Content Harry Potter Miscellaneous
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Author Notes:

BYOT for happy stuff this time, as we finally find out about the Horcrux Vivens…

Dozens of tiny campfires glowed on the greensward of Sanctuary like red and yellow flowers, as families and friends gathered together for one last peaceful night before the siege and battle awaiting them in the morning. Laughter rang through the air, coupled with, and often caused by, the words "Do you remember…"

"Do you remember the day the chimney cracked in Ginny's room?" Bill was just saying as Harry joined the Weasleys at the fire they were sharing. "When you kept trying and trying to make your firecalls, Mum?"

"Oh, goodness, yes!" Mrs. Weasley laughed. "I would get the fire lit, poke it up to a fit state to support a Floo connection, turn around to get the Floo powder off the table, and whoosh!" She flicked the fingers of both hands outwards. "Out it would go!"

"It took you three or four tries to realize it wasn't anything that you were doing wrong," Bill took over again. "Meanwhile, upstairs, poor little Ginny was trying to nap…"

"And poor little Ginny didn't like her room filling up with smoke." Ginny shoved her brother's shoulder affectionately. "So every time it started happening, I made it stop."

"You were too little to know that making it stop was the same thing as putting out the fire." Mr. Weasley lifted a burning stick from the edge of the fire and held it up to Ginny, who blew it out with a brisk puff of air. "Plenty of children do that, especially if they're angry because they want their parents to pay attention to them rather than the Floo fire, but rarely so young as you—you were three, I think? Yes, that's right, because that was the summer before Charlie started Hogwarts…"

"And met this one for the first time." Charlie squeezed Tonks in a side-hug, and got a friendly nip on the ear in return. "Do you remember our Opening Feast?"

"I know I fall down a lot, but that doesn't mean I hit my head and forget about it every time," Tonks retorted. "Yes, of course I remember…"

Harry sat back to let the stories wash over him, both those he'd never heard before and those long familiar to him from cozy firelit den nights and lazy sun-filled afternoons. Whatever was coming tomorrow, tonight they had each other.

More than the rest of the Pack suspects, even. He cupped his pendants in his hands, thinking a command towards them, and had to suppress his grin as two of the engraved figures glowed with golden light. Pearl gave up her powers, so the bargain could start to be fulfilled, and I was right about the other thing…

Even inside his mind, he didn't examine 'the other thing' too closely. Counting one's Fwoopers before they hatched was never a good idea.

And since I need them all alive and singing to drive Voldemort properly mad out in the Forest tomorrow night, I'd better let them hatch in their own sweet time.

"Oh, that's nothing," he said as Tonks finished the story of how she'd fallen on her face in her excitement at being Sorted where she'd wanted to be. "Do you remember, Ron, how Neville was so flustered at getting into Gryffindor that he took off for the House table still wearing the Hat?"

Ron snorted. "I don't remember much of anything about that night except trying not to sick up from nerves, but I'll take your word for it…"


Fox, curled into a compact ball in Luna's lap at the next fire over from the Weasleys', pricked up his ears with interest as he heard a familiar pair of voices.

"…telling you, I saw him," Dean Thomas was saying with some heat a short distance away. "In Animagus form, sure, but how likely is it there's going to be another one of those around?"

"Except that he's dead," Seamus Finnegan shot back. "Has been for months. Don't you think Harry or Hermione or somebody would have told us if he weren't?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. And look who is over there." A hand shot out in the darkness, indicating Luna. "Since when did you see one of them without the other one?"

"Well, if he's dead…"

"Maybe we should go talk to them," Luna murmured to Fox. "Only if you want to, though."

Fox considered it, then nodded his head. I can't be shy of people forever, he thought "loudly" in Luna's direction. I'll want you there with me, and it'll need to be short, but I think I can handle Seamus and Dean for a minute or two.

"Of course." Luna got to her feet, uncoiling Fox and hanging him around her neck stole-style. Fox squirmed once to distribute his weight more comfortably, then went limp as Luna stepped away from the fire in the direction of his dormmates.

"Hello," she said, bringing both their heads around to face her. "Did you want me?"

