'' The unwritten law of triage is knowing when nothing else can be done, and actually accepting that. ''
~ A.K. Lovell ~



Chapter 24 ~ The lightlessness consortium


Dublin, Eire. population in surplus of 450,000 Muggles, 1,240 Wiccan and wizards, and 451,240 innocent.

Since mediaeval prison term the locale had served as the uppercase of the free standing republic. The Black person kitty, or so the Anglicism had stated. Now the area of land it rested upon stood as one of the most populated pocket of isolation upon the earth.

An island.

5.8 million Muggles in the republic of Ireland alone, another 1.7 million in Northern Eire, and upon the full United Kingdom land flock, 4,694 beings of wizard bloodline.

The island contained the enceinte percentage of sorcerous beingness per head of any billet on earth.

It could soon arrest the depleted.

At the mouthpiece of the River Liffey, the bustling black Pool of commerce lay in hold, as did a fair sex clad in the disgusting bench vise of Muggle dress.

The rain had let up considerably in equivalence to the early morning pelting, yet the harsh mizzle did nix to mar the once salient beauty as she stood alone upon the Lucan bridge, dark tomentum flowing in the wind like a canvass Born of the Renaissance.

In truth, had one possessing the skill sat to immortalize her countenance, it would have born striking similarity to a painting that had once string up centuries earlier upon the inlaid rampart of Sarsfield castle.

The only if dissimilarity between the canvases lay in the hour detail of the subjects'hands, her pale, elegant finger gently uncorking a clear vial, tilting it 's contents over the antediluvian brick viaduct until they churned upon the flatus disturbed weewee below.

As the cleaning lady disappeared, seemingly without a trace to the eyes of Muggle passersby, the rootage of the curse began filtering into the water organization of downtown Irish capital.

The Negroid pocket billiards would soon reawaken a Black Plague.
* * * * *


sexual love.

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

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

For one raven haired man, the insistence born of hate and preserved by his love was upon him as it had never before been. The dummy, deadened centre of Seamus Finnigan haunting him even as he breathed in the reassure comportment of the Thomas Young girl clutched in his weapon, his face turned from the world to bury against her skin, his lonesome rest from the cruel realness that was his blaze, and life.

It has been said that it is only forte of reference that separates the weak from the substantial, for their ability to tramp feeling, attachment, and love aside… Therein rests their unfaltering ability to do what must be done, in the darkest of times.

Wordlessly the girl had taken him by the hand, silently leading him through the duncish coppices and bramble, disregarding the way the coarse brierpatch tore her skin, snaring her clothing. Her silhouette seemed incompetent of feeling, and the young man 's envy of her skill was thickening, for each thorny prick dragging across his skin sung the guilt he felt, crying for his intervention in what they had left behind in Hogsmeade with the tug of a portkey.

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

The vernal man had been forced to leave his acquaintance in the rapidly growing battle 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 hapless wizard supposed to get the better of the darkest of them ?

It has also been said that specialty of character is best not determined by one 's spiritlessness, by their ability to distance themselves from the site at bridge player, but by their ability to feel the supplication of the weak as if they were their own encumbrance. For it is in these individuals that the rarest of souls are found, for the few who walk upon the world with burdened and broken mortal are often the most adequate to of loving, and saving the rest period of us.

His footsteps were sinking into the weaken terra firma, following in the missy 's tracks as they pushed their way through the thickets, stumbling into a little moonlit clearing, a turbid pool of piddle collecting near its edge.

It was perhaps the distressing, and savage of ironies, that the two brave psyche standing tear and battered, bathed in the blue hues of moonlight filtering between the night sky 's mottled clouds, were the everlasting exemplifications of both English of the spectrum.

Both had been through inferno itself, and survived, yet only one had come out fully capable of loving, despite the world crashing around him.

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


October 31st, Halloween, 1996.

It would forever suffer as the day of opprobrium, as the night when Aurors had fallen upon the township in striking military force, scattering last Eaters to the far flung corners of the earthly concern, to wherever their alcoves of safety device lay, leaving the scarcely varnished Greenwich Village under the jurisdiction of the Ministry.

There was much to sort out.

It had taken so long for them to reach it 's inhabitants, for Hogsmeade had not been the only if townsfolk to fall under onslaught this day. And being the only all wizarding village in England, the Aurors had came to it 's aid last, for Muggle areas had few defense force, while the citizens of Hogsmeade had at least been armed.

Unlike the innocent Muggles who had been found, lifelessly sprawled upon city streets, magical existence had held the power to struggle 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 disappear as quickly as they had come.

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

Throughout the UK, from Dundee to Belfast, from Diagon Alley to Dublin 's Aingingein Marketplace, from the Orkney islands above Scotland to the township bordering the English communication channel, charming inlet of base and beings, small pockets of isolated homes and wizards, and situation of Department of Commerce had been taken over.

They had all been targeted, held intent until night had fallen, and each surviving being of magical stemma present professed to have felt the Sami effect. A low temperature, unsound than death quickening of the blood that had seeped into their very souls, raising the shackle of animals and pilus of mankind, eliciting the shriek of owls and battle cry of child had fallen just at dusk, and for those present the metre falling immediately after, as towns had risen up in defense, fighting back as the Death feeder fled and Aurors arrived, it would be remembered as the clip of silence.

Something had happened that day, for the Death feeder had swarmed into the villages and private dwelling, avoiding only the Muggle populace, and killing only those Muggles who strayed in their way, and the few thaumaturgist and witches who had persistently fought back before the arrival of the Aurors.

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

Most had been Muggles that had strayed in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Seamus Finnigan had been amongst the fallen, the solitary innocent to sustain died in Hogsmeade, killed by the killing hex erupting from the Imperioused verge of Ginerva Molly Weasley.

Ginny Weasley now lay, near catatonic with the grief of her actions, with the cognition of her unwillingly dealt sins, in the hospital wing of Hogwarts School of witchcraft and Wizardry.

She had been able-bodied to fight strongly enough to redeem her brother from the killing curse she had fired upon him, but she had not been strong enough to preserve her boyfriend.

It was a thought that would haunt her for the rest of her life, and while she remained silently mute under the tutelage of Pomfrey, doyen Lowell Jackson Thomas sat upon the coldness corridors of the hospital annexe 's hall.

The haphazardness of the hall was deafening, reverberating with the frenzied footfalls and echoes of frantic parents unable to locate their tyke. Very few had taken credence to Dumbledore 's self-assurance that there were only three children within the hospital wing, two of whom dean treasured above biography itself.

He hardly felt the pain as another large father trampled upon his base, and he pulled his wooden leg closer to his chest, wishing to sink into the rampart for all he was deserving.

Seamus was gone ...

Ginny was no longer speaking ...

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

And no one was letting on what had happened to Ron ....
Silently rip of pity 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 dormitory, nearly knocking Luna Lovegood to the floor, her deadened eyes remarkably similar to how Ginny 's had been when he had found her, crumbled and shaking besides Professor Tres'unconscious form in the kitchen of madam Puddifoots.

Pressing his forehead to his knack up knees, shame dealt it 's final blow, for he now knew the truth.

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


Somewhere, deep in the forest, Harry calmly observed the sky. The autumn leaves struck a bleak dividing line to the night 's dark backdrop, and deep Robert Gray swarm blotted out all semblance of starlight, save for the few relentless pinpoints and the shaving of moonlight fighting their way through the mottled mess.

It was exquisite.

Though no amount of knockout, nor staring, could drive the disturbing persuasion from his head for long, and with a release sigh he knelt before the pocket-sized pond, his human knee sinking into the break earth besides Kaylens.

'' Are you okay ? ``

He heard her words, yet failed to reply. Instead his eyes remained glued to the vacillation personage upon the H2O 's control surface. Staring back at him were the accusatory jade eyes of one whose sleep together one were either gone, or in peril. The man in the rumination was one he did not recognize, for it was a man who had killed without sorrow, and who would do it again.

The inky black range was revealing how he had become all he had once abhorred, and it was a mentation for which he was ill devise.

Never looking up, he finally spoke.

'' No. ``

His cupped helping hand plunged into the springiness, scattering the damnable expression from its open, rippling the weed extending near the other embankment.

A foresighted time passed, the speech sound of light splashing besides him mingling with sounds of the night, as they both rubbed the profligate from their work force in the icy body of water.

Upon its inky open his ablaze blood swirled, pooling from his reopening wounds. Though the pain was something that could not reach him, numbed as his sensation were from the hypothermic waters.

It was the touch sensation of her hands carefully wrapping around his own, that finally pulled him from his near cataleptic DoS. His eyes rose from the water he had hoped to overwhelm within, falling to perch upon her tranquilize countenance.

Her crystalline eyes held his, care flickering in the thudding moonshine.

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

There was no doubting what she meant, for his hands were pained at her bare touch, intertwined as they were with her stale unity, beneath the dense outpouring 's Earth's surface. He reveled in that silence, grimacing only as she forcibly withdrew his workforce from the mercifully blunt urine. The harsh sting of the aplomb night air sent pinpricks of pain shooting through his wounds, burning his arms in a way contradictory to the even 's breeze.

The barest ghost of disquiet loaf upon her concert face, for she was studying the gashes along his calloused men, the ones he had received as he fought to cut the trammel binding them within Rosmereta 's low pub.

That small pub now held some of the most of import people in his life, and he had never felt farther from it.

The knifelike sound of cloth ripping catapulted him from the ill fated road his thoughts were traveling upon, and where his paw had just been, enclosed in her own, now lay a cartoon strip of shredded cloth. She had torn a shred of cloth, from his cloak, and was wrapping it tightly around his palm, winding it up and over his wrist where the deepest of combat injury stretched.

Cringing he did not block her centre progress, though his spokesperson betrayed his skepticism. `` Do you know what your doing ? ``

Sparing not a countersign, the shoemaker's last slip was tugged tightly in place. With a satisfied sigh she tilted her head to the side, a rummy verbalism befalling her. `` Well… '' She replied faintly, her low temperature thumb tracing along his cutis around the make-do bandaging. `` You 'd better hope so. ``

He scowled at her, flexing his radiocarpal joint 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 boost answer, lazily trailing her hired hand within the sang-froid weewee once again, her eyes falling shut.

Unconsciously his center were drawn to her, following her hands effortless onward motion upon the glistening urine, and for the outset time he noticed the ambling looseness of magic before him, for her finger's breadth were playing lithely across the water 's benighted surface, a dull gleaming radiating at the threshold where the static airfoil finally broke, allowing her fingers ledger entry, rose up from its depths.

He regarded the interplay, a behind curiosity rising as flecks of illusion trailed beneath her hired man, coloring the luminosity bump she was creating. Ripples, swelling out in successive rings, bore the sparkling only a light ways before the visible radiation tumbling within the body of water faded away.

And it was not for the first meter, nor for the last, that he again realized how piddling he still knew about the magical world.

He leaned towards her, curiosity crossing his features, for how could the young woman who could not incant perform the display before him ? His inquiry rolled from his lips quietly, and though her expression remained averted from his, her rumination upon the rippling water betrayed her deliquium smile.

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

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

'' Experimental magic ? And you call me reckless ? ''

'' Well… '' She whispered, her reflection smiling, `` Insane is probably a better terminus. ``

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

She murmured in understanding, withdrawing her finger from the weewee, flicking the clear droplets from them in his centering.

His grunt of protest was ignored, for her watchful eyes had flickered out across the rippling water, gazing searchingly into the umbrageous woodland. And for the thousandth time since their maiden meeting, he wondered if she could see things he could not.

As if in response to his thought process, a Inner Light furrow creased her brow, barely discernable as the swarm moved to hide the aplomb moonshine, throwing shadows across her countenance. And as a placate gentle wind sent the Reed protruding from the embankment swaying, her demeanour stiffened, her shoulder relaxing only with the surcease of the plant life'soporific motions.

'' Jittery ? ``

His query was met not with the carry contempt, but with something else.

'' Yes. '' She whispered darkly.

Her coldness pitch contour were disturbing, and his eyes joined hers in sweeping the tree parentage for any sign of malevolence. 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 loudness, sending the Walter Reed tip tilting so as to dip into the pond 's surface, he spoke it aloud.

'' Are you associate with embrasure keys ? ''

She turned a interview expression to him, her hair scattering like a feathery halo about her brass in the blustery air. Such was the noise of her chummy head of hair 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 target of their very displacement could also be the object of their rescue. His hands scrambled in the deep folds of his slurred cloak for the Kunnskap, and finally he dumped it upon the cold earthy mud, taking care to never allow it 's dulled golden chain to concern his flesh.

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

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

His middle caught hers, `` faith me. '' He whispered.

Steadily the disinclination within her eyes vanished, and slowly she turned her hand around, allowing his fingers to interlock with hers. Squeezing her hand as gently as his circumscribe 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 significance, 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 ghost of their fingers to its surface.

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

With baited breathing space they touched the chain.

Nothing.

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

As he re-gathered the chain in his hands, she was the 1st to break the impenetrable silence.

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

He cast her an irritable glimpse, examining the rune carved into the pensieve 's vial. Unsurprisingly, not one depiction cast a shred of light onto the situation at hand. Maybe, just maybe, he would take Hermione up on her go to teach him ancient rune when they returned.

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

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

'' You know how most port keys are touch sensible, taking people back and Forth between two blank space ? ``

Her chief 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 belittled smiling as her nose wrinkled, her farseeing strands clearly tickling it. `` Well… '' He continued, `` A conditional larboard key only activates under sealed circumstances. You can be touching it, but it wo n't make you anywhere because its 'condition'is not met. '' He glanced down at the vial, slipping it into his cloak once again. `` Dumbledore made this for me, so I 'm guessing it activates when the wearer is in deadly peri… ''

person peril…

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

He had not known until that day, until he had felt the telling tug behind his navel, that the Kunnskap doubled in purpose, and his inadvertence of Dumbledore 's secretive method of ensuring his own protection could deliver very well cost Kaylens her life.

She was saying his name, yet he barely heard. For how could his life, his very creation, be worth the peril to others that it brought with it ?

His mouth went dry, and a cold, redoubtable feeling facing pages through him. Forcing his center to heighten to hers, he saw the disarray swirling within them.

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

The inexplicable urge to drown himself within the stonyhearted pond took precedence, but the urge was driven from his mind by her hired man reaching for his.

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

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

'' It 's okay, '' She whispered, part tinged with amusement. `` I know you were n't trying to exit me to fend off the wolves myself. ``

And despite her tone, he felt himself pale.

'' 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 Inner Light laugh.

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

'' Kaylens… '' He murmured, eyes shutting in nuisance. `` This has been a catastrophe. ``

'' It could suffer been worse. '' She whispered, the irony of her Logos mocking the catastrophe they had lived through.

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

'' It could have been worse. ``

Hogsmeade had been taken, Dean could be dying, Hermione was injured, and the others like ingenuous Ginny Weasley, the sister he grew to throw, 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 greenish optic flew open, narrowing onto her. `` How…how can you possibly say that ? ''

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

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

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

'' No we did n't. ``

He stared, unable to reconcile the rising heartbreak and guilt that had swept upon him as suddenly as a tidal wave, with her profession.

'' We failed. ``

She shook her head teacher slowly, jaw setting determinedly in acknowledgment 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 throw failed them. ``

Lifeless low eyes…

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

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

Her vocalisation was as good as he had ever heard it, and as gentle, yet the bitterness could not be kept from his voice as he pulled his helping hand from hers.

'' I do n't know anymore. '' He whispered gruffly, not knowing which was worse : The hurt expression upon her face, or the cognition that he actually believed his password, for he did not have got faith in his friends.

At to the lowest degree not when it came to their avoidance of corporeal harm. The department of Mysteries had proven that lots, for they had fought bravely, yet their ineptness… Both had fallen almost immediately, first 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 thoughts. `` Not to anyone. Not to Ron, not to Hermione, not to Seamus, not to… ''

'' What ? ``

Failing to catch this his insensible vox of self-loathing continued, unheard to his own ears, yet perfectly shed light on to the girl besides him.

'' How dare you. ``

This clip he heard her, her vox vibrating dangerously, his eyes instantly flying to her furious grammatical construction.

Deep within her eyes something terrorization was stirring.

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

This vibration was her only sign of emotion, for her dead tone was perhaps insensate than her adopt expression.

'' In instance you did n't notice Potter, you are worth something, '' She whispered in continuation. `` Because if it was n't for you your friends would have never made it out of Hogsmeade, and not only that… ''

She stood abruptly, brushing her workforce on her denim furiously, glowering down with chilling intensity.

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

Her lastly words were the cold-blooded 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 hand from hers in anger.

Scrambling to his feet he closed the space between them, catching her around the arm before she could make it any promote. She struggled, her icy public eye fixated furiously upon him, freezing him to the substance, yet it did not block off him from pulling her to him and holding on.

He did not let go, wrapping his arms tightly around her shape, stroking her hair's-breadth 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, allowing his to bury within her tomentum. He only pulled her closer, warmth sinking through him as her work force burrowed beneath his robes, snaking around his midsection to harbour him back.

'' I never meant for you to think ... '' He swallowed, breathing deeply as he whispered into her hair. `` To suppose I did n't manage Kay… ''

'' Dam n't Potter… '' She interrupted harshly, her voice 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 mat within her tresses. `` Though with adept reason… ''

Her material body stiffened, his forehead falling against hers as her grimace swiveled to regard him. Instinctively his weapon system encircled her shivering form ever tighter, prepared to do anything to prevent her from leaving.

Her glistening eyes turned up, both choler and self-assurance swimming contradictorily within them. `` Potter… '' She whispered, `` No good reason exists here. You did all you could. ''

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

A diffuse mussitation of disapproval came from behind her closed lips, the changes upon her once impassive face startling. Unconsciously his eyes fell shut, his hand moving across her back comfortingly. Slowly he breathed her in, clutching her by her sweater, twisting it in the process as an exasperated sigh escaped her lips.

Against his skin he felt her eyelashes flickering shut, her warming laurel wreath sliding out from beneath his cloak, `` Potter… '' She whispered, rising her bridge player till they lay matted against his bureau. `` Sometimes I really hate you. ``

Nodding against her skin, he inhaled deeply, their undetermined conflicts fading from his mind. `` You 're in luck… '' He replied, whispering despite their solitude. `` Because the opinion 's reciprocal. ``

'' I 'm sure… '' She murmured back, boldness upturning as a blustery autumn farting sent her long tresses scattering haphazardly between them. His arms pulled her in finisher, the relax sides of his robe billowing out and enveloping them both.

For the longsighted meter they stood there, him shielding her from the dark'icy chela, her shielding him from regress into the darkness of all he had been partly responsible for. And for the thousandth time since their way of life had first crossed, he found himself listening to her admonishments.

Predominant amongst them was his newly bestowed title, a stress smile crossing his case at the thought.

'' King of Idiocy… '' He murmured, a unfrequented hand sliding from where he cupped the back of her psyche, falling to roost along her impudence. `` I ca n't conceive you called me that. ``

The frail finger lingering upon his bureau curled, capturing the folds of his beer stained gown. `` From my stop of view it 's outfit. ``

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

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

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

'' Do you ? '' She asked, inclining her straits 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 drink, and I do n't mean the form in a drinking glass. ``

Her center shone with understanding, `` You mean the form overturned upon my nous. ``

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

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

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

'' Point taken. ``

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

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

His brow furrowed at her words, a shrewd construction befalling him as he pulled away to regard her. `` We 're in the Forbidden Forest ? ``

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


The doors of the entryway dormitory needed goose egg to be thrown open air, for in the havoc of parents coming and going, claiming their children before fleeing, the looming entree remained adequate to all.

Regulus black strode through it, robes billowing ominously in his backwash, looking for all the world as if snake pit itself could not discourage him from his mission.

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

It was upon the principal 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 force out them through the hospital ward, for here they would be safe.

The room access to Dumbledore 's berth slammed shut on an incensed 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 humble softback, leather-bound text. `` Of course. ``

Neither of the two men appeared uneasy with the other 's bearing. The unflappable senior appearing entirely unsurprised by the younger 's sudden reappearance to the living.

'' Then his architectural plan remains the same as before. ''

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

Tonks cast an askance coup d'oeil the Headmaster 's way, steadying Emily 's swaying bod with a hand. `` You knew this was coming ? ``

'' I had my suspiciousness, '' Replied the Headmaster, squatting in straw man of untried Emily, extending the text to her. The auburn haired child took it without a thought.

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

Emily 's head bobbed gently, opening the leather bound book with robotic motions, and as she began to read, the clouded looking at disappeared from her and Kenneth 's eyes, as did their drugged states.

Ignoring Regulus'annoyed growl, Dumbledore responded to Tonks questioning flavor. `` The lone way to grant Muggles to feel at ease within our grounds, little of removing the Mary Augusta Arnold Ward, is to learn from this book. ``

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

'' If you do n't mind, there is the modest matter of a night Godhead to attend to. '' The leer Regulus used paled in comparison to his tone.

Dumbledore merely smiled and pointed Kenneth towards the same chairperson, where the President promptly passed out, his belittled daughter in his lap. It was only then that Dumbledore 's smiling exterior faltered, something far more sober flashing behind his lunula spectacles.

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

The last remaining heir of the Black family gestured to the sleeping kinsperson. `` He 's come after the family 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 co-occurrence, it 's targeting. And I 'm willing to bet it has something to do with his programme of obliteration. ``

Her meat fluttered uneasily, `` eradication ? ``

Regulus paused mid-stride, `` Surely your education was not that bereft of grammar to provide worthy excuse for your loser to realise such a forgetful syllable parole as eradication ? ``

Her dark eye narrowed in chafe, her lingua held in baulk only by the subject area born of year under the superintendence of Kingsley and Mad-Eye 's loose baton.

genus Regulus'equally night centre left hers duly, his pacing resumed, `` At a time He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named desired merely the eradication of Muggleborns alone. The cleansing of our world would have sufficed, for then he would be free to rule it. ``

Reaching the wall he did an abrupt about-face, continuing undeterred upon his flat path. `` His views eventually changed and he came to hope the destruction of both Muggles and Muggleborns, and if his plans remain similar to the plot of before, the plot I failed to help in properly, than today marks the beginning of the plague. ``

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

'' The Great pest of London in the seventeenth century. ``

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

'' Salutations granddad, '' He greeted with considerable satire. `` As always I am golden to give birth never been forced to hurt your condemnable, condescending presence in life. ``

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

'' That scratchy stone doorknocker demands deference as well, but that does not mean we give it to him. '' Quipped genus Regulus, his long fingerbreadth creating a hollow melody along the shelving.

The schoolmaster 's heart twinkled at the sound of Crusantheus'protestations from outside the door. `` Your bearing has charmed everyone within earshot Regulus, I can only go for to earn such praise by the end of our meeting as well. I 'm beginning to palpate left out. ``

Simultaneously all of the portrait, Tonks, the knocker, Fawkes, and a Ethel Merman sculpture snorted.

Regulus and Phineas surveyed the room with identically critical manifestation, glowering at those vulgar enough to snort in their civilized presences.

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

Tonks sobered immediately, her heart fixating upon the baby and man under her protection, the 1 Regulus himself was responsible for saving when she had failed.

Her mouth formed the words, her emotionless clip telling of her seriousness.

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

And that he did, revealing the true up grounds for his defection from the rank and file of the last feeder.

'' Do you remember the coordinated flack in my youth schoolmaster ? ``

'' The ace just before your disappearance ? ``

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

'' It was only raw, '' He continued, `` For He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to ordinate onrush upon wizarding Greenwich Village, entrapping the wizarding folks within. The lodge were to not vote out nor harm the inhabitants unless absolutely necessity, and while the magic kinsfolk were trapped he unleashed a spell, a counter curse if you will, one that would grant all those within the Aaron Montgomery Ward at the sentence of its casting unsusceptibility from the plague. ``

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

Her cousin 's dark glare was answer enough.

'' So why hazard wiping out the wizarding population of U.K., his home, when there were other places where he may have tested it ? '' Tonks asked, directing her cousin 's dark gaze from the defenseless portrait to herself.

genus Regulus thin back talk went taunt, `` Nymphadora, you again underestimate him, assuming he places value in abstract conception such as dear and home plate. '' His eyes narrowed considerably, `` He does not, and what proficient place to prove an experimental vaccinum if you will, then upon a populated island. ``

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

'' If the sideboard curse word proved ineffective than the only wizarding communities lost would be those of the U.K. '' Dumbledore said sadly, `` A reasonable departure to one such as Tom, considering his hard impedance has always been in Britain. ``

Regulus nodded somberly, `` If it was unable, only a low fate of the earthly concern 's wizarding population would be lost, yet millions 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 Continent would be very slim indeed. ``

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

'' Quickly, '' Regulus supplied. `` There were plan to preclude this as well, to keep out down major Muggle transportation networks until the experiment had run it 's course. However, what those plans were, I was not lav to. We were on a need to know basis. ``

hearing to the conversation Tonks stomach churned. The cold calculation that must receive gone into an endeavor such as that… The realization that people, who harbored such little respect for homo animation, existed was chilling.

Her parents account statement of such dark times were what had driven her to join the ranks of the Aurors in the first place, even if she herself harbored no personal memory of those days.

She had been only seven upon the ides of June, when the towns had been held during the day lit hr for intellect never discovered.

Regulus Black was now revealing the undisclosed logical thinking behind the 24 deaths that had occurred that day. For his job had been to unleash the plague that night, once the wizarding communities had been safely and effectively immunized.

The Plague had never been let loose, for Regulus inkiness, the trustworthy son of a noble pedigreed family unit, had never shown. And now that same son was setting the vial, the same vial that he had kept for years in his possession, upon the Headmaster 's desk.

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

It would be the deadliest pestilence to befall the planet, and according to Regulus, the same pest would make been unleashed under similar circumstances.

Similar condition had occurred that very day, and Dumbledore was just informing them. Fawkes disappeared in a fiery puff of smoke, sent to muster Severus and the best of healers to began examining the mortal 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 answer. Yet she only regarded him quizzically, nodding slowly in response to his question.

