• Previous
• The Waiting Game The Last Horcrux The Rite of Sealing The Chronicled Worlds The New Neighbors The Guided Tour The Best Case The Vital Questions The Worst Case The Truest Friends The Next Steps The Wakening Powers The Secret Desires The Known Names The New Arrivals The Hardest Choice The Last Beginning The Unasked Question The Power to Choose The Enemy Revealed The Final Elements The Just Deserts The Story Continues
• Next

Meghan leaned her head back, letting the water cascade over her face and scalp. She had set the shower two degrees off scalding, just the way she liked it, and had already discovered one distinct advantage to Neenie and Ray's cottage in Outer Time, as opposed to any other house she had ever lived in.

The hot water never runs out. Which means I could stay in here all day, if I wanted to. Or at least until my fingers start turning into prunes.

She emerged from under the spray, blew the water off her face, and reached for the body wash in the purple bottle hanging in one of the mesh bags against the shower wall.

I wonder if it was Neenie or Ray who decided to get us all the scents we like best? Or maybe it was the domain itself. When we were sealed to Outer Time, to this piece of it, it learned about us and made the cottage the way we'd want it.

Whoever was responsible, each member of the Pack now owned an individually scented toiletries set, one which matched either a favorite scent of that person's or some scent which represented them.

Mine smells like ocean wind, because that's the scent of my magic. But it has just a little bit of lavender in it, because I've always loved lavender, the smell and the color both.

She scrubbed her hands briskly together, then applied the resulting lather to all areas which needed it, sighing with pleasure as the suds and the blistering hot water removed the sweat she'd worked up proving that her body had been successfully age-adjusted to match her siblings'.

Some of my muscles are a little stiffer than I'm used to, but I'll stretch out. And it's nice to be finished with my growing, and to be… She looked down at herself and giggled. Yes. Well. Mama isn't exactly small there, and it looks like I got that even if I didn't get her height.

I hope my Captain likes it.

I hope he likes all of the new me.

We'll find out, as soon as we get to him.

The last of the suds disappeared down the drain. Meghan shut the water off, pulled back the shower curtain, and scooped up the towel she'd left on the toilet lid.

But that has to wait until we decide we should. Our other friends might need us more. If the RC's are planning to do something to them… I know they're supposed to be all about putting stories back to the ridge, about making them all come out the same, but I don't have a good feeling about Kreacher's "new master." He doesn't sound like a proper RC one bit.

She emerged from under the towel and smiled one-sidedly at her steam-blurred reflection in the mirror. And how sad is it that I'd prefer my friends to be stuck with the people who took us away from each other to begin with?

"But we know them, or Neenie and Fox do, and Uncle John, and they're teaching the rest of us." Meghan began to dry her lower body, noting in passing that the body wash had, as advertised, also removed the coat of prickly fur which usually afflicted her legs. "We know what they want, how they work, what they will and won't do. Legendbreakers have been fighting them for a long, long time."

But Kreacher's new master is an unknown. Either he's not an RC at all, or he's a renegade one, because he made me exist, and I was never part of the ridge. He has his own agenda, and we have to guess what that is before we can start to counteract it.

"We'll manage it," she said with a confidence she didn't quite feel. "That's what we do."

Both because we're Legendbreakers now, and because we've always been the Pack.

I just wish we were the Pride again too.

"We will be." On a whim, Meghan planted her finger in the middle of the mirror, then rapidly drew a set of eight interlocking ovals from that central dot. The result could have been described as either a complicated flower design or an intricate Celtic knotwork pattern. "We're all interwoven, just like this. And no matter how long it takes, we'll find our way back to each other."

But it had better not take too much longer.

I want to see the look on my Captain's face when he realizes I'm all grown up, and he's out of excuses…

Giggling evilly, Meghan began to get dressed.

---

Ron Weasley fell from nightmare into nightmare, and couldn't decide which was worse.