"Luna, hi." Dean stuck out his hand for Luna to shake, with Seamus just behind him. "Good to see you again. Maybe you can tell us. I could have sworn I saw—"

"That?" said Seamus, pointing to Fox. "Assuming it's alive, that is."

Bring that finger a little closer and you'll find out, Finnegan. Fox bared his teeth, startling a yip out of Seamus and a half-stifled oath from Dean, then swung his back paws down from Luna's shoulder and changed in mid-air, standing up human just behind her.

"Good God." Dean took a step back. "Oh good God that's strange. You look like you—but then you look like Hermione—what the hell—"

"My husband, Reynard Beauvoi," said Luna in introduction, turning her serene smile back towards Fox for a moment. "You knew him by a different name before, but he's still the same person he ever was."

"For whatever that's worth." Fox shrugged. "Glad to see you two."

"Oh, God." Dean turned away to pace in a tiny circle, his hands clutched against his head. "Now you still sound the same, but you don't look the same, I can't deal with this—"

Seamus peered closely at Fox by the light of the nearby fires and the stars gleaming down from the enchanted ceiling above. "Do you want it back?" he asked with no preamble.

"What, my broomstick? Not after your stinky arse has been sitting on it for six months I don't." Belatedly, something occurred to Fox, and he snorted a laugh. "Wait. Was that a test?"

"Never hurts to check." Grinning, Seamus offered his hand, and Fox shook it firmly. "Glad to see you back. Reynard, she said?"

"Fox for everyday. Just like before. And yes, you'll get the whole story of how and why and what exactly happened," Fox added before Seamus could ask. "Not yet, though. We've kind of got a war to finish first."

"But if I die tomorrow, I don't get to find out?" Seamus frowned. "That's not fair."

"So don't die tomorrow," said Luna reasonably. "They probably won't be casting to kill anyway. They want us alive, as many of us as they can manage. For breeding."

Seamus grimaced as Dean let out a fresh groan. "Thanks so much for sharing that, Luna."

"You're welcome." Luna beamed, and held out her hand to hoist Fox back onto her shoulders as he retransformed. "Sleep well!"


The sun had barely risen over Hogwarts before the Death Eaters were awake, casting careful spells over the tunnel-ridden ground between themselves and Hogwarts's walls. From the towers, picked teams of Order members, Aurors, Red Shepherds, and DA watched their progress, until a parade of Weasleys mounted the stairs of the Astronomy Tower, each levitating a box. Under Ron's guidance, the boxes were unpacked, and the machine which had made the trip in pieces assembled.

"What is it?" asked Maya, walking a circle around the compact contraption.

"It's a catapult." Ron patted the spoon-shaped arm which ran diagonally through the machine's center. "And it's going to help us give the Death Eaters a really, really bad day. Water bomb!"

"Water bomb," responded Fred, and conjured the named item in the cup of the "spoon".

"Stand clear, please." Ron turned the catapult slightly to the left and adjusted its angle of attack, muttering to himself. Then he pulled the lever on one side of the mechanism, and the arm snapped forward, hurling the water bomb into the air. Everyone rushed to the front of the tower, only to see the colorful missile strike several feet short and well to one side of the startled Death Eaters.

"These are just ranging shots," explained Fred as Ron began to adjust the catapult's aim again, muttering more fiercely than before. "Once we're hitting them, then we'll put something in there they won't like at all."

"Er." Lee shifted from one foot to another. "Problem. If they can see them coming, why won't they just Vanish them before they ever get there?"

"Two answers." Fred nodded sagely. "And the first one is, that's if they see them coming. We could Disillusion them if we had to. But we won't, because the second one involves a spell we spent a month and a half perfecting for the fireworks. Remember?"

"Why, yes." Lee started to grin. "Yes, indeed, I do."

"Water bomb!" Ron called again, peremptorily, and Fred snapped his wand towards the catapult's cup. "Stand clear!" This shot fell much closer, the Death Eaters' defending spells missing it by several feet, and the yells of outrage as the Dark wizards were splattered with water brought cheers and laughter from the defenders of Hogwarts.

"Excellent." Ron nudged the catapult very slightly to one side. "Now, let's give them a few for free and let them get their eyes in. So to speak." He glanced down the stairs. "Hermione!" he called. "Any luck with that potion?"