They were in the Forbidden Forest, and her with her foolish naivety had not thought once to name it before now.

They were in the Forbidden Forest…

How in the hell could she sustain know that ?

His formula instinctively hardened, as did his hands upon her, for temporary isolation within a woodland was one affair, but isolation within the Forbidden woodland was an entirely different matter.

Eyes sweeping the forest 's menacing tree diagram line defensively, he remained unresponsive to her questioning eyes. His only response was the slight slackening of his munition around her descriptor as he silently prayed their safety would hold out.

Unsatisfied, yet helpless to amend matters, his arms fell to her shank, hands stiffening along her spine. `` Kaylens… '' He whispered lowly, `` Why did you not consider to bring up this earlier ? ``

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

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

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

'' If I had told you before, what would you experience done ? '' She whispered dryly. `` We 're in too late to gamble travel, especially in the duskiness. ``

'' I like the dark. ``

'' So do arachnids. ``

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

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

He nodded, voice heavily laced with satire, `` And I 'm trusted he 's in the practice of telling all his students about Aragog. ``

Her saying defied his trial, for her heart told him she knew exactly of what he spoke as she shook her head. `` No, but I was like him Potter. I ca n't do magic, just like he was forbidden to after his ejection, so we had something in common… ''

Grinding his tooth to forbid an interpolation he listened warily.

'' The only affair that saved him was being able-bodied to work with the creatures of this forest ceramist, did you cognise that ? ``

He shook his drumhead disbelievingly, `` You ca n't work on around them without a sceptre, it 's too life-threatening. And unlike you he at least had his… ''

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

'' 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 quadrant of each magical species'territory. ``

He inclined an eyebrow questioningly, encouraging her to continue.

'' This quarter-circle is rather near their nest. ``

His blood grew cold in retention of his cobbler's last experience, hands tightening along her back further. `` You still should give birth told me, '' He whispered.

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

'' Since now. ``

She shrugged impassively, `` I 'm surprised you did n't know. It was your port 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 imagine telling you Dumbledore made it ? Or did I not already relay that I had no cue that the ampoule was a interface ke… ''

'' You told me that recently, '' She interjected. `` We were here in quiet for hour. How was I to intuitively know that you were unaware of our location before then ? ``

'' You should have said something the moment I told you I had zip to do with the embrasure key Kayle ... ''

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

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

'' It 's the Sojourner Truth ceramist. It did n't even take place to me that you were clueless about where we were until a second 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 satire. `` Asides from ira or intuition that is. ``

With that she dropped down to the primer coat, becoming utterly fascinated by the swaying reeds as he was left with cypher but her rachis 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 sentences, he was reasonably for sure that her grammatical construction would betray uncongenial intent towards him.

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

It was a long sentence before either again wheel spoke, the entirely phone the howling of the breaking wind between the forest 's trees.

'' Kaylens I… ''

'' No… '' She whispered, `` Do n't gravel. Just realize that some us do not birth the luxury to leave our feelings unmasked. ``

Only one tidings came to mind, and he spoke it, ineffective to articulate in any other way his motion as to why she had until this very day refused to show any semblance of her straight ego to him.

'' Why ? ``

Her foreland bowed low, the ends of her long braid dangling loosely in the ripple water. Finally, a pocket-sized stint of eternity passing, she again spoke.

'' If you had the choice between keeping people safe, or putting trade good people at risk, what would you do ? ``

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

Not in the way she just had.

She turned on the wet forage, her showy orbs rising in a determined way, betraying all the pain she had until now kept so carefully hidden.

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


Dean felt vacuous as he numbly shoved past the Fat dame 's portrait. Whether the password had fallen from his back talk or not was something he would never do it, and something the Fat lady would celebrate to herself.

'' Neville. ``

He addressed his dorm partner in a monotone, unable to look the boy in the eye, even as Neville smiled sadly, hauling his bole down the stairs.

It was well after midnight, the majority of the student already gone, taken away by their families. Those remaining till the succeeding cockcrow, or indefinitely, as James Dean was planning, would already be in their dormitories.

Save for Neville, who 's gram had just arrived to select him home.

Neville shook his header sadly, `` It is n't right. I should n't leave like this. ``

James Dean shrugged, walking past him up the flight. `` Then do n't. ``

The other boy paused in his track, turning and nearly losing his tree trunk in the procedure. `` It 's not that simple. ``

Dean sighed resignedly, `` It is Neville. Just choose a stand for once. Do n't punt down. '' Like I did…

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

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

A strong helping hand stretched out to pillow against the cold Oliver Stone wall of the tugboat, and dean steadied himself from the onslaught of bad memories.

'' doyen what if she tries to work me ? ``

'' shuffling your option ! ``

His expression hardened, hand leaving the wall as he turned to regard his nervous looking dorm checkmate, whose neck was craned high up to see where he stood eminent up upon the stairs.

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

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

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

proclivity in doyen let his iniquity stare practice into Neville 's visible light one. `` And especially not your Gran, '' He whispered fiercely. `` No one can force you to do something you do not already need to do. So if you think staying here is the right thing, then you salutary 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 James Byron Dean 's normally congenial eyes there was no pity.

'' There 's aught sorry than looking back and wishing you had done something differently. '' Dean imparted intensely, straightening as a queen cat bounded down from the girl 's residence hall. `` And I would think that someone who could face up down dying Eaters, defending himself the way you did back in Hogsmeade, would not be one for backing down. ``

With a close glance at the cat Dean trudged up the flight, hell bent on retrieving Ronald Weasley 's thing. How in the underworld he was to get Ginny 's was another thing entirely, but the only affair he really knew, or cared about at that moment, was the acceptable audio of Neville 's trunk dropping to become abandoned on the stairs.

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


Inside Harry felt something breaking, for Kalliandra 's words were hitting tightlipped to dwelling house than she could ever substantiate, for what had haunted him had haunted her.

deep in the wood, the dense secrecy was again shattered by her cheerless voice.

'' Once someone cares for you, and I mean truly guardianship ceramicist, no amount of resistance will be able to press them away. '' Her haunting words fell to the unfeeling ground, her face 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 realizations befalling him.

'' It 's something I can not do. '' She finally whispered, eyes again falling upon the non-white waters.

In that moment, the malarky stirring the weed around his pes, he realized how abysmally stupid he had been. Kalliandra 's language had never rang truer. And though he felt as if he were missing some integral stop, for how the language 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 long clip ago they had said there had been a point where they could bend back, and they had not.

Harry thrower suddenly realized when that consequence had been, for both of them.

'' I think I can judge the awry sorting for myself thanks. ``

Ron 's face had glowed with acceptance.

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

A sad smile tugged at his meat, for Hermione Granger, knowing them as nothing other than barbarous taunting boys, had broken every moral she had that Halloween night.

And she had done it for them.

The distributor point where he could protect his friend had long since passed. The time where they could hold been kept safe was over, and if he truly wanted them to survive their best opportunity would be together, not apart.

He had been a fool to think otherwise.

Eyes blinking rapidly, he regarded the girl who had brought this to luminosity, torn between whether to swim her or embrace her. Though all he could bring himself to do was quietly take in, paralyzed by the sheer persuasion of oral presentation when he was only just realizing how little he understood about her.

In that moment he was struck by the intense painful sensation 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 sorrow flitting through in every hurt creese of her forehead, in every rickety breath indrawn, and in every halting motion.

The rather plain, disheveled young woman before him, the one capable of holding so practically in, was suddenly strikingly beautiful.

In a moment of indecision he crossed to her. Gone was the stumbling boy who had once been ineffectual to joint a coherent thought around saddened female. Now, in the face of necessity, drawn together by circumstance, he found that his vexation suddenly lay with the only soul he held the power to help.

Kaylens.

Laying a manus upon her berm, the realisation that her cloak was gone affect him. Once he had removed it, accessing her chest in the 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 stiffening of her shoulder beneath his throbbing decoration, he knelt down, one arm snaking it 's way around her waver cast. goose pimple were rising across her neck where her plait had been swept aside, her skin far too cool for his liking.

Lowering his sassing to her ear his breath traced along her peel, his chin falling to pillow on her shoulder as he spoke.

'' You 're obstinate, missing your cloak, and did not reckon to say a word, '' He whispered, pulling her against him, trapping her weapon against her chest with his own. `` And….you look like hell, and I do not fancy having you not only irritable but macabre. ``

'' Like hell… '' She muttered softly, her words vibrating with her chattering teeth. Casting his eyes to the water supply he could see her expression, and distracted expression. `` You should see yourself. ``

'' I 'll let you revel in that torture alone, '' He responded softly, the chilling piece of cake sweeping the fog aside once again, revealing the sliver of Sun Myung Moon residing there that All Hallows Eve.

Her light Strand tickled his face, his eyes falling shut as he reveled in the strange virtuoso, only opening as he felt her bend to regard him.

Before she could speak his paw rose, silencing her.

'' Thank you, '' He whispered, watching the anger disappearance from her eyes. Now only confusion, mingled with modest surprisal, swirled within her fervent ball. The kris of her brow was interrogation enough, and he shook his head, mumbling how it was hard to excuse, for how could he impart the actualisation her single sentence had brought.

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

Her brim parted slightly, though her protestation fell soundless, for a thick woolen blanket now lay where his cloak had been a moment before.

Pocketing his sceptre he nodded satisfactorily. `` Transfiguration, '' He offered by way of explanation, wrapping it around her shoulder joint, his deal lingering there. `` If we remain here, we 'll be safety ? ''

Haltingly she nodded, a golden tress falling loose from behind her ear, swinging freely in the brightness air that cast it across her brass, her scent crinkling ever so slightly as the tress tickled her nose.

His deal rising to brush it aside, he watched her center turn to the forest, studying it with a barely concealed longing.

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

And against every ingrained instinct, he trusted her unquestioningly.

'' Then here we 'll stay. ``

Sliding his hands down her arms, taking her hands in his, he led her away from the H2O and towards a boastfully oak with a comfortable looking trunk.

Within second a balmy, smoke-free fire burned before them, his rachis to the oak and her resting comfortably against his pectus, his arm encircling her tightly as she pulled the woolen blanket to her chin, covering them both.

Beneath the woolen framework, where no eyes save theirs could see, two work force intertwined around a fortunate chain, a small ampul carefully clutched between their palms, just in case.



A/N : glad Belated holiday everyone ! And thanks to IchigoPan for the lovely opening persona. : )

Also, par subscriber petition I shall send in the commend department whether or not a history is complete, and the number of chapters present upon recommendation.

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




Chapter 25 ~ Condemnation by choice


Some would conceive that they had been condemned by lot, others that they had been condemned by pick. In the retentive run, those who believe that freedom can only be found by the alternative one makes with what they have been given, are tight than either extreme.

Those who had cared for the dead and dying during the Bubonic infestation, risking vulnerability so that others could be spared, made the dear choice they could with the dire circumstances life had dealt them. And though more than three 100 had passed since anything of similar ratio had struck civilized high society, story would soon restate itself.

Bathed in the inky hues of iniquity, upon the shore of the River Liffey, a man with a fishing perch smiled into the moonlit sky. The rain had farsighted since let up, and he basked in the early dawn 's fragrant scent, enjoying the atomizer of the river splashing against the shoreline.

He would soon be the first to knuckle under to the universe 's greatest pestilence.

He did not know 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 anticipate that his wife and three fry would be the next to knuckle under, leaving their once vibrant rest home devoid of laugh, love, and life.

They would all be drained within 72 hours.
* * * * *


Neville .... Dean ....

Beneath a thick, dingy humeral veil of russet toned strands, two gloomy eyes fluttered blurrily. The visual centers of her brain were not ready to experience the sign traveling across her ocular heart. The pain sign were still far too overwhelming.

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

A fuzzy, rectangular outline, the colouring of a finely aged manuscript 's page ... it rested besides where she lay, her body feeling unnaturally whole upon the still satin sheets. Somehow she was left with the lurking sensation that everything should not be quite good ... ..with what though ... .for certainly her skull was whole.

The girl 's superb thinker felt somehow ... violated. As if someone had been poking about within it, without her express permission.

As if someone had been searching through her most wanted memoirs ...

Again the names came to her, hitting her with the violence of a heavily muscled serpentine tail.

Her pleasant hallucination born of slumber were shattered, her sassing parting with an indrawn gasp as the foreign, fuzzy room fell into focus, as did the woman resting within the high backed electric chair, legs elegantly crossed, a cruel, taunting face stretched taunt across her backtalk. And like a marauder stalking its prey, the woman 's eyes were purposeful, exultant, and locked upon her own.

Somewhere in her recovering mind the girl realized that the adult female was aim on stealing her innermost secret, and what better consequence to do so than within one 's waking moments, when their Defense Department were the lowest.

Voldemort'rank were cruel and calculating, containing passkey tacticians whom she both admired and loathed with every fiber of her being. Yet despite this wonderment, she would die before allowing them in.

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

She fought.

As the woman 's arrogant laughter filled the room, for the girlfriend was no match for the fair sex 's training, a crucial error was made, for in that one moment of underreckoning the Mudblood was able to push back, catching sight of what the adult female was really after.

master Voldemort was in the way, unseen to the female child 's eyes, and the girl suddenly understood that she was the bait that was to lure in the true prey.

Hermione granger began screaming for her best friend to block out everything Voldemort showed him.

A cruel light cut through the air, and as the young lady fell defenseless to the Cruiciatious swearing, passing into another pain induced slumber, Harry Potter tossed violently within his own.
* * * * *


'' Sit ! ``

The lowly of her dorsum hit the backboard of the chair, painfully.

Yet that was nothing in compare to what she would do to Regulus. Over the preceding few hours, where they had been all but forced to remain hole up in Dumbledore 's office, her legal opinion of Regulus had done a complete 180, followed by a 360. And now he had been assuming enough to physically force her away from the door, which she had been using in an effort to empty the premises.

She felt needed elsewhere.

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

'' Enough ! ``

respiration heavily, her dark middle fixated furiously upon genus Regulus'complacent expression, her representative addressed the Headmaster. Unsurprisingly her tones were LE than pleased at the information she had just gleaned from their impromptu meeting.

It had been the reasonableness for her failed attempts to leave.

'' Explain ... '' She spoke less than warily, `` How you can justify refusing to allow me, an Auror in case you forgot, to find 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 blue-belly kick in his unprotected shin.

Ignoring his face and failed effort at dignity she continued adamantly. `` schoolmaster ... one pupil has already been killed, and if Harry is out there alone he ... ''

'' He is not alone. ``

She closed her eyes, drawing an annoyed breath between her teeth. `` Oh ? ''

Dumbledore seemed vaguely amused by her response. `` Of grade not. He is with another student. ``

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

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

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

Her centre widened in Bob Hope that she had misheard. `` That daughter Remus has been tutoring ? '' She nearly shouted. `` She 's practically a Muggle ! ``

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

Regulus sneered, `` Oh yes ... I 'm sure enough they are cancel at evading the Unforgivables of the Dark Lord 's servant. ``

'' Of grade you 'd screw all about that would n't you Reggie ? '' Tonks snapped hotly, ignoring the disapproving eyes of the Headmaster as she turned her hot temper directly on him.

'' What in the name of Merlin are you thinking headmaster ? '' She questioned shrilly. `` You 've allowed half of the decree to reckon that Harry is missing yet tell the ex-Death eater on the maculation the second everyone is out of earsho ... ''

'' I 'm in earshot ! ``

'' Shut up !'Tonks and Regulus shouted simultaneously as Regulus practically flew across the way, giving the already closed door a good kick. Crusantheus, the door bosom, could be heard swearing violently on the other side.

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

Regulus'eyebrow arched so high Tonks swore he must throw stolen Snape 's patent look of smugness.

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

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

'' Is n't it a ignominy, Nymphadora ... '' genus Regulus continued, pacing in front of her seat digit, `` When you can not even commit your fellow bird watchers with the whereabouts of the baby wench ? ''

She scowled, forcing herself to wait away from his feeling of transcendence. Instead she observed what Dumbledore was doing, watching as the shaft finished penning upon each whorl, then rolling themselves in chronological sequence, the ink already fading upon each.

It was a fast one of the Order, used only in prison term where the maximum of security measure was needed, for only those bearing the cross 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 motivation risk penning instructions when he could inform each recipient role verbally via rate of flow ?

'' schoolmaster ... '' She said warily. `` Please let me remember Harry. As an Auror you have to infer that I can not stomach aside and provide Harry and Kalliandra to be put in risk. '' She stood, ignoring genus Regulus'attack to hinder her route, and strode straight to the window overlooking the castle grounds. Dumbledore stood besides this Lapplander window, an odd look deepening his already lined features.

'' master ... '' She said, eyes shining with urging. `` You know secure than anyone what form of people are after Harry. Just severalise me where he is at, because wherever he is he could get .... ''

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

She frowned, her silence his result.

The Headmaster nodded solemnly. `` The clock time when we could protect the tike from the revulsion of war has long since passed. Now all we can do is go for that we have prepared them well enough. ``

Tonks sighed sadly, watching as the quills began inscribing the names of the addresses upon the roam paper plant roll. 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 manus touched her articulatio humeri, Dumbledore 's twinkling eyes again holding a sense of hope.

'' If I 'm not mistaken, I do believe you were always a strong proponent of giving at least Harry Thomas More freedom. If you had not believed him, a pupil, ready, would you really have suggested that ? ``

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

Dumbledore chuckled. `` Perhaps we ought to strike them to my secret quarters. I dare say they could possibly be more comfortable there. ``

She nodded vaguely, and within minute of arc was levitating the Irish Gaelic president in a very undignified way, his arms and legs hanging slack as he sleep danced through the highly arching doorcase, leaving the office of the schoolmaster and entering Dumbledore 's common soldier study.

Regulus followed behind, Emily in his arms, and the most singular expression upon his face. He rather looked as if he had drunk acidulate milk containing the philosophers' stone of life. Regardless the expression vanished as he placed her upon the couch besides her male parent, a looking at of relief overtaking him as he rid himself of the seven year old burden.

'' Nympahdora ? ``

Her hands immobilise upon the woolen blanket, the one she had been draping across her guardianship sleeping forms, for Dumbledore 's voice was no longer right behind her.

Trepidation shook her.

Turning, as if in tiresome motion, her brain recognized that except for her quiescence bearing, that she was now alone in the elbow room.

Both her cousin and the Headmaster stood just beyond the way 's brink, a look of resign staidness upon their faces.

'' I am grim Nymphadora .... '' Dumbledore 's voice floated through the doorway eerily. `` But there is something I must do, and I have a notion that Regulus may be the lonesome one willing to stand viewer without protestation. ''

What ritual ?

The study 's finely cut up threshold began swinging shut.

She bolted for them, not knowing why, yet knowing there was no fourth dimension. Her human foot take flight across the flooring, her heart catching view of the papyrus scroll 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 savourless upon the floor, her eyes upturned, straining for a hatful of the ceiling within the Headmaster 's office.

Upon the tower 's conic roof were the antediluvian words of power, and they were the cobbler's last sight she had before the study room access slammed shut with a resonating finality.

Lying stunned upon the floor her thoughts faltered, for upon the sheepskin leap for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named an ancient oath was surely inscribed. Dumbledore 's magic signature was the one responsible for writing it beneath the structure of force, and thus she knew that Dumbledore had sworn to meet with the most dire of villains to get the negotiations for the surviving pupil of his.

Hermione Granger.

Beneath the door a fiery tendril could be seen.

The blood leap ritual had begun ...
* * * * *


In the thick of nighttime lightning flashed.

Shadows were streaking across the basis, illuminating the darkness abysm surrounding those who slumbered far from the oncoming tempest. There, deep beneath the darkened boughs of night, dreams both haunting and beseeching plagued the girl 's listless turnings within the subdivision of Morpheus.

Yet something far more solid than the purveyor of aspiration clung to the miss, smoothing away the gooseflesh rising upon her icy cutis, for even as the man she leant against dreamt his promise to safeguard was being unconsciously kept.

In his arms the girl failed to get word the oncoming storm, only awakening from her chilled slumber as the calloused hands around her fasten, the man 's steady breathing falling and rising erratically, for REM was suddenly failing to curb his voluntary brawny systems.

Something had changed ...

Kally was flung to the flat coat with a start, her soundbox hitting the dew kissed territory with emphatic intensity.

Coughing, there upon the ground, she scrambled away, rolling and slipping as the sky thundered, the first droplet of the icy onslaught catching her in the brass. Reflex Born of one cruel demon 's sadism, and a lifetime of paranoia, sent her scattering from her guardian on instinct.

Sliding upon the dew kissed soil, scrambling to her feet, blinking back the dreg of nap and the dark of night, her mind finally processing what was occurring she ceased to act. Standing there with the steer whipping bitterly around her, the rising air 's shiver seeping through her unequal clothing, she laid heart upon her unwilling assailant.

thrower ...

The mind numbing disarray that befell her, the kind that always seemed to accompany his presence, returned as she watched him. His bright eyes closed against the brewing violent storm, his human face contorted, and even from where she stood she could see the frenetic heyday and valleys his heaving chest made.

It was happening again, the thing she had merely glimpsed that Nox in the common room, falling victim to it within the torch-lit corridors ...

Without rational thought she ran to him, the one she barely knew, who had foolishly saved her life on more occasions than she cared to count. Dropping besides him, her knees sinking into the mute mud, she felt her finger's breadth stall, doubt gripping her cool form.

Something was haywire ... this sensation ... the uncertainty ... .it was foreign and pass ...

Though life 's harshness had once taught her the demons of inaction.

Forcing herself, willing herself to act, she gripped his shoulder joint, calling his name as loudly as she dared. In the quickening breeze the blanket that had sheltered them billowed out, tumbling with the wind instrument to lay sprawled across the wet ground.

'' Pott-tter ... '' The chill crept into her vocalisation, the winding stealing her words for its own cagey role. Slowly she watched, nearly feeling his back talk moving in a mute dialogue to which she was not privy.

Beneath her digit she felt the growing rigidness of his shoulder, a terrifying intensity radiating from him as the rainwater began to devolve in thick torrents, rainwater splattering upon his sweat dampened brow.

When the living giving water reached his unsightly scratch, a sizzling rose into the air.

Lightning criss-crossed the night.

One-one yard ...

Gingerly her fingertips traced his brow, brushing along his matted hair. Before the searing sense within her flesh even registered her hand was recoiling, a suppress cry of pain caught within her throat.

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

Two-one grand ...

Voice constricted, from what she knew not, for aught in the magical world could now surprised her, she screamed at him. Foolishly she screamed, roaring in a competition to rise above the hint as she gripped his shoulder, shaking his already vibrating manikin.

His Adam 's apple 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 gain him. `` What 's happening to you ? ''

Four-one thousa ...

Thunder shook the sky, a carnal howl carrying upon the confidential information from a distance far too fill up. Her narrowed eyes flew to the forest, ill-equipped as they were to let on its hidden peril.

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 finger's breadth coiled around Harry 's shoulder joint, relishing the odd aegis his proximity brought in the face of the unknown.

Teeth chattering she began a still mantra.

'' One-one thousand ... ''

Within her ears the steady rhythm of her gist pounded achingly meretricious, and further howls cutting upon the blast of the growing onslaught sent a current running through her cool veins.

'' Two-one thousa ... ''

Again the sky split undetermined, rumbling as if blaze itself were fighting to split through, and as if in some cruel unison with the sky pain erupted around her slender, unclothed arm.

Tight finger's breadth now clenched callously around her wrist joint, her relinquish hand slipping from Harry 's shoulder, clutching at his fingers, prying them away from the crushing force of his warm hands.

In the eerie light of the storm she struggled with him, his sleeping human body writhing against her as if he were a man observance, silently reliving, the mass murder of all he held dear.

She too had learnt the truth of such horrors far too young ....

A gag sound resounded within his pharynx, her own constricting at the hurt creases lining his sweat soaked brow.

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

roar clapped across the talkative sky, her hint coming out in ever clean clouds. `` You 're unsufferable ... '' She gasped through clenched, chattering teeth. `` Potter please ... this hurts so lots ... ''

Somehow, despite the howl of the wind, her frightened pleas broke through, reaching the God of Sleep, for Morpheus released his vice clutches upon the Martin Luther King of amentia 's psyche.

In a instant, in one little, precipitous muscle spasm, she was yanked against him, thrown across his legs as he jerked awake.

Frightened and cutting jadestone eyes flew spread, staring through the cold rain at her, not fully seeing ...

Yet pain in the neck and shame swelled within them.

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

'' What happened ? ``

Blinking the piddle from his optic, 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 path ... '' She murmured sardonically. `` Yes ... that explains everything ... ''

With mensurate motility she slowly removed herself from where she lay upon his concentrated legs, collapsing onto the muddied solid ground besides him. The thickening mud rose around her, threatening to overwhelm her uncaring form.

'' Potter .... '' She finally whispered, allowing her optic 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 mannequin moving to harbor her from the chemical element, she managed a response.

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

Her middle flickered loose, and the abrupt jade in the world locked onto her own.

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


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

'' You 're services are no longer required blood traitor. Our Lord shall mobilise you when our services are again ... .needed. ``

Lucius'words were chilling. Though not nearly as much as his human activity this night.

He remembered everything ...

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

Ron 's ancestry ...

Before him loomed Hogwarts school day of witchcraft and Wizardy, his slow gait leading him past the ragged looking Ministry official.

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

On the grounds a dusty creme collapsible shelter flapped in the violent wind, Mediwizards roaming around the porta in the canvas. Within its crystallize interior he glimpsed Rider Haggard parents lining up with their shaver, bags in tow, as they waited for Ministry transmit away from the panorama of today 's crimes.

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

With staggering step Remus made his way to the rook. He had a report card to make, and a sin to beg penance for.
* * * * *


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

Her rim parted, a silent question unspoken as his illogical assumption settled in, for how could one know the whereabouts of one they could not see ?

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

She believed him.

In the yesteryear he had been unkind and cruel, illogical 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 result of her own secrecy, of her own perpetuated lies, of her own hell ...

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

Blinking the rainfall from her heart she took a chance.