His first had been a particularly nasty one in which he was a helpless passenger in his own body for the majority of his sixth year, watching the numbskull who did seem to be in control waste his time with Lavender Brown, fail miserably at most things magical including learning to Apparate, and finally spend his seventeenth birthday falling victim to a Love Potion meant for Harry and nearly dying in the office of the fat Potions Professor who had inexplicably replaced Mrs. Letha.

Now, he was once again struggling against the faceless figures who had plucked him out of his room at the Burrow, trying to remember what had come next when the scene had occurred in actuality. They hauled me off to the Den—maybe I can give them the slip on the way—

He tried, but his enemies were too fast for him, and there were too many of them. For one second, he broke free, long enough to shout his most overwhelming question at Harry, likewise furiously embattled.

"Hermione?"

"Gone out!" Harry dodged a blow and lashed out with his fire, driving two of his enemies back. "Haven't seen her…"

The second blow got through, and Harry crumpled. Ron yelled and tried to force his way to his friend's side, but hands closed around his arms and another pressed something against his face, and then it all began again. He awakened in his bed in Gryffindor Tower, on the first day of his sixth year, unable to do anything for himself and thoroughly unimpressed with the so-called intelligence which was directing his actions.

Maybe it's like one of those games Hermione plays, he remembered thinking at one point, desperate to find something, anything, to pass the time and give himself an illusion of control. If I can find all the differences, I get to go on to the next level…

Unfortunately, it sometimes seemed that it would be easier to catalog what wasn't different than what was. Pack and Pride were non-existent concepts in this world, and though most of the Pride's members still existed, with the nucleus of himself, Harry, and Hermione as strong as ever, Ron didn't think he was likely to extend a hand of friendship to Draco Malfoy anytime soon. Luna, too, seemed more distant and difficult to understand, but he supposed that could be because her being sorted into Ravenclaw meant he was around her less.

You lose your immunity to the mad things she says when you don't see her as much. She's a bit like a disease. In a good way.

Neville was starting to emerge from the shell that Ron imagined five years without the Pride had built around him, but the key word was "starting." He could see glimpses of the coolly confident Captain he knew so well in this awkward boy, but thought it was going to take a miracle to turn the one into the other.

A miracle, or a lot of bad things hitting him. Like what happened to me. I never wanted Krum to hurt Hermione, or me to get blinded, but both of those grew me up a lot, shook me out of being stupid and sleepwalking through life. I learned to look around, notice what other people want, think about more than myself. That's not what Neville needs, he needs to learn to trust himself and just get it done, but bad things happening might give him that chance.

One large difference between the two versions of Neville, Ron had no doubt, was a certain dainty Gryffindor third year. If he was careful to do it only when his directing intelligence was busy with some knotty problem (like getting his homework done—I know I'm not the most disciplined person in the world, but he makes me look like Hermione), he could rummage in his other self's memories without causing alarm, and the first place Mr. Padfoot figured in them was as a sort of real-life bogeyman in their own third year.

Which means there can't ever have been a Meghan. And I've not seen any signs of Mrs. Letha either…

Mr. Moony had taken his proper turn as Defense Professor in that same year, but no memory that Ron could find indicated he might be married, and when he had once or twice managed to insinuate a question to the top of his other self's mind, asking Hermione about her family, the answers had been fairly conclusive. If she had an older sister, named Danger or anything else, she didn't know about it.

I want her so much. I wish she was here right now. Cat or human, I don't care, I'll take anything. Really, I'll take anyone, anyone who remembers what I do, who could tell me I'm not just some mad idea Ron Weasley happened to dream up in his delirium while he was recovering from drinking poisoned mead…

The hand wrapped around his was female, but it felt wrong for Hermione. The fingers were too rough, as if whoever this girl was, she routinely hung onto things that scuffed up her skin.

Like broomsticks, or Quidditch balls. At least I know it's not Lavender, she's always so careful about the way she looks you'd think Witch Weekly was waiting around the corner to take her picture. But who else would be—

"The twins said they'd walk Mum and Dad out," murmured a quiet voice. "And Harry and Hermione left with Hagrid a while ago. So now it's just us. Just me and my big stupid brother."

