a rummy angle.

If Harry had not known better, he would say Fawkes looked amused.









Recommended Stories :

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The Weasley 's and their adoptive home have worn through the acclivity of Voldemort and the final Battle. There have been many destruction, but what happens on the brightest of day 's has repercussion far and wide ranging. Now they are left to pick up the pieces. Welcome to a story of hope, where the subsister are left to stick to the hint, attempting to solve the puzzle before the consecutive killer hit again. While this is a relatively new story it contains one of the most intriguing plots that I have been golden enough to stumble across. Pairing : Harry/Hermione

Hearts, ginmill, and cicatrice by sagesolon Rated : age musical genre : romanticism, Action/Adventure, Angst
The concluding fight has long since past, yet to the Chosen One its backlash sting as painfully as they did on the day he lost her. His solely solace is found within his nightly escapes to the Muggle region, to where he is unrecognized in the dimly lit pubs, to where he is no longer in a world that constantly reminds him of the red tomentum of his ambition. Yet when a Muggle as much in penury of comfort as he makes the error of sending a Quaker to ask for his phone number in a steamy pub, Harry suddenly finds a suspension to that lingering despair. The lonesome problem is how to explicate his domain to one substance with magic card tricks ? Well ... the bait of a vacation definitely has its skillful point in time ! This report has an almost celluloid noir quality at its start, and it progresses into a very 'feel good', laugh out loud, read. Pairing : Harry/Muggle OC












A few rudiments to take down :

Red rip electric cell contain Hb, which transports O throughout the body. If these were suddenly taken away, you would suffocate even if you were still breathing.

platelet are responsible for the body 's power to form blood clots. Without platelet, you would hemorrhage to death from a wide-eyed cut on the arm.

Sorry for the extempore biota lesson, but in writing this chapter I did not feel like explaining these BASIC concepts since I assumed that the fictitious character, due to one too many hospital wing visits, would already know what these are. I also took a few creative liberties, so assume with me on those.






'' Hope is the companion of power, and female parent of success ; for who so hopes strongly has within him the natural endowment of miracles. ``
~ Samuel Smiles ~



Chapter 27 ~ The fellow traveller of Grief


Near dawn she found him there. He was still awake, as she had known he would be.

Dean was flat on his back, staring at the robust, line red canopy of his bed. His eye had not moved from the canopy in hr, for reverence of seeing the empty bed besides him, and they did not displace as his bed hanging stirred in the eerie lighting.

Ginny slipped between them, crawling across the cover version until she lay besides him. Wordlessly he had wound his arms around her pocket-size inning, an icy nuisance twisting within him. It was a arduous guiltiness, for he had his friend 's quick comfort while her boyfriend had naught to see save for the cold blank sheet draped over his close oculus.

Seamus was gone, and it felt like a dagger had been driven through him.

It dawned a darkness, gray-red break of the day, and the sinister rain outside continued, pooling upon the window sill. He could not come together the window, nor block out the chill lead, for when he had first seen Seamus'empty bed that Night he had thrown open up each window pane, tearing the wooden panels from their hinges.

Now the H2O dripped onto the level, the irregular cycle serving to drive him closer and closer to the breakage compass point. It was a vocalise Neville seemed oblivious to, for his dorm mate 's stabilise snores filled the air, and with each passing sound James Byron Dean felt the urge to demolish something violently.

His digit twisted in Ginny 's red fuzz, reminding him of her presence. Though Seamus was gone, she was still there.

He had a reason to remain strong.

Still he did not look at her. Gradually her smooth breaths became regular, but his drab heart remained open, staring at the canopy.

It was all he could do.
* * * * *


Harry watched as Angelina ran from the room, unable to shake the icy sensation slithering within him. He knew he should not care, he could not ...

Yet he did.

indorsement after port-keying to lupine 's manor house, as he had regained his footing in the candlelit entrance hall, Kalliandra had lost cognisance. His shivering body had clutched her against his dresser, and that was how Angelina had found them.

It was becoming clearer, the harshly exchanged words between Kaylens and the master ... the ones he had overheard in the hospital flank ... It seemed age ago, yet they echoed hauntingly fresh within his head.

'' Considering that I 'm the one you ca n't cure ... ''

'' Kalliandra, looking at it as a death condemnation will not help subject. ``

'' You 're right. Nothing will. ``

Angelina had claimed that the physical tension of the Night had just finally taken their toll, saying how magical travel was often too much for a weakened body to conduct. She had told him everything was going to be finely, to not worry ...

Her eyes betrayed her words for the lies they were.

'' Harry, set her there. Help me get her arm ... ''

Angelina was back, having returned with a hoard of provision. He did as he was told, laying Kalliandra on the washed-out sofa. She sunk into the torn up cushions, stuffing bulging out at the extra weightiness. It appeared to be the only real part of furniture on the first base floor, and he too squeezed onto it.

He could n't leave her.

Reaching down he grasped the cuff of her wet sleeve, rolling it up. With every column inch of exposed human body another bruise was revealed, his insides twisting at the thick, cryptical purple sucker lining her touchy skin. In the dark of the clearing he had not even noticed ...

Angelina knelt besides them, her hands moving methodically, with the count movements born of her therapist training. His erstwhile teammate was now cleaning the inside of Kalliandra 's elbow, inserting a low needle into the bluish argumentation of her vein. He could only watch from where he sat on lupine 's worn sofa, holding Kaylens mussy chief of tomentum in his lap.

'' Harry obligate this ... accommodate it gamy ... ''

He nodded mutely, taking the enlighten plastic bag from her, watching the yellowish-brown fluid sloshing within it. Following Angelina 's direction he held it shoulder highschool, ineffective to slay his middle from Kaylens'calm face. Her deep hazel eyes were now hidden behind pale eyelids, her facial expression in do-or-die want of washing. A streak of mud still highlighted her cheekbone, a Asa Gray pelage of ashes lending her a ghostly, freckled appearance.

Reaching down Harry brushed her haircloth aside, revealing a dried smear of blood concealing near her hairline.

A recondite bruise was forming there as well.

In fluid apparent motion his sometime housemate attached a recollective, clear tube to the IV in her arm with a quiet click, retrieving the fluid filled bag from him. With both of his hands finally innocent he found himself smoothing the hair away from her human face, wiping the mud away with his thumbs.

He could find Angelina 's eyes on him. `` She needs to rest Harry. ''

He did not respond right away, contenting himself to learn as Angelina wove her baton, the IV bag rising to stay debar in mid-air. Slowly the liquidity began dripping from the bag into a low, tube-like chamber.

Swallowing hard, his gaze rose pointedly to Angelina 's.

'' What are you giving her ? ``

Angelina never ceased working, and she was already shooing Harry 's men out of the way as she carefully grasped Kalliandra 's other hitch arm, tapping just above the elbow with her wand.

Kaylens'blue vein bulged just long enough for another syringe acerate leaf to be inserted, only this clip Angelina was drawing blood sampling, rather than starting a dribble infusion.

'' Angelina ? '' He prompted gruffly.

The vernal healer sighed wearily, `` It 's a potpourri of red blood electric cell and platelet Harry. '' She pulled back on the syringe, and it began filling with a glutinous, drear red blood.

Harry hastily looked away.

'' Why does she need that ? '' He ground out, his vox hoarse with exhaustion.

Leaving the needle in her arm Angelina unscrewed the total syringe gun barrel, setting the blood sample upon a natation tray she had conjured. She made quick employment of attaching a new, empty one to the needle as she repeated the appendage.

'' How about you Harry ? '' Angelina asked dismissively. `` Knowing you, you 've probably managed to bang yourself up good. ``

'' Do n't change the subject. ``

Angelina 's dismal eyes darted up, `` I 'm not. But I 'm a healer, that 's why Dumbledore left me to look for you two. I just had to check. ``

His pall eyes turned to his own hands. He flipped them over, observing his healed, calloused palms. The trench slashes the broken glass had left were gone. Fawkes'tears had healed them, dripping into his wounding when he had reached through the midst pelting to necessitate the port key.

Before he even had a chance to wonder why Fawkes had bothered healing such minor injury, the phoenix had flown away.

'' I 'm finely, '' He replied staidly, realizing he meant it. No longer could he feel the sting scratches, torn by the werewolf 's claws, down his vertebral column. Even the os oceanic abyss chill the icy pelting had left was gone.

All that was left was the sick sense impression churning within his breadbasket, his only relief the girl in his lap, who was incapable of responding decent to ease his fears.

'' What 's wrong with her ? ``

In the empty, windowless room, Angelina removed the acerate leaf from her arm.

'' zero that ca n't be treated, '' She responded quietly, rising from her human knee, apparently done.

'' That 's not what I asked. ``

He did not leave out the way her eye avoided his.

'' zippo that I can order you. For what it 's worth ... I 'm sorry about that Harry. ''

He swallowed, the speech sound seeming much louder in the still air. He bowed his header, spying a fleck of grey ash near the street corner of Kalliandra 's mouth. Without thought his ovolo wiped it away, his stiff demeanor relaxing as a sleepy murmur emerged from her stale lips.

Angelina watched it all, silently placing each of the line of descent sample distribution into a cool carrying case. For a minute her clinical nature vanished, a sad look overcoming her ebony features.

It was then that it all came together for Harry. Every fiddling detail that she had let slip of paper, every sign of weariness, every word the Death Eaters had said ...

'' It has to do with what she is, does n't it ? ''

Though he had asked, there was no question in his tone.

Angelina rose a skeptical eyebrow, `` Then you do know ? ``

His centre rose to hers, `` Yes. That 's why you could n't enjoin me. Dumbledore is n't mindful I know. ``

She sighed tiredly, but he was already continuing. `` Ron and the others, you said they 're fine and that they were taken to Hogwarts. ''

She just nodded, earning a hard look from him.

'' Then why were we brought here ? ``

'' I wish I knew. All I know is that the parliamentary procedure is finally utilizing the safety houses it 's been setting up. ``

His brow crinkled, his hands unconsciously caressing Kalliandra 's moistness hair, which was strewn across his lap, leaving wet marks upon his trouser. `` There are other places asides from headquarters ? ``

'' Of course. Do n't ask where, because I do n't jazz. ``

His smile was strained, `` Clever really ... not letting any one someone know too much about anything in instance they 're caught. ``

'' Exactly. ``

His lapse from the dark topic plaguing him could continue no longer, for the feeling of carefully controlled terror was rising.

Indicating the IV bag, he shot out a question. `` Why does she involve that ? ``

'' Perhaps I 'm not the best someone to explain that. ``

'' You 're a healer, '' He said in a carefully controlled feel. `` Who better ? ``

Angelina opened her mouth, as if to reply, but she never got the chance.

'' Perhaps I can. If you would only countenance me. ``

Harry 's head spun, as did Angelina 's. Neither had heard the person 's arriver, and his bosom was thundering at the fatalist hypothesis that could have resulted from such a relapse on their persona.

His oculus narrowed, ira mixing with relief as he saw another loved one intact and standing in the hall 's doorframe. A bitter joke broke his pharynx, and he gestured into the room.

'' By all way professor, it is your house after all. ``

professor Lupin stepped wearily into the elbow room, looking sorry for the article of clothing. But then again, Harry reflected, did n't they all ? The persuasion nearly sent Harry laughing. Instead he bit it back, another blistering sound growling thick in his throat.

From the feeling on Lupin 's nerve, Harry knew he had noticed. The deep business on the man 's nerve betrayed an inner pain, one Harry felt all too acutely.

It was the hurting of deprivation. Only Harry knew Lupin had lost far more than he ever had. Of course of action, he was still young. There was time to trance up in that category.

As if sensing his dark thoughts, Kalliandra stirred. His aid was suddenly riveted to her, his manus on her cheek. half of him hoped desperately for her to awaken, while another part feared that his one chance of discovering what ailed her would then slip away.

She was far too stubborn to weight down anyone else with her painfulness. He knew that now.

It was startling how much could change in to a lesser extent than twenty four hours.

Harry 's half angry, half questioning gaze finally rose. He was startled to discover Angelina 's absence. Somehow she had slipped away unnoticed, leaving he and Lupin alone.

After having been ignored by him for over two workweek, he was n't surely if he was glad about that or not.

'' It 's serious to see you Harry. ''

'' Is it ? '' He could n't help it, but his interpreter was cold-blooded.

Lupin looked stung. `` Of course of study it is. ``

'' Well forgive me for being skeptical, '' Harry replied sarcastically. `` It 's not like you have n't spoken to me in awhile. ``

'' I had my reasons. ``

He inclined an eyebrow, `` You had intellect for believing Sirius all-but-killed my mum and dad too. ''

'' That 's below the belt Harry. ``

'' Good. ``

Remus ran a wear upon hand through his graying hair, leaning back against the bulwark. For the longest clock time neither spoke, the total coming together arousing conflicting emotions within Harry.

He wanted to slug him. For what he had done to him, to Tonks, to Kaylens ... by ignoring them simply to shelter them from his canine side. For having left him to deal with the pain of Sothis'decease alone. For having had the audacity to walk in, saying hello, as if zippo were haywire between the two. For having sent not one owl that summer.

All of Harry 's pent up frustrations with lupine were finally bubbling over, conveyed in the single icy tone he shot him.

Outside the coldness, first of Nov wind rattled the sidetrack. The weather matched his black mood perfectly.

'' I 'm sorry Harry. ``

He nearly laughed. `` Are you ? ''

'' For everything, '' lupin whispered chokingly.

Harry looked up, meeting the pleading stare of his father 's close living friend. Suddenly he did not see the man who had inspired such a touch of abandonment.

Instead ... he saw his family.

He swallowed hard, remembering the rifts he and Ron had been through, and the one they were in now. All those class ago, when he and Ron had fought during the Tri-Wizard tourney, Hermione had called them stupid person.

She had been right.

lifetime was too short to defy grievance.

The reminder of Hermione 's plight, and the thought that Remus could be taken just as easily, sent him stumbling for tidings. `` Just ... '' He started, forcing a puree smile. `` Do n't let it occur again. ``

'' I wo n't. ``

Remus'wakeful John Brown eyes were nothing but honest. Suddenly, despite his tarriance fears for Hermione ... for Ron ... for Ginny ... for Dean ... for Tonks ... for Dumbledore ... for Remus ... .for Neville ... .for Luna ... for Kalliandra ...

It was all too very much to take, but suddenly he felt that he may not be quite so desperately alone in facing all of it.

'' Thank you, '' He said quietly, truly meaning it.

Remus simply smiled sadly, inclining his head towards the slumbering female child in his lap.

'' How is she ? ``

Harry felt his brow instinctively chamfer, his brain once again compartmentalizing what he could worry about, and shock, in the here and now.

'' I 'm not sure, '' He replied honestly. `` But Profes ... .Remus, what 's happening to her ? ``

The startled smell upon Remus 's face faded, his kind eyes regarding him carefully.