"It's coming," his girlfriend's irritable voice floated back. "Keep your robes on!"

"Even after you're engaged, she still won't budge on that one?" Fred shook his head sadly. "Harsh."

"Shut up and reload." Ron glared at his brother, before turning back to his new favorite toy. "Stand clear!"

The third water bomb flew straight and true for the Death Eaters' working party, at the far edge of the mined ground between their camp and Hogwarts, but one of them raised a wand almost lazily and the missile disappeared in midair.

"Perfect." Ron nodded in satisfaction. "Give them a couple more, just like that…"

Action was suited to word, with three more water bombs being launched, flying beautifully through their arcing trajectories, and meeting their fate in the form of a Vanishing Charm before they could strike the Death Eaters. A few of the Order members looking on had begun to murmur to each other, looking concerned, when Hermione appeared at the top of the stairs, carrying a sealed beaker in each hand. Neville, Meghan, and Luna were behind her, each carrying two more beakers, and all four of them were smiling like they'd found a thirteenth use for dragon's blood.

"Excellent." Ron held out a hand to Fred. "Empty balloon."

"Empty balloon." Fred conjured it.

"Spell, please."

"Spell, thank you." Fred's wand traced several rune-like characters on and around the balloon, finishing with a murmured four-part incantation. "All right, it's ready." Levitating the balloon, he wafted it towards Ron, who used his own wand to pull the neck open wide. With great care, each of the four other Warriors present (in human form, as Fox was observing with interest from Luna's shoulders) poured the contents of their beakers into the balloon, which Ron then tied off tightly.

"Load," he said, and Fred lowered the balloon into the catapult's cup. "Everyone stand well clear. And if you've got a good sense of smell, now'd be the time to change that," he added in Maya and Lee's general direction. "Ready, aim—"

His hand yanked the lever back, and the balloon soared into the air.

Below, one of the Death Eaters raised a wand idly to Vanish this annoyance.

The balloon promptly multiplied itself by five.

The Death Eaters stared, yelled, pointed. A few of them tried to run or Apparate away. Only two succeeded before the balloons struck the ground all around them with a great slushy splat.

The shrieks and yelps of disgust which rose to the defenders' ears were followed closely by a waft of an odor which made their source quite clear indeed.

"It's Harry's mum's slug potion," said Hermione proudly, as Lee swiftly conjured a Bubble-Head Charm around the top of the Tower and Maya, one hand over her face, began the three steps of the Scent Removing Spell. "Unless they know the proper counterspell, or they have someone good enough to analyze the potion and figure it out, they won't have much luck getting the smell off them. Or out of that area."

"And if you can't breathe, you can't very well work." Ron slid behind the catapult to hug Hermione. "They could use Bubble-Heads themselves, but that'll slow them down quite a bit. And that's the whole point of this. Delay, delay, delay. We don't want them on the grounds until right about sunset."

"Because that's when Harry's plan will come off, right?" Lee peered appreciatively down at the Death Eaters, some being sick in a convenient clump of bushes, others frantically casting Scourgify after Scourgify on one another with no effect. One had accidentally run onto the undermined ground in his panic, and nothing could be seen of him except a neat round hole in the dirt with a few halfhearted sparks spraying upwards from it. "What's he going to do, exactly?"

"Well." Hermione turned in Ron's embrace to smile at Lee. "I could tell you. But then I'd have to throw you off the Tower."

"I think maybe I'm better off not knowing." Lee leaned against one of the upthrust merlons. "Give me a hint, at least?"

"Ever look real close at his name?" Ron gestured with each syllable. "Vol-de-mort. Fly-from-death. He's seriously scared of death, and he gets around that by controlling it, deciding who gets to live and who has to die. But what if he didn't control it anymore? What if someone else did instead?"

"Which doesn't tell me much. But messing with Voldemort's head has to be a good thing." Lee glanced from Ron and Hermione to Neville and Meghan, finishing with Luna and Fox. "Just tell me he's not going to control any death for any of you."

"He won't." Luna shook her head. "As far as he'll know, it wouldn't do any good. Because all the people we intend to show him?" She smiled. "He thinks they're already dead."


