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"Nice place," Gray said appreciatively once they were inside.

"Not so loud," Hermione hissed, making shushing noises with both hands.

"Why?" asked Freeman, peering around the dark hall.

"Crazy portrait," Ron said. "She yells and shrieks if you wake her up. Plus there’s a jinx halfway down the hall that ties your tongue up for a second—you just have to wait it out, then say, ‘I didn’t kill you,’ and it’ll go away."

"Right." Gray nodded. "Noisy portrait, jinx down the hall. Anything else?"

"Don’t go upstairs without one of us," Harry said shortly. "Actually, don’t go anywhere without one of us."

"We won’t," Freeman said. Then she grinned. "But we probably could. We’re very good at sneaking."

"Stop that." Gray rapped her on the top of the head. "We don’t sneak around friends."

Freeman’s eyes widened in mock astonishment. "We don’t? What about that time when you—"

Gray covered her mouth firmly with a hand. "Which way are we going?" he asked Harry.

"Follow me." Harry led the way down the corridor towards the basement stairs, pausing as Moody’s jinx rolled over him. "I didn’t kill you," he said under his breath when his tongue was free again, and proceeded to the stairs. Gray and Freeman, behind him, caught the jinx a moment later and shivered in unison, whispering the necessary phrase as soon as they could.

"Who did that?" Freeman whispered to Harry as they descended the stairs. "The jinx?"

"A friend of ours," said Harry. He was beginning to regret bringing Gray and Freeman to Grimmauld Place. Even if their memories could be wiped, they had still been taken inside the secret of the house, which meant they could lead Death Eaters in, voluntarily or not.

They did help us, though. They’re good with their wands. He glanced over his shoulder. Much better than they should be, if they never went to Hogwarts...

"I keep thinking I’ve seen you somewhere before," Hermione said to Freeman as they entered the kitchen. "I know I can’t have, but I can’t shake the feeling..."

"You might have seen a picture of my mum," Freeman said. "My father took her places, sometimes. She’d tell me stories, at nights. My favorite was the one about the wedding—" Her eyes widened suddenly, fixing on Harry. "That was your parents!"

"My parents’ wedding?" Harry stared at the girl. "Your mum went to my parents’ wedding?"

Freeman dropped her gaze. "She thought it was mostly a joke," she whispered. "Because he liked her, and didn’t want to go alone, and because he knew his family would hate it if they knew he’d been out with a Muggle girl. So he asked her to go with him. But it didn’t stay a joke. And then after two years, they made a mistake..." She pointed to the bag by Harry’s side. "You’ve got the letter he wrote her. I saw you pick it up. You can read it if you want. It’s not very long."

Harry reached into his bag, feeling suddenly absurd and awkward in Runcorn’s huge body. The hour for the Polyjuice Potion must be nearly up, he thought.

His fingertips brushed crumpled parchment, and he pulled out the letter and smoothed it against his thigh. It was short, only four paragraphs long, but his own treasured first letter from his godfather hadn’t been much longer.

October 19, 1981

Dear Aletha,

Could have knocked me over with a broom twig when I got your letter. Moony asked me if it’d been a Howler tuned only to me, and Wormtail wanted to check it for poison. I had to threaten to hex them before they’d back off.

You’re sure then? You’re really pregnant? I don’t know how Muggle girls check those things—come to think, I don’t know how witches do it either. I didn’t think I’d ever have to know. Disowned, disinherited, blasted off the family tapestry, what have you. It meant I didn’t have to play perfect pureblood and provide the oh-so-noble-and-most-incredibly-ancient-house-of-Black with an heir, that was all I cared about.

But the more I think about it, the more I think I like it. I love playing with Harry, or I did before his mum and dad took him off into hiding. And I keep turning around expecting to hear your voice, or see you there laughing at me. My work used to be everything to me, and now all I want is to get away and see you again. So because you’ll drive my mum and dad around the bend—because you’re going to have my baby—and most of all, because I think I might love you—will you marry me?