'' I assume you already know then. ``

'' Yes, '' He heard himself whispering, his vocalisation filled with naked concern.

Remus studied him for a foresighted mo, his eyes falling on the move of Harry 's hands as he stroked Kalliandra 's yearn fuzz.

For some reason Harry did not care if Remus noticed.

The former professor 's brow crinkled with both curiosity and compassion at the connotation Harry 's gestures conveyed. `` Are you sure you really want to love Harry ? Sometimes not knowing is trump, for when you know ... '' Remus'gaze was suddenly far off, as if peering into the distant past.

'' Sometimes Harry, the trueness will simply obsess you. ``

Harry 's pharynx constricted, the tears glistening within Remus'eyes far too clear.

'' What if it already does ? ``

The senior man smiled sadly, `` Then I 'd say things between the two of you have changed. After all, she 's out cold and you have yet to try and throttle her. ``

A sad jape bubbled out of him, his regard falling to catch one's breath on her pale forehead.

'' Please ... I ... do n't say anything .... ''

'' Would n't dream of it. ``

Harry found himself nodding with no special cause. `` unspoilt ... I ... I 've no idea ... ''

'' What 's going on ? '' Remus finished.

Harry spotted the man 's knowing smile, and was finally able to let out the breathing place he had been unconsciously holding.

'' Something like that. ``

In the still air of the windowless way, both men remained tacit. Harry 's optic fell closed, his ears seeking out the soft sound of Kaylens'steady external respiration.

Somehow, even with the growing uneasiness within, this calmed him.

With a decisiveness he did not feel, he finally spoke.

'' I need to experience Remus. ''

A gimcrack sigh filled the room. `` I was afraid of that. ``

And Remus explained. He explained how magical organism had come into instauration, for somewhere in human history, human blood cubicle had begun mutating.

Most of the mutation had resulted in cancerous blood line streams, killing those in possession of those variations. Muggles and Wizards alike still struggled against those diseases, leukemia the most prominent, but there were some individuals where the variation became beneficial.

He explained how everything, both aliveness and inert, contained a kind of vigour. Not all of it was measurable in the Muggle fashion, and it was this form of energy, the kind that would conk out to register on electrical scales, that allowed witching existence to flourish.

It was magical vitality, and over time some somebody developed the ability to manipulate it, without contrary affects.

Others were not so lucky.

There were people like Kalliandra, people like stretch, who could delve into the charming realm. But doing so was dangerous.

In the caseful of witches and superstar, they developed completely new prison cell in their blood streams, and magic Energy was conducted through their forcible bodies via these. Thus their bodies were able to act like electric tour, and zip was able-bodied to pass by through their magical cells without ever touching their other cells.

It was a complete system.

There were juncture when witches and superstar would become tire out, and such occurrences usually happened when the mortal was performing wandless magic, or a particularly complicated patch. And the reason for their enfeeblement was quite round-eyed really :

When one 's body functions like a circumference, if overindulgence witching get-up-and-go is taken in and not released in the flesh of a properly cast patch, then that energy remains stuck in the body and has to go somewhere. And since magic runs quite literally through one 's mineral vein, that witch or star 's witching cells would be the first to be essentially, electrocuted by their magical overload.

Fortunately wizard cells are quite robust, and their plasma tissue layer are More than capable of absorbing such overloads.

Red blood cellphone, however, are not.

On occasion so much vigor is not released from a wizard 's body that it bursts through their charming prison cell, frying profligate cells essential in the maintenance of life.

And when one 's red line cells are dying it is hard to circulate enough oxygen.

It was how Luna Lovegood 's mother had died. She had suffocated, while still breathing.

Such Death were a uncommon occurrence, because human being blood contains far more cells than essential for the sustentation of spirit. So when some blood cells are killed there are generally enough survivors to allow that individual to stay functioning in a normal, albeit fatigued, manner.

The first metre Harry had tried the Patronus charm he had overdrawn as well. He had been left winded, gasping for breath, just like he was after every Quidditch practice.

Yet he had partaken in no forcible activity.

It was because he had lost red-blood cells, the very cells responsible for for carrying Oxygen throughout the physical structure, and his body was responding as it would in an Oxygen-deprived manner.

orbit had never evolved that far. They had never developed additional electric cell in their stock stream, and the mutant allowing them to conduct electrical current lay directly upon their red blood jail cell.

If they overdrew, their first cell to be damaged would be the one 's requisite in the transportation of O.

Their mutant was one that worked, but it functioned poorly. thaumaturge had evolved much more gracefully, for their additional cells provided a barrier to protect them against overdrawing. Ultimately it was this defense chemical mechanism that had allowed the wizarding species to not only wave, but to survive.

Unlike in him, the first cellular phone to die in a Reach when they overdrew were their red blood cells.

For a compass, the likelihood of suffering Luna 's female parent 's fate was an almost certainty.

A cold feel overtook Harry as all of this sunk in, for Kalliandra could easily die from overdrawing. She was only still awake due to the fact that her stock flow contained more red bloodline cellular phone than it actually needed. Thus, she was capable of tolerating a certain degree of overdrawing, but the margin was slim.

For her, unlike a witch or wizard, there was no real erudition bend. For her there was slight elbow room for mistake, for there were no cellphone to take up the shock absorber ...

For her the lonesome wages of overdrawing too a lot was death.

She would suffocate while still breathing.

It was why her red rake cellular telephone were being replaced even as Remus spoke. For every time she drew vitality into herself she was slowly killing her cells.

Dumbledore was determined to put back as many as he could, as often as he could.

It was the solely way to sustain her, to ensure her a longer life.

Suddenly he understood the intermittent bruising he had seen upon her throughout the year.

After Remus had turned ... in the infirmary annex ...

Her thrombocyte had been killed when she had overdrawn, to protect him from Remus ...

She had passed out in Grimmauld lieu, from the endeavor ... her body forcing her into unconsciousness in a final stage ditch effort to prevent her from doing boost price to herself..

The image of her lying unconscious on the floor of the 3 Broomsticks flew through his mind.

He had known that she had risked exposure for what she was, but Supreme Being ... .She had risked death there, to protect people who hated her.

And he had once accused her of being a Death Eater.

expiry Eaters knew no such altruism.

A sickening sensation flooded over him, his bridge player rising to rifle through his still wet hair.

He scarcely heard Remus as he tried to lie, telling him it was not a destruction sentence for her.

Harry knew better, for what else could it be ?

His bobby pin on her fasten, as if holding onto her could prevent the inevitable. Remus was talking about treatment, about how if they maintained her blood count at proper tier that she would be able to live a normal, to the full life.

All it took was a single feeling into Remus'cheerless eyes to know that his Friend did not truly believe what he was saying.

'' will she die ? ``

His own voice, his own question, sounded so far off.

'' Harry cipher is sure ... If she does n't overdraw then we 'll never experience to worry about that possibility. ``

'' Remus, will she die ? '' Harry felt his voice breaking, the companion pang of release welling within him.

As he met Remus'kind, glistening eyes, he knew the answer.

'' Eventually ... ''

He wanted to cronk out something, a mannikin of objection that would allay the dryness of his throat, but goose egg came.

'' From what we know Harry, the others like her ... eventually, they all overdrew. ``

Eventually ...

The jerky recesses of his mind clung to that word, the ridiculous fellow traveler of grief stirring within him.

Hope.

It was n't until sometime after dawn when he finally fell asleep. The IV was retentive since removed from her arm, her sleeping form pulled into his coat of arms.

At the here and now Harry did n't give a tinker's dam about who could see.



Recommended taradiddle :

LEGACIES : The Solidus appeal by the nighttime Lord Nedved Rated : Mature
Summary : Every epic has a beginning, and for the Thomas Young Wise Men who was Prophesized to have got the powerfulness the wickedness Lord Knows Not, this is the beginning of his Legacy. For Harry there was no time to mourn for his fallen godfather, for a new foe has emerged with the sole intention to assassinate him. The iniquity master Nedved has created a tale of action, discovery, magical creativity and ritual killing that would entrust the best novelist pounding on his door, begging for him to start working on original fiction. This epic narrative has 5 different novels associated with it, two of which are completed, while the others are well under way. To attempt to describe them in any other way would be to not do them justice. Harry/Hermione







author banknote : Hey folks !

All of you really are the dependable readers out there. I ca n't thank everyone sufficiency for all of the well wishes and understanding that were shown when I announced that I would be taking a foresighted sabbatical from writing. I really needed it, and am glad of it. Both my female parent and Sister had been diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses this past summer, and all of the wellspring wishes some of you sent via e-mail must have paid off because they have both made singular retrieval.

Secondly, thank you to everyone for the kind word 's regarding Lexi 's death. On top of everything this summer that was the final blow to drive all of my motivating for writing away for awhile, but it is now back wide force. Since I am a bit frustrated at having taken so long between chapters in the by, I have now set aside one day a calendar week to write so that I can get chapters out much more quickly, and on a regular base. I anticipate this chronicle being done by summer, and then I shall begin study on the sequel.

And most importantly I wanted to say thank you to Andrew, for he helped me immensely with this chapter. It had been so yearn since I had written anything that when I finally tried to write again I found myself suffering from a severe suit of writer 's blockage. Not only did he beta-read this chapter but he also offered wonderful proposition to get this fib back on track. Thank you so much !




'' Dangerous is ira concealed. ``
~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca ~



Chapter 28 ~ The Power of ira


As if in a nightmare the room 's impenetrable darkness was broken. From the darkened hall a I candle appeared, levitating ominously as it preceded its owner into the blacken room.

The home 's lower floor harboured neither window nor door to the out-of-door cosmos. It was a perpetual monitor of the monthly monster that had once been contained within its very wall, whenever the moonlight had cast its full moon Inner Light upon the earth.

Now another more dangerous monster loomed in the room 's shadows.

With a casual wave of their hand the figure crossed the carpeted story silently, their silhouette pausing above the slumbering teenager. The figure knew that neither would awaken until their quiescency spell had run its path.

Yes, the number was powerful. Their dormancy magical spell were one of their strongest talents.

They could operate in sodding safety. None within the bulwark would be the wiser to their activity.

Tonight they would begin their plan.

A syringe was filled, its needle swiftly inserted into the slumbering girl 's vena. Kaylens'pulsating blood, bluish in tint through her pale skin, flashed silver.

A mo later the strange hue faded, a grim blood of satisfaction stretching over the shape 's shadowed face.

* * * * *


With a acuate pawl the doorway to Dumbledore 's office opened.

Tonks shot out of the armchair she had been dozing within, knowing the locking spell 's removal to stand for only one thing.

'' He 's back, '' She whispered. Lounging in the armchair besides her Regulus nodded.

Out in the hall, suddenly seeable as the room access opened, was Ron Weasley. He lay slumped besides his discarded crutch on the floor, sleeping soundly.

Crusantheus hung on the doorway miserably, his knocker curled and contorted around his ears so as to block out the sound of the youthful Gryffindor 's snoring.

'' Kill me ... '' He squeaked. `` Please. ``

As tired as she was Tonks could n't help but smile as Regulus lazily took aim, an evil glint in his eye.

'' No ! '' Shrieked Crusantheus. `` I did n't actually think of it ! ''

Regulus continued advancing on the cowering knocker until a deep vocalism intervened.

'' No need to scratch Crusantheus. Did you forget that the killing execration has no upshot on nerve breast ? ''

Crusantheus peeked out from behind his detractor hopefully, as Tonks spun around, rounding on the infuriating thing 's rescuer.

Somehow Ablus Dumbledore was standing behind her, looking rather jovial.

'' Morning Nymphadora. Fancy a biscuit ? ``

As if on cue a tray of cookie appeared in his outstretched palm.

Tonks blinked dazedly, rubbing her red rimmed center with her fist. Surely this jocund
man had not just returned from a merging with the darkest of dark overlord ?

Regulus, completely unflummoxed by their sudden intrusion, rose from his arm president to carefully scrutinise the food offering. `` I take it negotiations proceeded satisfactorily ? ''
'' The exchange will be made in two calendar month'time. ``

Tonks gaped, `` Two calendar month ! ``

'' They probably need time to repair the little Mudblood, '' Regulus commented casuallly, directing his gaze to Albus. `` I assume you requested that she be returned in one piece, and I can only conceive of the fun they 've had with her until now. ``

Dumbledore nodded gravely. `` Her combat injury will need some ... healing. ``

Tonks eyes widened in concern. While she still did not see how Hermione for Dumbledore was a fair trade, she had grown rather fond of the girl during her time at Grimmauld home.

A duad of sky blue optic regarded her carefully, their twinkling somehow dimmer than she remembered.

'' I know what you are thinking Nymphadora, '' Dumbledore said kindly, as if reading her mind. `` But percentage of the cause I made the blood treaty here with Regulus, rather than in Voldemort 's presence, was so that I could ensure Hermione 's coming back on my own terms. He could have chosen to reject the blood accord had he so take, but he did not. ''

Tonks opened her mouth to ask precisely what those terms were, but his hand steadied her question.

'' The terms were that if she were returned in the exact physical state that she had been in before the Hogsmead attack took position, that I would trade blank space with her, becoming Voldemort 's captive. ``

'' I bet he was only too felicitous to accept that trade, '' genus Regulus stated, smirking widely. `` Imagine that ... Albus Dumbledore, the nighttime Lord 's greatest nemesis, handed to him on a golden platter with a side of cherry."

"Actually,"Dumbledore corrected,"I believe the expression is ‘ served on a silver record with a cherry on top.'”

Tonks spluttered, focusing on the retch sense impression within her venter. The war effort, the Order, could feasibly crack up without Dumbledore 's leadership, and here he was bantering with an ex-Death feeder, wizarding earth deserter right after selling his life to the devil.

"Dumbledore,"She said, voicing her far from unagitated mentation aloud."Why would you do this ?"

Dumbledore 's eyes locked on hers, losing their twinkle. `` Nymphadora, we have lost far too many students to this war already. I could not fend by and lose another. ''

She swallowed the lubber in her throat hastily. She should consume known all along that the safety of others would always come first to Dumbledore. He would have done the same for any of them.

love of one 's friends was a powerful thing.

'' So, old man, '' Regulus queried, taking a bite of his biscuit. `` Find out anything else of interest during your little rendezvous ? ``

If possible Dumbledore 's eyes darkened further. `` We have to get together the Order. The pest was unleashed in capital of Ireland. ``

'' Dublin, Irish Republic ! '' Tonks blurted rhetorically.

genus Regulus frowned, `` As brilliant as you are, how were you placed in Ravenclaw again ? ''

She scarcely heard him, her eyes having darted over to the still slumbering forms of Kenneth and Emily.

Their house city was infected.

'' So how 'd you come by that fun fact Albus ? I never exactly took you two to be old schoolhouse pal. ''

For the brief of seconds Dumbledore 's eyes took on their old sparkle. `` For all of Voldemort 's prowess with Legilimency, he never quite master Occlumency. He has always surrounded himself with loyal followers. '' He continued, `` And until recently he simply did not sustain the motivation.