Inch by painful inch, the Death Eaters advanced towards Hogwarts. Catapulted showers of potions or bespelled sticks and stones fell among them, nearby vegetation reached out to trip them or hold them in place, the goblin tunnels proved ever trickier to successfully brace, fill in, or avoid, but still, they advanced. Their fear of their Master, and his anger if they did not advance, was greater than any desire to avoid the nuisances and annoyances ahead.

Shortly after noon, they arrived at the physical walls of Hogwarts, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Then they looked up.

"What're we doing here?" asked Patroclus Nott in annoyance, staring at the crumbling drystone wall. It couldn't have been much taller than his waist, and in the distance he could see a ruined castle, barely more than a manor house, boarded up here and there, with a flaring sign declaring it condemned and dangerous to enter. "They've pulled a switch on us! Someone examine that ground for a hidden Portkey!"

The Death Eaters spread out, looking diligently at the ground they had just passed over, seeking for any signs of the method their enemies had used to transport them from where they'd been to where they clearly now were. As Patroclus checked his own sector, he felt a small hand tap against his leg.

"Letter for you, sir," chirped a familiar voice.

"Oh. Thank you." Patroclus accepted the parchment envelope and slit it open with his wand, wondering idly why the encounter seemed so odd to him.

The explosion caved in the goblin tunnels beneath, which had only been roughly stabilized, for a radius of approximately twenty feet, engulfing three other Death Eaters in the resulting landslide. Only a few scraps of Patroclus Nott's robes were ever found.


From a nearby copse of trees, Brilly the house-elf snickered to herself, and Apparated back to the Hogwarts kitchens. Her little master and her new little mistress were safe now, and whether they came home tomorrow or in a year from now or when the little-master-to-come was ready to go to Hogwarts, Brilly would be waiting for them.

She hoped it would be sooner rather than later, but one oughtn't to be greedy. A fine upstanding beau with a little master and mistress of his own in the offing, a steady job at Hogwarts until her chosen family returned, and the chance to deliver her former master an exploding letter should quite satisfy any reasonable house-elf.

As she picked up another pile of bandages to supply a medic station, she wondered how long it would take the Death Eaters who were left to stop focusing on the explosion and figure out how they'd been fooled.


After attempting to rescue the people who'd been buried in the goblin tunnels (only one of whom survived long enough to be reached) and dealing with the secondary cave-ins caused by those attempts, the advance party of Death Eaters continued their search for the mysterious method by which they'd somehow been transported away from the outskirts of Hogwarts. They'd signaled to the rest of their compatriots, back in the camp, not to come forward until the precise trigger point had been located, which was starting to worry Amycus Carrow. The day had begun just after sunrise, and here it was, nearly halfway through the afternoon, and they were stalled dead. If they took much longer finding out the trick, the Dark Lord wouldn't be pleased…

"Amycus," whined Alecto from the base of the crumbled stone wall, where she was sitting with her legs crossed, her arms folded across her chest and an outrageous pout on her face. "Play with me, Amycus!"

And why she couldn't have fallen into one of those holes, or knocked her head against the wall, or— Amycus paused in the middle of his mental rant, a smile growing across his face. "You want to play?" he said, drawing his wand. "All righty, then, let's play. You remember how to count, don't you? One, two, three, four?"

"Ooh!" Alecto bounced in place, clapping her hands, her pout magically replaced by a beaming grin which showed off her stained, misaligned teeth. "Yes, yes! One, two, three, four, seven, eleven, ten!"

"Something like that." Amycus beckoned with his free hand. "Let's see those fingers, now, dearie. Yes, that's right, put them here…good." With his wand's tip, he coated Alecto's palms and fingertips with thick green paint. "Now, I want you to go count up all the stones in that wall, and touch each one with your finger to make sure you don't count it twice. Understand?"

"Yes." Alecto nodded hard, her head bobbing absurdly at the end of her thick neck. "Count the stones. Yes."

"Keep her busy for a while," muttered Amycus as his sister stumped back over to the wall, "let me get a bit of blasted work done…"

Another hour of frustration brought him no closer to a solution of how the too-clever defenders of Hogwarts might have concealed the spell which had changed the Death Eaters' location. With a sigh, Amycus straightened his back, and looked over towards Alecto.