Usually I'd give you a knuckle rub for that, but I'll let it pass this time, because I was being stupid, not to know who you were. Ron debated letting his sister know that he was awake before remembering, with a rush of anger, that it wasn't his decision. He hadn't been able to so much as blink his own eyes for six months.

But wait… I don't feel him in here, not like usual, I think he might still be asleep…

"If only I knew if you really are my big stupid brother." Ginny laughed under her breath. "Which would sound absolutely mad to anyone else, so I'm saying it to you while you can't hear me. And even if you could, I don't know if you'd be able to answer…"

"Try me?" Ron croaked, and had to physically force himself to stay in the bed, not to try to jump upright and cheer. I'd fall on my face, and I can't waste the time, I don't know how long this will last, I don't even know what she's talking about yet, but if she means what I think she does—

Ginny's fingers tightened around his until he thought he heard his bones creak in protest. "Redwing?" she whispered.

And we have a winner. Ron turned his hand in her grasp until he could squeeze back. "Hey, Lynx. How's it—"

A distinctive choking gasp had him opening his eyes and pushing himself upright in the bed, shaking his head. "Oh no you don't. Don't you dare. Please, Ginny, don't…"

Ignoring this, Ginny dived at him, clutching at him like he was a giant red-haired Snitch and burying her face in his pajama-clad shoulder.

Wasn't I just the one saying I'd learned to take a little notice of other people? Ron closed his arms around his sister, holding her against his chest as her shoulders heaved with the force of her sobs. She's been through the same thing I have, and now she's found out she's not alone. She needs to have a reaction. The least I can do is hold her through it.

I'm allowed to hope she gets it over with quickly, though.

"We may not have long, Gin-Gin," he said when he felt the first bout easing off. "I'm not alone in here, there's another… well, another me, not a very bright one either… and don't even start," he added as the patterns of her breathing changed momentarily from crying to laughing. "I'm not nearly as bad as I used to be. But I think he's still asleep, the poison may have hit him harder because he's supposed to be in here and I'm not… what about you? Do you have another…"

"Another me? Yes, I do, but we've come to an agreement." Ginny sat up, drying her eyes on a corner of Ron's bedsheets. "I won't push forward when I'm not wanted, she'll let me use the body when I really need it, like tonight, and in return, I'll help her get something she wants."

"What's th—oh." Ron cut himself off as Ginny giggled. "Should've known. You never do change, do you?"

"Not unless I'm forced to." Wrapping her arms around herself, Ginny shivered. "What were those things?"

"I don't know, but I do know one thing." Ron eased Ginny's leg over so that her knee was no longer digging into his thigh. "Hermione wasn't there. Harry said she'd gone out."

"So… maybe she was never caught?" Ginny hazarded. "This Hermione doesn't act much like ours. But then, nobody does."

"Nobody could." Ron shut his eyes for a moment, trying to deal with his fierce stab of loneliness and desire. It's not impossible, he told himself. If she's out there somewhere, she'll be looking for me, for us. And she won't give up until she finds us. Until she finds me.

Just like I'll never give up until I have her back, no matter how long it takes, no matter what I have to do…

A stirring in the back of his mind warned him that his time had just run out. "Blast, he's waking up. You'd better go, Lynx. See if you can come up with a spell to put him to sleep or in a trance or something, so we can do this again without my nearly getting killed."

"I'll do that." Ginny kissed him on the cheek. "Your nearly getting killed is a bad thing. Happy birthday, by the way."

"Thanks." Ron hugged her tightly, then watched her out of the hospital wing. The sleepy mutters of confusion were growing stronger, but he refused to be hurried.

Stupid git could do with a bit of confusing.

When the door had stopped swinging behind Ginny, Ron lay down once more and closed his eyes. He might not have Neenie or Fox's dreamsculpting magic, but they had taught him a few tricks to avoid nightmares and wake refreshed.

And I can use them again, now that I know for sure they're not just a dream themselves.