Regulus chuckled. `` So he 's good, but you 're better. ``

Tonks blinked. `` But I thought he was one of the most brilliant pupil Hogwarts has ever seen ? ''

'' Ah ... '' Dumbledore said, smiling again. `` As is Ms. Granger, but even she can not fly upon a broom. ''

Tonks gaped at him.

'' We all have our weaknesses Nymphadora. Severus never would have survived his purpose as spy had he not been better at Occlumency and Legilimency than Voldemort. We should simply be grateful that this is one of Voldemort 's few imperfect points. ``

Tonks frowned pensively. So He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did deliver weaknesses. They really were not fighting for naught.

With an air of finality Regulus clapped his mitt together, making the already nervous Crusantheus bang his knocker rather loudly. The slumbering Ronald Weasley gave a violent start, snorting loudly as he awoke suddenly.

Tonks watched wearily as the carrottop blinked groggily, eyeing the situation in front of him until his centre landed on the Headmaster. It took a here and now before a nonliteral light electric light clicked on in his sleep-befuddled mind

'' Professor Dumbledore ! '' He exclaimed, scrambling to his feet, a flurry of wooden crutch and gangly ramification sliding on gem. It did n't hire longsighted before Ron was flatbed on his asshole once again, groaning from his fall.

Regulus eyed him mockingly. `` And they call Hufflepuffs the duffers. ``

* * * * *


Harry 's heart snapped open, his dreamless sleep shattered by the sudden outcry of the young lady in his arms. Through slightly blurred eyes he stared down the nosepiece of his olfactory organ at the mussy mop of hair resting upon his breast. The warm tactual sensation he ought to suffer felt vanished, a numbing one replacing it at the slew of her expression.

For Kaylens there was no peace to be found in the kingdom of dream.

He swallowed hard, watching her face crinkle into an look bearing striking similarity to what he had once seen upon Cedric 's sire, as the man desperately clutched his lifeless son to him, unmindful to the swarming crowd around them.

Such undiluted sorrow should never be seen upon a human countenance, yet he had seen it palpably far too often. Even on himself. The stem of such pain had been buried deep within him, growing since the moment he had discovered his genuine fate : putting to death or be killed.

All thought of his calamity of a time to come was suddenly shattered as Kaylens lurched violently, a chilling cry cutting from her throat.

Harry gaped, feeling the hair on his weapon rising to place upright on end. Without thinking his men gripped her arms, her tegument beneath his finger turning white with the pressure.

'' K-kaylens ... '' He stuttered, scarcely recognizing his own voice. He gave an observational shove, shaking her lightly in a pathetic attempt to rouse her.

And that was when she cried out again. That fathom ripping from her throat. It resonated through the dark room, terrifying in its raw intensity. His tomentum now fully stood on end, for the sound had been insanely tragical and yet, unbearably beautiful.

It chilled him to the bone, for it was a wakeless no human could utter.

It happened fast. One bit his limb were wrapped tightly around her, shaking her in an attempt to rouse her, and in the next her weapon system wrenched away. She shot up quickly, her eyes flying open in the dark way only to be slammed shut as she uttered a more familiar spirit shriek of pain. His relief was short- lived as he grabbed onto her arm again, for she pulled away so violently that they were both post tumbling from the lounge to the floor.

His back struck the floor first, his genu having been tangled unnaturally in the blanket. He attempted to right himself, pulling his ramification down until he was on all fours.

A western fence lizard kick to the back sent his face smashing into the ground.

He groaned, and ignoring the throbbing pain in his nose he rose his mind cautiously, squinting at his surroundings. Where were his specs ? Slowly he reached a hand out, allowing it to roam across the soft carpet in his lookup.

And then he remembered.

His glasses were still lying in some godforsaken puddle in the middle of that damnable forest. By now they were probably some acromantula 's chaw toy.

Cursing he blinked rapidly, his eyes finally adjusting to the darkness and settling on the slightly hazy schema of Kaylens. She was sitting just, some good five feet away, with her genu drawn to her chest and her look buried within them.

He swallowed hard, the sole sounds in the room now were his boisterous breathing place and her rapid, mercurial I. In kayoed quiet he observed her as best as he could. Her mere feet were sticking out from beneath a thick blanket, which despite their tumble still partly covered her, while she breathed as if having run a marathon.

Everything that had transpired between them came flooding back, a tense feeling twisting within him.

'' Kaylens ... '' He whispered, reaching hesitantly for her, only for her to resile, scrambling away like a frighten fauna.

He stared in amazement as her back hit the elbow room 's wall, a unknown whimper coming from her throat. Of all the reactions he could have foreseen, this was the uttermost from it.

And now she was having the reaction that he would take in expected from any other girl, but not from her.

She was sobbing.

The sound of her crying tore at him in ways he had n't imagined, for the young lady who had stood by him, facing Death Eaters and lycanthrope without blinking an eye, had been reduced to this pitiful state by a mere incubus.

Instantly he stood, crossing the room to her in four long strides.

'' Kaylens, '' He said, tentatively laying a hand on her shoulder. She whimpered, shrinking away from his touch.

His hilltop furrowed determinedly. `` Kaylens face at me, '' He commanded, crouching directly in front of her. Still, her straits remained determinedly adverted, prompting him to hold on her by both shoulders.

Her heading shot up, a furious clicking coming from her throat as she struggled away, lashing out violently. He dove back to avoid her flail manpower and metrical unit, landing on his tailbone, eyes wide in astonishment.

She was making that sound again.

And he recognized it. A dark night in the Forbidden timber, where he and Draco Malfoy had encountered the unexpected, had taught him that audio of pain.

The strait of the beautiful creature 's dying call had reverberated in his incubus for months.

As had Voldemort 's shadowy physique ...

There was no hesitation in his movements as he wandlessly summoned his wand to his manus, immobilizing her arms and ramification with a flick of his wrist.

Kaylens was conscious, but unequal to of lashing out.

He crawled back to her, taking her delicate wrist joint and pushing the sleeve of her battered sweater up.

The bruising was gone.

He swallowed hard, recognizing the odds of such bruising disappearing overnight. Now he was only certain of one thing.

Something had happened whilst he slept.

Licking his slip-up nervously he cupped her Kuki, raising her mind until he could see all of the confusion swimming within her gilded eyes. His intimation hitched in ugly recognition at what he was about to do, but there was simply no former way.

He had to recognize. He had to lie with what had happened whilst he slept.

Until then he could n't help oneself her, and he knew that no one else would be willing to do this. There were hard-and-fast rules against the unauthorized use of Legilimency. Hermione had taught him that much, screaming and ranting after his last misuse of the endowment against the same girl he was about to profane yet again.

'' I 'm sorry, '' He whispered, brushing her haircloth away from her face. `` I 'm so gloomy Kally ... '' He repeated, steeling himself for his criminal offense.

Cupping her face he stared intently into her eyes, watching them flickering around in fear.

Her fear was warranted.

He only hoped he was wrong.

'' Legilimency ! ``

The overpowering wave that was her biography flooded his mind, capturing his senses in a commotion of insensible case. He groaned, do-or-die to cease the twister-like effect of the memories swirling around him. It was different than the last time, so unbelievably different ...

A clamor of clicking, beautiful and hefty in its raw intensity filled his mind, only to be replaced just as quickly as it had come with a companion scream.

'' Riley ! ''

He was seeing it again, reliving the afternoon when she had seen her own brother murdered right in front of her. Only this fourth dimension the paradigm were fleeting, distorted as if he were viewing it through a thickset pane of smoky shabu. It was as if the computer memory were no retentive her own.

His heart clenched as he watched the man kick open the threshold for the second time. Kaylens'small body was thrown backwards, her petite form sliding across the floor. It was as if everything were on the fast forward feature of a Muggle VCR. There was the knife, her screams, her brother ...

As the gunshot rang out he could again almost feel what she had. The hot, fiery pain of the blade plunging into her flesh. The searing as it was drug in a thick line across her shoulder blade. The awe as she watched the blood pooling from her buddy 's
wound slowly blockage pumping ...

Suddenly all was black, misty, the mightily sound of a herd stampeding through her view. Then all was common and brown and honey oil again. Somehow he was running faster than he had thought possible, the trees whipping past him in a blur of green and brownness and unripened again. He was surrounded by others of his kind.

His name was Lightning.

The images twisted again, surrounding Harry in a perplexing whorl of forest scenes followed by scenes of her puerility. Silver horns flashed around him, gleaming as the herd ran beneath the moonlight, while golden whisker flashed throughout her life.

Another retentiveness slammed into Harry, crystallizing into about clearness. It was mid-afternoon, though the sun barely shone through the over-cast sky. Before him was a sickly kept yard, bordered on three sides by a thick, rising treeline and pitcher's mound. Harry swiveled in the murky memory, feeling Kalliandra 's reminiscence lurch dangerously as another memory board threatened to bleed into this one. The sound of hooves, the auditory sensation of the ruck on the run, pounded in the distance.

Harry fell to the dewy terra firma, watching as a man with lucky hair, tinged heavily with gray, methodically stacked railroad away from the business firm. Fog crept across the lawn, curling around his feet, each grunt echoing in the mum vale.

And then the nipper were led out, and Harry 's soul shivered.

Kalliandra appeared to be the same age as in the finale retention, only now she stood besides a small-scale boy, barely older than her, digging her nails into his arm.

'' S-sean ... ''

Their forefather pried her hands away from her blood brother, forcing a semi-automatic Glock 17, 9x19 mm calibre pistol into her humble hands. Her leg had suddenly felt frozen, rooted to the dampness priming coat. Harry could practically palpate her heart 's fearful thundering at the cold, unfeeling alloy between her finger.

The thick fog curled high around the six foot lot of sand grip, and as it began to mizzle her Father aimed her small bridge player towards the stack.

'' Shoot it. ``

Kalliandra pulled the trigger and cried.

As the gun was being passed to her surviving brother Kaylens'retention shifted again, swirling until he found himself peering through a thick grove of trees, stomping his hooves in warning as a hooded flesh approached. The figure 's hands raised very slowly, carefully removing the cap of their robe, allowing a shower of midst, pitch blackness hairsbreadth to follow tumbling around her articulatio humeri.

The woman 's visage remained hidden by the deep forest shadows, yet Lightning was calming.

It was a virginal charwoman. She could be trusted. Lightning could tell.

The unicorn never saw the other cloaked form creeping from behind, and that man 's dagger soon shone silver with Lightning 's blood.

Harry stood in the tail drawing deep, ragged breaths. He could practically feel every inch of pain the misfortunate creature was going through, the solitary sounds that of the screeching animal and that of the dry branches cracking beneath Harry 's shifting weight as he watched, powerless to bar its pain.

The man bottled and corked a measurable amount of roue from the unicorn, leaving it only enough to barely limp away active. A unclouded chortle escaped the hooded demise eater at the sight.

Suddenly the woman stepped out of the shadows, and Harry 's breath stopped.

Angelina stood in the dim light, depositing the bottles into a loggerheaded bag slung across her shoulder. Her Dark Mark gleamed brilliantly.

Violently Harry felt himself being tossed out, finding himself flat on his back staring up at Remus'shocked face.

Kalliandra continued to whimper.

* * * * *


'' Would you mind repeating that ? ``

Tonks blinked stupidly. Somehow she had thought that being told that the `` plague of all plague '' had been unleashed upon the citizens of Hibernia would have had more of an effect upon its President.

Instead the newly awakened Kenneth Bothan sat behind Dumbledore 's desk, clasping his hands, waiting for her reply with an inquiring look upon his face.

She silently damned Albus for having left them to crack the tidings to Kenneth while he went to call an emergency meeting of the Order. She was n't secure at this sort of affair dam n't ! She had at least expected a rouse out of the man at the news, but instead he was irrefutably calm.

It was quite obvious that Kenneth was insane.

'' Basically Ken, all of your masses will be dead within the calendar week, '' Regulus stated with ironic blitheness. `` But look on the burnished English. At least you wo n't have got to run for re-election. ''

Tonks'dark oculus swiveled to her cousin, her mouth opening and closing like a gaping fish.

Kenneth, however, seemed entirely unruffled.

'' So, '' The President started with a rum frown, `` What you are saying is that wizarding folk have no intervention against this ? ''

'' Well ... '' Regulus mused thoughtfully. `` We could always Avada Kedavra those who have already contracted it. That ought to slacken its scatter, right Nymphadora ? ``

'' Regulus ! ``

Kenneth looked appraisingly at her cousin. `` And this Avada Kedarva treatment ? How good is it ? ``

Regulus grinned like a jackal. `` Supposing we were able to sequestrate those who had already contracted it we may get out its method of dispersal, while simultaneously establishing a quarantine and treating the nuisance of the already afflicted ... ''

'' By killing them ! ? '' Tonks fit in, ineffective to think the wicked secret plan Regulus played with the President 's hopes.

'' Ah, '' Kenneth said as if suddenly understanding. `` The treatment has a highschool fatality rate rate. How high though ? ``

genus Regulus grinned widely, while Tonks contemplated slaying for the dozenth time in twenty dollar bill four hours.
* * * * *


'' Harry ! What in the public figure of Merlin did you think you were ... ''

Harry closed his eyes, grinding out his actor's line. `` Something 's wrong with Kalliandra, '' He interjected. `` I had to come up out what. ``

The room 's quiet was broken only by Kaylens'laboured breathing, and her clean-cut distress drew lupin 's attending from him to her. He felt the late professor drop to his knees besides them, and he cracked an eye to watch as lupin scrutinized her.

The professor looked flabbergasted as he picked up one of her clay arms. `` Harry, you 've immobilized her. ``

'' For good reason. ``

Lupin threw a disgusted flavor over his shoulder joint, and snatched his wand out, clearly intending to remove the spell.

'' professor I do n't think tha ... ''

His protest was too previous, for Kaylens had already lashed out, landing a strategic flush that sent lupin sprawling flatcar on his back next to Harry.

'' I told you, '' Harry groaned, shoving himself up on his elbow to notice the trouble face of Remus'face. `` flush hard, does n't she ? ``

Lupin coughed harshly in response, choosing to ignore him as he rolled over to moderate on Kaylens. She was already scrambling along the bulwark on all Little Joe, backing herself into a corner like a terrified fauna. On her way she somehow managed to hit the only other piece of furniture, asides from the couch, and respective small bulk came spilling down, scattering across the floor like rock thrown from a distance.

The crashing speech sound only intensified the poor young lady 's whimpering.

Harry 's eyes remained on her, watching as she curled her stage to her chest of drawers in a feeble attack at self-protection. But he knew the truth ... there was no protective cover from what plagued her.

But he 'd be damned if he did n't try to help.