Rows of little green fingerprints smudged the stones of the crumbling wall, and then marched upwards into the air above it. Alecto was grunting with effort, trying to reach still higher above her head, as she leaned her entire weight against what was, apparently, empty space.


Fred sat on the edge of the Astronomy Tower, his wand in his hand, levitating the end of an Extendable Ear out towards the walls. "And they've figured out the reversed Muggle-repelling spell," he reported after a moment. "Air ought to be turning blue around them any minute, the kind of language they're using."

"Well, we never thought it would last even this long." Percy scratched another item off his list. "Rather foolish of them, don't you think, not to recognize what Hogwarts looks like to Muggles?"

"Why should any of them care what Muggles see?" Crystal shrugged. "They never have before."

"True enough." Percy ran a finger down the scroll in his hand. "So that leaves us with those three layers of magic-deflecting wards, and a few little surprises within the walls themselves. Correct?"

"Correct," confirmed Crystal, glancing down at her own list, then up at the sun. "But we don't have that much longer to wait, do we? The wards ought to last as long as we need them."

"I certainly hope they do." Percy started for the stairs. "Still, for safety's sake, perhaps we should start getting everyone into their final positions a bit early…"


Near the edge of Sanctuary, Colleen Lamb stood quietly, gazing up at the Gryffindor crest, through which the sun no longer shone, though its rampant golden lion on a crimson background could still be clearly seen against the simulated sky.

"I've never understood it," she murmured, half to herself, half to the symbol of her House. "Why should anyone think I'm brave? Can't they see how frightened I am? Can't they tell how hard my hands are shaking, how much my knees are trembling, how for two Knuts I'd turn and run away?"

But no one was offering her two Knuts, and the Head Girl badge on her Hogwarts robes next to that very same rampant lion meant people would be looking at her, looking to her, trusting in her to do the right thing. If she turned and ran away, so would some of them, and in a war like this one, a single wand could be the difference between victory and defeat.

"And besides, it's not that difficult, what I have to do." Colleen brushed her hands down her robes, starting to smile. "Blaise and I together, so that makes it even easier. Just at the last moment of our fighting at the walls, after it looks as though we're beaten and running away. We have to stop, we have to turn back and face them, and we have to say, both of us, 'Welcome to Hogwarts'—it can sound sarcastic and rude, but we know we mean it, and that's what counts."

"Because it means that even if the Death Eaters don't realize it, they haven't broken in here," said Blaise from her left, startling a gasp from her. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you heard me."

"As quietly as you walk? I never do." Colleen blew out her breath. "Just going over things with myself, one final time. It hardly seems real, you know. Everything in here is just like it always is. How can we be getting ready to have a battle?"

"I don't know." Blaise held out an arm, and Colleen fit herself into his embrace. "But I know as long as I'm fighting next to you, it will be very hard to lose."

"You give such nice compliments." Colleen laughed a little. "Strange, but nice."


Out in the Forbidden Forest, Harry sat astride the branch of a tree, watching and listening as Luna and Sangre the basilisk renewed their acquaintance in the more intimate terms to be expected now that Luna could speak Sangre's language. Luna, with her usual nonchalance in any situation, had even taken Harry's own usual place astride one of Sangre's cool, slick coils, and was stroking the glistening scales with affection as she told the story of how she and her Consort had fooled Sangre's faithless former Master.

"I could almost believe," said the great snake thoughtfully when the tale was done, "that you are the Master I was truly hatched to serve—or should I say, the Mistress?" Her forked tongue flickered out and in humorously. "That the other who used me to kill humans some few dozen years ago, and possessed others to try to do the same only a few years past, was some kind of great cosmic accident."

Harry snorted. "That's one way I've never heard Voldemort described before," he said, drawing both females' attention upward. "But it fits. Except that nothing about him is accidental. He likes what he does, and he won't stop until he's stopped."

"And that is your job, my human eggling." Sangre lifted her head and nudged Harry gently with her great blunt nose. "Do it well, and come to see me afterwards. And do not fear to walk in the Forest tonight—the many-legged ones who used to dwell in the clearing near here were leaderless and disorganized after their patriarch died, and I took advantage of the moment to scatter their clan. If any of them remain in these parts, they never dare to come near me while I hunt, and I believe I feel the urge to hunt tonight."