I’ve enclosed some Muggle money, all I could spare from my vault. I hope it’ll keep you, and the baby, until I can get away again. I’ll probably be there within a couple weeks, so you’d better have an answer when I show up, and it’d better be the right one!

See you soon,

Padfoot

Harry’s vision blurred. He tried to tell himself it was just the Polyjuice wearing off, he needed his glasses back, he’d get them on and he’d be fine again, but even as he dug into his bag, he felt the tears starting to come. Eyes shut, he found the small hard case and pulled it out, ducking his head and lifting his left arm, now awkward in its too-large sleeve, to shield his face.

Under cover of his makeshift shield, he scrubbed the tears away with the back of the hand holding the letter. Glasses restored to their rightful place, he looked up to see Ron in boxers and T-shirt, divesting himself of the tattered rags that had once been a set of Magical Maintenance robes, a pained expression on his face. Hermione, her hair patching back into brown, had a hand over her mouth. Freeman was giggling openly. Gray didn’t seem terribly impressed one way or another.

At any other time, Harry knew, he’d have been covering laughter with Hermione, or even laughing aloud with Freeman, but not now. Now, his mind was busy conjuring up pictures. A young Sirius sitting at a desk somewhere, a flat in London or a room in whatever the Order of the Phoenix had used for Headquarters during the first war, chewing on his quill with a half-written letter in front of him... hesitating before writing down certain phrases, maybe reaching for his wand to erase them, then changing his mind...

"Your mum was at my parents’ wedding?" he asked Freeman, who was calming herself down by the simple expedient of looking the other way. "With... with Sirius?"

Freeman nodded. "She loved to tell the story," she said softly. "It made her happy when nothing else did."

"Kreacher?" Harry called out.

With a loud snap, the house-elf appeared, looking mortified. "Master Harry, Kreacher did not hear you enter—Kreacher is a bad house-elf—"

His eyes fell on Freeman, and he stopped dead.

Gray muttered something and slid behind Hermione.

"If I wasn’t your master, Kreacher," said Harry, "who would this girl be?"

"She—she—" Kreacher advanced on Freeman slowly. The girl swallowed but didn’t move, except to kneel down and sit back on her folded legs. One small, wrinkled hand reached out to touch a smooth brown arm. "Yes," Kreacher breathed. "Yes, oh yes..."

"I asked you a question, Kreacher," Harry said harshly.

Kreacher’s head snapped around so fast it would have been comical in any other circumstances. "Master Harry. Yes. Kreacher is sorry."

"Answer me, then."

The house-elf’s shoulders drooped. "She would have been Kreacher’s new mistress," he said in a tone so low it could barely be heard.

Harry kept his eyes away from Freeman, since he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he saw her at this moment. "Am I that bad a master, Kreacher?" he said instead, aware of the banal sound of the words but not sure what else to say. "I thought we were getting along."

"No, Master Harry, no!" Kreacher looked up in astonishment. "Master Harry is not a bad master! But... the bonds between a house-elf and his family run very deep, very strong, and Kreacher was very devoted to the House of Black... and he had thought they were all gone, all..."

"I’m not your mistress, Kreacher," Freeman said, her voice shaking. Despite himself, Harry looked up at her and saw her eyes lowered, one tear escaping to trail down her cheek. "I never knew my father. I think he did have a child, a child he loved very much, but that wasn’t me." Gray eyes opened, red-rimmed and tear-blurred but managing a faint gleam through it. "So you went to the right person after all."

Harry’s throat tightened to the point of pain, but he resisted the urge to break down. He couldn’t start crying in front of his best friends and a pair of strangers. No one would have any idea what to do, and they might set each other off.

Freeman, at least, seemed to be exactly what she’d said she was. He wasn’t yet certain about Gray. There was something in the other boy that he... distrusted wasn’t the right word, but recognized seemed silly. How could he recognize something he didn’t even understand?

"Kreacher, could you go get Ron some robes, please?" Harry said, pleased at how normal his voice sounded. "And find my photograph album while you’re upstairs, then lay two extra places. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m hungry."