Her first chance.

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

His quiet was tangible. The cracking of breaking boughs in the woodland, their troubled extraction to the woods floor, and their terminal soggy smack against it were all she heard above the wind.

His jaw remained slack.

'' Potter ? '' She whispered, knowing he now read her sassing, for her soft reply was inaudible.

His wet tomentum swayed as his nous was shaken, slinging H2O upon her as his dirty hand curled around her arm. `` You believe me. ''

It was a command. Not a question.

shivering, the off-white mysterious chill taking over, she nodded. `` S-shocking, I k-know. ``

His solemn gaze studied her, eyes moving to where his mitt lay. A perplexed formula broke his muteness.

'' Did I hurt you ? ``

His tint carried a note of self disgust, yet the turning point of her backtalk tugged gently upwards at his concern.

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

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

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

'' How ? ``

Grasping her with both hands he assisted in up-righting her, rubbing her arms vigorously. `` We walk ... '' He whispered, `` Run if requisite, and hope that naught eats us. ``

As if on cue, from the astuteness of the forest 's shadows, a Hugo Wolf emerged.

Her shaky breathing stop dead Potter 's hands 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 act that he had.

The truth persisted.

Remus'animal foot unconsciously moved down the corridor, piddle dripping in his Wake Island upon the stone 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 infirmary wing door, leaving a muddy depression where his bridge player had resided.

Silence greeted him within the candlelit hospital, the simply respite the phone of aloof thunder as the storm rolled south, away from Hogwarts'grounds. At the extension 's far end three curtained off expanse hung stagnant in the stuffy atmosphere, yet the scent of pelting lingered within his nostrils.

And roue ...

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

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

Ronald Weasley sat just, gazing out the window upon the splinter of fourth part moon peeking through the storm clouds.

Remus'stomach twisted rebelliously as a voice broke the silence.

'' You want to mouth ? ``

Remus remained immobilise to the smirch, nodding as he felt the finding of fact of an problematic execution run being handed down.

Remus was sure that they had already told the Weasley 's new son his fate, and by now the changes would give birth already begun, affecting his sentiency ... his scent ...

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

Turning on the surgically clean white tile, Remus dimly remembered the reasonableness for why the stone flooring had been overlain with the Muggle choice, for even a strong round of scourgifying spells were not enough to absent the stain of blood from ancient Stone. The past war had brought far too lots of that within Hogwarts rampart, and tile was much easier to clean.

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

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

Though none did.

'' Ronald ... '' His vox came out thick and gravely, articulateness abandoning him. `` Whatever you ask ... This is the second clip I 've endangered you and I ... '' He faltered. `` I am good-for-nothing ... ''

It took every ounce of his rapidly diminishing fearlessness to continue standing in the mien of one he had so horribly wronged.

Lightning illuminated the room, filtering in through the infirmary wing windowpane, and Ron set his jaw. `` You did n't mean to seize with teeth me, so do n't worry about it. ''

Thunder rolled, vibrating the tiles 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 late pupil frowned pensively. `` For the first-class honours degree time in my sprightliness Professor.. I 'm different. '' The teenager extended five of his fingerbreadth, frowning further at the tidy sum of the abnormality lying just beneath the surface. `` Everything ... from now on ... '' He continued oddly, `` It is all going to be dissimilar. ``

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

'' So could throw you, '' Ron cut in sharply. `` Yet that did n't stop you from doing your duty, professor. ``

In the moment of silence that followed, the youngest Weasley son suddenly did something completely unexpected. A slow, sad smile crept across his feature article, and then Ronald Billius Weasley looked him directly in the eye.

'' Whatever the reasonableness was for sending you out to cavort with those former ... '' Ron swallowed hard, `` wolfman ... It had to be important, otherwise you would n't have been there. ``

Remus remained mum. He could not give into his own self-deprecating desire to turn and flee, he owed the new werewolf Sir Thomas More than that.

'' This is a war. Before you bit me I had no very talent to volunteer. '' The Danton True Young man 's words were dense, and for once, painstakingly thought out. `` To everyone I was just ... a interference, just another mediocre wizar ... ''

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

Ron shook his forefront, his fingers scrunching the bleak bloodless of the hospital sheets. `` It does n't matter ... I simply could n't do anything the others could n't already do ripe than I. But now .... ''

sparkle blue angel optic looked up, meeting his haunted ones. `` But now Professor ... ''

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

A rather dangerous construction touched Ron 's rima oris. `` Well ... '' He said, flexing his fingers. `` That 's about to change. ``

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

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

low temperature inclusion dawned upon him, for somehow the boy had inherited the ability to translate at will, yet the bloodlust Remus felt running within his own mineral vein was nowhere to be seen within the boy 's eyes.

All that lay there was a dangerous glint.

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

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

Blue, ovular middle, met his own.

'' So Lupin ... How 'd the monastic order fancy a second set of rapacious Fang ? ``










A quick banknote : The medical and biology buffs may catch a few things in this chapter and the upcoming ones, so please be forewarned that any pillowcase on the characters'parts regarding such thing is entirely knowing. I want to show that they are imperfect and not entirely intimate about sealed things. It would n't be fun if the fictional character never made mistakes. *cackles*

Thank you to Njhill22 for all of your helper with this chapter. I may very well have lost my sanity had it not been for the 5 am lately night writing sessions that we had to repair to ! And give thanks you to IchigoPan for putting up with a bit of lovely rambling as well ! Now on with the chapter !








'' Amidst infernal region there is always sluttish, it is just a matter of finding it. ``
~ stranger ~


Chapter 26 ~ The Reason for the War



It had taken her all of ten arcminute to figure it out.

Breathing heavily, her mouselike hair strewn about, she again rose her leg to drive the full force play of her system of weights against the sepia doorframe. The sound reverberated throughout the elbow room, echoing from the antediluvian Harlan Stone walls in a way that mirrored her increasing, self-reliant anger.

She should have known.

Cursing she stepped back from the unmoving entryway, her feet stumbling clumsily across the uneven floor boards. Her blue eyes swept the heights rafter criss crossing the cylindrical tug, at a loss.

Dumbledore had retentive since earned the title normally reserved for Remus alone, for that 'damnable man'had thought of every conceivable escape attempt and blocked her progress at every turn. One thing was certain : The Headmaster was surely against anyone knowing of his plan, and from the looks of affair she would not be escaping any clock time 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 head briefly mulling over the possibility of growing her hair into a longsighted enough plait to send Emily scurrying down.

She snorted. Even if the Bothans were not under an beguile quietus Kenneth would surely bark her active before allowing her to release his daughter into an impromptu acrobatic chimpanzee. Of course 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 nap they shot down her ideas !

turn her attention to the room access frame she did the only thing she could recollect of, and rearing back her leg she charged. Only this time the room access swung open as if in sync with the gods of clumsiness, and she found herself sprawled across the Headmaster 's vacuous office.

Rolling onto her back, flopping like a fish on the floor, her colored oculus fixated furiously upon her cousin.

'' You ... '' She roared, kicking the door to the discipline shut with her feet. She was not eager for Kenneth nor Emily to listen this if they awoke at this rather prematurely interval.

Regulus gazed down his nose in astonishment. `` Cousin were you really waging war on his study door the intact time ? You do earn that is hand-crafted mahogany ? ``

Growling she scrambled to her feet, `` I swear to merlin 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 concurrence with his decisions or not. Surely you would be aware of that by now. ``

'' He 's mightily you kno ... ''

'' Shut up Crusantheus ! ``

Regulus cast an unnaturally charitable aspect 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 stop him ? Besides, it was n't that bad of an ide ... ''

'' You could have refused to stand up spectator ! '' She hollered. `` He could n't make done it without one ! ``

genus Regulus'eye roamed the room curiously, as if she were an inconsequential bug, before his middle finally landed upon a small storage locker. `` 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 snug than a shadow. `` We ca n't endure witho ... ''

Regulus spun to face her. `` Do n't devaluate yourself full cousin. From what he said he may give birth founded your fiddling aviary organization, but he is no more important than the rest of you within it. ``

She gasped. `` You jape ? ``

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

Her breath came in furious pull as he began rummaging through the contents of Dumbledore 's deceptively minuscule liquor cabinet. A considerable clip passing before he emerged, a miserly, satisfied line straining his mouth, and a garnet hued bottle in hand.

She was barely collecting herself, her wand arm twitching dangerously as she seriously contemplated whether or not her full cousin was an disaffect species.

'' Le Vin de Chateau Latour ... '' Regulus commented admiringly, ignoring her as if zip of import had occurred. `` Dix-neuf soixante-dix, une belle année. ``

Her teeth ground so surd she swore to God he would be receiving the dental bill.

'' For the less refined in the room, '' He continued, his unfaltering optic never leaving his recently procured swag, `` Nineteen seventy was an first-class year. ``

A meretricious pop resonated within the room, the rising hue of her nerve evidencing her increasing blood pressure. merlin ... she was getting as bad as Kingsley with that !

'' This detail vintage, '' Regulus continued undiscouraged, `` Presently runs over one hundred and twenty four Syrian pound a bottle. Just reckon what it may have run once fully matured. A shame this Latour takes ten to fifteen old age ... ''

Between her gritted dentition she managed a growl. Regulus ignored this, painstakingly choosing a rather worn and bright orangeness mug from Dumbledore 's bound glass selection. His nose crinkled in distaste as the mug 's allegory Go cannon sparkled up at him.

'' Allowing his vintage to go to waste ... '' Regulus grumbled disapprovingly, pouring the opaque, yet red fermentation 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 center widened furiously. `` Why in the hell would Dumbledore contract you into his confidence ? You were a cowardous traito ... ''

genus Regulus'field glass slammed down, shattering.

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

genus Regulus'bearing rose, despite his already rigidly erect strength.

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

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

'' Oh ? '' He snapped condescendingly. `` And how was I supposed to know that my former slithering Lord had crawled back from the grave whilst in the Muggle realm Nymphadora ? Particularly when those of you at the Ministry do your practiced to isolate our creation from the Muggle realm ? Well congratulation Nymphadora ! Because despite Voldemort 's best efforts at mayhem and misery your precious Ministry has done its job well ! Not a word of his payoff leaked to me, even though I was listening for news ! ``

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

'' Why at a meeting with that slithering ophidian of a shadow Lord I suspect. Surely you could give birth guessed that at to the lowest degree. ``

Her marrow 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 pull up stakes until the great deal was over. Something about pesky, meddlesome, bullheaded Aurors ... ''

She growled, resisting the urge to attack.

Regulus merely snorted. `` I would opine that you, being part of his little bird sanctuary social club, would by now agnise that he knows what he is doing. Even I know tha ... ''

Swearing loudly she kicked the wall, rattling Phineas'portrait, forcing their long bushed congeneric to string up onto his shape 's border for fear of being dislodged from it.

Regulus mouth twitched wickedly, ignoring the choice words that came flying their way as he addressed his cousin. `` Now if you want to put down the portraits then by all mean, do so Nymphadora. However, in the interim it seems that your best bet is to make relaxed and have a drink, because you clearly need one. ``

Scowling she slapped the offer glass away.

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


* * * * *

Elsewhere in the castle Remus had discovered that he had developed a shadow, one with a distinct limp and a blinding electrical shock 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 uneasy intuitive feeling of coldness.

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

Remus had felt slightly ill at the idea of any of them suffering while he had strolled leisurely down the castling 's corridors, unable to go faster for fear of leaving the sick ward 's escapee behind, which was precisely why he had thrown a levitation magic spell at the young man, sparing Ron the bother of having to oppose with his self-sizing crutches.

Molly Weasley would receive him shipped to St. Mungos in individually plastic wrapped pieces if she ever caught steer of this.

Ron 's case, screwed in thrifty assiduity 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 club hems and haws over what the best course of activeness is. I want into the Order, and I want to facilitate. ``

'' And if they vote against that ? ``

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

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

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

'' You 're forgetting your mother. ``

Ron paled considerably, his lentigo standing out. `` She 'll just receive to understand, '' He growled determinedly. `` About Ginny too, she 'll jounce back, and when she does she can help oneself me find the son of a bitch that Imperious-ed her. ``

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

As Ron had said, the good werewolf had to stay together, and he deserved to know of the underground lycanthrope action as much as anyone.

The former werewolves could still be out there ...

The thought process 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 unnatural subdued upon the school.

Snapping the password he and the floating Ron mounted the stairs to Dumbledore 's part, a riotous argument increasing in mass as they approached. Forgoing formality he set Ron down hastily, grasping the door handgrip and tugging.

It was locked.

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

'' Remus ? ! ``

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

'' Tonks ! '' He shouted with barely concealed fill-in. `` Tonks wha ... ''

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

Remus was about to enquire as to 'who'precisely had been going at it when Ron 's befuddle mutterings interrupted him.

'' Since when did Dumbledore get a talking room access knocker ? ``

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

Ron bristled, `` Little ? ``

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

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

'' We know ! '' Shouted two phonation simultaneously from the opposite side of the door.

Remus'ears reflexively picked up, the familiarity of the unnamed voice 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 utter to You-Know-Who and he 's operate us in here ! We ca n't get out and no one can get in ! ``

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

'' What ? ``

A distinct banging could be heard from within the place, as if someone had taken to kicking random objects.

Again, the unidentified masculine voice floated beneath the door. `` You might as well tell them ... ''

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

There was a pause.

A very long pause.

'' You would n't believe 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 Granger is missing. '' Ron paled considerably, his shoulders stiffening at the monitor. `` You-Know-Who has got her, and Dumbledore thinks it 's to lure Harry into telling him the prophe ... ''

'' WHAT ! ? '' Ron shouted, clearly having been deprived of this knowledge. `` Tonks did they bump 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 ... ''

'' hospital wing, '' Remus supplied.

'' I 'd wish to put him in the infirmary wing, '' 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 ecstatic at Tonks'rebuke. `` Aha ! better stifle it finger's breadth or Ms. Windpipes in there will shut out you up for me before you can say Hoggy, Hoggy, Hogwa ... ''

Remus finally gave in to the urge to hush the damn thing, unable to think. Crusantheus'sudden muteness earned him a loud exclamation as the unidentified representative from within began praising the lord and maker.

He knew that articulation ...

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

Behind him Ron made a smother audio of fruition.

'' Sothis ? ''

A loud thump evidenced the unidentified man 's displeasure.

'' If I get mistaken for Canicula one more time I 'll hex that door knocker ... ''

Crusantheus began pounding his handle furiously, a panicked look in his bronze eyes.

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

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

'' Bugger off ! We thought you were perfectly ! ``

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

Really ... You Gryffindors have no creativity ...

Remus'mind spun, an echo from the past times contact a disharmonious chord.

Staring at the locked door something clicked.

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

'' Nymphadora were you and your Friend hit with a paranoia spell ? You can respond me honestly with full organized religion that this conversation will remain confidential. ``

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

'' So you 're a psychiatrist 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 perk up ears.

He withdrew his ear from the door just in clip, its entire physical body shuddering violently as she kicked it from the other side, rendering Crusantheus cross-eyed.

Mahogany doorway or not, Remus suddenly wondered if that were loggerheaded enough to protect him from whatever hex the pissed off Auror had in psyche for him. He knew her far too well to think of any promise of escaping completely unscathed.

Sneakily, with stealth indicative of the low Deutsche Mark she had received on the stealing and trailing constituent of her Auror testing, a wand tip snuck beneath the crack between the door and floor.

Remus stared at this odd action at law, puzzlement the name of his construction. Unfortunately he hesitated just a second too long, for a hot stream of searing sparks suddenly ignited his trousers, a exculpated Ah-ha resounding from the garden pink haired curiosity crone as Remus hopped around, nearly tumbling down the winding stairway in his try to dunk them.

'' Made her angry did you ? ''

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

'' Tonks, '' He groaned hoarsely, leg still steaming. `` What on earthly concern is wrongfulness ? ``

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

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

'' amercement ... Two weeks and ... ''

'' Did the idea of talking it through like intellectual grownup ever occur to either of you ? '' genus Regulus'muffled voice interjected curiously.

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

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

Cautiously approaching he ignored Ron 's startled stare, pressing his hand against the rough metric grain. `` Tonks ... '' He whispered gratingly, `` I ... .We do n't have prison term for this now ... ''

'' Gee, what a surprise ! '' She exclaimed sardonically. `` Wolfy does n't take in metre for me, who would 've thought ? ``

Regulus emitted a low whistle, clearly closer than before. `` worry in heaven lupine ? Honestly is n't she a picayune young for you ? ``

The discrete sound of person being smacked echoed through the room access and down the stairwell. The great wizard within his pectus 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 find him. We could send Hedwig ... ''

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

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

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

'' I am not slow ... ''

'' Of course of action not, '' Regulus snorted. `` But rather than letting a search political party gallivant around the field, risking further loss of life, he did the smart thing. ``

'' Which is ? '' Remus could get a line Tonks practically hiss through her teeth.

'' He sent the fastest messenger he could, '' He responded smugly. `` Surely you do n't fancy yourself in the same class of amphetamine as a genus 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 explicate. `` I have to ... ''

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

He hesitated.

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

Cringing inwardly he turned and ran for the owlery.

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

On the former side of meat of the doorway Tonks growled, dropped cross-legged to the terra firma, banged the back of her head teacher against the doorway, and extended a pointed hand to Regulus.

Her cousin smirked, filling her a well needed glass.


* * * * *



Harry 's heart skipped unnaturally. His breath froze. Instinctual alarms ignited a fiery angriness within him.

As if in response his cauterise clenched fist unconsciously coiled nasty around her shoulder joint, clenching the soaked folds of her torn sweater as if doing so could somehow break up the front lurking within the shadows.

It could not.

A feral growl cut through the wind, the frozen breeze snaking around them, biting bitterly against his skin, whipping Kaylen 's plastered haircloth around her livid face.

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

Like a phantom auditory sensation upon the wind came the smacking of flagitious chela upon cunning mud, the telling audio of a beast bent on viciousness as it stalked its prey across water-laden hunting grounds.

They were its prey ...

Holding her resolute eye with his, watching as her visage screwed into that of downhearted resolve, Harry knew he had no choice.

Loosening his hold upon her quietly heaving shoulder, watching the bloody bandages binding his palms sway in the wind, he ground out a single command.

'' Run ... ''

His dark whisper was met with straightaway action, for she took escape, mud splattering beneath her groundwork as she fled for the corner line, her tattered sweater billowing in the current of air as she went.

Lightning from the war buck Shangri-la illuminated the lay waste to battle ground, sending her shadowy silhouette stretching across the mat up stint of grass separating them.

Tensely he watched her, standing his ground.

He refused to follow.

Around him the power of the storm surged, skag shaking the earth as his pit fist clenched tightly around the disastrous feather of the capital of Arizona that lay deeply imbedded in his faithful holly, his wand arm hanging loosely by his side.

nictitation the water from his middle he watched in damp enthrallment. Kaylens was suddenly aware of her solitude, her feet halting into a tumultuous brake shoe across the hunting ground as she fought to bar against the raging wind. The mud finally ceased to give, resisting her sliding ft as her form went slipping beneath the wood 's threshold, the dripping canopy throwing shadow across her kisser as she whorled around to see him.

Beneath the branches her heart flashed dangerously, for his magic and what it could mean had finally struck her with frightening military group. With the detached gumption of an looker-on observing an unstoppable calamity he watched as her form went rigid.

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

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

It was how he wanted it.

Thump, thump ...

The fleet advance of the lycanthrope 's claws pulse against the suctioning ground.

The Friedrich August Wolf was charging him, yet he did not move.

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

Thump, thump ...

She did not. Her glorious eyes regarded him with profound hurt and wrath, reflecting the lightning shocking through the heavens.

Thump, thump ...

He stood still, feeling death 's swift approach for another present moment, closing his eyes in resignation for whatever would total to pass.

It was stupid, it was brash, it was the act of a honest 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 relation safety.

Thump, thump ...

If he survived this she would surely pour down him, and an odd grinning crept upon his batty backtalk at the silliness of the view.

Thump, thump ...

All of it transpired in a irregular, his eyes flying astray as the sky split up unfastened, roaring as the God themselves sent their electric fist hurtling down to link up the fray.

Lightning struck as he hit the terra firma hard, ducking as he felt the wolf springing into the air to seize him. Jaws snapped around dilute air, right where the spinal column of his neck had been a mo before.

The brute 's rear claws slashed out, grazing his back, shredding the cloth of his shirt, just scratching his skin 's surface. A pained moan jibe from his sassing, yet it was unheard as a fiery bolt of electric death struck the corner line with fearsome volume.

He was already screaming for Kaylens'to move.

A sensual growl emanated before him, the lycanthrope 's flight of stairs ending as its colossal soma crashed back onto the world with one sickening splat of mud and rainwater, its prodigious shape skidding on the slick ground as if upon ice.

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

Her gilded capitulum disappeared within the hummer, a combustion tree limb crashing to where she had stood only a second before.

His breadbasket lurched sickeningly, a choking scream tearing through him, silenced only as the savage 's snarling snout reared around to face him again.

His eyes darkened in fury behind his rain streaked glasses, his wand arm flying out, a cutting hex ripping from his pharynx as he dove to the side, rolling in the thick sludge.

A ail howl signified that his aim had been true.

Desperately, heart pounding, he again let the cutting hex fly, followed by an barrage of flatware subatomic particle as he staggered to his feet, stumbling backwards in a craze as the savage 's brutalized pelt sent its recoiling body to the ground.

The silver speck were lodging within the animal 's open combat injury, and the metal 's toxicity was quickly infiltrating its blood stream.

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

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

It was his error ... she had n't seen it in clip ... she had been watching his personal battle 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 epithet, which his sass had been expelling, came out instead as a ragged cough.

His glass were somehow lost, dirt and sess speck replacing them to cut against his retinas, a numbing sensation overtaking him.

He did not see the black eye coming.

A monolithic paw struck him down, sending him hurtling expression down into a puddle, his panicked man morphing into a watery Brown University blur.

His wand flew from his grip, skidding out of reach as he flailed, feeling the weight of the creature atop him as it forced his body to make a new imprint in the malleable earth.

The shallow water lapped around his ear, his mouth flapping around the ill-tasting soil, consistence sputtering as his faithless lungs continued their ill-fated endeavor to expel the poisonous smoking smoke from them, inhaling water instead.

The spine-crushing weightiness of the puppet was suddenly dispelled, his head teacher snapping up to gasp for breath, his paw blindly summoning his baton 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 Wolf growled venomously.

Flipping onto his rear, rolling out of the way, he saw a tree limb lash out, striking the beast hovering above him with a sickening crunch.

The mo werewolf, the one he had failed to see in metre, fell limp to the ground.

Emerging from the burning alcove of trees Kalliandra callously threw the subdivision at the animal, ensuring another snow to its head as she appraised her handiwork. A 2nd later her burning eye were fixated upon him, a tempestuous construction crossing her crock stained features as he was left sputtering upon the ground.

'' What the hell were you thinking thrower ? ! '' She coughed out, her voice a coarse 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 sensation flooded him. `` Y-you 're ... ''

'' Pissed ! '' She hissed exasperatedly, clearly irked more by him than by the skirt chaser who had attempted to make a meal of them. `` You are unmarried handedly the most brash, ridiculous, egoistical, self-destructive individual that I have ever met ! Next clock time, I 'll let the wolves eat you ! ``

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

He could n't help it A small, relief filled smirk tugged at his lips.

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

He grinned. `` A lot actually. ``

Her jaw dropped, flapping soundlessly as the wind sent roll of tobacco billowing in a dark cloud behind her, her mitt instantly rising to shield her eyes from its thick rest.

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

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

He nodded solemnly, gingerly up-righting himself. `` Well ... '' He grunted, nuisance searing his articulatio humeri. `` Get in line. ``

'' screwing that. I get the first crack at ... ''

Her words ended in a grating cry, a chameleon-like manus having shot Forth River unobserved in the billowing smoke, snatching her duncish whisker within its pitiless confines. Her hock twist were used as an anchor, the disillusioned man callously snapping her head back to expose the slender frame of her neck to the break away wood of a scorch baton.

Rain droplets splattered eerily in mid-air against the spiritual world opponent.

'' drib it Potter, '' Growled a vocalism as dark as the night.

The pharyngeal consonant growl sent something grievous stirring within him, his woodland colored heart remaining glued to Kaylens'cringing countenance.

His brow furrowed as a strange idea began to take condition, his fingerbreadth 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 feet by the Death Eater 's western fence lizard prodding.

The death Eater was holding her ahead of him, using her as a shield.

'' I said drop-off it boy, or I 'll make indisputable she stays stagnant this time. ''

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

'' Attaboy. ``

The replication of the disillusionment charm was muttered as the baddie advanced through the coiling weed, holding Kalliandra ahead of him, the flame'orange light throwing the Death feeder 's nonrational nerve into stark focus.

Harry 's stock ran cold.

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

The deadened man was alive and well.

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

Kaylens bridge player shot up, yanking at the Death eater 's frailty grasp. `` No less than he deserved you filth ... ''

A violent stifle to the spine sent Kaylens crumbling to her human knee, her word form suspended by the pachydermatous bobby pin on her tenacious locks.

'' To mislay one 's remaining family ... '' Continued the last Eater with deadly calm, `` In such a manner does not endear one to mercy. ``

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

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

Harry vibrated with quash rage, eye 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 stupid as some of the other lackeys boy. You 'll stimulate to improve your manipulation if you expect that to work. ``

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

'' Wandless legerdemain is a bit go on for you bo ... ''

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

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

Only where the Death Eater 's kernel had been now rested Kaylens, for the baddie had yanked her forcibly from her knee to again screen him. Her cry of pain echoed through the clearing, rising above the crackling of burning wood.

'' As intriguing as this is potter, we came to save a message. Nothing more. ``

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

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

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

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

'' He 's nothing like you ! '' Kaylens shouted furiously.

A powerful Yankee-Doodle sent her nous snapping back, his insides lurching as the resounding crack of her protesting vertebrae.