"Just don't get too near the men with their wands," Luna urged, sliding down the basilisk to the Forest floor. "We don't want you to get hurt."

"What she said." Harry dropped from his branch onto Sangre's broad back, and thumped his fist affectionately against her scales before joining Luna on the ground. "Take care of yourself, Sangre, and I'll see you after—"

The earth and sky around them seemed to tremble for a moment, though as Harry realized dizzily, nothing physical had moved. The leaves on the trees, the twigs on the ground, both revealed by the fireball he'd set to hover in the air above them, were precisely where they had been a few moments before—

But the fireball itself was coruscating, shimmering back and forth through all the colors of the rainbow and a few more that weren't.

"Magic." Harry put out a hand to the nearest tree to steady himself. "It's the magic, the school's magic, something's happened—it's him, Voldemort, he must have broken through, he's here already—"

"It can't be, Harry," Luna broke in urgently. "Just feel! Whatever's going on, it's happy. Hogwarts is glad tonight." Her face seemed to glow in the soft golden light the fireball was now giving off. "Someone it likes very much has come back."

"Someone it—" Harry stopped, and sketched two symbols with fire. Luna nodded, beaming, and took a few running steps forward before leaping up, her strong white wings beating the air to gain altitude.

"I have to go, Sangre," said Harry unsteadily, as his friend's head turned towards him. "Something wonderful has happened."

"I am glad for you, Harry." Sangre wrapped her tongue once around his wrist, then turned and slithered away. "Goodbye," her voice floated back out of the darkness under the trees.

Blowing out the fireball, Harry dropped to all fours and raced out of the Forest as Wolf, bounding swiftly across the Hogwarts lawns, darting around guardposts and leaping the not-yet-activated defensive lines. The castle loomed up in his vision, all its comfortingly familiar angles and towers, but something was moving atop the tallest one—

A burst of fire blossomed in the darkening sky, then died back to reveal the flag which now flew above Hogwarts castle. Its cloth was the rich red of the Gryffindor crest, and a silver serpent wove sinuously about its border, highlighting the trio at its center, also sewn in shimmering argent. A lion leapt across the cloth, his mane ruffled by the wind of his passage, with two crowned women seated on his back.

The silence of the dusk was broken by a long, clear, triumphant howl.


In an unused classroom at Hogwarts, Ron and Neville watched via the copy of the Marauder's Map Mr. Padfoot had made for them as their families and friends took their places in the defense posts outside. Near the window, curled together in Animagus form, Fox and Neenie napped on a pile of dust covers. The Death Eaters had already carved their way through one of the three sets of wards which had reinforced Hogwarts's walls, and the fighters at the outer defenses, mostly DA skirmishers and Order members, were preparing for their spirited but ultimately futile battle.

We'll need to get out to the Forest before they break through. Ron glanced over at the untidy heap of fur which was his fiancée and her twin, and wondered once again if it was time to wake them up. They had lead roles in tonight's little drama, after all.

Just as glad it's not me. I'd start fumbling and stumbling, and that would give everything away.

His eye was caught by his own surname, twice repeated, as Percy and Fred's dots of ink crossed the grounds to a spot on the outer line near a small crew of DA skirmishers he knew vaguely, not terribly far from Hagrid's Place. That'll probably be their retreat, then. Into the house, under the bed, and down the passage to Sanctuary…

"Knut for your thoughts," said Neville quietly.

"Just tracing out how it'll go, once they're through." Ron ran his finger along the various routes the defenders could take to safety, whether that meant one of the many secret passages into the castle or simply reaching the inner lines of defense. "Harry locked that passage by the lake, didn't he, the one that opens to Parseltongue? Not that I think Voldemort knows anything about the Hogwarts Den, but this'd be a bad time to find out I'm wrong."

"You know, I'm not sure if he did or not." Neville got to his feet. "Why don't I pop down to the Den and check? There's this little spell I can do on the wall of the passage that'll tell me if access has been restricted—"

The door of the classroom creaked, bringing both boys' eyes up.

Ron thought the sound that came out of his mouth might have been spelled "Erk", if it could have been spelled at all. Neville, beside him, didn't seem to be breathing.