'' professor .... '' He started slowly. `` What form of curse does drinking unicorn pedigree entail ? ''

lupine opened his sassing and faltered. Harry remained lying on his backrest, his upper body propped up with his articulatio cubiti, silently hoping to God that the prof would put the part together. Lupin had to believe him. He had to trust him. None of the grownup, save for those abruptly and buried, had ever trusted him in time for it to actually matter.

It was why Sothis had died. And somehow Harry did n't think he could select it if the terminal link to his father failed to commit him.

Then slowly, ever so slowly, the lykan's head turned towards him, and even in the dark elbow room Harry could see the sudden cognition flashing in his eyes.

Moony understood his meaning.

'' Her bruising is gone, '' Harry whispered, driving another blow to any question the prof could accept. `` What else in the wizarding world could heal someone that quickly ? ``

Lupin drew a deep breath, shaking slightly.

'' Harry ... if what you 're saying is true ... ''

'' It is, '' He assured. `` I saw memories inside of her judgment that were not hers. ``

Kaylens'whimpering had finally quieted, casting the room into a deadly silence.

Besides him lupin swallowed audibly, contemplating Harry 's statement in the deathly quiet that had descended. Kaylens was no longer whimpering, and he was unsure of if he missed the reassuring sound of her bearing, or if was pleased at the obvious easing of her distress.

He glanced at Lupin, stunned at the torn expression upon his former professor's endorsement. Did the man believe him or not ?

He sighed in frustration, snapping at Lupin's unresponsiveness. `` Why would she have got those memories, Moony ? ``

Hearing his old Marauder name snapped lupin out of his contemplative stupor. `` It's magically potent…unicorn line that is. In fact it is so wizard that their retention are often heavily imprinted upon it. '' He shook his head slowly, as if clearing a hazy fog."To possess a unicorn's bloodline is to not only possess their life stream, but their very being."

Lupin sighed heavily. `` There is not much case in point for this, but….in the early 1900 's medi-wizards began experimenting with unlike treatment option for terminal diseases. One researcher, familiar with unicorns, sought to rein in their healing big businessman by injecting his terminally ill patient with the animals'blood. It cured the patients but the side effects…"lupin shuddered, digressing quickly. `` The blood was too concentrated to find to begin with. Unicorns don't normally donate willingly, not to mentio ... ''

'' What side result, '' Harry interrupted hoarsely, closing his eyes. The feel of her in his arms flooded his senses, the woodsy odor that had clung to her all Night coming back, overwhelming him with a tidal wave of fear. In his liveliness there was no room for new attachments, yet the thought of her in pain…

He knew without a dubiousness that he would kill for her again, just as he would pour down for any of those he held close.

He only hoped it would not come to that.

His eyes snapped undecided as Lupin 's disturbed interpreter filled the room.

'' nearly went insane. ``

Harry nearly choked. `` Insane ? '' He grated out.

Lupin looked years onetime. `` They never were capable to secern between themselves and the animal again, '' he relayed. `` Can you imagine it Harry ? Having a lifetime of memories that were not your own suddenly shoved inside of your head ? Unicorns live for hundred of years…it was only natural for those obtaining their line to get disordered. To them it would feel as if they had spent a foresighted time being a unicorn than a human being."

The sick sensation twisting within him intensified. Kaylens'intellect had revealed exactly what Lupin now spoke of, and the idea made him sickish.

And the curse…God he had nearly forgotten…

Remus read his mind, continuing his scholarly practice of facts aloud. For Remus, who had lost so a good deal, it was easier than dealing with the devastating fallout facing them in Kaylens'crumpled form.

"When one slays such an innocent creature, seeking their blood's healing power, it leaves the curse of the half-life. But when one is given the rakehell unwillingly, or when the animal is left live, the torment does not lessen ; it simply changes its manifestation."

His throat constricted, but Harry managed to die out a unity word.

"Explain."

There was no mistaking the sick look upon lupine's face."Harry, the only ones desperate enough to kill such an sinless wight are those hanging onto life by a thread. But the price…it is far too high for any sane person to mull over, for the price for their barbarity is losing all power to love. A life-time without the capacity for love is devoid of joy, happiness, family…"He shook his head, disgust etched in his every feature."In a do-or-die try to save their own life sentence they lose the solitary affair that makes life Worth living for. Once they take that route they truly lead half a life, only experiencing the darker sides of the emotional spectrum."

"Then the mediwizard, the one using it to cure his patients, did that pass off to him ?"

Lupin sighed indulgently."There are ways to take in it, direction for it to be done without incurring the wrath of the curse word but…those ways take clip, Harry. Gaining the long term trust of a unicorn, let solely permit to impose wound upon it, are not easy tasks."

He swallowed hard."What about Kaylens ? That won't…it won't happen…"He trailed off, unable to vocalize such morbid thoughts aloud. No human deserved that. She didn't deserve that.

Once again lupine looked ill."For Kally it will be different,"He said gruffly."Instead, if she recovers, she will make out, but her every experience will be shared with both sides of her, diluting the intensity of the emotions she feels, diluting her opinion towards others…"

Something about the Word sent Harry's marrow twisting.

"Unicorns ... they are such innocent creatures, incapable of sin, incapable of inflicting pain in the ass ... Could you imagine having a saint following you around for the entirety of your liveliness, correcting your every fault ? Well from this moment on she will be sharing her creative thinker, her life, with retention of what dead on target innocence is, for a unicorn is the true avatar of that, and with it will come a gnawing guilt over the sinning she has committed in the past. Between the confusion over her identity and her newfound guilt over even the minuscule of transgressions…that alone could be enough to drive some mad."

Harry's mouth twisted into a frown,"So she can't sin ?"

"If only it were that well-off, Harry. She can, and she will. But having this will throw her a conscience impregnable than most, and living a perfect liveliness is an impossible chore. Her life will be as close to formula as possible, only she will feel far hangdog about thing she does than others."

'' A half lifespan ... '' He whispered aloud, suddenly understanding. Kaylens truly would be cursed, for she would always be sharing her brain with memories not her own.

None of this was her fault, and the thought sickened him.

'' Not all the mediwizard 's patient role went insane, '' He finally said, recalling Lupin 's early words. `` You said well-nigh. ``

lupine shook his head. `` They all went insane at first Harry. But only two managed to reclaim enough of their brain to function. Two out of stacks. ``

Harry closed his eyes, his voice filled with sardonic irony. `` She just ca n't overtake a break, can she ? ``

The Professor shook his principal in response. `` There 's only one way to be sure as shooting. ''

Without warning lupin snatched his wand out, summoning a minuscule flashlight. Soon a metal fuzz came flying through the doorway, landing in the professor 's outstretched hand.

Harry frowned at the action, not understanding, but in one swift apparent motion the professor had it on and aimed at Kalliandra 's boldness. Lupin clearly knew exactly what he was looking for.

Kaylens was suddenly shrieking again, and judging from the gloomy look on the prof 's expression he had found all he needed to know.

A metal click sounded as the flashlight was turned off, and Kaylens'cries instantly died down, slowly fading to a dull whimper.

'' She 's sensitive to visible light ... '' lupine stated. `` There are only two shape I know of that cause that. ``

'' She 's not a vampire ... '' Harry stated coldly, earning a reproving look.

'' I was n't even about to suggest it. But animals tend to cause amend nocturnal vision than us Harry. Lykans and unicorns are no exception, and when I was first bit ... '' He trailed off, his face twisting into a curious verbal expression."Once I was bit my whole body changed. My optic were the worst though. ''

The professor suddenly adopted an almost capricious expression. `` Did you know there are more than square brass per inch in your centre than in any other part of your eubstance ? Well there are. If you ever want to have mortal pain just bewitch their eyes and ... ''

'' prof, '' Harry interjected, at the instant not carrying about the finer points of jinxing.

lupine shrugged. `` My bite caused a whole new layer of tissue paper full of Inner Light sensitive cell to spring up across the backrest of my eyes, its called tapetum lucidum. It lets me utilize LE fall to see, so I can see with one-sixth the total you can. But when it first happened ... before I was used to it ... '' He shuddered. `` Merlin it hurt. The svelte ignite felt like the sun was blasting me in the face. blaze, it had me in tears. ''

Lupin raised the flashlight, pointing it directly at Kalliandra, flicking it on and off with each syllable. `` Just. Like. Her. ''

Kaylens'whimpers died down as the light was turned off for a final clip, and suddenly Harry understood the flashlight. Unicorns had excellent well-nigh vision as well, and the flashlight was Lupin 's way of confirming what he already knew.

Kaylens had a stratum of lite sore tissue growing across her retinas right now. No curiosity she screamed at the light.

'' Harry, '' The scholarly professor flavor was suddenly gone, and the wolf was deadly serious. `` Was she fine survive nighttime ? Before she lost cognizance ? ``

Harry was agile to nod.

'' Then sometime between then and now mortal injected that blood directly into her vein. She could n't cause done it herself. ``

Harry 's oral fissure opened, but his question of how that was potential died on his tongue.

He knew the answer.

There was only one individual who would wilfully unchurch another within the house.

'' professor what 's going on ? I heard yelling. ''

Harry 's eyes narrowed, every muscle tightening. Angelina had finally come, drawn by the incremental shouting. There she was, rushing through the elbow room 's verge, drawing her cloak hastily around her as if nothing severe were amiss.

If he had n't known better he would have thought she truly was surprised at the spot she found. But he knew better. No one took that long to answer to screams like the one's Kaylens had unleashed unless it was intentional.

'' Why is it so dark ? '' Her voice sounded honestly confused as she flicked her scepter out, lighting every candelabrum in sight.

His middle flew to Kaylens, who had immediately began shrieking, clamping her hands over her eyes, screaming as if netherworld itself has sent its devil up to embroil her into its profundity. His chest constricted at her obvious pain.

lupine lunged at her in a decidedly Friedrich August Wolf like way. `` Kally, do n't ! '' He was shouting, fighting her for control. She lashed out, and lupin grasped her wrist in a single, fluid motion, quickly capturing the other as well.

The professor had already forced her hands down against her side of meat, kneeling on her legs in a vain endeavor to prevent them from flailing. He was far unassailable than Kaylens, but she was dire, fighting to jam the hellish light from her eyes as lupin fought to prevent her from inflicting harm upon herself. Now he was yelling at Angelina to extinguish the candles, and Harry still had not moved.

He was too in use watching Angelina, noting the guilt flashing within every brown paint in her dingy eyes.

Her black cilium fluttered, and the betraying emotion was suddenly gone.

His blood boiled, his branch vibrating with suppressed rage as she began speaking, a panicked edge to her voice.

'' What 's going on ? '' She asked fearfully, rushing across the room to aid lupin. `` Remus !
What 's wrong with Kally ! ? '' She continued shouting questions, lunging over Harry as if he were not even there.

She dropped to her knees besides where lupine and Kaylens wrestled, her coal black hide lambency in the candlelight. Her disconsolate heart widened in feigned repulsion, her face a mask of clean-handed concern as she reached out to help hold Kaylens.

And Harry lost it.

Her paw never reached Kaylens, her tainted finger's breadth never touching her trunk. Before anyone could take in it Harry 's deal had flown out, snatching the oversized sleeves billowing around the traitor's wrist, and he tugged her callously to the floor.

Harry lunged to his understructure, stamping the heel of his understructure against the female child 's throat, pinning her to the terra firma.

'' Do n't. contact. Her. '' He growled, the world rippling around him.

mightiness swelled within him, the forcefulness of his deception unleashed by the raw angriness pumping through his mineral vein, and the look ... it was intoxicating.

Angelina 's body undulated like a writhe beneath him. She was choking, spluttering incomprehensible sounds, the shock clearly written across her expression. Her helping hand were clawing at his base, her fists slamming against his wooden leg as she fought for air.

He scarcely noticed any of it.

'' H-harry ... st-top ... '' She gasped, her eyes rolling backwards, fingers going morass as her supplication went unheard.

'' Harry ! Let her go ! '' Shouted Remus, followed by a loud crashing as he and Kaylens tumbled into the bookcase, knocking it sideways.

Koran went flying, scattering everywhere. The resounding crashing masked the dull thump of Angelina 's hobble arm hitting the floor.

Lupin let out a pained howl, and Harry 's hand shot out. He felt the magic dripping from his fingertips like water.

With a flick of his articulatio radiocarpea the taper went out.
* * * * *


The descending sun of midday zenith was partially obscured by the perpetual cloud cover, casting the not-so-distant Dublin-Wicklow mountains into a deep fog. Yet the man paid the ominous environs no creative thinker, nor the racking coughing that had swiftly descended upon him. Instead he stared out the windowpane of his South Dublin address, admiring the panorama afforded by his working class neighborhood.

With a small smiling he leaned further back into his reclining chair, letting the smoky scent of bracing baking fish fulfill his nostrils. George Meredith was cooking, and from the spirit of it she was cooking the fish he had caught just that morning. They were bound to taste delicious. Everything his wife cooked always did. It was just a shame their middle tyke, Eva, had inherited his culinary horse sense, or lack thereof.

'' founding father, you feeling alright ? ``

The man turned to find his eldest son in the doorway, a concerned expression crossing Edward VII 's freckle aspect. The man smiled, for the resemblance between begetter and son was striking. Edward had been the merely baby to inherit both the freckles scattered across his nozzle and the morose head of hair adorning his head teacher. The other two of his children bore his wife 's ash blond hair and startling sullen eyes. Duke of Windsor however had his blue-green ace.

He graced his son with a warm smile. `` I 'm just mulct m'boy. Just a bit of a cold. ``

'' You sure father ? Perhaps after dinner we should take you to the physician. Your cervix looks awfully swollen. ``

Curiously the man rubbed his tender lymph lymph gland, shocked to find that they had doubled in size of it in just a few hours.

His son smiled cheekily. `` female parent is of the mind to not let you go off fishing at such ungodly hours again. She said something about catchin'yer demise on account of our colder than normal temperatures. ``

The man could n't resist a grinning. `` well perhaps yer mum is aright. The thermostat dropped to 10 Celsius this mornin'before I ventured out. ''

'' I 'll tell her you said so. ``

The man 's eyes widened in mock horror. `` Now you 'll be doin'no such thing boy ! Because I 'll undertake that once yer mum 's done houndin'me that yer 'll be next. ``

Now it was Edward 's bend to bet trepid, and the man leaned back, smiling in satisfaction. The boy still remembered the time Meredith had wrapped him head to toe in a snow-suit, complete with two scarves wrapped around his principal and oversized mittens. Oh ! How the boy could hardly walk in that contraption !

'' father, '' Started his boy diplomatically, `` I think I 'll just be off to get a chief start on my Algebra. ``

The man smiled in satisfaction as the room access closed behind his boy. Yes, despite their humble surroundings his boy would soon spring up into a amercement man. And while he had never been capable to provide all that he desired for his tike, they did wonderfully with what they were given.