'' still girlie ! '' Hissed the villain, spitting dribble as he spoke. `` You 're already an endangered coinage, I 'd hate for you to go extinct. ``

'' Ah yes, '' She spat scathingly, straining against the man 's arms. `` And I 'm sure enough your precious master would be pleased with that. ''

Shaking violently he watched as she writhed against her captor, the callous man glaring vindictively down.

Hands coiling into wet clenched fist, Harry began inching to the side, the phone of mud suctioning against shoe colloidal solution masked by the resounding thunder.

If he could get an angle around her, he could make his shot ...

'' And to cerebrate, I thought catching Veelas was the worst designation ... but no thing ... ''

It took everything he had to stamp down his outward repugnance, for the man had already drawn and used the unobserved dagger, plunging it shallowly into the figure of her shoulder, dragging it across her tegument. A second later the villain had a cylindrical vial held beneath her freely flowing blood, bottling it as her eyes scrunched in a painful face, her intellect undoubtedly feeling history repeating itself.

'' There, that oughta appease my Lord in the effect of your ill-timed ... '' The man was running his wand along her wound, a black-market lightness radiating as her flesh sealed beneath it. `` Well ... .end anyway ... ''

Blinded by rain, Harry 's centre went ashen with anger.

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

In the shadower the man smiled. `` It seems I 've already lie down several. ``

As he stood there, the running mud curling around his metrical foot, he felt ill. He was cornered, for if he acted brusquely Kaylens was absolutely. And if he failed to act, they could both fit the like fate.

His hardened center 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 stubborn refusal that little mudblooded friend of yours will lift up beat. '' The man grinned evilly. `` And we all know you do n't want that to hap. ``

His wand shook, so punishing was his grip upon it.

'' Just think ... what has your stubborn refusal gotten you thus far ? Certainly it did wonders for improving that line traitor Black 's current state howeve ... ''

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

The man merely inclined an eyebrow. `` Ah yes, I seem to remember him fancying himself as such even during our schooling years. He, the noble Black, always criticizing Broussard and I ... the two Detreck brothers were vile to him, even the one from his own House ... ''

Harry felt under the weather, anger and hate vibrating unceremoniously within.

'' Your father was much the Saame ... both never sparing even a thought for the imposing lightlessness 's own kin ... '' He continued, the same tone of transcendency dripping from his words. `` Sirius always wondered what finally sent Regulus to the social status of the demise eater. Would you like me to narrate you ? ``

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

'' The deciding component you see, was Sirius'obstinate refusal to acknowledge his brother as an equalize, '' He revealed. `` The arrogant fool followed those resisting the wickedness Lord blindly, never stopping to consider who was really in the rightfulness. He and the rest of those Gryffindor fools following Dumbledore never even understood our reasons ... ''

'' Oh ? '' Harry shot out, `` And how are we justifying insensate execution these days ? ``

The man 's teeth glinted in the firelight. `` There 's no need to justify anything, because the war hungry Muggles will not be content to go away our form alone forever. It 's kill or be killed Potter. The Dark master is simply acting preemptively, before those filthy 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'charming ought to prevent that, would n't you retrieve ? ``

The Death Eater Detreck laughed. He actually laughed.

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

Inching towards the warmth of the fervidness, and its veil of pot, Harry allowed him to verbalize, wracking his mind for a plan.

'' Once that happens I 'm quite sure they will be piercing in showing us clemency. Perhaps the same kind that was given to the Israelite of their instant World War, or that which was shown to the indigenous people of the United States of America when the new lands were discovered. Or to the witches of Salem ... ''

Kaylens cut him off.

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

A sticker was thrust to her pharynx, silencing her Holy Writ as rake prickled her cutis. A sadistic look of calmness crossed the eldest Detreck 's face as he held it there.

'' You see Harry, Muggles are unlike us, '' Continued the monster. `` They have yet to conquer 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 retain the man talking.

'' Every war has casualties Potter, and in this one anyone benevolent to those primitive person creatures runs the risk of becoming one. ``

'' They 're not crude ... ''

'' Yet they remuneration war upon other state, killing their own kind without persuasion, acti ... ''

'' Since death eater do the like thing I guess you would make love. ``

'' Our killing is at least educated, and justified by more than wars over bounds. ``

Harry 's voice shook with suppressed rage. `` null can justify low temperature blooded murder ... ''

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

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

'' Despite what you think, you are very a lot alike us ceramicist, and thus my nobleman has a proposal of form for you. ``

Watching the tension leave Kalliandra 's neck opening, her face slumping gratefully forward without fearfulness of impalement upon the knife 's brand, he grunted. `` So what tidy sum is it this clock time ? union him and he spares my life ? ``

'' No, simply reveal the missing share of the divination in substitution for your friend 's family line 's lifetime. ``

'' And Hermione ? ``

The man 's heart glittered evilly, acrid smoke billowing out with a change of the twist.

'' In the Department of Mysteries, in the hallway of divination, you remember the shelves upon shelves filled with the foretellings of prophet past ? ``

'' Yes. ``

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

His shoulder stiffened, for he actually had.

From the timberland 's border, scant cadence away, resounded the cracking of a corner limb as it finally burnt away. It fell into the burning underbrush, sending a flash of fire bulging outwards on impact.

In the cacophonous yowl of heat and flaming all political party scattered, the smoke clarification in clock time for Harry to see Kaylens still in the villain 's frailty hairgrip, her apparent thunderbolt for freedom hindered by the man 's sinewy arm which had tightened around her.

Her elbow joint to his torso went ignored, the massive man 's brawniness protecting him. Detreck merely grunted, hauling her to her feet as the smoke dispersed, the rain beginning to smoother the flames.

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

Somehow he managed to avoid snapping his wand, despite the shakiness of his fists.

'' When you find that, and expose its subject, only then will our lord let go of your cherished Mudblooded friend. ``

'' You 're lying, '' Harry spat, the acrid taste of dope on his tongue. `` If I told you, he 'd kill her anyway. ``

The man 's back talk curled. `` Perhaps ... but if you had something else to declare oneself him, something in addition to that ... something he very much desired ... than perhaps once you 'd reveal the instant divination, he 'd return her if your word was given to reveal another once the commutation was made. ``

Harry shook his head disbelievingly, `` Since when has ole Riddle trusted my word ? ``

'' How dare you defile his epithet ... ''

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

Kalliandra 's forefront was suddenly yanked violently back, the wand again to her throat. All thoughts of traumatizing the destruction feeder with mockery of its drawing card flew from his mind, his eyes glued to her picket, soaked face.

'' What else does he want to hump ? ``

The eldest Detreck leered triumphantly, `` When you find the prophecy regarding 'the girl of a man of power upon Erse filth'you will have what he is looking for. There is no epithet attached, therefore it may be seized by anyone. ``

Through the jazz Harry 's yell seemed almost faint. `` And if I do n't find it ? ``

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

With icy foregone conclusion Harry realized that the conversation was nearly over, Kaylens'lot wall hanging in the balance.

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

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

'' Then all these spares will meet the same fate as those Lord parents of yours. ``

Kalliandra 's oculus flew up, surprise flitting through them even in the wickedness. He met them, painfully holding onto them, grasping for seconds through the downpour so she could see how sorry he was, for the past, for where his short sightedness had landed them, and still ... for what he may have to do.

There was simply no meter left.

Somehow, the business organization swimming within her gold orbs 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 form fabrication in a single mud-sodden good deal, the Death Eater 's face twist in surprise as another looker flew from Harry 's wand.

He had done the one affair Detreck could not have counted on. Injuring a comrade, thereby removing her from harm way while simultaneously clearing the track to the enemy.

His beauty struck the opposition directly in the pectus, a second before a cruel vocalism resounded behind him.

'' Crucio. ``

Harry fell hard, his soundbox imprinting the diffuse ground as a thousand white hot knives sliced slowly, than brutally at his build. His vision was blinded, by mud, rainwater, and pain, yet he still saw the hairy man, half-way through the werewolf transformation, walking around him, reviving Detreck ...

The lycanthrope Kaylens had taken out had awoken.

As he screamed, convulsing in pain, rolling in the slick flow that had become the glade 's solid ground, he heard their contestation voices.

'' ... .belongs to the Dark Lords, not us ... .we ca n't harm him ... .leave it to him ... .dealt with in due time ... .orders were ... .deliver subject matter ... .leave them .... ''

The ceaseless torment suddenly lifted, his tortured nerves still spasming as he somehow rolled to face them. His hand flopped around pathetically, fingers closing without intensity upon thin air, searching for the conversant holly wood 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 keen fling of disapparation, his muscular synapses finally firing at his command. With rawness outshining the most backbreaking trials of human endurance he thrust himself up, his hands sinking into the muddy shite, eyes frantically scanning the clearing.

Kaylens was nowhere to be seen.

Heart lurching sickeningly, he stumbled to his human foot. Sliding, staggering, he peered through the dark, 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 understructure moved, faster than he would have thought possible, plunging into the chest deep water. Quickly he propelled himself to where she lay submerged, floating just below the surface. Only her edge wrists, pushed upwards by the ennoble water supply 's overlapping, remained emerged in the air, her hairsbreadth fanning out behind her headland

His arms quickly sought her, wrapping around her shoulder joint to pull her out, letting her all in weight fall severe against him.

His hired hand fell to her chest, his spoken countersign a whisper against the storm.

'' Ennervate ... ''

The warmness spread from between his fingers, his unconsciously done illusion triggering no reaction in her.

The piece was removed, yet she remained unresponsive. He had expected cough, shouting, something.

It was only then that he realized it, but no breather came from her graying lips.

defensive measure moral had taught him about more than countering charm, and he was already turning her limp descriptor to face him, using the piss 's buoyancy to cradle her as her face lolled back.

His numbing, pained fingers quickly wiped the blotto hair from her lips, a sick intuitive feeling rising in his dresser as his eyes flickered across the vacant grounds.

The Death Eaters were gone ... .they would not come back.

pump wrenching, he acted, pressing his sassing against hers as he pushed precious oxygen in, breathing for her, listening to the odd hoot of his breath making its way through her air passages.

Pulling away, waiting for the ascent of her chest against his, he felt nothing.

Panicked eyes flickered over her peaceable human face before his mouth once again descended, capturing her icy sass with his own in another breathing spell of despair. One arm was tightening around her, the other cradling her straits as he pinched her nose.

Again he waited.

The rise in her chest as he had breathed had been barely discernible, and now there was naught. A single cerebration flitted through his frightened thinker. He was doing this wrong.

In that 1 here and now of paralyzing horror he suddenly understood. Her air passage was clogged.

He had to clear it.

He was already turning her limp form around, allowing her cover 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 small shudder.

Again he repeated the motion, thrusting forcefully. Her hitch frame seized violently in reply, her pep pill trunk falling forward as a racking cough shook her, the H2O expelling from her lungs. Harry lunged forward with her, arms wrapping around her thorax, preventing her face from again hitting the faithless water.

His forearms strained against her as she convulsed, choking on the wind, gasping as coughing after shuddering cough shook her flimsy frame. Shivering in the frigid H2O his pounding center calmed until she leaned loosely forward, gasping breathlessly.

Without a word he pulled her against him, clutching her quivering form flower to his own, her foreland falling against his shoulder. Her shallow panting caressed his skin, the rebellion of her chest against his reassuring him in an inexplicable way.

Slowly he fought to control the hitching of his own dissolute drawn breaths, for after everything he felt ready to crumble, only he suddenly found himself the pillar to which she clung.

Resting his Kuki atop her head, peering into the night, he silently prayed that what he had overheard was accurate. For if he was really considered Voldemort 's toy, needed to perform a project, then he truly was unobtainable.

In theory they would again be dependable, until Riddle decided to again 'chat .'

As of now, if he were wrong, then their only refuge would be the water they stood shivering within, and he had yet to properly master the bubble-head good luck charm for hiding beneath its murky depth. Now their lonesome lawful trade protection lay within the veil of cat-tails rising high above the shimmering weewee 's aerofoil, obscuring them from all.

Icy winding howled, sending the reeds around them dancing.

respiration unsteadily, the olfactory property of burned-out wood filled his nostrils. The storm was slowly winning the battle against the blaze, extinguishing the aflame underbrush and Tree, and the illumination of the fire was slowly dying. Tilting his face down he watched the fiery orangeness glow reflecting from her wet cheek, lending some fondness to her pallid hue.

'' Are you alright ? '' He finally whispered, his shivering work force smoothing her tortuous, sopping hair from her grimace. She simply breathed against him, hair dripping across his shoulders, her intact mannequin quivering.

Tightening his weapon system around her, he again whispered his interrogation, his questioning sass brushing along her ear lobe. `` Kaylens ? '' He murmured shakily, breathing against her hair. `` You okay ? ``

In his arms she nodded imperceptivity, his trepidation for her alone sending his heart thundering. His backup was tangible, as was the feel of her beneath his hands.

His personal spitfire was blissfully unaware, but she had scared the hell out of him.

Raindrops continued falling, laboured and strong, splattering against the urine with mesmeric melody. Somehow, without rationality, his knuckle joint were rising, tracing alone her jaw production line, a drowsy mutter leaving her picket, cracked brim at his tactile sensation.

Instinctively his strong arm began enveloping her tighter, pressing her to him needingly, his ground elusive. Surprisingly her ticklish hands were responding, rising to squeeze against his breast. Her gentle fingertips brushed his bare skin, sliding along his pectoral medallion where his sweater hung tattered and escaped, courtesy of the werewolves'pincer and the wood 's snaring bramble.

Beneath the rippling water a gentle tingle was radiating onto him, traveling wherever her cool tegument fell into contact with his own, as if tiny minute of static electricity were passing between them.

Somehow he understood, for he was feeling her rightful magic. She seemed unaware that she was releasing any, but her evidence signature tune was trailing across him in a maddening way, just below the rippling open, veiled from his eyes.

Yet somehow, he could not expect away.

Slowly, surely, the maddening virtuoso of her digit tangling within his jumper drove the unconscious concerns from his nous, his bright eye finally falling shut to the dark, hiding beneath the dark, matted hair slung dripping across his scar hilltop.

Upon his neck he felt her lips parting, an exhausted suspiration escaping against his skin. His face dipped in response, burrowing within her rain scented hair.

'' You know ... '' He disclosed softly, shivering in the wind. `` You may be more trouble than you 're deserving. ``

A gentle laugh, scarcely there, sent his skin tingle.

'' Oh ? '' She breathed, her hoarsely spoken words tinged with entertainment. `` And you 're not ? ''

'' head take, '' He conceded, a low laugh vibrating his throat.

The sky lit up, shining with anomalous grandeur as lightning flashed in the distance. The icy waters lapping against them, the wind howling eerily between the trees.

'' Potter .... '' She mumbled, his hand rising to fall upon the smooth skin of her neck at the auditory sensation. `` What happened ? ''

Her vocalisation was barely a whisper, trailing away as his digit went trailing down the smooth tegument of her neck opening, feeling her pulse beating with regularity beneath them.

'' Apparently, '' He murmured gruffly, her light breathing a feather tracing across his peel, `` I ca n't allow you alone for a minute. ``

'' I could say the like for you, '' She said breathlessly, shivering as his hands rose along the contour line of her form. First his hands were gripping her waist, succeeding rising along her face, sliding to caress the skin covering her ribcage, just beneath her breasts.

His breathing spell hitched with hers, her arms rising to encircle his neck, cupping the back of his promontory. Quickly her hired man were becoming lost within his untamable whisker, the same unruliness that he had so oft heard her criticize, yet now felt her reveling in.

The crude scent of mingled mud and rainwater was somehow intoxicating upon her, drawing him in more than he could allow, Sir Thomas More than he should admit. Yet he was, his mouth already lowering to hers, the thickly strung stress of a thousand harsh exchange vibrating between the two as his lip fell upon hers, capturing her lips as he had when pulling her limply from the icy H2O. Only now her back talk was moving against his, the taste of salty lather lingering upon his spit. Her taste was mingling with the refreshing rain pouring upon them, cascading down their faces.

His clothing clung wetly to him as his helping hand sought out her tangled hair. He frenziedly felt her deepening the contact of their brim, the rough stubble of his Chin scratching her in the process. A svelte grumble sent his own back talk trembling against hers with laughter, her hands squeezing his shoulder in retaliatory way. His own mouth was parting again, gasping, never relaxing the atmospheric pressure against her lips as he fought for breathing place against her, feeling her doing the same.

A second later he again seized her, his lower lip being tugged gently between her own, an odd growl coming unbidden from his pharynx. For a stormy moment she quivered with seeming entertainment before his agile hands responded, running along her neck 's vertebrae, a galvanize whine falling from her lissome rim.

'' Kaylens ... '' He murmured, his limb desperately gathering her against him, his mouth deliriously relishing her taste. Suddenly he was ignorant of the rain pouring around them, aware only of her work force distasteful onslaught as they slipped beneath his shirt 's collar, sliding along the bare skin of his shoulders, caressing his back. His tomentum dripped into his face, and with belt along breaths their ill-concealed passions radiated, their lip moving in a stormy fervor. Within his blazonry was the girl Harry had feared to have lost before he had known what it was to own, and he had no program of letting go.

Slowly, panting breathlessly, Kalliandra pulled away. Her fingers still clung to him, the rain pouring freely upon her flushing hide. pee droplets were dampening her brow, and her finger's breadth slipped out from beneath his shirt to linger upon his collarbone. Unable to let her leave he leaned his brow against hers, cupping her face in his hands, feeling her eyelashes fluttering clear against his cheeks.

His own jade oculus flickered hazily capable, meeting the deep hazel ace regarding him. She was blinking against the pelting, her confused eyes revealing her barely concealed emotion.

external respiration heavily he leaned forward, brushing his oral cavity against hers, kissing her slowly. He was taking his fourth dimension now ... without the upsurge, without the desperation, without the fear of having nearly lost her. Thumbs running along her high up cheekbones, carefully wiping the mud from her face, his lips moved needingly across hers.

Again they parted, her mouth moving in a soft, disbelieving whisper.

'' You 've lost your judgment ... ''

'' I know, '' He murmured, pressing his mouth to hers chastely. `` You wo n't secernate anyone will you ? ``

She smiled against his sassing, shaking her head slowly. `` No ... '' She whispered, amusement tingeing her modulation. `` This wo n't leave the clarification. ``

'' Good, '' He quipped, smiling deviantly. `` I would have hated to Obliviate you. ``

'' What makes you think I would have minded ? ``

burial his rim near her ear, he emitted a low growl, `` You would birth. ``

'' Hmph. ``

Combing his fingers through her thick, mud-laden pilus, he felt her slender form again began to shiver, her quivering more sound out than before.

Wrapping his arms tighter around her manikin, he murmured his wonder. `` Does this mean you 've forgiven me for stunning you ? ``

She grumbled indecipherably for a minute, before suddenly growing tense, her face swiveling towards the visible clearing, eyes flickering with sudden recollection.

'' Harry .... '' She whispered seriously, all lightness gone from her voice. `` What happened to the Death Eate ... ''

'' Gone, '' He assured softly, `` They 're gone. They wo n't be back. Minus the dead one. ``

Her oculus remained adverted, warily gazing through the pelting into the darkness of nighttime.

'' How can you be trusted ? ``

He smiled sadly, the fondness within him slowly dissipating as his war filled experiences, the single that had taught him the formula of date, flew through his mind.

'' Because .... '' He whispered hauntingly, `` They delivered their substance. They had their fun. For them that was enough, for the clock time being. ``

'' So their fun was trying to swim me, '' She questioned bitterly, `` Or threatening you with Hermione 's life ? ``

'' Both. ``

Her eyes 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 go 's apple rising strongly within his throat. `` Because I 'd rather die than admit them the selective information they need. ``

'' Than what stopped them from forcing you to go with them ? ``

His hand rose, trailing across her brass, her intimation falter at his tactual sensation. Without reason his eyebrow was again pressed against hers, her nerve 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 hand in front of me, I still would never tell. Because the second I did we would hold all been dead. ``

Distant thunder shook the sky, Kalliandra 's oculus falling shut against the wet onslaught. His remain upon her, never leaving as her chest rose and fell against his. The blue rhythm of her breathing was inexplicably calming.

'' If the man is so pitiless ... '' She finally spoke, `` Why would he extend you the choice he did ? ``

'' Because as ruthless as he is, he 's also intelligent. Voldemort knows his solely probability in hell of getting anything out of me would be by offering an exchange : Hermione for the information, at a neutral location. '' He paused, breathing heavily, watching the stirring across her countenance.

'' It 's the only way I could see to it her guard, '' He finished solemnly.

Against his forehead he felt a illuminate lour creasing her brow. A moment later her veiled center fell open, observing him guardedly.

'' How could Voldemort possibly bang what you 're thinking ? ''

His finger's breadth clenched and unclenched around her arms in a tense calendar method. `` Because Kalliandra, Voldemort and I have been playing this biz for a long metre. And were both getting easily at it. ``

Her mouth parted questioningly, his finger's breadth rising to adjure carefully against them, silencing her interrogation.

'' Please, do n't ask. I do n't want to lie to you, '' He pleaded breathlessly, mouth hovering centimeter from her own, praying she understood.

She did.

Against him she nodded, wet droplets cascading down her pal up face. This time it was she who sealed the scant blank space between them, her slick arms winding around his neck, her body pressing flush against his.

For some grounds, as her part lips allowed his clapper entry, he suddenly felt more afraid than he ever had.

The post had been raised that day, for with his serious friend gone he suddenly had so much to mislay, and it was the missy he remained loop with that had sent fissures running through his heavily erected walls.

pull away, gasping fervently, he suddenly was unsure of whether to detest her or eff her for that.

'' You 're infuriating ... '' He murmured, nose nuzzling her cheek.

'' Likewise, '' She gasped breathlessly, water-laden strand of hair falling over her middle

They simply remained, hovering within the embrace of the other, until a fanfare of red crossed the night, circling to pillow upon the pool '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 animal foot, its feathery oral sex cocked at a peculiar angle.

If Harry had not known better, he would say Guy Fawkes looked amused.









Recommended fib :

Fire and Earth by sagesolon Rated : maturate Genre : closed book, Action/Adventure, Drama
The Weasley 's and their adopted family have worn through the rise of Voldemort and the Final Battle. There have been many deaths, but what happens on the brilliant of day 's has recoil far and spacious ranging. Now they are left to pick up the man. Welcome to a chronicle of hope, where the survivor are left to follow the clue, attempting to solve the puzzle before the serial killer bang again. While this is a relatively new narrative it contains one of the most intriguing plot that I have been lucky enough to stumble across. Pairing : Harry/Hermione

Hearts, Bars, and Scars by sagesolon Rated : Mature musical style : love story, Action/Adventure, Angst
The final battle has long since past, yet to the Chosen One its repercussions sting as painfully as they did on the day he lost her. His alone solace is found within his nightly escapes to the Muggle realm, to where he is unrecognized in the dimly lit pothouse, to where he is no longer in a world that constantly reminds him of the red hair of his dream. Yet when a Muggle as much in motivation of solace as he makes the fault of sending a friend to ask for his phone number in a steamy pub, Harry suddenly finds a relief to that lingering despair. The only problem is how to explain his world to one cognitive content with illusion plug-in tricks ? Well ... the decoy of a vacation definitely has its good points ! This chronicle has an almost motion-picture show noir lineament at its start, and it progresses into a very 'feel good', laugh out loud, read. Pairing : Harry/Muggle OC












A few fundamental principle to note :

Red blood mobile phone contain hemoglobin, which transports O throughout the trunk. If these were suddenly taken away, you would asphyxiate even if you were still breathing.

thrombocyte are responsible for the torso 's ability to form line clot. Without thrombocyte, you would bleed to end from a wide-eyed cut on the arm.

Sorry for the impromptu biology lesson, but in writing this chapter I did not feel like explaining these basic concepts since I assumed that the role, due to one too many hospital wing visits, would already bang what these are. I also took a few creative impropriety, so bear with me on those.






'' Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success ; for who so hopes strongly has within him the giving of miracles. ``
~ Samuel smile ~



Chapter 27 ~ The comrade of Grief


Near dawn she found him there. He was still awake, as she had known he would be.

Dean was apartment on his back, staring at the rich, blood red canopy of his bed. His optic had not moved from the canopy in minute, for fear of seeing the empty bed besides him, and they did not travel as his bed wall hanging stirred in the eerie light.

Ginny slipped between them, crawling across the covers until she lay besides him. Wordlessly he had wound his blazonry around her small human body, an icy pain twisting within him. It was a heavy guilt, for he had his champion 's warm comfortableness while her boyfriend had naught to see save for the cold white piece of paper draped over his fill up eyes.

Seamus was gone, and it felt like a dagger had been driven through him.

It dawned a dark, gray-red dawn, and the sinister rainwater outside continued, pooling upon the window sills. He could not close the windows, nor blockage out the cool down winding, for when he had first seen Seamus'empty bed that Nox he had thrown open each paneling, tearing the wooden dialog box from their hinges.

Now the H2O dripped onto the floor, the second rhythm serving to drive him closer and closer to the break compass point. It was a sound Neville seemed oblivious to, for his dorm mate 's unwavering snoring filled the air, and with each passing sound James Dean felt the impulse to bankrupt something violently.

His digit twisted in Ginny 's red hairsbreadth, reminding him of her comportment. Though Seamus was gone, she was still there.

He had a rationality to rest strong.

Still he did not face at her. Gradually her calm breaths became habitue, but his morose eyes remained out-of-doors, staring at the canopy.

It was all he could do.
* * * * *


Harry watched as Angelina ran from the room, unable to shake the icy wiz slithering within him. He knew he should not care, he could not ...

Yet he did.

second base after port-keying to Lupin 's manor, as he had regained his terms in the candlelit foyer, Kalliandra had lost consciousness. His shivering physical structure had clutched her against his thorax, and that was how Angelina had found them.

It was becoming clearer, the harshly exchanged words between Kaylens and the headmaster ... the one he had overheard in the hospital fender ... It seemed age ago, yet they echoed hauntingly invigorated within his head.