The two creatures who had provoked this response walked unhurriedly across the room, to the pile of fur by the window. One dainty paw reached out to separate the pair, and each predatory head dipped and came up with a smaller creature of its own approximate kind hanging from its mouth. A friendly bow towards Ron and Neville, and the twosome left the room as silently as they had entered it, the door closing itself behind them.

"Erk," Ron said again, then ran his fingers across his closed eyes, for the first time since his sight had been changed doubting what they told him. "That wasn't my imagination," he finally managed to get his voice to croak out. "Right?"

"I'm pretty sure I saw what you saw." Neville started to sit down, hissed a little when the chair wasn't where he'd expected, and lurched backwards to where it actually was. "If what you saw was completely and totally impossible."

"Pretty much it was. Except we saw it, so…wait." Tiny bits of information, disregarded at the time, were starting to work themselves in a whole in Ron's mind, rather like reaching the point in a chess game where he could see how to force the mate he wanted, or the moment in a Chaser's approach where it became clear through which hoop they'd try to score. "I think, I just think, I might understand. And if I'm right…" He blew out a long breath, and grinned on the end of it. "We need to go find the others. Because if I'm right, we have the perfect addition to what we were already planning to do."

"How so?" Neville rolled up the repeater-Map and tucked it under his arm.

"We were hoping to mess with Voldemort's mind by showing him people alive who he's completely sure are dead." Ron started for the door. "Who'd cap that off better than someone he killed his very own self?"


Fox awakened all at once, a moment of confusion replaced swiftly by relief as he recognized the walls and floor of a different classroom to the one where he'd fallen asleep, then by fury at his deplorable lack of reaction. What the hell—that should never happen, no one should ever get close enough to me while I'm sleeping to move me! Not unless it's Pack or Pride, and it can't have been, unless it's Ron pulling some stupid prank and it had better not be, not this close to the end of things—

So far his mental rant had reached when he happened to take a breath, and all coherent thought ceased in simple shock as his nose gave him the identity of the person who had moved him. She was about as far from Ron as she could be while still being within the two groups he'd named, and it was impossible that she could be here, now, alive and well—

Except that here she is, the back of his mind whispered. And what else did Harry go to bargain for, if not for this?

Changing back to human, he rose to his feet and turned in a single swift, flowing motion.

"There you are." Danger had seated herself on the edge of one of the desks, and was resting some of her weight on her palms, her eyes unwaveringly fixed on him. "Are you all right?"

Fox started forward, then stopped. "You can't be real," he said, his voice harsh as he willed his disbelief into play. Surviving that little charade of mine without getting myself or Luna killed was highly unlikely, the Mark being removed without someone dying was well-nigh impossible, but a miracle of this sort is just a little too much for me…

"Oh, but you can be?" Danger snorted. "Little Mr. 'I think I'll play dead for nearly five months' is questioning my right to reality? Why, for two Knuts I'd—no, I think I'll do it anyway." She whisked two fingers in a brisk circle, and Fox yelped as flame winked into and out of existence around his head. "There, that's better. Who on earth cut your hair the first time?"

"Er." Fox tried to remember over the sudden tumult inside his mind. "Harry. I think."

"Typical." Danger sighed, sliding off the desk. "Give that boy a few pots and pans or a broomstick and he'll give you back a work of art, but visually gifted he is not and never has been." Moving out from between the desks, she opened her arms. "I'm here, little fox," she said, her tone gentle, as though she spoke to the frightened boy he once had been. "Come on, now. Let's have you."

Smiling through the tears he could no longer contain, Fox ran into his mother's embrace.


Neenie blinked her eyes open and twitched her whiskers, confused. She'd fallen asleep next to Fox on a pile of soft things, and here she lay alone on something hard. To add to that, her scruff felt tight, as though she'd been carried in her sleep. She could see a window from where she lay, the warm light of sunset beaming in, which only baffled her more—surely they ought to be heading out to the Forest to get set up soon?

Absently, she changed forms back to human, and started to sit up.

The table on which she'd been placed collapsed with a loud crack, startling her yet again. She managed to vault halfway off it and complete a somewhat graceful landing on the other side, but the force of hitting the ground startled a little "Oh!" out of her.

Catching her breath, she pressed a hand to her heart. "Is it more magic?" she said uncertainly.