It was no minor point of pridefulness for the man that he had worked his way from the north side of Irish capital to the South. While most of the people in his income class tended towards the northwest side of the city, here he was, raising his class is Tallaght. It might not be one of the wealthy district device characteristic of Dixie Irish capital, but its robust sense of history had captured his children 's hearts from day one. He still remembered how young Eve 's eyes had grown wide as saucers as he had explained the origin of the district 's name.

Tallaght. Pit of crying. The very name was reminiscent of the mass grave dug there during the last Black pestis. Thousands were said to be buried just beneath the sewers, and that little bit of knowledge had had all three of his tyke off and running, screaming and laughing in growth as their young minds invented ghost write up along with it.

How proud he had been when Edward had shown him a story he had written. It had been about a Young boy and his ghostly friend, a child who had died during the Black infestation. The ghost child had been buried beneath the fictitious boy 's home, and had appeared to the boy when another unknown illness ran rearing through the urban center. With the ghost minor 's service the young boy had been able to save the metropolis, and his family.

The man leaned back in his electric chair as a bout of coughing shake his thin frame, a deep pain shooting through him. He clung to the hired hand rests tightly, waiting for it to give-up the ghost, all the while thinking of the future.

Yes. An writer would be a befitting professing for his eldest. Edward VIII would one day make a fine novelist.

The man smiled, proud of his children in a way that only a father could be.

If only he knew how soon account were to repeat itself.








A/N : Thank you so a good deal to Andrew, Njhill22, and Ichigopan for helping me out a lot with this chapter. Saint Andrew the Apostle not only helped to act upon out some of the plot crick for this chapter and the future, but he also beta-read it for me, and therefore rocks. Njhill22 and Ichigopan are also awesome, because both of them helped me until 3 am when I wound up seriously stuck on how to publish the side by side contribution. Thanks so much you guys !






'' Nothing ventured, cypher gained. ''
~ William Shakespeare ~



Chapter 29 ~ No Longer Helpless


With a moving-picture show of his wrist joint the candles went out.

His heel remained solidly planted against Angelina 's chest as cerement of duskiness shaft out in all focusing, like the lank fingers of a corpse, until the entire way was engulfed in an inky, suffocating dark. Harry scarcely noticed any of it, nor the buddy-buddy perfume of burnt wax as unobserved heater curled up from the extinguished candles.

ira pumped heavily through his vena, and with a hate he had not thought possible he glared down at the girl beneath him. In the past times his callous natural action against his former mansion match would have sickened him, but now ....

Things were dissimilar.

His outstretched script shook, his barely restrained thaumaturgy crackling across his skin like static electricity, burning and searing at his flesh. Grimacing in pain in the ass he forcefully curled his fingers into a fist, tightening it, feeling the raw exponent seeping back in

A new feeling rose up within him. A wickedness, powerful, revengeful feeling.

Bearing the coldest of looks he crouched low, inspecting Angelina to check that she was indeed unconscious. He would not make the mistake of thinking a demise eater subdued when they were not, but her death would do him no good.

He intended to ascertain out all he could from the perfidious wench.

Then, beneath his foot, he felt the wearisome wage hike and fall of her ribcage, and his leg twitched with the suppressed urge to stamp the hint from her. For the first time he understood what Ron had meant when he had drilled him on the differences of fighting defensively versus offensively in chess.

From now on Harry was out to win, and if that meant taking down the opponent 's instrument to do so he would bear witness no hesitation.

Swallowing back a nauseous wave of repulsion he reached out, touching the corrupt enchantress 's skin and shoving her head to the side. It lolled over with a dull clump, revealing nix. The Death feeder would not be moving for some time.

Good.

Still ... they had all been fooled by Angelina 's acting skills once. He would not precipitate victim to that again.

With calculate efficiency he withdrew his wand, a dreadful looking crossing his characteristic. His anger still burned hot within him, the veins in his neck pulsing intensely as he thought of the witch 's perfidy. Angelina had been his house mate, a teammate, but speculative of all, she had nearly been a friend. Once she was a Gryffindor. And now ....

She had betrayed the guild by taking the mark of that snake, and had all but killed Kaylens, possibly robbing her of her intellect.

A growl ripped from his pharynx, the tip of his wand suddenly digging against the traitor 's tabernacle as he pondered all the spells he could use.

Thunk.

'' Harry, stop ! ''

He stopped cold. Remus'gruff, panic-stricken voice had cut through the air like a well sharpened tongue, sending his sceptre arm tensing as his Padre 's in conclusion acquaintance fought his way out from beneath the books that had fallen atop him. In the wake of his own scuffle he had nearly forgotten Lupin 's presence, and the thundering of his pulse in his ears had drowned out the low groan and whimper from the other side of the room.

He had forgotten one early affair : That despite the want of lighting in the room, Lupin could still see exactly what he was doing.

'' Lumos. ''

Harry 's head snapped around as a cushy glow cut through the thick wickedness, his gaze riveted to the horrified manifestation crossing Remus'face.

His one-time prof stood behind the overthrow bookcase, optic wide and staring.

'' My God ... '' He whispered chokingly, `` Harry ... '' His accusing eyes flickered up to his. `` What have you done ? ``

He sucked in a labored breath between his teeth. `` Nothing she did n't deserve, '' He hissed staidly.

A strangled sound came from the Professor 's throat. `` But Harry ... that 's Angelina ... ''

'' No kidding. Really ? '' He snapped.

A sudden hassle and clump, followed by a penetrative, inhuman whimper sent his wand jabbing into Angelina 's head.

'' Kally ... ''

He had n't needed the professor 's waste whisper to screw who was softly whimpering.

warmness wrenching, he fought back the hollow look in his chest. `` Why do n't you see to Kaylens, professor, '' He grated out, his fount a grim masque as he focused back on the sometime chaser.

'' I will but ... is Angelina okay ? ''

'' I sure as hell hope not. ``

A loud drink preceded Remus'side by side, tense words.

'' What are you planning on doing Harry ? ``

'' You know Moony, '' He said, vocalization vibrating with barely suppressed rage. `` I 'm still deciding on that.

Lupin 's phonation was strained, the conservative, placating note in it foreign to him. `` Harry, I know something 's wrong. But just think about what you 're doing ... ''

A cruel, hollow laughter escaped his throat. `` Oh, bank me Moony, I have. ``

'' She 's on our incline, Har ... ''

He cut him off, spitting out the cold truth.

'' She 's a death Eater, Moony. ``

From behind him came a loud, apprehensive drink. `` Harry ... are you surely ? ``

A frigidity grimace crossed his lineament. `` Yes. ``

There was an agonizing pause, and a sick, uneasy dread suddenly rose in his stomach as his racing pulse finally began to slow. He needed Remus to believe him. He needed mortal in the rescript to not just listen to him, but to actually trust him. And if Remus did n't ...

'' I 'll hold her. She 'll have got to be taken to HQ. ``

Harry 's headland bolted around, blow written on his construction. `` You believe me, '' He questioned. And even in the dim twinkle he could see the slight drift of Remus'fantasm nodding.

'' Harry, '' He said, sounding almost hurt. `` I always believe you. ``

His forehead instantly wrinkled in discombobulation. Remus had just been talking to him as if he were some half-cocked gun about to go off. `` Then why ... ''

'' Because I thought you might float her head off before I could fancy out why you had attacked her in the first piazza. It would have been a very Sirius-like affair to do. ''

The thought struck him strong. `` Yeah, '' He managed. `` It would have been like him. ``

He glanced back, and in the luminescence of the baton he could see Remus smiling sadly. He returned the verbal expression, feeling shakier than he would receive thought possible only minute of arc before, but that did n't matter.

Remus believed him. He did care about him after all.

His apologies for all those lost calendar month, for all the fourth dimension when he had been left to deal with the pain of Sirius'death alone truly had meant something, and despite everything a warm aesthesis wormed its way into him.

All it took was a cushy whine, from a corner behind him, to get it all away.

He swallowed hard, finally turning and squinting in the dim lighting to see Kalliandra cowering in the corner, knees drawn feebly to her pectus, her golden haircloth spilling over them and her face buried within them.

Slowly his blood force per unit area rose, his fundament grinding down even harder against the chick beneath him. Angelina would pay. He would see to it. But right now she was not his priority.

Kaylens was.

Throwing a piercing brilliance at Angelina he shoved his foot beneath her hobble consistence, kicking her over onto her belly. A second later he was on her back, dragging her hands behind her, pinning them together with his knee as he snatched up his wand, pointing it at her exposed wrist joint.

'' Bindovera, '' He hissed, watching the snake-like forget me drug current from its tip, slithering around her branch until she was bound up to her cubitus. Dropping his sceptre he gave them a harsh tug, satisfied in the way the dark girl 's skin chaffed, reddening even in the night igniter.

'' Exuberant, aren't we ? ''

He merely grunted in reaction, giving the ropes one net, pachydermatous tug as Remus began binding her legs.

A 2nd later he was on his infantry, an aching sensation spreading through him as he watched Kalliandra curling in the box, incapable of remembering even her own name.

Gods ... she was n't in her right mind. And Remus had said she 'd stimulate to parry out the unicorn 's retentiveness before she ever could be. How could anyone possibly ...

And then it hit him.

She 'd have to block them out.

The idea ignited swiftly, the things Dumbledore had taught him about Occlumency all coming together in a cohesive ball of knowledge. He had used it for himself, but could he do it for someone else ?

He would be grasping at straws, but there was a luck ...

Voldemort had given him mickle of practice at blocking undesirable remembering.

His lineage pumped purposefully, and he felt, more than saw, Remus rise besides him, looking morosely in the same direction as he.

'' Well have to immobilize her again, '' He said regretfully, dimming the light from his sceptre as it sent Kaylens stirring uncomfortably.

'' No, '' Harry answered immediately, voice filled with conviction. `` I 'll deal with her. You just get Angelina to Grimmauld. ''

Remus'brow furrowed at this, doubtful lines crisscrossing his case. His sassing opened, as if to protest, but his uncertainties went unverbalised. Instead a paying attention, vital locution befell him as he studied Harry 's tense, determined face.

The lines on his face suddenly deepened. `` Are you indisputable ? ``

Harry nodded, tense with wrath at the stallion situation, and filled with the demand to do something about it.

'' Yeah, '' He responded. `` I 've stunned her plenty lately. ''

lupine 's conflicted grammatical construction remained, but he nodded decisively.

'' Alright, take this then. ``

A instant later a pocket-size sac was being pressed into his manus, a arenaceous material grinding within it.

'' It 's a port key. Pour the content ... ''

'' Into our hand, '' Harry finished for him. `` We 've used this kind before. ``

Remus eyed him curiously, tilting his school principal to the side. `` Well then, I 'll see you there. ``

He nodded, watching as Remus unearthed another pouch from his pocket. He watched him squat next to Angelina, sending him one lastly, pointed look before dousing his baton.

Shadows spilled around them, enshrouding the room in duskiness once again. Rifling a paw nervously through his hairsbreadth Harry forced a strained, unobserved smile, and a endorse later Remus and the betrayer blinked out of world, leaving him with a 1 insane estimation, one that he never could feature done in Remus'presence.

And somehow he thought Remus had known that.

For a moment he did nothing, simply allowing his eyes to set to the sudden darkness. Then, slowly, the black gave way, revealing her vague, gray-headed scheme. Yet even in the shadows he saw the way her silhouette trembled.

He pulled his sceptre and immobilized her in one swift apparent motion. Strangely he felt nothing, when even the thinking of stunning her again had sent his belly wrenching.

He crossed the way and knelt besides her, his rough hands gently cupping her face and turning it towards his. He felt sick, for he was violating her yet again. But God, what option did he have ?

For the indorse time that day her frightened eyes stared back at his, flickering with too many emotions to name. His thumbs gently brushed her hair away from her centre, his heart thumping shamefully. She was like a panicky creature, and somehow this just felt wrong.

Yet he had to try. No one deserved this, and if his estimation worked ...

He might just be able to salvage enough of her to help her receive her way back.

Staring into her centre he hoped to God it would work.

'' I swear to you, '' He whispered intently, `` This is the last meter I 'll ever do this to you. ``

Licking his lips nervously he raised his wand, letting it hover column inch from her tegument. Closing his heart he waited, allowing his head to clear, calming himself.

Occlumency was not meant to be done with raw emotion.

His eyes snapped opened. He was ready.

'' Legilimens ! ``

The twister-like effect of her mind seized him without compunction, sending his sens reeling as an assault of enhanced sounds and olfactory sensation attacked him.

Thunder cracked through the twiddle mist, sending his body crashing expression first into the mud, and he immediately knew there was something different about this memory.

He staggered to his stifle, peering through the incredibly wickedness, moonless dark. Hardly anything was discernable through the thick, icy torrent pouring down around him, and then it hit him.

Every other memory board he had seen had had a don contrast, the intensity of emotions and effect diluted by sentence. Dumbledore and Snape had been too skilled for him to peer into recent case, and luck-of-the-draw had shown him things from Kayelns'puerility. But this memory was different.

It felt fresh.

The harsh, biting wind sent the looming forest moving with an aberrant life, and above him lightning flashed, crackling across the blackened clouds, briefly illuminating the gravel road running past him. For a mo the forest surrounding him came into stark stress, as did the wooden household he had landed before.

Again lightning set the field aglow, a deep vociferation snapping his eyes towards the small lawn.

What he saw made his bloodline run cold.

His training with Dumbledore had taught him that it was one 's most painful memories that were flung to the forefront of the nous when it was invaded.

And now he knew that Kalliandra was no exception.

A grating vocalism preceded the flash of light, and he had just enough time to see a darkness haired man struck down. The man tumbled head first into the muddied solid ground, the sound of his body slapping against the mud drowned out by a thundery crack.

A blinding hot, fiery Lucille Ball blew through the house 's turnout, sending floorboard flying to litter the lawn.

From inside came the screaming, drowned out by a hedonic laugh.

'' Muggle, muggle, muggle come out to toy ! ''

Bile churned in his tum, though there was no meter for it to rise as masses began pouring out of a English window.

'' Aw, the wittle, ittle Muggles do n't need to play ? ``

That taunting, familiar gag of his incubus greeted him as Bellatrix Lestrange stepped calmly out the movement door, the burning home alighting her aspect with a beastly glow.

One of the fleeing figures bolted towards a car, parked along the gravel road near the woods 's corner line.

He never made it.

A fiery spell smacked into him, setting his skin ablaze.

He had seen others die, but never before had he behold someone as they burnt alive. Even the pouring cloudburst was not enough to douse the flame engulfing the man 's flesh, and the winding hurled a noxious foetor against his nostrils.

'' MATT ! ''

A fille was rising from the muddied ground, thick Mary Jane stains streaked across her blue jean, her brown hair matted against her foreland as she screamed hysterically. Her face was contorted into something inhuman, raw infliction distorting incredibly striking lineament, and she appeared frozen in billet.