'' Considering that I 'm the one you ca n't cure ... ''

'' Kalliandra, looking at it as a death sentence will not help matters. ``

'' You 're aright. Nothing will. ``

Angelina had claimed that the physical stresses of the night had just finally taken their toll, saying how wizard travel was often too much for a weakened body to claim. She had told him everything was going to be o.k., to not worry ...

Her center betrayed her speech for the lies they were.

'' Harry, set her there. help me get her arm ... ''

Angelina was back, having returned with a cache of supplies. He did as he was told, laying Kalliandra on the pass off couch. She sunk into the torn up shock, stuffing bulging out at the additional weight. It appeared to be the only substantial piece of music of article of furniture on the first 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 inch of exposed chassis another bruise was revealed, his insides twisting at the midst, deep purple fall guy lining her delicate tegument. In the dark of the clearing he had not even noticed ...

Angelina knelt besides them, her hands moving methodically, with the calculated move born of her healer training. His quondam teammate was now cleaning the inside of Kalliandra 's elbow, inserting a small needle into the blue origin of her vena. He could only watch from where he sat on lupin 's worn couch, holding Kaylens messy head of tomentum in his lap.

'' Harry concord this ... hold it senior high ... ''

He nodded mutely, taking the clear plastic bag from her, watching the yellowish-brown fluid sloshing within it. Following Angelina 's instructions he held it shoulder high school, unable to remove his eyes from Kaylens'serene face. Her deep hazel eyes were now hidden behind sick eyelids, her face in desperate need of washing. A stripe of mud still highlighted her cheekbone, a gray pelage of ash lending her a ghostly, freckled visual aspect.

Reaching down Harry brushed her whisker aside, revealing a dehydrated smear of blood concealing near her hairline.

A inscrutable bruise was forming there as well.

In unstable motions his former housemate attached a long, illuminate tube to the IV in her arm with a silence dog, retrieving the fluid filled bag from him. With both of his hands finally free he found himself smoothing the hair away from her face, wiping the mud away with his thumbs.

He could feel Angelina 's eyes on him. `` She needs to take a breather Harry. ''

He did not answer right away, contenting himself to watch as Angelina wove her wand, the IV bag rising to remain suspended in mid-air. Slowly the liquid began dripping from the bag into a small, 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 hands out of the way as she carefully grasped Kalliandra 's former limp arm, tapping just above the elbow with her wand.

Kaylens'blue angel vein bulged just long enough for another syringe needle to be inserted, only this time Angelina was drawing blood samples, rather than starting a dripping infusion.

'' Angelina ? '' He prompted gruffly.

The young healer sighed wearily, `` It 's a mixed bag of red rakehell jail cell and platelets Harry. '' She pulled back on the syringe, and it began filling with a viscous, dark red blood.

Harry hastily looked away.

'' Why does she involve that ? '' He ground out, his voice hoarse with exhaustion.

Leaving the needle in her arm Angelina unscrewed the full phase of the moon syringe barrel, setting the stemma sample upon a floating tray she had conjured. She made speedy work of attaching a new, empty one to the needle as she repeated the process.

'' How about you Harry ? '' Angelina asked dismissively. `` Knowing you, you 've probably managed to bang yourself up trade good. ``

'' Do n't commute the subject. ``

Angelina 's dark middle darted up, `` I 'm not. But I 'm a healer, that 's why Dumbledore left me to await for you two. I just had to discipline. ``

His tired optic turned to his own custody. He flipped them over, observing his healed, calloused palm tree. The cryptical slashes the broken glass had left were gone. Fawkes'tears had healed them, dripping into his injury when he had reached through the thickset rainwater to hold the interface key.

Before he even had a probability to wonder why Guy Fawkes had bothered healing such minor hurt, the phoenix had flown away.

'' I 'm exquisitely, '' He replied staidly, realizing he meant it. No longer could he find the sting lolly, torn by the werewolf 's pincer, down his back. Even the bone deep pall the icy rain had left was gone.

All that was left was the gruesome sensation churning within his stomach, his only relief the lady friend in his lap, who was incompetent of responding enough to ease his fears.

'' What 's wrong with her ? ``

In the empty, windowless room, Angelina removed the phonograph needle from her arm.

'' Nothing that ca n't be treated, '' She responded quietly, rising from her articulatio genus, apparently done.

'' That 's not what I asked. ``

He did not miss the way her eyes avoided his.

'' Nothing that I can secern you. For what it 's worth ... I 'm sorry about that Harry. ''

He swallowed, the sound seeming much louder in the still air. He bowed his head, spying a spot of gray ash near the corner of Kalliandra 's mouth. Without thought his thumb wiped it away, his stiff demeanor relaxing as a sleepy murmuring emerged from her dusty mouth.

Angelina watched it all, silently placing each of the lineage samples into a cool down carrying case. For a moment her clinical nature vanished, a sad look overcoming her Diospyros ebenum features.

It was then that it all came together for Harry. Every little detail that she had let pillowcase, every sign of fatigue, every parole 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 bed ? ``

His eyes rose to hers, `` Yes. That 's why you could n't tell me. Dumbledore is n't mindful I know. ``

She sighed tiredly, but he was already continuing. `` Ron and the others, you said they 're ok 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 Order is finally utilizing the dependable houses it 's been setting up. ``

His brow crinkled, his hands unconsciously caressing Kalliandra 's damp hair, which was strewn across his lap, leaving wet Saint Mark upon his trousers. `` There are other places asides from headquarters ? ``

'' Of course. Do n't ask where, because I do n't bed. ``

His smile was strained, `` Clever really ... not letting any one soul know too a great deal about anything in case they 're caught. ``

'' Exactly. ``

His lapse from the dark topic plaguing him could continue no longer, for the feeling of carefully controlled panic was rising.

Indicating the IV bag, he shot out a question. `` Why does she demand that ? ``

'' Perhaps I 'm not the intimately individual to explicate that. ``

'' You 're a therapist, '' He said in a carefully controlled musical note. `` Who better ? ``

Angelina opened her rima oris, as if to answer, but she never got the chance.

'' Perhaps I can. If you would only take into account me. ``

Harry 's head spun, as did Angelina 's. Neither had heard the person 's arrival, and his eye was thundering at the fatalistic hypothesis that could cause resulted from such a reversion on their parts.

His eyes narrowed, ire mixing with relief as he saw another loved one intact and standing in the hall 's doorcase. A bitter laugh broke his throat, and he gestured into the room.

'' By all way Professor, it is your house after all. ``

prof lupin stepped wearily into the room, looking worse for the wear. But then again, Harry reflected, did n't they all ? The thought nearly sent Harry laughing. Instead he bit it back, another sulphurous sound growling deep in his throat.

From the look on lupin 's face, Harry knew he had noticed. The deep pipeline on the man 's face betrayed an inner nuisance, one Harry felt all too acutely.

It was the pain in the neck of loss. Only Harry knew lupin had lost far Thomas More than he ever had. Of line, he was still Thomas Young. There was time to take hold of up in that category.

As if sensing his iniquity thoughts, Kalliandra stirred. His attention was suddenly riveted to her, his script on her brass. half of him hoped desperately for her to awaken, while another office feared that his one chance of discovering what ailed her would then slip away.

She was far too unregenerate to burden anyone else with her botheration. He knew that now.

It was startling how often could change in lupus erythematosus than twenty four hours.

Harry 's half angry, half questioning gaze finally rose. He was startled to discover Angelina 's absence seizure. Somehow she had slipped away unnoticed, leaving he and Lupin alone.

After having been ignored by him for over two weeks, he was n't sure if he was happy about that or not.

'' It 's near to see you Harry. ''

'' Is it ? '' He could n't help it, but his voice was cold.

lupin looked stung. `` Of course it is. ``

'' fountainhead forgive me for being skeptical, '' Harry replied sarcastically. `` It 's not like you have n't spoken to me in awhile. ``

'' I had my rationality. ``

He inclined an eyebrow, `` You had reasons for believing Sirius all-but-killed my mum and dad too. ''

'' That 's below the swath Harry. ``

'' Good. ``

Remus ran a fatigue hired hand through his graying haircloth, leaning back against the wall. For the retentive sentence neither spoke, the entire coming together arousing conflicting emotions within Harry.

He wanted to stagnate 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 Sirius'decease alone. For having had the audacity to take the air in, saying hello, as if naught were amiss between the two. For having sent not one owl that summer.

All of Harry 's pent up frustrations with Lupin were finally bubbling over, conveyed in the single icy flavor he shot him.

Outside the cold, first of Nov wind rattled the siding. The weather matched his opprobrious 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 last bread and butter supporter. 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 years ago, when he and Ron had fought during the Tri-Wizard tournament, Hermione had called them pillock.

She had been right.

Life was too curtly to take for grudge.

The admonisher of Hermione 's plight, and the thought process that Remus could be taken just as easily, sent him stumbling for Good Book. `` Just ... '' He started, forcing a stress smile. `` Do n't let it happen again. ``

'' I wo n't. ``

Remus'light brown eyes were nothing but honest. Suddenly, despite his lingering care for Hermione ... for Ron ... for Ginny ... for Dean ... for Tonks ... for Dumbledore ... for Remus ... .for Neville ... .for Luna ... for Kalliandra ...

It was all too 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 teacher towards the slumbering fille in his lap.

'' How is she ? ``

Harry felt his eyebrow instinctively line, his brain once again compartmentalizing what he could worry about, and impact, in the here and now.

'' I 'm not sure, '' He replied honestly. `` But Profes ... .Remus, what 's happening to her ? ``

The startled look upon Remus 's aspect faded, his kind center regarding him carefully.

'' I assume you already know then. ``

'' Yes, '' He heard himself whispering, his vocalisation filled with bare concern.

Remus studied him for a recollective here and now, his eye falling on the motion of Harry 's helping hand as he stroked Kalliandra 's long hair.

For some reason Harry did not manage if Remus noticed.

The previous prof 's brow crinkled with both rarity and pathos at the intension Harry 's motion conveyed. `` Are you sure you really want to have it off Harry ? Sometimes not knowing is best, for when you know ... '' Remus'gaze was suddenly far off, as if peering into the removed past.

'' Sometimes Harry, the truth will simply haunt you. ``

Harry 's pharynx constricted, the tear glistening within Remus'eyes far too bring in.

'' What if it already does ? ``

The elder 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 choke her. ``

A sad laugh bubbled out of him, his gaze falling to rest on her pale forehead.

'' Please ... I ... do n't say anything .... ''

'' Would n't ambition of it. ``

Harry found himself nodding with no particular rationality. `` Good ... 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 hint he had been unconsciously holding.

'' Something like that. ``

In the still air of the windowless room, both men remained mute. Harry 's eyes fell closed, his auricle seeking out the soft phone of Kaylens'even breathing.

Somehow, even with the growing restlessness within, this calmed him.

With a decisiveness he did not feel, he finally spoke.

'' I need to screw Remus. ''

A forte sigh filled the room. `` I was afraid of that. ``

And Remus explained. He explained how magical beings had come into founding, for somewhere in human history, homo line cells had begun mutating.

Most of the mutations had resulted in cancerous blood stream, killing those in possession of those variations. Muggles and virtuoso alike still struggled against those diseases, leukemia the most prominent, but there were some soul where the mutations became beneficial.

He explained how everything, both living and inert, contained a form of get-up-and-go. Not all of it was measurable in the Muggle style, and it was this form of zip, the kind that would fail to register on electrical scales, that allowed wizard beingness to flourish.

It was wizard energy, and over clock time some individuals developed the ability to manipulate it, without adverse affects.

Others were not so lucky.

There were citizenry like Kalliandra, people like Reaches, who could delve into the magical realm. But doing so was dangerous.

In the case of Wiccan and wizard, they developed completely new cells in their blood streams, and magical energy was conducted through their strong-arm bodies via these. Thus their bodies were able to act like electrical circuits, and muscularity was able to make pass through their magical cells without ever touching their former cells.

It was a perfect system.

There were occasions when witches and wizards would become fagged, and such natural event usually happened when the soul was performing wandless magic, or a particularly complicated magical spell. And the rationality for their enfeeblement was quite simple really :

When one 's eubstance functions like a circuit, if surplusage sorcerous push is taken in and not released in the form of a by rights plaster bandage magical spell, then that energy remains stuck in the consistency and has to go somewhere. And since illusion runs quite literally through one 's vena, that witch or necromancer 's magical cells would be the kickoff to be essentially, electrocuted by their witching overload.

Fortunately witching jail cell are quite robust, and their plasma membranes are to a greater extent than capable of absorbing such overloads.

Red blood cellphone, however, are not.

On affair so a lot energy is not released from a star 's organic structure that it bursts through their magical cellphone, frying blood cells essential in the sustentation of life.

And when one 's red blood cells are dying it is hard to go around enough oxygen.

It was how Luna Lovegood 's mother had died. She had suffocated, while still breathing.

Such deaths were a rare occurrent, because human blood contains far more cell than requisite for the sustentation of life. So when some blood cellular telephone are killed there are generally enough survivors to allow that individual to preserve functioning in a convention, albeit fatigued, manner.

The first prison term 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 physical activity.

It was because he had lost red-blood cells, the very cells responsible for carrying Oxygen throughout the consistence, and his consistence was responding as it would in an Oxygen-deprived manner.

Reaches had never evolved that far. They had never developed additional jail cell in their blood current, and the mutation allowing them to conduct electrical current lay directly upon their red descent cells.

If they overdrew, their initiative cellular telephone to be damaged would be the one 's essential in the transportation of atomic number 8.

Their mutation was one that worked, but it functioned poorly. Wizards had evolved much more gracefully, for their additional prison cell provided a barrier to protect them against overdrawing. Ultimately it was this defense mechanics that had allowed the wizarding specie to not only expand, but to last.

Unlike in him, the number one mobile phone to die in a reach when they overdrew were their red descent cells.

For a stretch, the likelihood of suffering Luna 's mother 's fate was an almost certainty.

A low temperature feeling overtook Harry as all of this sunk in, for Kalliandra could easily die from overdrawing. She was only still alive due to the fact that her blood stream contained more red line prison cell than it actually needed. Thus, she was equal to of tolerating a certain degree of overdrawing, but the perimeter was slim.

For her, unlike a witch or wizard, there was no real erudition curve. For her there was little way for mistake, for there were no cells to absorb the shock ...

For her the only reinforcement of overdrawing too often was death.

She would asphyxiate while still breathing.

It was why her red blood mobile phone were being replaced even as Remus spoke. For every time she drew Energy into herself she was slowly killing her cells.

Dumbledore was determined to replace as many as he could, as often as he could.

It was the sole way to hold up 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 hospital wing ...

Her platelets had been killed when she had overdrawn, to protect him from Remus ...

She had passed out in Grimmauld office, from the effort ... her torso forcing her into unconsciousness in a lowest ditch endeavor to foreclose her from doing far damage to herself..

The range of a function of her lying unconscious on the floor of the triplet broomstick flew through his mind.

He had known that she had risked pic for what she was, but gods ... .She had risked destruction there, to protect masses who hated her.

And he had once accused her of being a last Eater.

Death Eaters knew no such selflessness.

A sickening sensation flooded over him, his hand rising to loot through his still wet hair.

He scarcely heard Remus as he tried to lie, telling him it was not a death conviction for her.

Harry knew better, for what else could it be ?

His hairgrip on her reduce, as if holding onto her could forestall the inevitable. Remus was talking about treatment, about how if they maintained her parentage numeration at right levels that she would be able to live a normal, full life.

All it took was a ace look into Remus'cheerless eyes to bang that his protagonist did not truly trust what he was saying.

'' will she die ? ``

His own voice, his own question, sounded so far off.

'' Harry zilch is sure ... If she does n't overstate then we 'll never induce to worry about that possibility. ``

'' Remus, will she die ? '' Harry felt his voice breaking, the familiar pang of loss welling within him.

As he met Remus'kind, glistening heart, he knew the answer.

'' Eventually ... ''

He wanted to croak out something, a form of protest that would quench the dispassionateness of his throat, but zip came.

'' From what we know Harry, the others like her ... eventually, they all overdrew. ``

Eventually ...

The foolish recesses of his mind clung to that news, the ridiculous companion of grief stirring within him.

Hope.

It was n't until sometime after daybreak when he finally fell asleep. The IV was long since removed from her arm, her sleeping form pulled into his limb.

At the second Harry did n't give a damn about who could see.



Recommended Stories :

LEGACIES : The Solidus Charm by the Dark Lord Nedved Rated : Mature
Summary : Every epic has a showtime, and for the youthful Magi who was Prophesized to have the office the dark Jehovah 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 aim to assassinate him. The shadow Divine Nedved has created a story of military action, discovery, wizardly creativity and sacrifice that would entrust the topper novelist pounding on his room access, begging for him to start working on master fabrication. This heroic tale 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







Authors note : Hey folks !

All of you really are the well readers out there. I ca n't thank everyone enough for all of the well wishes and understanding that were shown when I announced that I would be taking a recollective sabbatical from writing. I really needed it, and am glad of it. Both my mother and Sister had been diagnosed with serious malady this past summertime, and all of the fountainhead wishes some of you sent via electronic mail must experience paid off because they have both made noteworthy recoveries.

Secondly, thank you to everyone for the form Book 's regarding Lexi 's destruction. On top of everything this summer that was the final C to force back all of my motivating for writing away for awhile, but it is now back replete force. Since I am a bit frustrated at having taken so long between chapters in the past times, I have now set aside one day a week to write so that I can get chapters out much more quickly, and on a regular basis. I anticipate this storey being done by summer, and then I shall begin work on the sequel.

And nearly importantly I wanted to say thank you to Saint Andrew the Apostle, for he helped me immensely with this chapter. It had been so farseeing since I had written anything that when I finally tried to write again I found myself suffering from a severe showcase of author 's cube. Not only did he beta-read this chapter but he also offered wondrous prompting to get this storey back on track. Thank you so much !




'' Dangerous is wrath concealed. ``
~ Lucius Annaeus Lucius Annaeus Seneca ~



Chapter 28 ~ The Power of Anger


As if in a incubus the room 's impenetrable duskiness was broken. From the darkened hall a single candle appeared, levitating ominously as it preceded its owner into the blackened room.

The house 's gloomy story harboured neither windows nor threshold to the outside world. It was a constant reminder of the monthly monstrosity that had once been contained within its very walls, whenever the moon had cast its full light upon the earth.

Now another more dangerous giant loomed in the room 's shadows.

With a free-and-easy waving of their hand the figure crossed the carpeted storey silently, their silhouette pausing above the slumbering teen. The figure knew that neither would awaken until their quiescence spell had run its grade.

Yes, the figure was mighty. Their sleeping charms were one of their strongest gift.

They could manoeuver in dispatch safety. None within the walls would be the wiser to their action mechanism.

Tonight they would begin their plan.

A syringe was filled, its phonograph needle swiftly inserted into the slumbering fille 's vein. Kaylens'pulsating rakehell, bluish in tint through her pale skin, flashed ash grey.

A bit later the unknown hue faded, a grim note of satisfaction stretching over the figure 's shadowed face.

* * * * *


With a shrewd click the door to Dumbledore 's office opened.

Tonks shot out of the armchair she had been dozing within, knowing the locking charm 's removal to entail only one thing.

'' He 's back, '' She whispered. Lounging in the armchair besides her Regulus nodded.

Out in the hall, suddenly visible as the threshold opened, was Ron Weasley. He lay slumped besides his discarded crutch on the floor, sleeping soundly.

Crusantheus hung on the door miserably, his knocker curled and contorted around his ears so as to obstruct out the phone of the young 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 signify it ! ''

genus Regulus continued advancing on the cowering knocker until a deep voice intervened.

'' No penury to fret Crusantheus. Did you draw a blank that the killing bane has no effect on brass knockers ? ''

Crusantheus peeked out from behind his doorknocker hopefully, as Tonks spun around, rounding on the infuriating thing 's rescuer.

Somehow Ablus Dumbledore was standing behind her, looking rather jovial.

'' Morning Nymphadora. fantasy a biscuit ? ``

As if on cue a tray of cookie appeared in his outstretched palm.

Tonks blinked dazedly, rubbing her red rimmed eyes with her fists. Surely this jovial
man had not just returned from a meeting with the darkest of dark Jehovah ?

genus Regulus, completely unflummoxed by their sudden intrusion, rose from his arm chair to carefully inspect the solid food offering. `` I take it negotiations proceeded satisfactorily ? ''
'' The substitution will be made in two calendar month'time. ``

Tonks gaped, `` Two month ! ``

'' They probably need time to repair the little Mudblood, '' genus Regulus commented casuallly, directing his regard 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 wound will involve some ... healing. ``

Tonks center widened in business concern. While she still did not see how Hermione for Dumbledore was a comely trade, she had grown rather fond of the girl during her time at Grimmauld piazza.

A pair of sky amobarbital sodium eyes 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 portion of the reason I made the origin accord here with genus Regulus, rather than in Voldemort 's mien, was so that I could ensure Hermione 's take on my own terms. He could have chosen to reject the rake pact had he so pick out, but he did not. ''

Tonks opened her rima oris to ask precisely what those terms were, but his script steadied her question.

'' The damage were that if she were returned in the demand forcible commonwealth that she had been in before the Hogsmead attack took place, that I would deal places with her, becoming Voldemort 's prisoner. ``

'' I bet he was only too felicitous to accept that trade wind, '' Regulus stated, smirking widely. `` Imagine that ... Albus Dumbledore, the Dark overlord 's groovy bane, handed to him on a golden platter with a slope of cherry."

"Actually,"Dumbledore corrected,"I believe the expression is ‘ served on a flatware disc with a cherry on top.'”

Tonks spluttered, focusing on the sick superstar within her stomach. The war exploit, the Order, could feasibly collapse without Dumbledore 's leadership, and here he was bantering with an ex-Death Eater, wizarding macrocosm ratter right after selling his life to the devil.

"Dumbledore,"She said, voicing her far from calm cerebration aloud."Why would you do this ?"

Dumbledore 's eyes locked on hers, losing their sparkle. `` Nymphadora, we have lost far too many student to this war already. I could not fend by and miss another. ''

She swallowed the lump in her throat hastily. She should take known all along that the condom of others would always come first to Dumbledore. He would have done the Same for any of them.

Love of one 's ally was a powerful thing.

'' So, old man, '' Regulus queried, taking a bite of his biscuit. `` Find out anything else of interestingness during your little rendezvous ? ``

If possible Dumbledore 's eyes darkened further. `` We have to assemble the Order. The plague was unleashed in Dublin. ``

'' Irish capital, Ireland ! '' Tonks blurted rhetorically.

Regulus frowned, `` As brainy as you are, how were you placed in Ravenclaw again ? ''

She scarcely heard him, her eyes having darted over to the still slumbering mannequin of Kenneth and Emily.

Their home metropolis was infected.

'' So how 'd you come by that fun fact Albus ? I never exactly took you two to be old school chums. ''

For the briefest of endorsement Dumbledore 's eyes took on their old scintillation. `` For all of Voldemort 's artistry with Legilimency, he never quite mastered Occlumency. He has always surrounded himself with fast following. '' He continued, `` And until recently he simply did not have the need.

genus Regulus chuckled. `` So he 's thoroughly, but you 're respectable. ``

Tonks blinked. `` But I thought he was one of the most brilliant students Hogwarts has ever seen ? ''

'' Ah ... '' Dumbledore said, smiling again. `` As is Ms. sodbuster, but even she can not fly upon a broom. ''

Tonks gaped at him.

'' We all have our helplessness Nymphadora. Severus never would own survived his theatrical role 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 washy distributor point. ``

Tonks frowned pensively. So He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did possess weakness. They really were not fighting for naught.

With an air of finality Regulus clapped his custody together, making the already neural Crusantheus bang his knocker rather loudly. The slumbering Ronald Weasley gave a fierce starting line, snorting loudly as he awoke suddenly.

Tonks watched wearily as the red-header blinked groggily, eyeing the spot in forepart of him until his centre landed on the headmaster. It took a here and now before a figurative light medulla oblongata clicked on in his sleep-befuddled idea

'' Professor Dumbledore ! '' He exclaimed, scrambling to his ft, a flurry of wooden crutch and gangly legs sliding on stone. It did n't take long before Ron was flat on his rear end once again, groaning from his fall.

genus Regulus eyed him mockingly. `` And they call Hufflepuffs the duffers. ``

* * * * *


Harry 's eyes snapped open up, his dreamless eternal rest shattered by the sudden shout of the daughter in his arms. Through slightly blurred eyes he stared down the bridge circuit of his nose at the messy mop of hair resting upon his chest. The warm look he ought to consume felt vanished, a numbing one replacing it at the view of her expression.

For Kaylens there was no ataraxis to be found in the kingdom of dreams.

He swallowed hard, watching her human face crinkle into an facial expression bearing striking similarity to what he had once seen upon Cedric 's father, as the man desperately clutched his lifeless son to him, oblivious to the swarming crew 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 root of such anguish had been buried deep within him, growing since the consequence he had discovered his true fortune : putting to death or be killed.

All thought of his calamity of a future was suddenly shattered as Kaylens lurched violently, a cooling cry cutting from her throat.

Harry gaped, feeling the hair on his arms rising to tolerate on end. Without thinking his hands gripped her arms, her skin beneath his fingers 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 sound ripping from her throat. It resonated through the dark room, terrifying in its raw chroma. His hair now fully stood on end, for the sound had been insanely tragic and yet, unbearably beautiful.

It chilled him to the bone, for it was a sound no human being could utter.

It happened fast. One arcsecond his arms were wrapped tightly around her, shaking her in an attack to rouse her, and in the succeeding her weapons system wrenched away. She shot up quickly, her center flying open in the wickedness elbow room only to be slammed shut as she uttered a more familiar scream of botheration. His backup man was short- lived as he grabbed onto her arm again, for she pulled away so violently that they were both air acrobatics from the sofa to the floor.

His dorsum struck the storey first, his stifle having been tangled unnaturally in the blanket. He attempted to redress himself, pulling his leg down until he was on all fours.

A western fence lizard kick to the vertebral column sent his face smashing into the ground.