"I could eat," said Ron.

"Of course you could," two voices chorused at once.

Hermione turned to look at Gray.

"Simple deduction," Gray said airily. "Anyone shaped like a lamppost is always hungry, and a lamppost topped with a ginger mog is hungrier than most."

Hermione succumbed to a small fit of coughing. Ron’s ears were invisible beside his hair. Freeman blinked rapidly, her shoulders shaking suspiciously. Harry kept his lips clamped tight, but could feel his insides roiling... any second, the laughter would burst out...

"Of course, I don’t mean it personally," Gray added. "Some of my best friends are ginger mogs."

Hermione sucked in air and choked on spit, and her coughs turned into real ones. Ron grabbed her and thumped her on the back, glaring at Gray.

Gray shrugged one shoulder. "Sorry," he said. "I was trying to lighten things up a bit."

"Lay off or I’ll show you how light things get through a second-story window," said Ron in a monotone.

Gray’s eyebrows went up. "Touchy."

"Stop it," Freeman snapped before Ron could retort. "Both of you stop right now."

"Yes," Hermione coughed out, catching her breath and patting at her eyes with her sleeve. "Enough."

Harry reached into his bag, found a handkerchief, and passed it over to Hermione. She gave him a watery smile in thanks, blew her nose, and dabbed at her eyes. "You’re here now," she said to Gray and Freeman. "We can’t change that. But we still don’t know you, and we’ve known each other for a long time. We don’t take kindly to people poking fun at our friends."

Freeman’s head drooped. Gray nodded slowly. "I’m sorry," he said, with more meaning in the words this time. "I honestly only meant it in fun. It’s how I..." He stopped.

"How you what?" Harry asked, careful not to tread on the hems of his enormous robes as he got to his feet.

"Back home, I had a friend who was shaped a bit like you," Gray said. "Tall, skinny, long legs... he even had freckles, but not the hair, not like yours..."

Harry got the impression the other boy was picking his words carefully, as though to avoid rousing some demon from the past. He sympathized—there were times even now when he turned a corner or opened a door and suddenly felt the pain of losing Sirius almost as clearly as if it had just happened.

"He could always eat, no matter when it was, no matter what we were doing. Do anything for food, and the more food there was, the wilder the things he’d do." Gray looked up at Ron. "He was one of the best friends I ever had. I miss him. I suppose some part of me thought if I teased you like I used to tease him, maybe it’d be like having him back again." The blond boy smiled sadly. "Like a piece of home."

Ron nodded slowly, as though against his will. Harry could almost see thoughts of the Burrow running through his friend’s mind. What would he do—what would any of us do—if we knew we’d never see it again?

A loud crack broke the moment. Kreacher was standing between Ron and Harry, arms full of cloth. "Supper is ready," the house-elf said quellingly, handing the folded robes to Ron. "If Master and his guests would please to be seated."

"Excellent," Ron said, pulling his robes over his head. Then he glanced at Gray. "Not a word," he warned.

Gray covered his mouth ostentatiously with a hand and proceeded to the table as though led by his elbow. Freeman and Hermione caught each other’s eye and giggled.

Harry took his seat at the head of the table and found Kreacher at his elbow again, Harry’s red-leather photograph album in his hands. "Does Master Harry want this now, or would he like to wait until after supper?" the house-elf asked anxiously.

"Erm..." Harry looked down the table. "Now’s fine." He accepted the album, flipped through it until he found the picture he wanted, and lowered it to the table. The quiet hum of the others talking faded into the background as he concentrated on the faces in the photograph. There were his parents, there was Sirius, and—

"Meghan," Harry said aloud, not taking his eyes from the album. "I think I see her."

"Oooh—" Light footsteps on the floorstones, and then a small warm presence at his elbow. "Where?"

"There." Harry pointed. "Beside Sirius." He looked up at the girl beside him, then back down at the photograph. "You really do look a lot like her."

Chairs scraped as Ron, Hermione, and Gray joined Meghan beside and behind Harry.