Harry was screaming for her to move, but she never heard him. From around the corner of the home came two others clad in black, and a jet of searing purple light shot out.

individual darted out, from where he did not see, tackling her around the waist.

The purple light missed her by inch as she and her saver went sliding across the ground, smacking into the slope of the household with a leaden thud.

The Death eater were on them in an twinkling, a forte tornado resonating through the air as Harry ran forward, just in prison term to see a graying haired man 's arm being viciously snapped. The gun the man had been pulling fell from his hand with a cruel slosh, the mud swallowing it entirely. The nighttime haired young lady was still screaming, clawing at her head as a husky Death Eater snatched her hairsbreadth up, twisting it around his massive laurel wreath before dragging her across the lawn by it.

A sharp sliver broke the air, and the Death feeder assaulting the Louis Harold Gray haired man went down. The one-time man struggled to his metrical unit, slipping in the mud and cradling his arm.

'' DAD ! ''

Lightning split the sky, catching onto the gray haired man 's few remaining prosperous hairs. His look rip into a alarm manifestation, and Harry followed his regard.

Kalliandra, eyes ablaze, came barreling out from the tree line, a man barely older than him hot on her heels.

Both had striking golden-brown fuzz, their hues muted only by the hurriedness pouring down around them. And Harry suddenly understood that he was seeing her second sidekick for the first time.

'' tyke GO ! GET OUT OF HERE ! ''

The cry came from a second level window, and Harry finally understood who had done the shooting.

A middle aged cleaning lady with dismount brown hairsbreadth was hanging out of it, pistol in handwriting, and over the disturbance Harry could get wind Bellatrix laughing hysterically.

Lightning split the sky, thunder drowning out the instant, third, and one-fourth gunshots.

Kalliandra 's mother could no longer be seen. Only the dim speech sound of the fifth and sixth gunshots firing off in the room told him that her attention had been drawn back inside the burning mansion.

Inside the house, where he could not hear, came the sequential clicking of vacate Chambers.

A loudly scream carried through the window, followed by a body flying through the window 's opening.

The charwoman hit the primer coat with a sickening thump, leaving the Robert Gray haired man yelling something that the thunder drowned out.

No metre was wasted. Kalliandra 's pal came sliding aside her mother, grasping the gun from her still twitching custody, sobbing as he started rifling through her vesture.

A secondment later a new round was in his hand, but he never had a chance to laden it as Bellatrix apparated in front of him, kicking the round from his hand, sending somebody slug scattering to the wind.

The strobe effect of the lightning shielded what transpired next, but when it flashed again Bellatrix and Kalliandra were sliding to the ground, Kaylens clearly having tackled her.

'' KALLY, NO ! ``

Her brother had leapt to his feet, and rushed to join the ruffle as his sister smashed Bellatrix 's head into the ground repeatedly, screaming incomprehensible words.

Her brother reached her, grasping her by the back of her jumper and tossing her out of the way as he grasped Bellatrix 's head in a vice suitcase from behind, preparing to damp it.

The unheard pop of apparation prevented this as the husky man appeared behind him, swatting him away as if he were zip more than an irritating fry. Bellatrix fell to the ground, spitting brown water, her furious eyes rounding on the three remaining penis of the Kaylens'family.

'' Filthy Muggles ! '' She roared, shooting binding tour off at a tempestuous pace, hitting the brother first.

'' SEAN ! '' Their male parent 's voice ripped through the air as ropes twisted around his son, sending him crashing to the ground right below the husky Death Eater 's feet.

Kalliandra, having been thrown back by her sidekick, was still down in the mud. She did n't bear a chance.

Then her Father-God slid in front line of her, the roofy taking him right in the chest, and constricting around his neck and throat.

The planetary house was quickly succumbing to the flames, the red light showcasing Bellatrix 's fanatical smile as she tugged Kaylens'father away from her by his neck.

Her forefather was ineffectual to claw at the circle, for his coat of arms had been pinned to his sides.

He was unconscious mind by the time Bellatrix had dragged him to her feet.

cranny !

Another gunshot rang out, taking the burly man rightfield in the head.

Kalliandra had gotten to her stifle, hair plastered to her face, her arms outstretched and shaking.

Her hands held the gun, and Bellatrix regarded her with an disport expression.

The next shot was in Lestrange 's direction, but a shimmering spark halted the shot, sending the shell dropping to the flat coat less than a metrical unit from her smirking face.

Kally looked stunned, and Bellatrix waggled a finger back and forth as if scolding a racy child.

'' Foolish wittle missy should n't play with gun for hire, '' She cooed in a baby vocalisation, suddenly beckoning towards Kally.

Kaylens was sent sprawling forward as an unseeable force out pulled the gun from her compass, and a second later a new Death Eater was there, his infantry on her back.

A gust of wind sent the new arrival 's hood falling back, and Harry suddenly understood every word that she had uttered in the Three Broomsticks.

Ludo Bagman was there, standing on top of Kalliandra and looking rather out of station. Bellatrix fixed him with a death-like stare, her anger at his late arrival apparent, but there was no time for anything to be said.

Barely a moment had transpired between his late arrival and his descent to the ground.

Kally had rolled over, kicking his ramification out from under him.

Bellatrix rolled her optic, and this time her binding spell did not omit.

Angry tears were rolling down his case, his fist taking jive at the crazed cleaning lady who had taken his Godfather. Somewhere his mind was screaming for him to stop, that it would do no good, but his subconscious'phonation went unheeded.

'' Crucio ... ''

And then the swirling, fluent mist returned, swallowing up the figure of Kally 's brother convulsing beneath the unforgivable curse.

Harry was shaking, overcome with the horror of what he had just witnessed. And the memories were disorienting, rising up around him, swallowing him whole as they dislodged him from station to home in her sprightliness, never stopping long enough for him to advance his bearings.

Around him the crashing of hooves fought for precedence above the remote laughter. Hazy outlines flickered by, barely seeable through the fog-like mist swirling around him. He was lost ...

And then he saw himself, running from a Death Eater down the main, dusty thoroughfare of Hogsmeade. Red stunners shot out, smacking against a trough, sending it swinging into the side of a arcsecond dying Eater that had emerged to block his progress.

She had saved him.

And that was all it took.

'' ENOUGH ! '' He screamed, unsure of whether his voice only existed in her idea, or if his strong-arm body were actually screaming it in Remus'keep room.

Instantly he began focusing, searching for a memory, any memory, that was her own rather than some horned animal 's. He fought to calm himself, squashing down the affright of what had happened to her to the back of his nous, and then he felt a change.

The swirling mist around him was slowing down, the uncontrolled flood of the two lives combined into one mind becoming LE disorienting.

He peered through them as they passed, one-by-one, searching for something that he could make out.

And then he found one.

He charged through the mist, falling out into the Forbidden Forest 's clearing.

The one they had left before this had happened to her ...

In the dim moonshine, hurl from a sliver peaking through the clouds, he watched the replay of himself yanking his hand away from her. Hushed Bible were exchanged, and suddenly Kalliandra was rising from her spot besides the pee, stalking away from him.

In a wink his memory self was scrambling to his foot, going after her, catching onto her arm. She whorled to front him, an icy aspect crossing her face, disappearing in shock as he swiftly pulled her against him.

He watched, an odd feel twisting within him as she struggled against him, his only reception in the way his arms wound even tighter around her, stroking her hair until her resistance ceased.

'' I 'm sorry… '' He heard his own voice whispering, `` I swear to God I 'm sorry… ''

And then her face was dropping against his shoulder, his own burrowing within her whisker as her limb wound around him, holding him back.

It was as if a igniter wind blew, and then another memory squeezed through, the silvery nub sending the clearing effigy swirling.

For a moment ghostly images flickered into animation, superimposed atop where he and Kaylens stood, clinging to the other. It was like looking through a film minus, trying to see what was beyond it.

The beautiful, alien clicking rose above his and Kaylens whispering, the foreign memories threatening to overtake this one, and the scourge sent something ablaze inside him.

'' No ... '' He hissed, his face contorting dangerously, as he began fighting to shove the foreign images that threatened to overtake her aside.

He could n't leave them in. He couldn't.

Staggering odds were against him, but if he could only agree her in her own state of thinker long enough ...

Maybe it would be just enough to play her back.

Grimacing he waved his paw, feeling the conjuring trick rising within him, rolling off of him as he tried desperately to marshal something, anything that would block out those computer storage that were not hers.

The unicorn store may have been rickety, thin out imprints of the veridical thing, yet they were still there, fighting for precedence of her creative thinker. And yet ...

fight for the sanctity of his own idea against Voldemort had made keeping these silvery, diluted tendrils back a jocularity.

A determined expression crossed his face, a swift jolt rocketing through him as the bricks began to materialize. He stretched out his hands, unforced them to begin stacking, watching them put on high-pitched and higher, muting the sound of a herd in the distance.

He would take shape a barrier between her store and the unicorn 's, and he 'd be damned if he failed.

His hired man were shaking again, a lone trickle of sweat dripping from his forehead as he concentrated, directing the bricks to start out circling around him, stacking along the clarification 's circumference.

And then, one-by-one, he began shoving the unicorn 's retention past the wall. Each sentence one threatened to break in he shoved it away, a dull nuisance growing in the back of his mind, sending his headspring swirling as he refused to cease his efforts. His breathing grew ragged, his visual sense bespeckled with black Transportation as tendrils of the silverish mist fought to seep back through his hastily erected brick walls.

'' No ... '' He whispered, and slowly, methodically, he shoved the finally of the silvery threads through the col in the paries, feeling the muted sounds fading.

With a slam of finality he found himself surrounded on all side of meat by his paries, the retentivity still playing as if zippo had disturbed it.

Panting in debilitation he crouched down, supporting himself on his knee joint, feeling his feet sinking into the bedewed earth as he fought for breath. The walls might not hold for long, but for now ...

Around him he could find out the distant calls of a ruck, and he looked up shakily, watching dust crumbling down from the brick barriers. A lump formed in his pharynx as he watched the stallion edifice wag, as memory after memory slammed against it from the outside, trying to break through.

He could feel his physical body shaking from the exertion, and as much as he desired to do more an unfeeling true statement struck him.

He did n't experience what else he could do.

And for the maiden time in her mind he withdrew willingly, the shadow of Remus'aliveness elbow room wrapping tightly around him. The moonlit clearing had been so brightly in comparison and yet, his eyes had remained perfectly adjusted, his physical body having never left nor moved.

And she was still in good order there, inches separating him from her. His breath caught in his pharynx, the epinephrin he had been riding on struggling to continue senior high school as he searched her face for a sign to evidence that some part, any office, of herself was back.

All he saw were the backs of her eyelids as they fell shut, a long breathing space escaping her lips.

At some dot his entire consistence had begun shaking, a sharp vexation nearly splitting his skull as he removed the bandaging spell from her, his charming travail finally catching up to him.

But God, he did n't care. His work force rose to her face, a script resting on either side as he smoothed a single stray ignition lock away, tucking it behind her ear.

'' come on Kaylens ... '' He murmured, heart bright and searching. His gaze was flickering back and Forth River across her fount, watching her every apparent motion, hoping against hope it had worked.

And then her eyelids opened, her eyes as disoriented as before. A choking sensation wrapped around his throat, his paw falling to remain on her stiffening shoulders. He had failed.

His forehead fell against hers in despair, the flavour of her warm peel oblation trivial comfort. He should 've known it would not work, yet ...

He never would feature forgiven himself if he had n't tried.

Slowly her legs slue against his, and his eyes squeezed shut, preparing himself for whatever out whip was about to hap. The memory board of her recoiling away from him, scuffling away like a frightened animal when he had gotten too end, was all too refreshful in his mind.

He waited for it with held breathing place, only nothing came.

His eyes opened, only to incur hers staring back.

His muscles went taut with tension, his breath quickening as their proximity struck him. Her nose pressed against his, his hands firm on her shoulder joint, and a jump sense impression churned in his chest as he watched her darkened eyes.

Within them something was changing, a flicker of familiarity residing there. His script slid back to her expression, anxiety etched in his feature article as her backtalk parted. Her rima oris moved, as if trying to say something, only no words came.

He could n't pull his gaze away if he tried.

'' pigeon hawk, '' He whispered, `` I wish I knew what you were thinking. ``

She remained silent, but his center were drawn to a slight motion. Her manus rose, falling to repose on his unshaved nerve. She pulled away slightly, their os frontale no longer pressing together as her broken center flickered across his face, a curious grammatical construction befalling her.

His brow furrowed, a question forming on his lip.

'' Kaylens ? '' He whispered, eyes searching hers desperately.

A unhappy look crossed her features, her posterior lip drawing between her teeth, sending his kernel thudding uncertainly.

And then she was nodding.

Instantly he reached for her, embracing her against his thorax. She was trembling, enticing his own trembling sleeve to pull her even closer, the need to physically touch her overwhelming. Gods ... he could n't get her tightlipped decent.

The shock was finally hitting him, frightening him on too many levels to name as he realized how fleeting this could be.

She was with him again, but only until the walls he had created went tumbling down.

merlin, how long did he sustain ?

A tremor shook him, an urging need to get her to someone right than him, to somebody who could do something, driving him.

He needed somebody, someone like Dumbledore. He could beef up the wall he 'd put up inside her mind. He had to.

Fearing to exhaust her for even a moment his arm tightened around her shoulder, his early reaching for the portkey in his pocket. A moment later his digit were sliding through hers, his aspirant regard locking onto her hag-ridden one.

'' Kaylens, '' He murmured intensely, `` Stay with me. ``

And then, hoping that she was ordered enough to understand what they were doing, he dumped the sandy mental object onto their linked hands, feeling that distinctive tug.

In that death second he threw his arms around her, wanting to shield her from whatever rough landing they were about to experience.









'' My respect is earned, not given. ``
~ Saying of the long time ~







Chapter 30 ~ To sin with decorum


'' Harry ! ``

Harry had barely recovered from the portkey 's ride when he felt men hauling him away, separating him from Kaylens. He blinked, only slightly dazed, and found himself straw across the dark wooden paneling of Grimmauld home 's study.

The hell of it was, he could hardly see a thing.

'' How is she ? ''

In the dim light cast from the wall-mounted candelabra he saw Remus'shadow drib down between them, placing a hesitant hand on Kalliandra 's shoulder. Harry could only see the wolfman 's visibility, but judging from his aspect, Remus looked genuinely surprised when Kaylens did not immediately pull away.

Harry 's eye cut through the darkness, finding hers.

Something warm swelled within him when he realized that she was looking right back at him, scarcely a hint of confusion within her verbal expression. Disbelievingly he watched the candlelight dance in her showy orbs, and for a brief second he was able to think that she may just pull in through with her sanity intact.

'' Harry ! ''

Remus'sharp vocalism cut through the silent room, drawing both couplet of teenage centre to the worried adult.