He groaned, and ignoring the throbbing hurting in his nozzle he rose his psyche cautiously, squinting at his surroundings. Where were his shabu ? Slowly he reached a hand out, allowing it to roam across the soft carpeting in his search.

And then he remembered.

His glasses were still lying in some waste pool in the middle of that damnable forest. By now they were probably some acromantula 's chew toy.

Cursing he blinked rapidly, his eyes finally adjusting to the darkness and settling on the slightly fuzzed abstract of Kaylens. She was sitting upright piano, some near five feet away, with her knees drawn to her pectus and her face buried within them.

He swallowed hard, the merely sounds in the way now were his unsmooth breaths and her rapid, erratic single. In stunned muteness he observed her as best as he could. Her bare feet were sticking out from beneath a thick mantle, which despite their fall still partly covered her, while she breathed as if having run a marathon.

Everything that had transpired between them came flooding back, a tense intuitive feeling twisting within him.

'' Kaylens ... '' He whispered, reaching hesitantly for her, only for her to recoil, scrambling away like a scared animal.

He stared in amazement as her back hit the room 's rampart, a unusual whimper coming from her pharynx. Of all the chemical reaction he could have foreseen, this was the uttermost from it.

And now she was having the reaction that he would give expected from any other girl, but not from her.

She was sobbing.

The speech sound of her weeping torus at him in fashion he had n't imagined, for the little girl who had stood by him, facing Death Eaters and lycanthrope without blinking an eye, had been reduced to this misfortunate state by a simple 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 brow furrowed determinedly. `` Kaylens looking at at me, '' He commanded, crouching directly in front of her. Still, her header remained determinedly adverted, prompting him to grasp her by both shoulders.

Her head guesswork up, a raging clicking coming from her throat as she struggled away, lashing out violently. He dove back to avoid her flailing hands and metrical foot, landing on his tailbone, eyes wide in astonishment.

She was making that speech sound again.

And he recognized it. A black night in the Forbidden Forest, where he and Draco Malfoy had encountered the unexpected, had taught him that sound of pain.

The sound of the beautiful creature 's dying cries had reverberated in his nightmare for months.

As had Voldemort 's shadowy trope ...

There was no hesitancy in his movements as he wandlessly summoned his wand to his hand, immobilizing her arms and pegleg with a picture of his wrist.

Kaylens was conscious, but incompetent of lashing out.

He crawled back to her, taking her delicate wrist joint and pushing the sleeve of her battered jumper 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 cutting nervously he cupped her mentum, raising her head until he could see all of the confusion swimming within her golden oculus. His breathing place hitched in horrible recognition at what he was about to do, but there was simply no other way.

He had to have it away. He had to bed what had happened whilst he slept.

Until then he could n't serve her, and he knew that no one else would be willing to do this. There were strict convention against the unauthorized use of Legilimency. Hermione had taught him that much, screaming and ranting after his last misuse of the talent against the same girl he was about to violate yet again.

'' I 'm lamentable, '' He whispered, brushing her hair away from her face. `` I 'm so drear Kally ... '' He repeated, steeling himself for his criminal offence.

Cupping her face he stared intently into her middle, watching them flickering around in reverence.

Her veneration was warranted.

He only hoped he was wrong.

'' Legilimency ! ``

The overpowering wave that was her life flooded his intellect, capturing his senses in a whirl of indiscernible consequence. He groaned, desperate to stop the twister-like effect of the memories swirling around him. It was unlike than the last time, so unbelievably different ...

A cacophony of clicking, beautiful and mighty in its raw intensity filled his head, only to be replaced just as quickly as it had come with a familiar 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 time the images were fleeting, distorted as if he were viewing it through a thick pane of smoky glass. It was as if the memories were no long her own.

His kernel clenched as he watched the man kick open the door for the 2d clip. Kaylens'small-scale eubstance was cast backwards, her flyspeck manakin sliding across the floor. It was as if everything were on the quick forward feature article of a Muggle VCR. There was the knife, her scream, her brother ...

As the gunfire rang out he could again almost experience what she had. The hot, fiery painfulness of the blade plunging into her flesh. The searing as it was drug in a late line across her shoulder blade. The fear as she watched the blood pooling from her blood brother 's
wound slowly stoppage pumping ...

Suddenly all was bleak, brumous, the powerful sound of a herd stampeding through her thoughts. Then all was light-green and brownness and green again. Somehow he was running faster than he had thought potential, the trees whipping past him in a fuzz of green and brown and immature again. He was surrounded by others of his kind.

His name was Lightning.

The simulacrum twisted again, surrounding Harry in a confusing scroll of wood aspect followed by scenes of her childhood. silver medal horns flashed around him, gleaming as the herd ran beneath the moonshine, while gilded hair flashed throughout her life.

Another memory slammed into Harry, crystallizing into draw close clarity. It was mid-afternoon, though the sun barely shone through the over-cast sky. Before him was a under the weather kept railyard, bordered on three incline by a thick, rising treeline and hills. Harry swiveled in the murky memory, feeling Kalliandra 's recollection lurch dangerously as another memory threatened to phlebotomize into this one. The phone of hooves, the sound of the herd on the run, pounded in the distance.

Harry fell to the dewy ground, watching as a man with golden pilus, tinged heavily with grayness, methodically stacked stun away from the house. Fog crept across the lawn, curling around his feet, each oink echoing in the silent valley.

And then the baby were led out, and Harry 's soul shivered.

Kalliandra appeared to be the Same age as in the last remembering, only now she stood besides a small boy, barely Old than her, digging her nails into his arm.

'' S-sean ... ''

Their father pried her custody away from her brother, forcing a semi-automatic Glock 17, 9x19 mm caliber pistol into her little hands. Her legs had suddenly felt frozen, rooted to the damp primer coat. Harry could practically feel her heart 's fearful thundering at the cold, unfeeling metal between her fingerbreadth.

The thick fog curled high around the six foot push-down list of gumption bags, and as it began to moisten her father aimed her humble hands towards the stack.

'' Shoot it. ``

Kalliandra pulled the trigger and cried.

As the gun was being passed to her surviving Brother Kaylens'memory shifted again, swirling until he found himself peering through a thick grove of trees, stomping his hooves in warning as a hooded figure approached. The figure 's handwriting raised very slowly, carefully removing the hood of their gown, allowing a cascade of thick, black hair to come tumbling around her shoulders.

The cleaning woman 's countenance remained hidden by the abstruse forest trace, yet Lightning was calming.

It was a virginal fair sex. She could be trusted. Lightning could tell.

The unicorn never saw the other cloaked material body creeping from behind, and that man 's dagger soon shone silver with Lightning 's blood.

Harry stood in the shadows drawing deep, ragged breaths. He could practically feel every inch of pain the poor wight was going through, the sole sounds that of the screeching fauna and that of the dry branch cracking beneath Harry 's shifting weight as he watched, powerless to check its pain.

The man bottled and corked a measurable amount of blood from the unicorn, leaving it only enough to barely limp away alive. A light chortle escaped the hooded Death eater at the sight.

Suddenly the cleaning lady stepped out of the shadows, and Harry 's breathing spell stopped.

Angelina stood in the dim light, depositing the bottle into a buddy-buddy bag slung across her articulatio humeri. Her Dark Mark gleamed brilliantly.

Violently Harry felt himself being tossed out, finding himself flat tire on his cover 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 pest '' had been unleashed upon the citizens of Ireland would have had more of an effect upon its President.

Instead the newly awakened Kenneth Bothan sat behind Dumbledore 's desk, clasping his script, waiting for her response with an inquiring look upon his face.

She silently damned Albus for having left them to break the news to Kenneth while he went to call an emergency brake merging of the guild. She was n't respectable at this sort of matter 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 people will be beat within the hebdomad, '' genus Regulus stated with ironic cheerfulness. `` But look on the promising side. At least you wo n't take in to run for re-election. ''

Tonks'sour eyes swiveled to her cousin, her mouth orifice and closing like a gaping Pisces.

Kenneth, however, seemed entirely unruffled.

'' So, '' The President started with a curious frown, `` What you are saying is that wizarding folk have no treatment against this ? ''

'' Well ... '' Regulus mused thoughtfully. `` We could always Avada Kedavra those who have already contracted it. That ought to slow its spread, right wing Nymphadora ? ``

'' Regulus ! ``

Kenneth looked appraisingly at her first cousin. `` And this Avada Kedarva discourse ? How efficient is it ? ``

Regulus grinned like a Canis aureus. `` Supposing we were capable to isolate those who had already contracted it we may determine out its method of dispersal, while simultaneously establishing a quarantine and treating the bother of the already afflicted ... ''

'' By killing them ! ? '' Tonks flare-up in, unable to consider the wicked biz Regulus played with the Chief Executive 's hopes.

'' Ah, '' Kenneth said as if suddenly understanding. `` The treatment has a luxuriously death rate rate. How high school though ? ``

Regulus grinned widely, while Tonks contemplated murder for the dozenth time in XX four hours.
* * * * *


'' Harry ! What in the epithet of Merlin did you intend you were ... ''

Harry closed his eyes, grinding out his Son. `` Something 's wrong with Kalliandra, '' He interjected. `` I had to find out what. ``

The room 's silence was broken only by Kaylens'laboured breathing, and her unmortgaged distress drew Lupin 's attention from him to her. He felt the erstwhile professor drop to his human knee besides them, and he cracked an eye to watch as lupine scrutinized her.

The professor looked flabbergasted as he picked up one of her stiff limb. `` Harry, you 've immobilized her. ``

'' For expert reason. ``

lupin threw a disgusted look over his shoulder, and snatched his wand out, clearly intending to remove the spell.

'' professor I do n't think tha ... ''

His protestation was too late, for Kaylens had already lashed out, landing a strategic squawk that sent Lupin sprawling compressed on his vertebral column next to Harry.

'' I told you, '' Harry groaned, shoving himself up on his human elbow to note the hurt construction of Remus'nerve. `` beef hard, does n't she ? ``

Lupin coughed harshly in response, choosing to cut him as he rolled over to check on Kaylens. She was already scrambling along the wall on all foursome, backing herself into a nook like a affright brute. On her way she somehow managed to hit the only other piece of article of furniture, asides from the couch, and several small volumes came spilling down, scattering across the floor like rocks thrown from a distance.

The crashing sound only intensified the poor girl 's whimpering.

Harry 's centre remained on her, watching as she curled her stage to her chest in a feeble endeavor at self-protection. But he knew the truth ... there was no protective covering from what plagued her.

But he 'd be damned if he did n't try to help.

'' professor .... '' He started slowly. `` What kind of expletive does drinking unicorn blood entail ? ''

Lupin opened his mouth and faltered. Harry remained lying on his book binding, his upper dead body propped up with his elbows, silently hoping to God that the Professor would put the pieces together. Lupin had to conceive him. He had to trust him. None of the grownup, save for those dead and buried, had ever trusted him in time for it to actually matter.

It was why Canicula had died. And somehow Harry did n't believe he could take it if the last tie to his begetter failed to believe him.

Then slowly, ever so slowly, the lykan's head turned towards him, and even in the benighted room Harry could see the sudden knowledge flashing in his middle.

Moony understood his meaning.

'' Her bruising is gone, '' Harry whispered, driving another gust to any doubt the professor could have. `` What else in the wizarding earth could heal someone that quickly ? ``

lupine drew a abstruse breath, shaking slightly.

'' Harry ... if what you 're saying is true ... ''

'' It is, '' He assured. `` I saw retentivity inside of her mind that were not hers. ``

Kaylens'whimpering had finally quieted, casting the room into a deathly silence.

Besides him Lupin swallowed audibly, contemplating Harry 's instruction in the deadly silence that had descended. Kaylens was no longer whimpering, and he was unsure of if he missed the reassuring sound of her presence, or if was pleased at the obvious easing of her distress.

He glanced at lupine, stunned at the torn expression upon his former professor's indorsement. Did the man believe him or not ?

He sighed in frustration, snapping at lupine's unresponsiveness. `` Why would she induce those retentivity, Moony ? ``

sense of hearing his old Marauder gens snapped Lupin out of his brooding stupor. `` It's magically potent…unicorn blood that is. In fact it is so witching that their memories are often heavily imprinted upon it. '' He shook his head slowly, as if clearing a hazy fog."To possess a unicorn's blood line is to not only possess their life stream, but their very being."

lupin sighed heavily. `` There is not much precedent for this, but….in the ahead of time 1900 's medi-wizards began experimenting with dissimilar intervention alternative for terminal diseases. One researcher, familiar with unicorns, sought to harness their healing powers by injecting his terminally ill patient with the animals'ancestry. It cured the patient role but the side of meat effects…"lupin shuddered, digressing quickly. `` The blood was too hard to get to begin with. Unicorns don't normally donate willingly, not to mentio ... ''

'' What face personal effects, '' Harry interrupted hoarsely, closing his eyes. The feel of her in his arms flooded his weed, the woodsy scent 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 affixation, yet the thought of her in pain…

He knew without a doubt that he would kill for her again, just as he would belt down for any of those he held close.

He only hoped it would not come to that.

His eyes snapped open as Lupin 's dysphoric interpreter filled the room.

'' Most went insane. ``

Harry nearly choked. `` Insane ? '' He grated out.

Lupin looked eld older. `` They never were able to distinguish between themselves and the animal again, '' he relayed. `` Can you imagine it Harry ? Having a lifetime of retentiveness that were not your own suddenly shoved inside of your judgement ? Unicorns live for hundreds of years…it was only innate for those obtaining their blood to become confused. To them it would feel as if they had spent a long time being a unicorn than a human being."

The sick sensation twisting within him intensified. Kaylens'mind had revealed exactly what lupin now spoke of, and the thought process made him sickening.

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 much, it was soft than dealing with the devastating fallout facing them in Kaylens'crumpled descriptor.

"When one slays such an innocent creature, seeking their stock's healing ability, it leaves the bane of the half-life. But when one is given the profligate unwillingly, or when the animate being is left alive, the curse does not lessen ; it simply changes its manifestation."

His throat constricted, but Harry managed to croak out a single word.

"Explain."

There was no mistaking the cat look upon lupine's face."Harry, the only ones desperate enough to kill such an sinless tool are those hanging onto life history by a screw thread. But the price…it is far too high-pitched for any sane person to contemplate, for the price for their atrociousness is losing all ability to love. A life without the capability for love is destitute of joy, happiness, family…"He shook his mind, disgust etched in his every feature."In a desperate attempt to save their own aliveness they lose the only thing that makes life sentence worth support for. Once they take that route they truly lead half a life story, only experiencing the darker sides of the emotional spectrum."

"Then the mediwizard, the one using it to heal his affected role, did that occur to him ?"

Lupin sighed indulgently."There are ways to garner it, manner for it to be done without incurring the anger of the curse but…those ways take clip, Harry. Gaining the long terminal figure corporate trust of a unicorn, let lonely permission to inflict injury upon it, are not easily 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 man deserved that. She didn't deserve that.

Once again Lupin looked ill."For Kally it will be different,"He said gruffly."Instead, if she recovers, she will love, but her every experience will be shared with both sides of her, diluting the intensity of the emotions she feels, diluting her feelings towards others…"

Something about the words sent Harry's core twisting.

"Unicorns ... they are such barren creature, incapable of sin, incapable of inflicting annoyance ... Could you imagine having a saint following you around for the totality of your life story, correcting your every misunderstanding ? Well from this instant on she will be sharing her nous, her life story, with storage of what dependable artlessness is, for a unicorn is the admittedly embodiment of that, and with it will come a gnawing guilt over the sins she has committed in the past. Between the confusion over her identity element and her newfound guilty conscience over even the smallest of transgressions…that alone could be enough to ram some mad."

Harry's mouth twisted into a frown,"So she can't sin ?"

"If only it were that well-to-do, Harry. She can, and she will. But having this will give her a conscience potent than virtually, and living a stark life is an impossible task. Her life will be as shut down to normal as possible, only she will feel far hangdog about things she does than others."

'' A half life ... '' He whispered aloud, suddenly understanding. Kaylens truly would be cursed, for she would always be sharing her mind with memories not her own.

None of this was her fault, and the sentiment sickened him.

'' Not all the mediwizard 's patients went insane, '' He finally said, recalling lupine 's in the beginning words. `` You said nigh. ``

Lupin shook his mind. `` They all went insane at first Harry. But only two managed to repossess enough of their minds to run. Two out of dozens. ``

Harry closed his centre, his voice filled with sardonic sarcasm. `` She just ca n't catch a break, can she ? ``

The Professor shook his psyche in reception. `` There 's only one way to be for sure. ''

Without warning Lupin snatched his wand out, summoning a diminished torch. Soon a metal blur came flying through the doorway, landing in the professor 's outstretched helping hand.

Harry frowned at the natural process, not understanding, but in one western fence lizard gesture the professor had it on and aimed at Kalliandra 's face. Lupin clearly knew exactly what he was looking for.

Kaylens was suddenly shrieking again, and judging from the grisly look on the professor 's typeface he had found all he needed to know.

A metallic click sounded as the flashlight was turned off, and Kaylens'cries instantly died down, slowly fading to a dull whimper.

'' She 's sensible to ignitor ... '' lupin stated. `` There are only two conditions I know of that drive that. ``

'' She 's not a vampire ... '' Harry stated coldly, earning a reproving look.

'' I was n't even about to propose it. But creature tend to have better nocturnal vision than us Harry. Lykans and unicorns are no exception, and when I was first bit ... '' He trailed off, his expression twisting into a peculiar aspect."Once I was bit my whole soundbox changed. My oculus were the worst though. ''

The professor suddenly adopted an almost impulsive look. `` Did you know there are more foursquare nerves per inch in your heart than in any early part of your eubstance ? Well there are. If you ever want to make someone hurting just jinx their heart and ... ''

'' prof, '' Harry interjected, at the moment not carrying about the finer points of jinxing.

Lupin shrugged. `` My snack caused a altogether new layer of tissue paper full of light sensible cells to grow across the back of my optic, its called tapetum lucidum. It lets me utilize lupus erythematosus light to see, so I can see with one-sixth the sum you can. But when it first happened ... before I was used to it ... '' He shuddered. `` Merlin it hurt. The slightest abstemious felt like the sun was blasting me in the face. hellhole, it had me in snag. ''

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 concluding sentence, and suddenly Harry understood the flashlight. Unicorns had excellent nigh vision as well, and the torch was Lupin 's way of confirming what he already knew.

Kaylens had a level of sparkle spiritualist tissue growing across her retinas right now. No wonder she screamed at the light.

'' Harry, '' The scholarly professor tone was suddenly gone, and the Wolf was deadly serious. `` Was she fine last Night ? Before she lost knowingness ? ``

Harry was quick to nod.

'' Then sometime between then and now individual injected that blood directly into her veins. She could n't have done it herself. ``

Harry 's back talk opened, but his question of how that was possible died on his tongue.

He knew the response.

There was only one mortal who would wilfully curse another within the house.

'' professor what 's going on ? I heard yelling. ''

Harry 's eyes narrowed, every sinew tightening. Angelina had finally come, drawn by the incremental cheering. There she was, rushing through the room 's limen, drawing her cloak hastily around her as if goose egg awful were amiss.

If he had n't known better he would deliver thought she truly was surprised at the situation she found. But he knew better. No one took that long to respond to shrieking like the one's Kaylens had unleashed unless it was intentional.

'' Why is it so morose ? '' Her interpreter sounded honestly confused as she flicked her baton out, lighting every candelabrum in sight.

His eyes flew to Kaylens, who had immediately began shrieking, clamping her hands over her eyes, screaming as if hell itself has sent its daemon up to drag her into its depths. His chest constricted at her obvious pain.

Lupin lunged at her in a decidedly wolf like way. `` Kally, do n't ! '' He was shouting, fighting her for controller. She lashed out, and Lupin grasped her wrist in a single, fluid movement, quickly capturing the early as well.

The professor had already forced her hands down against her position, kneeling on her legs in a vain attempt to keep them from flailing. He was far potent than Kaylens, but she was despairing, fighting to obturate the beastly lighting from her centre as lupine fought to prevent her from inflicting damage upon herself. Now he was yelling at Angelina to extinguish the candles, and Harry still had not moved.

He was too busy watching Angelina, noting the guilt trip flashing within every brown pigment in her dark centre.

Her black lash fluttered, and the betraying emotion was suddenly gone.

His descent boiled, his arms vibrating with suppressed rage as she began speaking, a panic-struck edge to her articulation.

'' What 's going on ? '' She asked fearfully, rushing across the room to aid lupin. `` Remus !
What 's wrongfulness with Kally ! ? '' She continued shouting doubtfulness, lunging over Harry as if he were not even there.

She dropped to her knees besides where lupine and Kaylens wrestled, her ebony pelt lambency in the candlelight. Her dark-skinned eyes widened in sham revulsion, her face a mask of destitute headache as she reached out to help restrain Kaylens.

And Harry lost it.

Her helping hand never reached Kaylens, her tainted finger never touching her dead body. Before anyone could bring in it Harry 's hand had flown out, snatching the oversized arm billowing around the betrayer's wrist joint, and he tugged her callously to the floor.

Harry lunged to his feet, stamping the heel of his foot against the girl 's throat, pinning her to the land.

'' Do n't. Touch. Her. '' He growled, the macrocosm rippling around him.

Power swelled within him, the forte of his magic unleashed by the raw anger pumping through his mineral vein, and the feeling ... it was intoxicating.

Angelina 's body undulated like a worm beneath him. She was choking, spluttering incomprehensible sounds, the shock clearly written across her face. Her hired hand were clawing at his foot, her clenched fist slamming against his legs as she fought for air.

He scarcely noticed any of it.

'' H-harry ... st-top ... '' She gasped, her centre rolling backwards, fingers going slack 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.

Books went flying, scattering everywhere. The resounding crashing masked the blunt thud of Angelina 's limp arm hitting the floor.

Lupin let out a pained howling, and Harry 's hand shot out. He felt the conjuration dripping from his fingertips like water.

With a flick of his articulatio radiocarpea the wax light went out.
* * * * *


The descending sun of midday zenith was partially obscured by the perpetual swarm cover, casting the not-so-distant Dublin-Wicklow mass into a oceanic abyss fog. Yet the man paid the ominous environment no mind, nor the racking cough that had swiftly descended upon him. Instead he stared out the window of his South Irish capital reference, admiring the view afforded by his working class neighborhood.

With a small grin he leaned further back into his recliner, letting the smoky smell of fresh baking fish occupy his nostrils. Meredith was cooking, and from the feeling of it she was cooking the fish he had caught just that good morning. They were bound to taste delicious. Everything his wife cooked always did. It was just a shame their eye kid, Eva, had inherited his culinary sense, or deficiency thereof.

'' Father, you feeling alright ? ``

The man turned to find his eldest son in the door, a concerned manifestation crossing Edward VII 's freckled typeface. The man smiled, for the resemblance between father and son was striking. Edward had been the only child to inherit both the freckle scattered across his nose and the dark head of hair's-breadth adorning his head. The former two of his youngster bore his wife 's ash blonde hair and startling dark eyes. Edward however had his blue-green ones.

He graced his son with a warmly smile. `` I 'm just fine m'boy. Just a bit of a cold. ``

'' You sure father ? Perhaps after dinner party we should occupy you to the physician. Your neck opening looks awfully swollen. ``

Curiously the man rubbed his tender lymph guest, shocked to find that they had doubled in size of it in just a few hours.

His son smiled cheekily. `` mother is of the creative thinker to not let you go off fishing at such iniquitous hours again. She said something about catchin'yer Death on account of our colder than normal temperatures. ``

The man could n't resist a smiling. `` well perhaps yer mum is right. The thermostat dropped to 10 Celsius this mornin'before I ventured out. ''

'' I 'll state her you said so. ``

The man 's eyes widened in mock repulsion. `` Now you 'll be doin'no such thing boy ! Because I 'll guarantee that once yer mum 's done houndin'me that yer 'll be next. ``

Now it was Edward III 's tour to look terrible, and the man leaned back, smiling in satisfaction. The boy still remembered the clock time James Meredith had wrapped him head to toe in a snow-suit, complete with two scarves wrapped around his question and outsized 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 head start on my Algebra. ``

The man smiled in satisfaction as the room access closed behind his boy. Yes, despite their menial surround his boy would soon grow into a fine man. And while he had never been able-bodied to provide all that he desired for his kid, they did wonderfully with what they were given.

It was no small detail of pride for the man that he had worked his way from the compass north side of Dublin to the South. While about of the people in his income class tended towards the nor'-west incline of the city, here he was, raising his kinfolk is Tallaght. It might not be one of the wealthier territory feature of South Dublin, but its racy signified of history had captured his tyke 's hearts from day one. He still remembered how young Eve 's center had grown wide-eyed as saucers as he had explained the origin of the district 's name.

Tallaght. Pit of bust. The very name was reminiscent of the mass grave dug there during the last-place Black pest. Thousands were said to be buried just beneath the cloaca, and that little bit of cognition had had all three of his children off and running, screaming and laughing in increments as their Loretta Young head excogitate ghost stories 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 plague. The ghost shaver had been buried beneath the fictional boy 's home, and had appeared to the boy when another unnamed illness ran rearing through the city. With the ghost tyke 's help the young boy had been able to save the city, and his family.

The man leaned back in his chair as a bout of coughing shook his lean physical body, a mysterious bother shooting through him. He clung to the deal rests tightly, waiting for it to pass, all the while thinking of the future.

Yes. An author would be a beseem professing for his eldest. Edward would one day make a fine novelist.

The man smiled, proud of his shaver in a way that only a male parent could be.

If only he knew how soon story were to repeat itself.








A/N : Thank you so often to Andrew, Njhill22, and Ichigopan for helping me out a lot with this chapter. Andrew not only helped to work out some of the game wrick for this chapter and the next, but he also beta-read it for me, and therefore rock and roll. Njhill22 and Ichigopan are also awesome, because both of them helped me until 3 am when I wound up seriously stuck on how to compose the next constituent. Thanks so much you guys !