"That’s her, all right," Gray said. "Ms. Freeman." He sighed. "Shame what happened to her."

"What happened?" Hermione asked.

"Mum died just a couple months ago," Meghan said quietly. "She’d been ill almost as long as I can remember, but she still let Fox come live with us when his mum threw him out."

"She threw you out?" said Ron, looking around at Gray. "What’d you do?"

Gray’s eyes were still fixed on the photograph, watching the tiny figures laugh and toast one another. "Mum doesn’t like magic," he said. "It’s... how I happened. He used magic on her, to catch her, to hold her. She still loved me, but she thought if I turned out magic, it’d mean I’d turn out like him. So she never told me anything she knew. She said my Hogwarts letter was a prank when it came. When she found out I’d been training all these years..."

"Training?" Harry asked.

"A witch lived in our neighborhood." Gray turned his head to the left, as though looking down a street. "When she realized Meghan and I were both magical, and that our mums weren’t going to send us away to school, she started offering to watch us when they were away..."

Harry snorted.

"What?" Gray frowned at him. "I didn’t think it was that funny."

"Hard to explain," Harry said, thinking of Mrs. Figg and her myriad of cats. "Did you at least have a good time there?"

Meghan’s eyes brightened. "She was wonderful."

"Speak for yourself, titch," Gray said, shoving Meghan lightly on the shoulder. "She was very tough," he added more generally, "and she wouldn’t let us get away with anything. But she taught us a lot. Practical stuff, and not all magical, either. How to sneak around and hide, how to think like your enemy, survival and first aid..."

"That sounds like she thought you’d be in a war," said Hermione.

"She did," Meghan said. "She told us about... him. About the war, and how she was sure it wasn’t over. That’s where we first heard about you," she said to Harry. "When she told us how the first war ended. We had to study you, like you were somebody out of history... except you’re not. You’re real."

"People in history were real once," said Hermione out of reflex, but her eyes were on Gray. "Is that how you knew to ask about Weasleys at the Ministry?"

Gray nodded. "It seemed pretty obvious," he said. "Anywhere there’s Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, there’s at least one Weasley around. Usually more than one."

"Sorry, just me," said Ron. "Think I’ll do?"

"Well..." Gray looked him up and down. "There’s not quite enough of you to make twins, but I suppose we’ll get by."

Hermione coughed a few times, and Meghan giggled. Ron rolled his eyes. "Very funny," he said.

"Did you think so? Really?" Gray tilted his head, as though thinking. "I thought it could have used a bit of work. Maybe another few words somewhere. Or I could have said something about your brothers—you do have twin brothers, don’t you?—or maybe I could have—"

"Shut up, Fox," Meghan interjected calmly.

"Or that." Gray closed his mouth with a click.

Hermione laughed aloud this time. Ron was grinning openly. Meghan smiled, then looked back at the photograph. The happiness faded from her face, to be replaced by a longing expression Harry knew well. Almost without meaning to, he put out an arm, and Meghan fitted herself inside its curve without taking her eyes from the laughing figures on the page.

"Of all the words e’er read or seen," Hermione murmured, "the saddest are, It might have been."

Harry shook himself slightly at this. As usual, Hermione was right. It was nice, if sad, to think about might-have-beens, but somehow Harry thought Sirius wouldn’t have approved of him, Harry, sitting around moping over photographs and dreaming up unlikely stories when there were more important things to do.

"Dinner," he said firmly, closing the album. "We need to eat. We won’t be good for anything if we don’t."

Meghan nodded, pressed her shoulder against his once, then slid out of the curve of his arm and went to sit down at her place. Gray inclined his head gravely and seated himself as well. Ron and Hermione went to their own seats, and Kreacher scurried out of nowhere to begin serving the meal, with a strong air of well, finally about him.

Ideas and problems niggled at Harry as he ate. They had the locket now, but where to begin searching for the other Horcruxes? They had no idea at all what one of them might be, and of the two they did know, the cup would certainly be securely hidden and Nagini was never far from Voldemort. Different problems, but they came to the same thing: The remaining Horcruxes were in no more danger now than they had been before Harry Potter had ever known they existed.