"Yes," said a soft voice from behind her. "Yes, it is more magic."

Hermione whirled around and stared at the speaker, her hand rising to cover her mouth as her breath deserted her once again. Words, usually so reliable of friends, escaped her entirely, and she could only shake her head, not in negation of the speaker's identity but in denial that such a thing could be happening.

"And that magic is called the Horcrux Vivens." The wizard stood in front of the sheeted desk near the front of the room, his voice as matter-of-fact as if he were teaching this concept to a class. "The Living Soul Outside. Outside its original body, that is. A bond between two people whose souls are wounded with guilt or grief or pain. If they meet, these two people, and find themselves drawn together by love, it is possible for their souls to touch, and…" He interlaced his fingers in illustration, soft silver fire highlighting the points of contact. "Heal together. Become, to some extent, one soul inhabiting two bodies. Not entirely—the two so bonded are still able to think and feel and act for themselves, and even to disagree or argue sometimes—but the bond is very real and very powerful."

"Powerful enough…" Hermione barely recognized her own voice, as breathy and shaky as it was. "Powerful enough to keep one of the souls safe from death?"

"Yes. Exactly that powerful." The wizard nodded thoughtfully. "It may even be that the Horcrux Letifera, the Deathly Horcrux, was created after the first instance of the Horcrux Vivens bond, in imitation of that which evil can never understand." He moved a few steps forward. "Love."

Hermione covered the rest of the distance between them in a stumbling run, and Remus Lupin caught his daughter in his arms and held her tightly against his chest. "Hello, Kitten," he whispered, stroking her hair. "It's going to be all right now. Daddy's home."


"Is that why you didn't try to bargain for his life as well?" Ginny demanded when Harry had explained to the remainder of the dumbfounded Pride the concept of a Horcrux Vivens. "Because as long as you could save Mrs. Danger, Mr. Moony would be able to come back to life any time he wanted to?"

"Pretty much." Harry wasn't sure he'd ever stop grinning, and didn't see that as a problem. "My only worry was about his body, but the Killing Curse doesn't do any damage, it just stops the heart and the breathing. So once I knew Letha'd got them started again, within the time limit before things started going south, we were good to go." He glanced up at the flag flapping above their heads, as they'd chosen to hold this meeting on the momentarily deserted Astronomy Tower. "And how long have you known?" he demanded of Luna, pointing at it.

"I haven't known any longer than you have. But I hoped, and I suspected." Luna sat in one of the merlons, swinging her heels against the stone wall beneath. "And I thought that sewing the flag like I did would make it all the more likely to come true, because we aren't witches and wizards for nothing, Harry. Magic is belief. So what we believe in, and hope for, and want badly enough, very often comes to pass."

"And this did." Neville gazed up at the flag, highlighted around the edges with shimmers of the same fire which had been used to reveal its true nature. "You made a lion for our flag, and he's back with us right now."

"Don't forget the queens." Meghan's grin matched Harry's in size, despite her smaller stature. "Gertrude and Hermione were both queens in Shakespeare. And they're even sisters, just like they should be!"

"We going to use that out in the Forest, then?" Ron asked, making one of his hands sit atop the other, which walked four-legged in the air. "Really play up the scene, give it all we've got?"

"Hey, it's like Letha used to say when we did Joseph." Harry straightened his shoulders. "What's the best way to look stupid on stage?"

"Hold back," Ginny recalled. "And what are we doing out in the Forest but staging a performance? The biggest one of our lives, yes, but still just a show." She smiled. "I think it should be as amazing as we can possibly make it."

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Author Notes:

And it will be. Next time.

Yes, I'm putting the entire Final Battle into two chapters. They're probably going to be very long chapters, but that's how life is sometimes. And yes, people are going to die, both onstage and off, and suffer fates worse than death, and have other strange things happen to them. You should know this by now.

So yeah, that's what's been going on with Remus and Danger. Congrats to everyone who guessed it, and to those who didn't, well, surprise!

More writing next week, as the Death Eaters break onto Hogwarts grounds, the queens ride the lion, and Harry faces Voldemort for the last time…or is it? Don't miss Chapter 63, "The Last Enemy", coming soon to a website near you!