'' Nothing ventured, nada gained. ''
~ William Shakespeare ~



Chapter 29 ~ No yearner Helpless


With a picture show of his wrist the candles went out.

His heel remained solidly planted against Angelina 's thorax as winding-sheet of wickedness scene out in all focusing, like the spindly fingerbreadth of a corpse, until the entire room was engulfed in an inky, suffocating duskiness. Harry scarcely noticed any of it, nor the thick scent of burnt wax as unseen smoke curled up from the extinguished candles.

Anger pumped heavily through his venous blood vessel, and with a hate he had not thought possible he glared down at the daughter beneath him. In the past his cauterise action mechanism against his old theater married person would have sickened him, but now ....

affair were unlike.

His outstretched hired hand shook, his barely restrained magic crackling across his skin like static electricity, burn and searing at his flesh. Grimacing in pain he forcefully curled his fingers into a fist, tightening it, feeling the raw top executive seeping back in

A new feeling rose up within him. A dark, brawny, vindictive feeling.

mien the coldest of looks he crouched low, inspecting Angelina to ensure that she was indeed unconscious. He would not make the mistake of thinking a Death Eater subdued when they were not, but her end would do him no good.

He intended to obtain out all he could from the treacherous wench.

Then, beneath his foot, he felt the slow rise and surrender of her ribcage, and his leg twitched with the suppressed urge to stomp the breath from her. For the first time he understood what Ron had meant when he had drilled him on the remainder 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 evidence no hesitation.

Swallowing back a sick waving of revulsion he reached out, touching the sully witch 's tegument and shoving her head to the side. It lolled over with a muted thud, revealing nix. The death eater would not be moving for some time.

Good.

Still ... they had all been fooled by Angelina 's acting skills once. He would not fall dupe to that again.

With depend efficiency he withdrew his scepter, a frightening look crossing his features. His anger still burned hot within him, the mineral vein in his neck pulsing intensely as he thought of the witch 's betrayal. Angelina had been his mansion partner, a teammate, but worst of all, she had nearly been a friend. Once she was a Gryffindor. And now ....

She had betrayed the club by taking the mark of that snake, and had all but killed Kaylens, possibly robbing her of her mind.

A growling ripped from his throat, the tip of his wand suddenly digging against the traitor 's temple as he pondered all the trance he could use.

Thunk.

'' Harry, stop ! ''

He stopped cold. Remus'gruff, panicky voice had cut through the air like a well sharpened knife, sending his wand arm tensing as his father 's last friend fought his way out from beneath the books that had fallen atop him. In the backwash of his own scuffle hoe he had nearly forgotten lupine 's presence, and the thundering of his pulse in his ears had drowned out the low groans and whimpers from the other incline of the room.

He had forgotten one other thing : That despite the lack of lighting in the elbow room, Lupin could still see exactly what he was doing.

'' Lumos. ''

Harry 's head snapped around as a soft glow cut through the wooden-headed darkness, his regard riveted to the horrified expression crossing Remus'face.

His one-time professor stood behind the overturned bookcase, eye wide-cut and staring.

'' My God ... '' He whispered chokingly, `` Harry ... '' His accusing eyes flickered up to his. `` What have you done ? ``

He sucked in a filter out breath between his teeth. `` Nothing she did n't deserve, '' He hissed staidly.

A repress speech sound came from the professor 's pharynx. `` But Harry ... that 's Angelina ... ''

'' No kidding. Really ? '' He snapped.

A sudden scuffle and thud, followed by a astute, inhuman whimper sent his sceptre jabbing into Angelina 's head.

'' Kally ... ''

He had n't needed the prof 's devastated whisper to know who was softly whimpering.

Heart wrenching, he fought back the hollow feeling in his dresser. `` Why do n't you see to Kaylens, Professor, '' He grated out, his face a grim masque as he focused back on the former chaser.

'' I will but ... is Angelina okey ? ''

'' I sure as pit Leslie Townes Hope not. ``

A tatty swallow preceded Remus'next, tense wrangle.

'' 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 representative was strained, the cautious, placating promissory note in it foreign to him. `` Harry, I know something 's legal injury. But just think about what you 're doing ... ''

A cruel, hollow laugh escaped his throat. `` Oh, trust me Moony, I have. ``

'' She 's on our side, Har ... ''

He cut him off, spitting out the cold truth.

'' She 's a demise Eater, Moony. ``

From behind him came a loud, discerning swallow. `` Harry ... are you certain ? ``

A cold grimace crossed his features. `` Yes. ``

There was an agonizing pause, and a nauseous, uneasy apprehensiveness suddenly rose in his breadbasket as his racing pulse finally began to slacken. He needed Remus to believe him. He needed someone in the Order to not just listen to him, but to actually rely him. And if Remus did n't ...

'' I 'll stick to her. She 'll get to be taken to headquarters. ``

Harry 's head bolted around, jar written on his verbal expression. `` You believe me, '' He questioned. And even in the dim brightness he could see the cold-shoulder apparent movement of Remus'shadow nodding.

'' Harry, '' He said, sounding almost hurt. `` I always believe you. ``

His brow instantly wrinkled in confusion. 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 bollocks up her head off before I could figure out why you had attacked her in the first berth. It would have been a very Sirius-like affair to do. ''

The thought struck him hard. `` Yeah, '' He managed. `` It would sustain been like him. ``

He glanced back, and in the glow of the wand he could see Remus smiling sadly. He returned the expression, feeling shakier than he would take thought possible only transactions before, but that did n't matter.

Remus believed him. He did like about him after all.

His excuse for all those lost month, for all the time when he had been left to deal with the pain in the ass of Canicula'destruction alone truly had meant something, and despite everything a warm wizard wormed its way into him.

All it took was a soft whimper, from a corner behind him, to ride 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 chest of drawers, her lucky hair's-breadth spilling over them and her facial expression buried within them.

Slowly his roue force per unit area rose, his ft 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 glower at Angelina he shoved his foot beneath her hobble body, kicking her over onto her tum. 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 open wrist.

'' Bindovera, '' He hissed, watching the snake-like ropes current from its tip, slithering around her weapon system until she was bound up to her human elbow. Dropping his sceptre he gave them a abrasive tug, satisfied in the way the coloured little girl 's peel chaffed, reddening even in the nighttime light.

'' Exuberant, aren't we ? ''

He merely grunted in response, giving the rope one final, calloused tug as Remus began binding her legs.

A minute later he was on his ft, an aching star spreading through him as he watched Kalliandra curling in the corner, incapable of remembering even her own name.

divinity ... she was n't in her right mind. And Remus had said she 'd suffer to block out the unicorn 's memories 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 stalk, but there was a fortune ...

Voldemort had given him wad of practice at blocking unwanted retentiveness.

His stock pumped purposefully, and he felt, more than saw, Remus rising slope besides him, looking morosely in the same direction as he.

'' Well have to trap her again, '' He said regretfully, dimming the light from his verge as it sent Kaylens stirring uncomfortably.

'' No, '' Harry answered immediately, articulation filled with strong belief. `` I 'll deal with her. You just get Angelina to Grimmauld. ''

Remus'brow furrowed at this, doubtful lines crisscrossing his face. His back talk opened, as if to protest, but his uncertainness went unvoiced. Instead a attentive, decisive expression befell him as he studied Harry 's tense, determined boldness.

The wrinkle on his face suddenly deepened. `` Are you for sure ? ``

Harry nodded, tense with anger at the stallion state of affairs, and filled with the need to do something about it.

'' Yeah, '' He responded. `` I 've stunned her decent lately. ''

Lupin 's conflicted formulation remained, but he nodded decisively.

'' Alright, take this then. ``

A 2nd later a small pouch was being pressed into his hand, a sandy fabric grinding within it.

'' It 's a port key. pelt the contents ... ''

'' Into our hands, '' Harry finished for him. `` We 've used this kind before. ``

Remus eyed him curiously, tilting his head to the English. `` Well then, I 'll see you there. ``

He nodded, watching as Remus unearthed another pouch from his scoop. He watched him crouch next to Angelina, sending him one last, pointed look before dousing his sceptre.

Shadows spilled around them, enshrouding the elbow room in darkness once again. Rifling a helping hand nervously through his hair Harry forced a sieve, unobserved smile, and a moment recent Remus and the double-dealer blinked out of existence, leaving him with a ace insane idea, one that he never could induce done in Remus'presence.

And somehow he thought Remus had known that.

For a moment he did nothing, simply allowing his optic to adjust to the sudden darkness. Then, slowly, the blackness gave way, revealing her vague, gray outline. Yet even in the shadower he saw the way her silhouette trembled.

He pulled his scepter and immobilized her in one Dean Swift motion. Strangely he felt zilch, when even the thought of stunning her again had sent his tummy wrenching.

He crossed the room and knelt besides her, his rough handwriting gently cupping her face and turning it towards his. He felt chuck, for he was violating her yet again. But God, what selection did he have ?

For the second time that day her frighten optic stared back at his, flickering with too many emotions to name. His quarter round gently brushed her hair away from her eye, his heart and soul thumping shamefully. She was like a frightened animal, and somehow this just felt wrong.

Yet he had to try. No one deserved this, and if his idea worked ...

He might just be able-bodied to salvage enough of her to help her find her way back.

Staring into her middle he hoped to God it would forge.

'' I swear to you, '' He whispered intently, `` This is the hold up prison term I 'll ever do this to you. ``

Licking his back talk nervously he raised his baton, letting it hover inches from her skin. Closing his oculus he waited, allowing his nous to authorize, 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 remorse, sending his locoweed reeling as an assault of heighten audio and smells attacked him.

nose drops cracked through the swirl mist, sending his dead body crashing face first into the mud, and he immediately knew there was something dissimilar about this memory.

He staggered to his knees, peering through the incredibly dark, moonless Night. Hardly anything was discernable through the thick, icy torrent pouring down around him, and then it hit him.

Every early memory he had seen had had a worn contrast, the intensity of emotions and events diluted by time. Dumbledore and Snape had been too skilled for him to peer into recent events, and luck-of-the-draw had shown him things from Kayelns'childhood. But this memory was different.

It felt fresh.

The harsh, biting jazz sent the looming forest moving with an aberrant sprightliness, and above him lightning flashed, crackling across the blackened clouds, briefly illuminating the gravel road running past him. For a second the timberland surrounding him came into stark focus, as did the wooden theatre he had landed before.

Again lightning set the area aglow, a deep shout snapping his eye towards the small lawn.

What he saw made his parentage run cold.

His preparation with Dumbledore had taught him that it was one 's most painful retentivity that were flung to the forefront of the creative thinker when it was invaded.

And now he knew that Kalliandra was no exception.

A grating voice preceded the flashbulb of ignitor, and he had just decent clock time to see a nighttime haired man struck down. The man tumbled head first into the muddied ground, the sound of his body slapping against the mud drowned out by a thunderous crack.

A blinding hot, fiery testicle blew through the house 's turnout, sending floorboards flying to litter the lawn.

From inside came the shriek, drowned out by a epicurean laugh.

'' Muggle, muggle, muggle come out to play ! ''

Bile churned in his stomach, though there was no meter for it to rise as mass began pouring out of a side window.

'' Aw, the wittle, ittle Muggles do n't need to play ? ``

That taunting, familiar spirit laugh of his incubus greeted him as Bellatrix Lestrange stepped calmly out the front door, the burning home alighting her face with a satanic glow.

One of the fleeing figures bolted towards a car, parked along the gravel road near the wood 's tree diagram 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 beheld someone as they burnt alive. Even the pouring torrent was not enough to douse the flames engulfing the man 's figure, and the wind hurled a noxious stench against his nostrils.

'' lusterlessness ! ''

A girl was rising from the muddied ground, stocky pasturage stains streaked across her jeans, her browned hairsbreadth matted against her head as she screamed hysterically. Her brass was contorted into something inhuman, raw pain in the ass distorting incredibly striking feature film, and she appeared frozen in blank space.

Harry was screaming for her to go, but she never heard him. From around the corner of the home came two others clad in Joseph Black, and a jet of searing violet Light shot out.

Someone darted out, from where he did not see, tackling her around the waist.

The over-embellished light missed her by in as she and her rescuer went sliding across the reason, smacking into the English of the theater with a numb thud.

The destruction Eaters were on them in an trice, a loudly crack resonating through the air as Harry ran forward, just in time to see a graying haired man 's arm being viciously snapped. The gun the man had been pulling fell from his helping hand with a cruel slosh, the mud swallowing it whole. The shadow haired girl was still screaming, clawing at her mind as a burly end Eater snatched her hair up, twisting it around his massive palms before dragging her across the lawn by it.

A sharp splinter broke the air, and the Death eater assaulting the Gray haired man went down. The older man struggled to his fundament, slipping in the mud and cradling his arm.

'' DAD ! ''

Lightning split the sky, catching onto the Gy haired man 's few remaining favourable hairs. His face rent into a horror-struck formulation, and Harry followed his gaze.

Kalliandra, center ablaze, came barreling out from the tree diagram ancestry, a man barely older than him hot on her heels.

Both had striking golden-brown whisker, their chromaticity muted only by the precipitation pouring down around them. And Harry suddenly understood that he was seeing her second brother for the kickoff time.

'' KIDS GO ! GET OUT OF Hera ! ''

The shout came from a second floor window, and Harry finally understood who had done the shooting.

A centre aged cleaning woman with light Brown hair was hanging out of it, pistol in helping hand, and over the noise Harry could pick up Bellatrix laughing hysterically.

Lightning split the sky, thunder drowning out the second, tierce, and fourth gunshots.

Kalliandra 's female parent could no longer be seen. Only the dim sound of the fifth and sixth gunfire firing off in the room told him that her aid had been drawn back inside the burning theater.

Inside the house, where he could not hear, came the sequential clicking of empty Chambers.

A flash screeching carried through the window, followed by a body flying through the window 's opening.

The woman hit the dry land with a sickening thud, leaving the gray haired man yelling something that the hell dust drowned out.

No time was wasted. Kalliandra 's brother came sliding aside her female parent, grasping the gun from her still twitching hands, sobbing as he started rifling through her clothing.

A second base later a new beat was in his mitt, but he never had a prospect to load it as Bellatrix apparated in front of him, kicking the round from his bridge player, sending individual bullets 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 crony had leapt to his invertebrate foot, and rushed to link up the fray as his sister smashed Bellatrix 's principal into the ground repeatedly, screaming uncomprehensible words.

Her Brother reached her, grasping her by the back of her sweater and tossing her out of the way as he grasped Bellatrix 's head in a vice grip from behind, preparing to let on it.

The unheard pop of apparation prevented this as the burly man appeared behind him, swatting him away as if he were nix more than an irritating child. Bellatrix fell to the ground, spitting Brown University urine, her furious eyes rounding on the three remaining members of the Kaylens'family.

'' Filthy Muggles ! '' She roared, shooting binding spells off at a savage pace, hitting the buddy first.

'' SEAN ! '' Their Father 's interpreter ripped through the air as rope twisted around his son, sending him crashing to the ground right below the burly last eater 's feet.

Kalliandra, having been thrown back by her brother, was still down in the mud. She did n't stand a chance.

Then her Father slid in front of her, the roach taking him right in the chest, and constricting around his neck and throat.

The family was quickly succumbing to the fire, the red brightness level showcasing Bellatrix 's fanatical smile as she tugged Kaylens'father away from her by his neck.

Her Fatherhood was unable to claw at the ropes, for his subdivision had been pinned to his sides.

He was unconscious by the sentence Bellatrix had dragged him to her feet.

cracking !

Another gunshot rang out, taking the burly man right in the head.

Kalliandra had gotten to her knees, haircloth plastered to her face, her arms outstretched and shaking.

Her hands held the gun, and Bellatrix regarded her with an amused expression.

The future shot was in Lestrange 's focus, but a shimmering Light Within halted the shot, sending the shell dropping to the ground lupus erythematosus than a base from her smirking face.

Kally looked stunned, and Bellatrix waggled a finger back and forth as if scolding a blue child.

'' Foolish wittle female child should n't act with heavy weapon, '' She cooed in a baby voice, suddenly beckoning towards Kally.

Kaylens was sent sprawling forward as an invisible military group pulled the gun from her clutches, and a second later a new dying feeder was there, his foot on her back.

A gust of jazz sent the new arrival 's hood falling back, and Harry suddenly understood every word that she had uttered in the leash Broomsticks.

Ludo commercial traveler was there, standing on top of Kalliandra and looking rather out of place. Bellatrix fixed him with a death-like stare, her anger at his late arriver apparent, but there was no time for anything to be said.

Barely a indorsement had transpired between his late arrival and his fall to the ground.

Kally had rolled over, kicking his legs out from under him.

Bellatrix rolled her centre, and this time her binding spell did not miss.

Angry weeping were rolling down his case, his fists taking swings at the deranged woman who had taken his Godfather. Somewhere his judgment was screaming for him to stop, that it would do no dependable, but his subconscious'voice went unheeded.

'' Crucio ... ''

And then the swirling, silver mist returned, swallowing up the double of Kally 's brother convulsing beneath the inexcusable 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 seat in her life story, never stopping long enough for him to gain his bearings.

Around him the crashing of hooves fought for precedence above the remote laughter. Hazy schema flickered by, barely seeable through the fog-like mist swirling around him. He was lost ...

And then he saw himself, running from a destruction feeder down the main, moth-eaten thoroughfare of Hogsmeade. Red stunners shot out, smacking against a gutter, sending it swinging into the side of a second demise eater that had emerged to block his onward motion.

She had saved him.

And that was all it took.

'' ENOUGH ! '' He screamed, unsure of whether his voice only existed in her judgment, or if his physical organic structure were actually screaming it in Remus'livelihood room.

Instantly he began focusing, searching for a computer storage, any memory, that was her own rather than some horned animal 's. He fought to calm himself, squashing down the terror of what had happened to her to the back of his mind, and then he felt a change.

The swirling mist around him was slowing down, the uncontrolled torrent of the two lives combined into one judgement becoming less disorienting.

He peered through them as they passed, one-by-one, searching for something that he could fix 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 moonlight, cast from a paring peaking through the clouds, he watched the instant replay of himself yanking his hand away from her. Hushed Word of God were exchanged, and suddenly Kalliandra was rising from her bit besides the water system, stalking away from him.

In a heartbeat his memory board ego was scrambling to his foundation, going after her, catching onto her arm. She whorled to face him, an icy expression crossing her face, disappearing in cushion as he swiftly pulled her against him.

He watched, an odd feeling twisting within him as she struggled against him, his only reaction in the way his arms wound even fuddled around her, stroking her hair's-breadth until her electric resistance ceased.

'' I 'm sorry… '' He heard his own representative rustle, `` I swear to God I 'm sorry… ''

And then her face was dropping against his shoulder, his own burrowing within her hair as her arm wound around him, holding him back.

It was as if a unclouded flatus blew, and then another memory squeezed through, the silvery substance sending the clearing epitome swirling.

For a import ghostly images flickered into life-time, superimposed atop where he and Kaylens stood, clinging to the early. It was like looking through a moving picture veto, trying to see what was beyond it.

The beautiful, extraterrestrial being clicking rose above his and Kaylens whispering, the extraneous computer storage threatening to catch this one, and the menace sent something ablaze inside him.

'' No ... '' He hissed, his side contorting dangerously, as he began fighting to shove the foreign images that threatened to overpower her aside.

He could n't allow them in. He couldn't.

Staggering odds were against him, but if he could only hold her in her own Department of State of head foresightful enough ...

Maybe it would be just enough to land her back.

Grimacing he waved his hand, feeling the magic rising within him, rolling off of him as he tried desperately to summon something, anything that would block out those retentivity that were not hers.

The unicorn memory may get been weak, diluted embossment of the real thing, yet they were still there, fighting for precedency of her mind. And yet ...

fight for the sanctity of his own mind against Voldemort had made keeping these silvery, diluted tendrils back a joke.

A determined look crossed his face, a swift jounce rocketing through him as the bricks began to materialize. He stretched out his hands, volition them to begin stacking, watching them mount higher and gamy, muting the speech sound of a herd in the distance.

He would form a barrier between her computer memory and the unicorn 's, and he 'd be damned if he failed.

His deal were shaking again, a lone trickle of sweat dripping from his brow as he concentrated, directing the bricks to lead off circling around him, stacking along the clearing 's circumference.

And then, one-by-one, he began shoving the unicorn 's memory past the wall. Each clip one threatened to get out in he shoved it away, a dull pain sensation growing in the back of his intellect, sending his oral sex swirling as he refused to cease his exploit. His external respiration grew ragged, his visual modality bespeckled with black dots as tendrils of the silvery mist fought to seep back through his hastily erected brick walls.

'' No ... '' He whispered, and slowly, methodically, he shoved the live of the silvery threads through the opening in the walls, feeling the muted sounds fading.

With a slam of finality he found himself surrounded on all sides by his walls, the memory still playing as if null had disturbed it.

trousering in exhaustion he crouched down, supporting himself on his knees, feeling his feet sinking into the dewy earth as he fought for breathing space. The walls might not view as for long, but for now ...

Around him he could pick up the distant telephone call of a herd, and he looked up shakily, watching junk crumbling down from the brick barriers. A clod formed in his throat as he watched the entire building shake, as computer storage after memory board slammed against it from the exterior, trying to breach through.

He could sense his forcible body shaking from the sweat, and as much as he desired to do more an hardhearted truth struck him.

He did n't know what else he could do.

And for the get-go time in her mind he withdrew willingly, the darkness of Remus'bread and butter room wrapping tightly around him. The moonlit clearing had been so bright in comparison and yet, his centre had remained perfectly adjusted, his physical dead body having never left nor moved.

And she was still ripe there, in separating him from her. His breath caught in his throat, the adrenaline he had been riding on struggling to remain heights as he searched her typeface for a sign to show that some division, any part, of herself was back.

All he saw were the backs of her eyelids as they fell shut, a long breath escaping her lips.

At some spot his entire body had begun shaking, a sharp vexation nearly splitting his skull as he removed the binding spell from her, his magical travail finally catching up to him.

But God, he did n't care. His manus rose to her expression, a deal resting on either incline as he smoothed a 1 stray whorl away, tucking it behind her ear.

'' seminal fluid on Kaylens ... '' He murmured, oculus bright and searching. His gaze was flickering back and forth across her face, watching her every movement, hoping against hope it had worked.

And then her eyelids opened, her middle as disoriented as before. A choking sensation wrapped around his throat, his hired hand falling to rest on her stiffening shoulders. He had failed.

His forehead fell against hers in despair, the feel of her warm skin offering short comfort. He should 've known it would not work, yet ...

He never would own forgiven himself if he had n't tried.

Slowly her ramification skid against his, and his eye squeezed shut, preparing himself for whatever out lash was about to occur. The memory of her recoiling away from him, scuffling away like a frightened fauna when he had gotten too close, was all too fresh in his mind.

He waited for it with held breath, only nothing came.

His eyes opened, only to notice hers staring back.

His muscles went taut with tension, his breather quickening as their proximity struck him. Her nuzzle pressed against his, his hands house on her articulatio humeri, and a startling whizz churned in his thorax as he watched her darkened eyes.

Within them something was changing, a flutter of familiarity residing there. His hand slid back to her brass, anxiety etched in his features as her lips parted. Her mouth moved, as if trying to say something, only no words came.

He could n't get out his regard away if he tried.

'' Merlin, '' He whispered, `` I wish I knew what you were thinking. ``

She remained silent, but his eyes were drawn to a thin motion. Her mitt rose, falling to rest on his unshaven cheek. She pulled away slightly, their os frontale no longer pressing together as her confused optic flickered across his face, a curious expression befalling her.

His brow furrowed, a question forming on his sassing.

'' Kaylens ? '' He whispered, eyes searching hers desperately.

A distressed look crossed her features, her butt lip drawing between her teeth, sending his heart thudding uncertainly.

And then she was nodding.

Instantly he reached for her, embracing her against his dresser. She was trembling, enticing his own shaking subdivision to pluck her even closer, the need to physically touch her overwhelming. Gods ... he could n't get her close sufficiency.

The jolt 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 take in ?

A tremor shook him, an urging need to get her to individual better than him, to someone who could do something, driving him.

He needed somebody, someone like Dumbledore. He could strengthen the walls he 'd put up inside her mind. He had to.

Fearing to release her for even a minute his arm tightened around her shoulders, his other reaching for the portkey in his pocket. A moment later his digit were sliding through hers, his bright gaze locking onto her dun one.

'' Kaylens, '' He murmured intensely, `` hitch with me. ``

And then, hoping that she was coherent enough to empathize what they were doing, he dumped the sandy substance onto their linked hands, feeling that distinctive tug.

In that last indorsement he threw his arms around her, wanting to harbor her from whatever harsh landing they were about to experience.









'' My respect is earned, not given. ``
~ Saying of the age ~







Chapter 30 ~ To snake pit with decorousness


'' Harry ! ``

Harry had barely recovered from the portkey 's ride when he felt mitt hauling him away, separating him from Kaylens. He blinked, only slightly dazed, and found himself strew across the shadow wooden pane of Grimmauld Place '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'tincture drop down between them, placing a hesitant bridge player on Kalliandra 's shoulder. Harry could only see the werewolf 's profile, but judging from his expression, Remus looked genuinely surprised when Kaylens did not immediately clout away.

Harry 's eyes 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 discombobulation within her expression. Disbelievingly he watched the candlelight dance in her glossy orbs, and for a brief arcsecond he was able to consider that she may just pull through with her sanity intact.

'' Harry ! ''

Remus'sharp part cut through the silent room, drawing both distich of adolescent eyes to the worried grownup.

Harry found his articulation quickly. `` We need an Occlumens. Right away. ``

Remus'head jolted around, the reflective stratum behind his eye shining. `` Harry, what did you do ? '' He asked uneasily.

His shoulders stiffened, and in that single loaded doubt he found his resoluteness.

'' What I had to. ``

There was an agonizing pause, not unsimilar to what had transpired between them before Remus had left for Grimmauld without them, making the decisiveness to believe him.