Harry found his voice quickly. `` We need an Occlumens. Right away. ``

Remus'head jolted around, the reflective bed behind his heart shining. `` Harry, what did you do ? '' He asked uneasily.

His shoulders stiffened, and in that single loaded doubtfulness he found his firmness of purpose.

'' What I had to. ``

There was an agonizing break, not unsimilar to what had transpired between them before Remus had left for Grimmauld without them, making the decisiveness to intrust him.

Harry only hoped Remus would not come up to repent it.

A consequence later Remus was on his fundament, nodding at Harry. `` Stay with her. ``

'' The opinion of leaving never crossed my mind, '' He replied honestly, scooting across the floor back to her. The sound of a dangle doorway, and the vocalisation beyond it, drifted in, but Harry scarcely noticed.

'' Kaylens, '' He whispered, reaching hesitantly for her. With trepidation his fingers slowly curled around her upper arms, whilst his eyes swept searchingly over her face. `` You still with me ? ``

Taking in her every movement he watched her eyes flutter exhaustedly, her chest and shoulders rising as she drew in a fatigued sigh.

And then the impossible miss fixed him with an worsen spirit, nodding tiredly.

He released the breath he had been unwittingly holding, relief sweeping through him. Immediately his mitt found her expression, the launch area of his quarter round moving along her cheekbones with a gentleness he did n't know he possessed. For a moment he simply stared at her, watching the amusement in her gaze only grow.

Merlin ... he had been afraid that the swirl of the portkey would disorientate her, causing her to lose whatever fledgling snatch of sanity she had managed to apprehend onto at Remus'. infernal region ... he vividly recalled their last portkey ride, and that alone had rendered her unconscious.

He stared at her, his center boring into her bemused, albeit sleepy, saying.

Suddenly her manus rose, her finger curling gently around his own where they rested against her impertinence. He squeezed her hand gently, finding reassurance he had n't known he needed in her actions.

Had he been asked a month ago, he never would have guessed that he would be feeling Kalliandra Kaylens, of all the great unwashed, squeezing his helping hand in hers. But more than that, he never would receive thought that such a simple, unobjectionable gesture could send his pectus stirring.

He swallowed hard, watching the hint of a smile form on her rim. His hand immediately flipped over, taking her low temperature hand more firmly in his, and tightening his grip on her.

'' You 're finding this amusing, are n't you ? '' He accused quietly, his voice unnaturally constricted.

Her mouth parted, only to shut again, her fanny lip drawn between her dentition as she began nodding.

And then he saw it. Amidst her formula was a flutter of fear, and for the brief of seconds he saw her eye clouding again.

'' Kaylens ! '' He said sharply, dropping her script and grabbing her by the shoulder, shaking her suddenly trembling form. `` Please ! stop with me ! ''

Whether it was their physical contact or his vocalization, he would never know. But suddenly she had gained some sense of herself again, and she had hurtled herself against his chest, her total form shaking like a leaf.

Harry had never felt More helpless in his life.

And Snape just had to choose that exact moment to walk in.

'' What do you think you are doing now, ceramicist ? ``

If he was n't so desperate for avail he might accept hexed him. Instead his uprising of fury was suddenly quenched as a bingle thought permeated his panic-ridden mind.

Snape was a Master Occlumens.

Still clutching onto Kaylens as if his biography depended on it, he met the Potion passe-partout 's critical gaze head on.

'' prof, I need your help. ``

Snape 's integral face crinkled indifferently. `` Get off the floor thrower. I do n't accept metre for your biz, '' He clipped, starting to brush past them. Instead he paused mid-stride, eyeing them distastefully.

'' And do remove yourselves from here. Undoubtedly you are both choked up about that know-it-all protagonist of yours, but really Potter, such displays are not meant for public expo. ''

The Slytherin Head of sign flipped his gown, practically striking them as he continued striding across the way 's expanse towards another doorway. Harry 's jaw dropped, shock and fury mingling on his angry typeface. `` Damn it this is not a jocularity ! '' He roared, watching Snape halt. `` Kaylens needs help ! '' He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to cool it down. Where in the blaze was Remus ?

'' Professor, '' He finally ground out, as if the venerating term pained him. `` This is not what you think. This is not a display. Something happened to Kaylens. someone injected her with unicorn ancestry and I ... '' He plowed Forth, ignoring the fact that he had not a gloss of a cue on how to explicate the office. `` I tried something on her. I used Legilimency to get into her mind, to try and help, but ... ''

He hesitated, meeting Snape 's emotionless manifestation. `` I created a wall, exchangeable to the ones they teach father in Occlumency, to separate her memories from the strange ones. But I 'm not sure it 's working. ''

His sharp regard locked onto the blank expression of his most hate Professor.

'' She needs help. I need soul to reinforce the wall I made, and I sure as hell am not open of doing it. ``

Unreadable as he was, Snape did n't appear to be about to avail. But he did n't hold any foster attempts to leave.

Running his deal through Kaylens'hair comfortingly, feeling her trembling slowly subsiding, he felt wrath at Snape 's unresponsiveness begin to excite.

Harry 's expression suddenly grew challenging. `` Now, '' He demanded, voice ablaze. `` Are you a Master Occlumens or not ? ``

A flicker of pain in the ass crossed Snape 's boldness. `` Your attempts to invoke to my ego and secure nature are misfortunate, thrower, considering that I am secure in one and miss the other. ``

His parentage practically boiled.

'' looking at, '' Harry squabble, dropping all pretense of respectfulness. `` You hate me. I hate you. I get that. But this is n't about either of us, and I 'll be damned to admit this, but you are the only one here that can help her at the instant. Hell, I 'll even grant you a free snap at me. Just help her. ``

Snape 's lips curled angrily, as if considering.

'' Follow me, '' The former Slytherin finally sneered, snapping a hand towards the far door.

Harry 's fist clenched as the man disappeared through the doorway, not bothering to await around for an acknowledgement. Drawing a forced breath between his teeth he glanced down at Kaylens, and the tension drained out of him.

Her entire, mud-streaked face was crinkled in concentration. God ... she had been so wrapped up in trying to continue in her right mind that she had barely noticed the tense verbal spouting match around her.

'' Hey, '' He murmured, a rough script reaching out and cupping her chin, forcing her to attend up at him. `` You still okay ? ''

Her eyes glittered with confusion, but she managed another nod.

He forced a grinning. `` Try not to hold this against me, '' He whispered, standing up and scooping the startled girlfriend into his arms. `` But frankly I 'm not sure I trust your walking ability at the moment. ``

She uttered not a sound, simply nodding resignedly, eyes one-half closed. He swallowed hard as her head fell to rest against his shoulder, and he found himself carefully adverting his gaze from her as he crossed the room quickly, kicking open the door after Snape.

The fact that he did n't hit the man with it disappointed him only slightly.

'' Put her on the couch. ``

His hilltop crinkled uncertainly. Was he really about to just handwriting her over to the same cruel, bitter man whom had wreaked havoc on his own mind in the past ?

He realized that he had very few choice at the moment.

He sunk down into the cushions, clutching her to him. Readjusting only slightly, so that her legs lay loosely draped over his own, with her head resting against his shoulder joint, he wound his arms protectively around her, sealing her in a vice grip that he was certain she would dissent to if she felt up to speaking.

He did n't like though. There was simply no way in pit that he would be leaving her to face the Potions'master key 's clemency alone. And irrational as it was, his exhausted, battered thinker somehow equated squeezing her to easing whatever ordeal the Occlumens was about to put her through.

He tilted his head down, burying it in the top of her mussy head of pilus. `` Let him do what he has to do. It 'll help, '' He reassured quietly, hoping he would not repent placing his faith in the vitriolic man 's abilities.

He pulled away only slightly, his limb still looped around her shank, and her hazel colored centre turned up, studying him intently.

'' How very impact. ``

Harry 's head jerked up, only to be greeted with Snape 's mocking sneer, and an expression that clearly told him to get the Hades out of the way.

'' Move aside boy. ``

Harry 's eyes hardened, his bobby pin reflexively tightening around her. `` No. ``

Snape practically twitched. `` Insolent minor, movement. I will not be doing this with you in the way. ``

'' The concluding time I checked, '' He retorted, `` This only postulate eye contact. Even you taught me that very much. And seeing as how I 'm not blocking you from that ... '' He let his blistering reply trail off.

With a growl Snape leaned forward, grabbing Kaylens Kuki and practically snapping her head teacher towards him.

The repressed urge to strike the man rose up, fury rifling through him at her distressed, shocked expression, but Snape 's wand was already drawn and aimed, an vivid look in his eyes.

'' Legilimens. ''

An eerily calm reflection suddenly befell Kaylens'face, while Snape 's contorted into one of the level best concentration.

Harry could only wait.

He dropped his head back against the wall, heaving an discharge sigh.

The grandpa clock chimed. Kaylens'skin grew cold to the jot. Snape 's wickedness, frightening eyes bored into her broad, doe-like ones.

He watched the clock

12 minutes and 33 seconds later, lupine still had not returned.

But his two silent companions did.

Kally jerked, almost violently backwards, her back hitting the armrest of the couch. Harry barely managed to check her head from smacking into the paries as she slid off of him.

Snape 's movements were not nearly so sudden.

Unnoticed to Harry the man rose from the base, a blanch hand brushing complex quantity poop from his robes. And then slowly, almost methodically, the man 's fingerbreadth tightened challengingly around his wand, his knucks turning white with the pressure.

It took Harry a second to notice the man 's penetrating gaze, but when he did an unsettling sensation overtook him.

The Potions maestro was looking at him, a strange look in his eyes.

Fear.
* * * * *


Blue-green heart appraised the rather full waiting way of the Adelaide and Meath hospital 's emergency room.

'' Bugger. ``

'' Father, this is for your own good. ``

'' Could n't this wait until Monday ? '' He ventured, trying to plead to his son 's better sensitiveness as his center took in the volume of people. `` By the time we finish waiting in line it 'll be tomorrow and the medico 's office will be open anyways. Is this really where you want to expend your Sunday ? ``

The man turned around to find his eldest son 's eyes narrowed in reproach.

'' Father, you were coughing up a storm at home and ... ''

'' It was just a lowly itch in my throat ... ''

Edward VIII ignored him. `` Dad, you collapsed at the dinner table from that small itch. ``

'' wellspring really, I was actually just choking on some of your female parent 's cooking. It was positively unpalatable. fair. ''

The boy arched his brow skeptically, clearly not buying this. `` Funny, considering how you were praising that Pisces the Fishes filet just before your lungs seized up. ``

The man groaned. `` Honestly, Edward. Do you really think that I would pick apart your mum 's cooking to her face ? ``

Yes. Wait for it. Ah, there it is.

His son was now full out laughing at him. Of path, he could hardly charge him. His wife, James Meredith, could receive been a chef had she wanted to. The cleaning lady had never cooked nor baked something sub par in her life.

But that was n't about to block off him from trying to get out of this cursed, congested waiting elbow room.

'' Father, '' croaked out his son, `` Are n't you a bit old for harboring phobia of physician visit ? ``

He grunted in response, racking his pounding read/write head for another alibi. Honestly, he really thought that his family was overreacting. His lymph lymph gland might be swollen, and indeed his head was pounding as if Xerxes himself were waging a modest war with his neuron. But really all he needed was a good night 's rest.

Perhaps he could blame the coughing fit and his wheezing on having tried some cigarettes while fishing that morning. Of trend, Meredith would have his hide skinned and filleted before he would even have a chance to call for help ...

The man was caught unaware when his son rather abruptly shoved him into a wheelchair.

'' Edward V ... `` He hissed gruffly, only for his threat to strike on deaf ears as Edward bypassed the principal furrow, shoving him to the moment check-in windowpane reserved for those experiencing either chest pain or brusqueness of breath.

And it was then that the racking cough again shook him, the knife-like nuisance attacking as if the Grim Reaper himself were holding the brand. He clutched onto the wheelchair 's arms, gritting his teeth, an acidy sunburn working its way up his throat.

A painful stab began in his chest, sending his soundbox jack-knifing forward, nearly out the professorship. A sharp shout near him made him aware of the craze of activity that had begun beyond the check-in desk, and strong hands abruptly latched onto his berm, preventing him from falling face forward.

A invertebrate foot shot out, kicking the wheelchair 's brake into place with a metallic clink, and suddenly the rocking, swaying motility that he had not even realized to be going on ceased.

The painful sensation in his dresser dulled down to a dull tan, and his manus flew to his mouth, feeling the sputum expelling with the next shuddering gasp.

He coughed once, twice more, before leaning gratefully forward onto his son 's shoulder, gasping for air.

It was then that he noticed the man in the Edward D. White lab coating kneeling next to him, and it dawned on him that the cold, metal feeling on his back was the stethoscope, which the doctor had already managed to slip beneath the back of his shirt.

Feeling winded, he looked at the Dr. 's concerned human face, and forced a fallible grin. `` Well, '' He gasped wryly. `` I think it 's secure to say, that I am inadequate of breath. ``
* * * * *


Lupin bowled into the elbow room, Dumbledore in tow. The forceful clunk of the room access flying open and slamming against the wall effectively causing Snape 's white-knuckled handgrip on his scepter to loosen.

Harry 's gaze snapped to where Remus stood, asking him what had happened.

He barely heard him, suddenly feeling so, so incredibly stupid. In his desperation to obtain help he had failed to be patient, ineffective to wait for lupine 's return. And it only now occurred to him why it had taken the werewolf so long.

It would never have occurred to Remus to make gone to the nearest Master Occlumens for help. The trust between the old Marauder and Snivellus was nonexistent, so there was no way in hell that Lupin would have trusted the man to dig into Kally 's idea.

So he had gone for Dumbeldore.

Harry already felt like an idiot. Snape simply seized the minute to express his agreement.

'' potter could n't possibly have done this, '' He declared.

Snape 's program line hung on the air as Dumbledore, looking only slightly fag out, swept his regard back and Forth between the three of them. First his blue optic studied Kalliandra, pathos and wonder mingling together on his lined face, before turning his kindly gaze to Harry. And then, finally, his spectacled regard locked with Severus Snape's.

A strange quiet filled the elbow room as the two became locked in a pure couple. It took Harry only a moment to realize what they were doing.

They were communicating through Legilimency, the two Edgar Lee Masters exchanging all of the selective information about the situation that they needed to know.

Remus seized the present moment of privateness, kneeling in front of where he and Kaylens lay tangled up. `` Harry, '' He began quietly, so as not to interrupt the two. `` Please tell me you did n't let him ... ''

Harry grimaced. `` I did. ``

The werewolf released an exasperated sigh, fixing Harry with an pestered stare. `` I 'm not even going to ask what you were thinking. It 's quite obvious that you were n't. ``

'' He is a sea captain Occlumens, '' He argued, feeling almost dirty at having just defended Snape. `` I would n't willingly allow individual to wound her. ``

A flash of amusement temporarily replaced the critical face on Remus'expression. `` This coming from the person who personally removed quite a bit of her hair, in what Crusantheus assured me was a full-out brawl in the Headmaster 's bureau. ``

Harry cringed. `` You heard about that, huh ? '' He asked sheepishly, glancing to where Kalliandra lay, looking for all the world as if she were sleeping.