And what about Dumbledore’s mysterious gifts? A Snitch, a Deluminator, a book of tales—what did these have to do with the search for the Horcruxes? Were they supposed to send the Snitch to hover over the place where the cup was buried, or turn out the lights because the unknown Horcrux glowed in the dark, or lure Nagini to them by—

Harry nearly choked on a mouthful of steak-and-kidney pie. "’m all right," he croaked as soon as he could speak again, waving off Ron and Gray, who were on their feet. "Just..." He caught his breath and swallowed. "Wondering what would happen if we tried to read Nagini a bedtime story out of your book, Hermione..."

"All right, mate, this time you have gone round the twist," said Ron. "We’ll get you a nice padded room at St. Mungo’s, don’t you worry."

"That’s not funny," Meghan said sharply. "Don’t make fun of—"

"Pearl!" Gray snapped.

Meghan paled, as much as her complexion would allow it, and shut her mouth instantly.

Hermione looked between the two of them, finally settling on Gray. "So what do you know about people in St. Mungo’s?" she asked, her voice cool.

"Our lessons weren’t just about you three," Gray answered, his tone matching hers. "We had to learn about everyone we might be fighting with, or against, someday."

"So you know about our friends, then."

"Many of them. As many as we could get information on."

Looking down the table at them, Harry’s earlier half-recognition of Gray suddenly crystallized. If Hermione had somehow been coerced into drinking Polyjuice Potion containing hair from Draco Malfoy’s head, the resultant person would look and act rather like Gray. Of course, that was assuming Hermione would even consent to do such a thing, or that she would be in a position where she'd have to, and that was going places Harry really didn’t want to think about right now...

"Did you have lessons on Horcruxes too?" he asked aloud, seizing on the topic to distract himself.

"Yes, actually," Gray said, turning to face Harry. "Our teacher—Mrs. B, we called her—thought that was the most likely reason Voldemort hadn’t died when he was defeated at the end of the first war."

"She wasn’t the only one who thought so," said Meghan. "I sneaked a look on her desk once last year. There was a letter there, about Horcruxes, all in tall loopy writing, but..." She grimaced. "I didn’t get a chance to really read it."

Gray snickered. "I wondered what you did to make her set you ten repetitions of the obstacle course."

"Tall loopy writing..." Harry raised his wand. "Accio Snitch!"

A few small crashes sounded, Mrs. Black shrieked in the entranceway, and then the small golden ball zoomed through the door and landed in Harry’s palm. Kreacher hurried up the stairs, glancing worriedly at Harry as he went, but Harry didn’t have time to do more than notice the house-elf’s departure.

"Meghan," he said, turning the Snitch to show her the words Dumbledore had written on it. "The writing on the letter—"

Meghan looked at the Snitch, and her eyes went very wide. "I think so... maybe... yes!" A slim brown finger traced the tall capital I. "That looks just the same as the one in the letter did!"

"Hold the Bludgers," said Ron. "Are you trying to say Dumbledore was writing to your teacher?"

"If he wrote on the Snitch there, then probably yes," Gray said. "Can I see it, Potter?"

Harry handed the Snitch to Gray, who ran a finger along one of its wings, hefted it in his palm, then peered at the writing. "‘I open at the close’—the close of what?"

"We don’t know," said Hermione. "We’ve been wondering about that ever since Harry got it."

"When was that?"

"The day my brother got married," said Ron. "Same day the Ministry fell... hell of a honeymoon they must be having, Bill and Fleur."

"Are they somewhere safe?" Gray asked. "I’m not asking where," he added hastily, "just are they safe, and together, and knowing that everyone they care about is more or less all right?"

"I think so." Ron frowned in thought. "They were talking about putting their cottage under Fidelius, I know, so they probably went through with that, and Dad’s Patronus said everyone was all right..."

"Then they’ll manage," Gray said confidently. "People in love are like that."

"And you’d know?" Harry asked.