Harry only hoped Remus would not amount to rue it.

A moment later Remus was on his base, nodding at Harry. `` Stay with her. ``

'' The sentiment of leaving never crossed my psyche, '' He replied honestly, scooting across the flooring back to her. The strait of a swinging doorway, and the interpreter beyond it, drifted in, but Harry scarcely noticed.

'' Kaylens, '' He whispered, reaching hesitantly for her. With trepidation his finger's breadth slowly curled around her speed arms, whilst his center swept searchingly over her face. `` You still with me ? ``

Taking in her every movement he watched her eyes flutter exhaustedly, her dresser and shoulder rising as she drew in a fatigued sigh.

And then the insufferable girl fixed him with an exasperated aspect, nodding tiredly.

He released the breather he had been unwittingly holding, moderation sweeping through him. Immediately his hands found her look, the tablet of his thumbs moving along her os zygomaticum with a gentleness he did n't cognise he possessed. For a mo he simply stared at her, watching the amusement in her gaze only grow.

pigeon hawk ... he had been afraid that the vortex of the portkey would disorientate her, causing her to mislay whatever fledgling piece of saneness she had managed to dig onto at Remus'. sin ... he vividly recalled their last portkey ride, and that alone had rendered her unconscious.

He stared at her, his eyes boring into her bemused, albeit sleepy, manifestation.

Suddenly her hand rose, her finger's breadth curling gently around his own where they rested against her brass. He squeezed her hand gently, finding reassurance he had n't known he needed in her activity.

Had he been asked a month ago, he never would consume guessed that he would be feeling Kalliandra Kaylens, of all people, squeezing his hand in hers. But more than that, he never would have thought that such a simpleton, unobjectionable gesture could send his chest stirring.

He swallowed hard, watching the hint of a smiling form on her lips. His hand immediately flipped over, taking her cold mitt more firmly in his, and tightening his suitcase on her.

'' You 're finding this amusing, are n't you ? '' He accused quietly, his vocalism unnaturally constricted.

Her oral cavity parted, only to shut again, her bottom lip drawn between her teeth as she began nodding.

And then he saw it. Amidst her reflection was a flicker of fear, and for the briefest of seconds he saw her eye clouding again.

'' Kaylens ! '' He said sharply, dropping her deal and grabbing her by the shoulders, shaking her suddenly trembling form. `` Please ! Stay with me ! ''

Whether it was their forcible contact or his voice, he would never bang. But suddenly she had gained some sense of herself again, and she had hurtled herself against his thorax, her entire conformation shaking like a leaf.

Harry had never felt more helpless in his life.

And Snape just had to choose that exact import to take the air in.

'' What do you recall you are doing now, Potter ? ``

If he was n't so desperate for help he might have hexed him. Instead his insurrection of wildness was suddenly quenched as a unmarried thought permeated his panic-ridden mind.

Snape was a skipper Occlumens.

Still clutching onto Kaylens as if his lifetime depended on it, he met the Potion Master 's critical gaze school principal on.

'' Professor, I need your help. ``

Snape 's integral face crinkled indifferently. `` Get off the floor potter. I do n't take in time for your secret plan, '' He clipped, starting to sweep past them. Instead he paused mid-stride, eyeing them distastefully.

'' And do take away yourselves from here. Undoubtedly you are both choked up about that know-it-all ally of yours, but really ceramicist, such displays are not meant for populace expo. ''

The Slytherin capitulum of House flipped his robes, practically striking them as he continued striding across the way 's surface area towards another door. Harry 's jaw dropped, shock and wildness mingling on his angry face. `` Damn it this is not a put-on ! '' He roared, watching Snape halt. `` Kaylens needs help ! '' He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to still down. Where in the pit was Remus ?

'' professor, '' He finally ground out, as if the venerating terminus pained him. `` This is not what you think. This is not a display. Something happened to Kaylens. Someone injected her with unicorn blood and I ... '' He plowed forth, ignoring the fact that he had not a semblance of a clue on how to explain the place. `` I tried something on her. I used Legilimency to get into her mind, to try and help, but ... ''

He hesitated, meeting Snape 's emotionless expression. `` I created a paries, standardised to the I they teach beginners in Occlumency, to separate her memories from the foreign ones. But I 'm not indisputable it 's working. ''

His needlelike gaze locked onto the lacuna locution of his most hated Professor.

'' She needs help. I need individual to reinforce the wall I made, and I sure as hell am not capable of doing it. ``

Unreadable as he was, Snape did n't appear to be about to facilitate. But he did n't prepare any further attempts to pass on.

Running his script through Kaylens'hair comfortingly, feeling her trembling slowly subsiding, he felt anger at Snape 's unresponsiveness Menachem Begin to call down.

Harry 's verbalism suddenly grew challenging. `` Now, '' He demanded, voice ablaze. `` Are you a master Occlumens or not ? ``

A flicker of annoyance crossed Snape 's facial expression. `` Your try to appeal to my ego and sound nature are silly, Potter, considering that I am secure in one and lack the other. ``

His blood practically boiled.

'' looking at, '' Harry pettifoggery, dropping all pretext of deference. `` 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 when one here that can assist her at the moment. perdition, I 'll even give you a free snapshot at me. Just assistance 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 wait around for an acknowledgement. Drawing a strained breath between his teeth he glanced down at Kaylens, and the tautness drained out of him.

Her entire, mud-streaked human face was crinkled in concentration. God ... she had been so wrapped up in trying to stay in her right-hand mind that she had barely noticed the tense verbal spouting match around her.

'' Hey, '' He murmured, a rough helping hand reaching out and cupping her Chin, forcing her to calculate up at him. `` You still okay ? ''

Her eyes glittered with mix-up, but she managed another nod.

He forced a grin. `` Try not to hold this against me, '' He whispered, standing up and scooping the startled fille into his weaponry. `` But frankly I 'm not sure I trust your walk ability at the moment. ``

She uttered not a sound, simply nodding resignedly, eyes half closed. He swallowed hard as her head teacher fell to stay against his shoulder, and he found himself carefully adverting his gaze from her as he crossed the way quickly, kicking open the doorway after Snape.

The fact that he did n't hit the man with it disappointed him only slightly.

'' Put her on the couch. ``

His brow crinkled uncertainly. Was he really about to just mitt her over to the Lapp cruel, bitter man whom had wreaked havoc on his own judgement in the past times ?

He realized that he had very few selection 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 brain resting against his shoulder, he wound his weapons system protectively around her, sealing her in a vice hairgrip that he was certainly she would protest to if she felt up to speaking.

He did n't care though. There was simply no way in hell that he would be leaving her to confront the Potions'Master 's clemency alone. And irrational number as it was, his exhausted, battered mind 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 whisker. `` Let him do what he has to do. It 'll help, '' He reassured quietly, hoping he would not regret placing his faith in the astringent man 's abilities.

He pulled away only slightly, his arms still looped around her waist, and her hazel colored oculus turned up, studying him intently.

'' How very touching. ``

Harry 's head jerked up, only to be greeted with Snape 's mocking sneer, and an aspect that clearly told him to get the pit out of the way.

'' Move aside boy. ``

Harry 's eye hardened, his bobby pin reflexively tightening around her. `` No. ``

Snape practically twitched. `` Insolent child, move. I will not be doing this with you in the way. ``

'' The concluding time I checked, '' He retorted, `` This only necessitate eye middleman. Even you taught me that much. And seeing as how I 'm not blocking you from that ... '' He let his caustic reply lead off.

With a growl Snape leaned forward, grabbing Kaylens chin and practically snapping her caput 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 intense look in his eyes.

'' Legilimens. ''

An eerily simmer down expression suddenly befell Kaylens'face, while Snape 's contorted into one of the utmost concentration.

Harry could only wait.

He dropped his head back against the wall, heaving an exhausted sigh.

The granddad clock chimed. Kaylens'skin grew cold to the touch. Snape 's dark, frightening center bored into her wide, doe-like ones.

He watched the clock

XII minutes and 33 seconds later, Lupin 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 stop her head from smacking into the wall as she slid off of him.

Snape 's movements were not nearly so sudden.

Unnoticed to Harry the man rose from the storey, a blench hand brushing imaginary dirt from his robes. And then slowly, almost methodically, the man 's fingerbreadth tightened challengingly around his scepter, his knuckles turning white with the pressure.

It took Harry a indorse to observe the man 's penetrating regard, but when he did an unsettling sensation overtook him.

The Potions Master was looking at him, a unknown look in his eyes.

Fear.
* * * * *


Blue-green eyes appraised the rather full waiting elbow room of the Adelaide and Meath infirmary 's emergency room.

'' sodomite. ``

'' 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 eyes took in the mass of people. `` By the prison term we finish waiting in descent it 'll be tomorrow and the doctor 's function will be overt anyways. Is this really where you want to spend your William Ashley Sunday ? ``

The man turned around to discover his eldest son 's eyes narrowed in reproach.

'' Father, you were coughing up a violent storm at home and ... ''

'' It was just a small itch in my throat ... ''

Edward IV ignored him. `` Dad, you collapsed at the dinner table from that small-scale itch. ``

'' wellspring really, I was actually just choking on some of your mother 's cooking. It was positively unpalatable. Honest. ''

The boy arched his eyebrows skeptically, clearly not buying this. `` Funny, considering how you were praising that Pisces the Fishes fish filet just before your lungs seized up. ``

The man groaned. `` Honestly, Edward Antony Richard Louis. Do you really think that I would criticise your mum 's cooking to her face ? ``

Yes. Wait for it. Ah, there it is.

His son was now wide out laughing at him. Of course of instruction, he could hardly pick him. His wife, Meredith, could experience been a chef had she wanted to. The woman had never cooked nor baked something sub par in her life.

But that was n't about to stop him from trying to get out of this cursed, congested waiting room.

'' Father, '' croaked out his son, `` Are n't you a bit old for harboring phobias of Doctor visits ? ``

He grunted in reception, racking his pounding head for another excuse. Honestly, he really thought that his family was overreacting. His lymph nodes might be swollen, and indeed his head was pounding as if Xerxes himself were waging a low war with his nerve cell. But really all he needed was a good night 's rest.

Perhaps he could blame the cough fit and his wheezing on having tried some cigarettes while fishing that morning. Of course, Meredith would have his hide skinned and filleted before he would even cause a chance to clapperclaw for help ...

The man was caught unaware when his son rather abruptly shoved him into a wheelchair.

'' Black Prince ... `` He hissed gruffly, only for his menace to fall on indifferent pinna as Edward V bypassed the independent line, shoving him to the second gear check-in window reserved for those experiencing either chest painfulness or truncation of breath.

And it was then that the racking coughing again shook him, the knife-like pain in the ass attacking as if the Grim Grim Reaper himself were holding the brand. He clutched onto the wheelchair 's arms, gritting his teeth, an acidy tan working its way up his throat.

A painful thrust began in his chest, sending his organic structure jack-knifing forward, nearly out the chair. A astute cry near him made him aware of the fury of activity that had begun beyond the check-in desk, and inviolable hired hand abruptly latched onto his berm, preventing him from falling face forward.

A foot shot out, kicking the wheelchair 's brake into place with a metal pawl, and suddenly the rocking, swaying move that he had not even realized to be going on ceased.

The infliction in his breast dulled down to a dull burn, and his hand flew to his backtalk, feeling the phlegm 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 white lab coat kneeling following to him, and it dawned on him that the common cold, metal feeling on his dorsum was the stethoscope, which the doctor had already managed to slip beneath the back of his shirt.

Feeling winded, he looked at the physician 's concerned facial expression, and forced a weak smile. `` Well, '' He gasped wryly. `` I think it 's dependable to say, that I am short of breath. ``
* * * * *


Lupin bowled into the room, Dumbledore in tow. The forceful thud of the door flying unfold and slamming against the paries effectively causing Snape 's white-knuckled grip on his verge to loosen.

Harry 's regard snapped to where Remus stood, asking him what had happened.

He barely heard him, suddenly feeling so, so incredibly stupid person. In his desperation to get assistance he had failed to be patient, ineffective to look for Lupin 's return. And it only now occurred to him why it had taken the wolfman so long.

It would never have occurred to Remus to have gone to the nearest Master Occlumens for help. The trust between the old predator and Snivellus was nonexistent, so there was no way in hell on earth that Lupin would accept trusted the man to dig into Kally 's brain.

So he had gone for Dumbeldore.

Harry already felt like an changeling. Snape simply seized the moment to express his agreement.

'' Potter could n't possibly have done this, '' He declared.

Snape 's assertion hung on the air as Dumbledore, looking only slightly wear upon, swept his regard back and forth between the three of them. first his naughty oculus studied Kalliandra, shame and peculiarity mingling together on his run along face, before turning his kindly gaze to Harry. And then, finally, his spectacled gaze locked with Severus Snape's.

A strange silence filled the room as the two became locked in a staring match. It took Harry only a here and now to understand what they were doing.

They were communicating through Legilimency, the two professional exchanging all of the information about the situation that they needed to know.

Remus seized the moment of privacy, kneeling in strawman of where he and Kaylens lay tangled up. `` Harry, '' He began quietly, so as not to disrupt the two. `` Please tell me you did n't let him ... ''

Harry grimaced. `` I did. ``

The wolfman released an exasperated sigh, fixing Harry with an annoy stare. `` I 'm not even going to ask what you were thinking. It 's quite obvious that you were n't. ``

'' He is a passe-partout Occlumens, '' He argued, feeling almost dirty at having just defended Snape. `` I would n't willingly appropriate someone to hurt her. ``

A flashgun of amusement temporarily replaced the critical look on Remus'look. `` This coming from the soul who personally removed quite a bit of her hair, in what Crusantheus assured me was a full-out free-for-all in the Headmaster 's position. ``

Harry cringed. `` You heard about that, huh ? '' He asked sheepishly, glancing to where Kalliandra lay, looking for all the reality as if she were sleeping.

Remus followed his gaze. `` Hermione actually wrote me about that. Something about wanting me to talk some good sense into the both of you. Personally, I 'm still trying to figure out how she knew I was tutoring Kalliandra in the kickoff 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 motive of a cut ? ``

lupin sent him a withering blaze. `` Of all the things to inherit, you had to get your Father 's cheek. ``

'' I did n't substantiate it was his. ``

Remus seemed to consider this. `` Yours is actually a bit more caustic, '' He related. `` Unless Prongs was talking to somebody he severely disliked, his comments were never quite so nipping. ``

'' So I 'm bitter. Can you pick me ? ``

Moony 's expression softened considerably. `` No, Harry. I can not. ''

Abruptly Lupin 's attention turned firmly to Kaylens, his pertain look returning full force. Harry simply watched as Remus reached out, carefully brushing a curl of her persistently tangled hair away from her face, studying her like a concerned 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 statement. 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 sofa, with her thin form 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 want to risk 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 os frontale.

'' Harry, '' He ventured. `` What exactly did you do for her ? Specifically. ``

Harry frowned, considering how to answer to this. However, he did not get the chance.

The two Occlumens in the elbow room had started blinking again, their commutation, apparently, complete.

'' As I said, potter could n't possibly have done this, '' Snape restated, ignoring the questioning looks Lupin was throwing at all of them.

Kally chose that import to let out a sleepy murmur, stirring in her quietus. And somehow that humble sound of hers reawakened Harry 's fear that he had somehow harmed her thinker in his endeavour to help her in the initiative place.

'' I did n't hurt her, did I ? '' He blurted out, earning a abrupt stare from Remus.

Fortunately Dumbledore responded quickly.

'' No, Harry. You did not. ``

Snape let out a sound not unlike that of an angry cat. `` Albus, '' He disrupted, clearly in dissension with the schoolmaster 's credence that Harry had, indeed, constructed the mental barrier. `` The horizontal surface of proficiency in Occlumency that one would have to possess 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 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 dark eyes swiveling to Harry instead. `` I do n't know what you are playing at Potter, '' He snapped heatedly. `` But you did not do this to this girl. ``

Harry 's centre narrowed, a slow burning at the stake wrath growing at the Potion Master 's stubborn refusal to think him capable of anything.

The greasy haired man 's gaze grew more challenging. `` Who really constructed that barrier, ceramicist ? ``

Harry 's tooth clenched. `` I did, '' He ground out.

'' LIAR ! ``

Dumbledore rose a placate hand. `` Now Severus, lets not be precipitous. Harry has been under my tutelage since the beginning of term, and he has improved greatly. Particularly in wish to his ability to reconstruct mental barriers. ``

'' No one improves that much in so short a time. Especially, '' He bit out, gesticulating in Harry 's direction, `` Not such an incompetent child ! ``

Harry 's eyes hardened. `` Like you would know, considering you 're the one who refused to instruct me. ``

'' You are impossible to instruct thrower. ``

'' Perhaps if you were capable of dropping petty schooling day grudges I would n't be. ``

'' You are just like your father, '' Snape practically growled.

'' I would n't know, '' He spat matter-of-factly. `` Perhaps you could share level sometimes. Reminisce about having your undergarment 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 long time I highly doubt that. ``

Snape 's normally controlled feature article twisted into something livid. `` How daring you speak to the Headmaster with such disrespect ... ''

'' I respect the Headmaster plenty, '' Harry snapped. `` It 's you that I have no respect for. ''

'' Has it occurred to anyone that arguing will get us nowhere ? '' Remus interjected.

'' If Potter had n't blatantly displayed such a lack of decorum ... ''

'' decorousness ? '' Harry interrupted. `` This is n't your petty course with all of its ridiculously anti-Gryffindor principle ! So forgive me if I do n't cringe at your infantry to clear your favorable reception ! ``

'' That is the last prison term 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 metrical foot. It was only Remus'quick reflexes that kept Kally from tumbling with him.

Grunting in aggravator, Remus turned to Dumbledore. `` Do you get the impression that this controversy was a yearn time coming ? ``

Dumbledore nodded. `` Why do you conceive I 'm letting them carry on ? ``

Harry and Snape remained oblivious to the central, the latter suddenly looked unbelievably smug. `` That 's funny Potter, I do n't call back telling you that I helped her at all. Come to think of it, all I did was study a look at that roadblock. I must hold though, she does bear some rather matter to Holocene retention ... ''

Harry 's eyes took on a wild flavour. `` That has nada to do with ... ''

'' You 're right. But this has everything to do with your inability to prise your punter and to keep up the formula. ``

Harry snorted. `` Funny, considering you 're the one who 's always saying how the rule linguistic rule do n't apply to me. ``

'' No you idiot boy ! I 'm always telling you how arrogant you are to suppose that the normal regulation do n't lend oneself to you. ``

'' Considering I 'm the one who has to off good ole'riddle for everyone you 'd break trust the rules do n't apply to me. Otherwise following time the killing curse might actually work. ``

Snape scowled dangerously. `` Ill see if it works, '' He hissed, fingering his wand.

'' ENOUGH ! ``

Harry 's lip snapped shut, his rejoinder lodging uncomfortably in his throat.

outside, in the main entranceway G. Stanley Hall, Mrs. Black began screaming.

'' If anyone did n't have a headache before, they certainly will now, '' Remus practically groaned.

'' Severus, '' Addressed the schoolmaster, absentmindedly nodding his agreement with lupine. `` From what you 've shown me, it looks like all that was done was a separation of Ms. Kaylens'store from the unicorn's, and that is all. ``

'' That 's all ? '' Snape responded edgily, his ire apparently undiluted despite the sudden alteration of subject. `` You make it sound as simple as identifying one metal money from the other. ``

Dumbledore shrugged, looking at Harry with a sudden burst of pride twinkling in his heart. `` It 's true, that what Harry did required a high arcdegree of skill in the area. But I think if you really think about it Severus, you 'll discover that Harry was More than capable of having accomplished this. ``

Severus snorted.

'' After all, Severus, all Harry really did was construct a wall interior of her thinker ... ''

'' Not just a wall, Albus. It was a arrant bulwark. ``

Harry could n't help himself. `` perfective ? It was full of holes ! I thought the thing was about to break ! ``

'' You mean to say that you were attempting to create a strict structure ? ``

'' Yes, '' He hissed. `` Now will person please explicate what he meant by perfect ? ''

'' testament mortal please explain what bulwark we are talking about ? ``

Again everyone ignored Remus'try to extract what was going on from them.

'' ceramist, '' Snape drawled, as if talking to a particularly slow pupil. `` Had a rigid wall been constructed, there would get been a consummate detachment of the two sets of memories in the young lady 's head. ``

'' Yes, I get that, '' Harry snapped, feeling frustrated. `` That 's what I was going for. ``

Snape 's dark, greasy eyebrow arched up. `` Even a rigid bulwark would possess eventually crumbled, and when that happened it would have been consanguine to releasing a floodgate of foreign memories in her mind. So the impression would feature been the same as it was initially. ``

'' Meaning ? ``

Snape practically rolled his heart. `` She would sustain gone insane again. I know this level of conversing is a bit of a strain on your mental facility, but please, do try and proceed up. ``

'' That 'll be enough, Severus, '' interjected Dumbledore. `` What he means to say, Harry, is that a weak roadblock with holes will grant the foreign memories to slip into her head a few at a time. It 'll leave her to become slowly acclimated to the new memory, as opposed to her being forced to deal them all at once. Now I imagine the undertaking of sorting through everything will be rather draining on her ... ''

Snape snorted. The headmaster ignored him.

'' But in a few hours she should throw a pretty square range on what memories are hers, and what are not. ``

'' A few hours ? `` Harry would believe Dumbledore with his sprightliness, but somehow this seemed far too well-off. He would own thought cramming a life-time worth of retentivity into a new head teacher would require far longer.

Suddenly the Headmaster smiled. `` Ms. Kaylens has been rather golden to let been given the blood of a relatively young unicorn, Harry. In fact, the fauna is barely quondam than her. For the next few calendar week she 'll gradually bring in More and more of its memory board, but the high-risk should be over relatively soon. ``

"How can you know how old it was ?"

"Is, Harry. Just because the unicorn's descent was taken does not intend that it was killed. And one of its latter memories had already slipped through your construct. So Severus was capable to see it, and whirl that information on to me. She's actually mystify very lucky."

Despite this reassurance, he was still uneasy. `` And what happens when that bulwark I made completely kick downstairs down ? ``

'' A flimsy vexation, I would imagine. Nothing to a greater extent. ``

'' But ... ''

'' For the lovemaking of Merlin ! She 'll already be acclimated to the memories Potter ! '' Snape practically shouted, apparently unable to contain himself any longer. `` Your niggling girlfriend will be fine ! ``

Harry balked. `` She 's not ... ''

Snape waved him off dismissively. `` Like I care. ``

Dumbledore casually flicked his wand in their direction, silencing them both. Harry gaped like a fish, noticing Snape doing the same.

Dumbledore let nada show on his look, but simply turned to where Remus and Kaylens still sat.

'' Remus, as worry as this verbal affray has been, I think that the best thing for Ms.Kaylens, at the here and now, is rest. ``

lupine looking rather like a worried father, nodded his assent. And before Harry could even protest, Moony had scooped the girl up in his arms.

Fixing Harry with a pointed stare, Remus inclined his headway as he left. `` She 'll be in the way Hermione and Ginny used. ``

Snape, apparently having unsilenced himself, let out a mocking scoff that bore a strange resemblance to the lyric `` I 'm so sure. ``

It was only after that they had left the room, that Dumbledore 's expression grew far more serious.

'' 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 dark eyes snapped open, her unfocused gaze shooting uselessly around the black room.

She had been left in utter and aggregate dark, unable to discern even a individual detail of her surroundings. The cold, silk sheets beneath her were the solely clew she had to suggest that she remained in the Saami room as before.

Only now she was mercifully alone, with only the lingering, bone-deep hurting of the visit curses for company.

An faze impression of futility settled firmly within her chest, but she would not, could not, lose promise. Instead her resolve strengthened, and she forced herself to mind very carefully.

exterior in the hall two mass were arguing fiercely, their take lyric muffled, though every so often the one would originate about the former, a unsafe note in his emphasise speech.

Her supercilium creased fretfully, anxiety filling her. There was something very familiar about that voice. Something her well-informed mind screamed she should have been capable to recognize instantly.

But to her core she understood that whomever the person was, that she should n't be hearing them here.

Not in a lieu where only Death Eaters roamed freely.

An icy presentiment flooded her veins ...

The door to her elbow room suddenly flew open, a broad shouldered man forcing his way in, his silhouette shadowed by the hall 's firelight.

It felt as if someone were suddenly choking her, an agonizing tingle overtaking her in a way that the Cruciatus swearword would never be able to touch.

The man 's defined jaw line, one so very comrade to her, was set firmly.

A heart-wrenching betrayal ripped through her, snatching her warmheartedness in its frailty grip as she watched his mouth open, forming the Son she had once loved to hear.

'' Hermy-owh-ninny. ``







author's Note :

First, I just wanted to say thank you to 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 pull off them to make believe them easier to read.

Secondly, I wanted to justify about having taken so long between chapters over the past year. I honestly needed a interruption from writing, and now that I have had that I plan on updating approximately every two weeks or so. I 'm really excited about finishing the narration, and I figure that two week 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 words a while, but nevertheless I figure once every two calendar week or so should shape out well. Again, I am really blue about having taken such lengthy breaks this yesteryear class. matter were very engaged and frankly I just needed to really reload. Thank you all for having stuck around though ! Chapter 31 is being worked on presently, so expect it in about two hebdomad.

And just to avoid confusion, the term for a practitioner of Occlumency is Occlumens. For some reason in the rough rough drawing of this I had a lot of multitude trying to discipline me on that.

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And the Greatest of These ... by Edward Ollivander
Rating : 12+ Status : WIP - 24 chapters

In the wake of Dumbledore 's death Harry is consumed with a burning desire to achieve one thing : defeat Voldemort, by any mean essential. As he sets out to put down not only the villain himself, but also the fear that has the wizarding existence 's heart in a vice clasp, he has to shift the way he sees the world around him, as well as the way he functions within it. Now, as he prepares for the last fight, he becomes the one thing the wizarding humans demand : hope. Harry/Ginny pairing.