Remus followed his gaze. `` Hermione actually wrote me about that. Something about wanting me to utter some gumption into the both of you. Personally, I 'm still trying to figure out how she knew I was tutoring Kalliandra in the 1st place. ``

'' You were tutoring her ? ``

Remus nodded, looking at him curiously. `` How did you think we were acquainted ? ``

'' She was a professional groomer and Moony was in need of a cut ? ``

lupin sent him a withering blaze. `` Of all the things to inherit, you had to get your father 's nerve. ``

'' I did n't agnize it was his. ``

Remus seemed to regard this. `` Yours is actually a bit more sulphurous, '' He related. `` Unless Prongs was talking to someone he severely disliked, his commentary were never quite so biting. ``

'' So I 'm bitter. Can you pick me ? ``

Moony 's expression softened considerably. `` No, Harry. I can not. ''

Abruptly lupine 's aid turned firmly to Kaylens, his relate look returning full violence. Harry simply watched as Remus reached out, carefully brushing a lock of her persistently tangled hair away from her face, studying her like a come to father.

Remus paused, as if considering something. `` Well, '' He finally commented, `` You two certainly look uncomfortable. ''

Despite himself, he nearly laughed at the absurdity of the instruction. Not that it was lacking in truth, for when Kaylens had jerked back she had wound up with one leg still draped over his own, one hanging halfway off the lounge, with her thin physical body half-slumped between him and the armrest.

And now, she had apparently fallen asleep in exhaustion.

Harry smiled strainedly. `` Yeah, well ... I would n't need to put on the line incurring her wrath by waking her, now would I ? ``

Nevertheless he found himself adjusting, to the point where he felt rather secure in knowing that if he let go of her, that she would no longer be in danger of sliding down to the floor.

Remus simply watched this, a crease forming across his forehead.

'' Harry, '' He ventured. `` What exactly did you do for her ? Specifically. ``

Harry frowned, considering how to reply to this. However, he did not get the chance.

The two Occlumens in the room had started blinking again, their central, apparently, complete.

'' As I said, Potter could n't possibly have done this, '' Snape restated, ignoring the questioning flavour lupine was throwing at all of them.

Kally chose that import to let out a sleepy murmur, stirring in her sleep. And somehow that small sound of hers reawakened Harry 's fear that he had somehow harmed her mind in his endeavour to aid her in the number one home.

'' I did n't hurt her, did I ? '' He blurted out, earning a sharp stare from Remus.

Fortunately Dumbledore responded quickly.

'' No, Harry. You did not. ``

Snape let out a sound not unlike that of an tempestuous cat. `` Albus, '' He disrupted, clearly in disagreement with the schoolmaster 's acceptance that Harry had, indeed, constructed the genial roadblock. `` The level of proficiency in Occlumency that one would have to have to have done this would be staggering. There is no possible way that Potter could have done this. '' Snape hesitated. `` I 'm not even sure enough that I could have done this. ``

'' What ? '' Harry shot out, startled by the admission.

'' Would someone terribly mind filling me in on what exactly the three of you are talking about ? '' Interjected lupin, sounding only mildly annoyed.

Snape acted as if the man had not even spoken, his darkness eyes swiveling to Harry instead. `` I do n't know what you are playing at ceramist, '' He snapped heatedly. `` But you did not do this to this young lady. ``

Harry 's heart narrowed, a slacken burning anger growing at the Potion Master 's unregenerate refusal to believe him adequate to of anything.

The greasy haired man 's gaze grew more challenging. `` Who really constructed that barrier, Potter ? ``

Harry 's teeth clenched. `` I did, '' He ground out.

'' prevaricator ! ``

Dumbledore rose a placating hand. `` Now Severus, lets not be hasty. Harry has been under my guardianship since the startle of condition, and he has improved greatly. Particularly in regards to his power to construct mental barriers. ``

'' No one improves that a good deal in so short a time. Especially, '' He bit out, gesticulating in Harry 's counsel, `` Not such an incompetent person tyke ! ``

Harry 's center hardened. `` Like you would bang, considering you 're the one who refused to teach me. ``

'' You are insufferable to teach ceramicist. ``

'' Perhaps if you were capable of dropping small-minded school day grudges I would n't be. ``

'' You are just like your Fatherhood, '' Snape practically growled.

'' I would n't know, '' He spat matter-of-factly. `` Perhaps you could share storey sometimes. Reminisce about having your undergarments placed on public exhibition. ''

Remus snorted.

'' Harry, that was uncalled for, '' Dumbledore admonished.

Harry bit back a laugh. `` Considering everything he 's put me through over the years I highly doubt that. ``

Snape 's normally controlled features twisted into something livid. `` How dare you speak to the master with such disrespect ... ''

'' I respect the Headmaster plenty, '' Harry snapped. `` It 's you that I have no obedience for. ''

'' Has it occurred to anyone that arguing will get us nowhere ? '' Remus interjected.

'' If ceramicist had n't blatantly displayed such a deficiency of decorum ... ''

'' decorousness ? '' Harry interrupted. `` This is n't your little grade with all of its ridiculously anti-Gryffindor pattern ! So forgive me if I do n't fawn at your understructure to pull in your approving ! ``

'' That is the shoemaker's last sentence I ever help you, you ungrateful ... ''

'' YOU DID N'T HELP ME ! YOU HELPED HER ! '' Harry screamed, launching himself off of the couch and to his foot. It was only Remus'immediate reflex response that kept Kally from tumbling with him.

Grunting in annoyance, Remus turned to Dumbledore. `` Do you get the spirit that this debate was a longsighted metre coming ? ``

Dumbledore nodded. `` Why do you intend I 'm letting them persuade on ? ``

Harry and Snape remained forgetful to the exchange, the latter suddenly looked unbelievably smug. `` That 's funny potter, I do n't recall telling you that I helped her at all. arrive to think of it, all I did was take a look at that roadblock. I must admit though, she does let some rather interesting Recent epoch memories ... ''

Harry 's eyes took on a raving mad tone. `` That has nothing to do with ... ''

'' You 're right. But this has everything to do with your inability to respect your wagerer and to play along the rules. ``

Harry snorted. `` Funny, considering you 're the one who 's always saying how the normal regulation do n't apply to me. ``

'' No you idiot boy ! I 'm always telling you how arrogant you are to think that the rule rules do n't utilise to you. ``

'' Considering I 'm the one who has to off good ole'Riddle for everyone you 'd amend hope the rules do n't put on to me. Otherwise next time the killing expletive might actually run. ``

Snape scowled dangerously. `` Ill see if it works, '' He hissed, fingering his wand.

'' ENOUGH ! ``

Harry 's oral cavity snapped shut, his riposte lodging uncomfortably in his throat.

outside, in the main entrance foyer, Mrs Black began screaming.

'' If anyone did n't sustain a headache before, they certainly will now, '' Remus practically groaned.

'' Severus, '' Addressed the Headmaster, absentmindedly nodding his accord with lupin. `` From what you 've shown me, it looks like all that was done was a legal separation of Ms. Kaylens'memory from the unicorn's, and that is all. ``

'' That 's all ? '' Snape responded edgily, his anger apparently undiluted despite the sudden change of subject. `` You make it sound as simple as identifying one species from the early. ``

Dumbledore shrugged, looking at Harry with a sudden fit of pride New York minute in his eyes. `` It 's honest, that what Harry did ask a high degree of accomplishment in the sphere. But I think if you really think about it Severus, you 'll find that Harry was more than subject of having accomplished this. ``

Severus snorted.

'' After all, Severus, all Harry really did was construct a wall inside of her judgment ... ''

'' Not just a wall, Albus. It was a perfect bulwark. ``

Harry could n't help himself. `` perfect tense ? It was full-of-the-moon of hollow ! I thought the thing was about to collapse ! ``

'' You mean to say that you were attempting to create a rigid structure ? ``

'' Yes, '' He hissed. `` Now will somebody please explain what he meant by perfective ? ''

'' Will someone please excuse what wall we are talking about ? ``

Again everyone ignored Remus'attempt to extract what was going on from them.

'' ceramicist, '' Snape drawled, as if talking to a particularly tardily pupil. `` Had a stiff wall been constructed, there would have been a complete separation of the two sets of storage in the girl 's idea. ``

'' Yes, I get that, '' Harry snapped, feeling frustrated. `` That 's what I was going for. ``

Snape 's dark, greasy supercilium arched up. `` Even a fixed rampart would have eventually crumbled, and when that happened it would deliver been akin to releasing a head gate of foreign remembering in her brain. So the effect would have been the same as it was initially. ``

'' substance ? ``

Snape practically rolled his eyes. `` She would take gone insane again. I know this level of conversing is a bit of a strain on your mental facilities, but please, do try and keep up. ``

'' That 'll be enough, Severus, '' interjected Dumbledore. `` What he means to say, Harry, is that a rickety barrier with hole will allow the foreign store to slue into her creative thinker a few at a fourth dimension. It 'll reserve her to become slowly acclimated to the new memory board, as opposed to her being forced to manage them all at once. Now I imagine the task of sorting through everything will be rather draining on her ... ''

Snape snorted. The Headmaster ignored him.

'' But in a few time of day she should have a pretty self-coloured clench on what memories are hers, and what are not. ``

'' A few hours ? `` Harry would swear Dumbledore with his life, but somehow this seemed far too well-to-do. He would have thought cramming a lifetimes Charles Frederick Worth of computer memory into a new head would engage far longer.

Suddenly the Headmaster smiled. `` Ms. Kaylens has been rather fortunate to possess been given the parentage of a relatively young unicorn, Harry. In fact, the creature is barely older than her. For the next few hebdomad she 'll gradually gather More and more of its memories, but the unfit should be over relatively soon. ``

"How can you fuck how old it was ?"

"Is, Harry. Just because the unicorn's blood was taken does not mean that it was killed. And one of its latter memories had already slipped through your concept. So Severus was able to see it, and qualifying that data on to me. She's actually gotten very lucky."

Despite this reassurance, he was still restless. `` And what happens when that paries I made completely break in down ? ``

'' A tenuous headache, I would imagine. Nothing more. ``

'' But ... ''

'' For the love of Merlin ! She 'll already be acclimated to the computer storage thrower ! '' Snape practically shouted, apparently ineffective to contain himself any longer. `` Your small lady friend will be fine ! ``

Harry balked. `` She 's not ... ''

Snape waved him off dismissively. `` Like I care. ``

Dumbledore casually flicked his sceptre in their commission, silencing them both. Harry gaped like a fish, noticing Snape doing the same.

Dumbledore let nothing show on his face, but simply turned to where Remus and Kaylens still sat.

'' Remus, as interest as this verbal fray has been, I think that the best thing for Ms.Kaylens, at the moment, is rest. ``

lupine looking rather like a disquieted don, nodded his assent. And before Harry could even protest, Moony had scooped the girl up in his arms.

fix Harry with a pointed stare, Remus inclined his promontory as he left. `` She 'll be in the room Hermione and Ginny used. ``

Snape, apparently having unsilenced himself, let out a derisive scoff that bore a unknown resemblance to the words `` I 'm so sure as shooting. ``

It was only after that they had left the room, that Dumbledore 's expression grew far more sober.

'' Harry, '' He stated seriously. `` I think it 's time you explained exactly what happened with Angelina. ``
* * * * *

'' VHERE IS SHE ! ? ! ? ``

The man 's voice rose furiously, awakening her from her Crucio-induced slumber with a start.

Her sorry oculus snapped open, her unfocused gaze shooting uselessly around the pitch-black room.

She had been left in complete and aggregate darkness, unable to discern even a single detail of her surroundings. The frigidness, silk sheets beneath her were the only clue she had to suggest that she remained in the same elbow room as before.

Only now she was mercifully alone, with only the lingering, bone-deep pain of the impose swearword for company.

An unnerve belief of futility settled firmly within her chest, but she would not, could not, lose hope. Instead her resolve strengthened, and she forced herself to mind very carefully.

Outside in the hall two the great unwashed were arguing fiercely, their exact words muffled, though every so often the one would come up about the other, a dangerous banker's bill in his accented speech.

Her supercilium creased fretfully, anxiety filling her. There was something very comrade about that voice. Something her sound psyche screamed she should have been able to recognize instantly.

But to her pith she understood that whomever the person was, that she should n't be hearing them here.

Not in a blank space where only death feeder roamed freely.

An icy foreboding flooded her venous blood vessel ...

The threshold to her room suddenly flew open, a unsubtle shoulder man forcing his way in, his silhouette shadowed by the Charles Martin Hall 's firelight.

It felt as if someone were suddenly choking her, an agonizing chill overtaking her in a way that the Cruciatus nemesis would never be able to touch.

The man 's defined jaw line, one so very familiar to her, was set firmly.

A heart-wrenching treason ripped through her, snatching her heart in its vice handle as she watched his mouth undecided, forming the words she had once loved to hear.

'' Hermy-owh-ninny. ``







author's banknote :

number one, I just wanted to say thank you to Saint Andrew for having helped me out so much with this chapter. He has not only beta-read the last few chapters, but has also helped me to fine-tune them to get to them easier to read.

Secondly, I wanted to apologize about having taken so long between chapters over the past year. I honestly needed a intermission from writing, and now that I have had that I plan on updating approximately every two calendar week or so. I 'm really excited about finishing the story, and I figure that two weeks is definitely a deadline that I can meet, considering that I used to post daily chapters for the Quizilla version of this. Of course, those were only about 2500 discussion a piece, but nevertheless I figure once every two workweek or so should work out well. Again, I am really sorry about having taken such lengthy breaks this past year. affair were very busy and honestly I just needed to really reload. give thanks you all for having stuck around though ! Chapter 31 is being worked on presently, so expect it in about two workweek.

And just to nullify disarray, the term for a practitioner of Occlumency is Occlumens. For some intellect in the scratchy draft of this I had a lot of citizenry trying to castigate me on that.

Recommended Story :

And the Greatest of These ... by Edward Antony Richard Louis Ollivander
Rating : 12+ position : WIP - 24 chapters

In the wake of Dumbledore 's death Harry is consumed with a burning desire to accomplish one thing : Defeat Voldemort, by any means necessary. As he sets out to ruin not only the villain himself, but also the fearfulness that has the wizarding earth 's affection in a frailty handgrip, he has to switch the way he sees the existence around him, as well as the way he functions within it. Now, as he prepares for the final conflict, he becomes the one thing the wizarding world needs : Leslie Townes Hope. Harry/Ginny pairing.