Gray shrugged. "I’ve been there a time or two. Lovely girls, both of them, but it wouldn’t have worked out with one of them and the other one’s long gone. Always more where they came from, though. One’s much like another."

"Nice attitude," Harry said coolly.

Gray fixed him with a stare. "Watch your tone, Potter."

Harry squelched his first response—This is my house, I don’t have to—and settled for clenching a fist in the pocket of the too-large robes he was still wearing. "You need to be a little more polite while you’re my guest," he said after a moment to try to find words, with a dismal awareness that the ones he’d found weren’t very good.

"Your guest?" Gray snorted. "Is that a fancy way of saying ‘prisoner’? Because I could take all three of you. Blindfolded. You’re pathetic."

Harry gritted his teeth and reached slowly into the pocket of the robes.

"I was watching at the Ministry, you know," Gray went on, waving his hands in the air. "Did you have any idea what was going on there, any plan at all besides ‘shoot people, get locket’?" He let his jaw hang loose and threw his voice down into a grunt for the last four words.

Harry’s hand closed around what he’d been looking for, and he made himself relax, just listening to Gray’s tirade.

"You have no training," the blond boy ranted. "You have no discipline. You have no—"

Harry’s arm snapped up, his wand in his hand and pointed directly at Gray, who cut himself off in the middle of a word with a muffled squawk. Ron laughed aloud, and Hermione applauded, a smile touching her lips.

"Got anything to say?" Harry asked Meghan, who was sitting at her place at the table, looking disgusted.

"Just one thing." Meghan pushed her chair back so she was facing Gray. "You," she said loudly, "are stupid." She pulled her chair back in. "There, I’m done."

"She’s right, you know," Ron told Gray conversationally. Hermione elbowed him.

"What I don’t have at the moment," Harry said quietly, looking down the length of his wand at Gray, "is patience. Especially with people who know too much and talk too much. Let me see your arm."

Gray glared at him, but pulled back his left sleeve to display an unmarked forearm. "Going to claim I got it erased somewhere?" he asked.

"No." Harry lowered the wand slightly, so that it was pointing at Gray’s chest. "But I think it’s interesting that you knew exactly what I meant."

"Everyone knows about the Dark Mark now," Gray returned, his eyes flicking back and forth between Harry’s face and the tip of the wand. "What was I supposed to do, play dumb?"

"I’ll tell you what you’re supposed to do!" Meghan burst out, jumping up and stamping her foot. "Apologize, Fox, you were wrong and you know it!"

"Pearl, shut up," Gray ground out through clenched teeth. "You don’t know what you’re asking—"

"Oh yes I do." Meghan folded her arms and matched Gray glare for glare. "I miss my mum too. And my friends. And I have about as much chance of getting to see them again as you do, so stop pretending you’re a big martyr and nobody understands you."

"At least you know they didn’t hate you," Gray muttered. "The stories my mum was telling..."

"And this is your only chance to try and fix it." Meghan turned to look at Harry, then at Ron and Hermione, on the other side of the table. "Please," she said. "We’ll do anything—at least I will—if you’ll just let us stay. We’ve been training for this our whole lives. The least we can do is help you."

"Anything?" Harry said, glancing at Hermione, who was mouthing a word at him. "Even swear an Unbreakable Vow not to do anything against us?" The slight nod of a bushy head told him he’d understood her correctly.

Meghan shut her eyes for a second, then opened them again. "If that’s the only way you’ll let us stay, then yes," she said. "At least I will. I don’t know about him." She graced Gray with the sort of look Harry had only ever seen directed towards Severus Snape.

Gray had his arms wrapped around his chest; he seemed to be trying to contain an outburst by main force. "I don’t know," he said in a tight voice. "I... I’m sorry for being rude, but..." His shoulders slumped. "Yes. I’ll swear."

He looked back up at Harry. "This is all I’ve ever wanted to do," he said. "Find the bastard who raped my mum, and everyone who told him it was all right, and make sure they never do it again. If I have to swear a Vow to be able to help you do that, then I will."

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