See if I can't do this little berk who's hosting me a favor along the way. He sat up enough to flip his pillow over to the cool side before snuggling back in. She may not be my girl, but she's far and away better than anything else he's had his eye on, and he knows that on some level. He just needs to swallow his pride and admit it, end things clean with Lavender, and make his move when she's the one who needs help for a change…

It occurred to him as he was drifting off that Hermione seldom needed help with anything, but he was sure the universe would provide a proper situation when the time came. The universe was good like that.

---

A shadow passed across Pat's face, and a slight thump shook the floor on which he was napping in the sunlight in his dog form. Lazily, he opened one eye.

Fox, also four-legged and furry, took a running start and leaped over him again, as Pat realized he must have done in the first place. And then again, and again…

Pat sat up in time to frustrate the fifth jump attempt and yawned elaborately. Something for you? he asked in the silent speech of animals, canine dialect.

Rearing onto his hind legs, Fox retransformed. "Just helping to christen the latest improvement we've made on the cottage," he said. "It's tradition, after all."

Likewise retransforming, Pat frowned at his nephew. "I'm sorry?"

"Quick brown fox." Fox indicated himself. "Jumps over." His hands indicated the relative motions, his left lying still for Pat and his right bouncing back and forth for himself. "The lazy dog." Two spread hands and his own, cockier, version of his father's look-I-did-a-funny grin made it clear this descriptor was meant for Pat.

"Lazy dog, hmm?" With all the speed of his animal form pouncing on a pesky rat, Pat knocked his nephew onto his back and pinned him by the shoulders. "Now who's the lazy one?"

"You are," said Carrie from the doorway. "Mentally lazy, for going with the obvious insult and not bothering to think about what he's trying to tell you by it."

"Tell me with it?" Pat looked up at his wife. "What would he be trying to tell me with—"

"Put together what he said to you." Carrie brought her palms together in the air, as though squeezing the air out of a concertina. "Then think about what that sentence is used for."

"Put it together." Pat let Fox up, if only because the squirming was getting distracting. "Quick brown fox… jumps over… lazy dog…"

Unbidden, his hands rose into a familiar position in front of him, palms down, fingers slightly curved. As he spoke the sentence over again, the fingers began to move, dancing lightly through the air.

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" Fox said, grinning.

Spell it… spell it out… test it out, try it out, type it out—

"You didn't." Pat looked from his nephew to his wife and saw the same smug smirk on both their faces. "You did not."

"We made a music room for me, and for her and Dad," Fox pointed out, hooking a thumb towards his aunt. "We're fixing up a dance studio out back for Pearl. And every room was a library when Neenie lived here by herself, but we'll convert one of the upstairs rooms once you two and Dad and Mum decide where you want your own place built. Why shouldn't we make you a spot where you can do what you like best?"

Pat scrambled to his feet, beaming. He'd missed his hobby more than he'd realized until this moment. "Lead me to it. Brat," he added for form's sake in Fox's direction. "You need to learn how to just tell people things."

"But that's no fun!" Fox dodged his uncle's headlock and started up the stairs, Pat and Carrie behind him.

Immediately to the left of the upper landing of the cottage stairs, an area which had until today been a blank wall now sported a door. Fox indicated this with a bow, then stepped back and allowed Pat to open it himself.

All the comforts of home. Always excepting the one who sleeps down the hall in my bed. He turned back, as he often did these days, to give Carrie a quick kiss before plunging into his family's latest gift to him.

The masculine writer's paradise. A big soft sofa in case I need a nap, plenty of bookshelves for reference, leather and glossy wood for the desk chair and desk, and on that desk…

"It's perfect." Reverently, Pat stroked a hand down the battered metal frame of his typewriter, the one he'd taken over from Danger all those years ago, after she'd taught him how to use it.

I pounded out a lot of bad feelings on these keys. Got rid of most of my anger and hate that way, and the rest I channeled into my bad guys. And then I got to beat them up too, when it came their time in the story, and kill them in all the nasty ways I couldn't do to any of my real enemies.

This old thing is probably the only reason I didn't turn as homicidal as I was reported…

"We reproduced as many of your alterations as we could remember," Carrie said from the door. "The magical erasing on backspace, the automatic paper reloading, that sort of thing."

"You may have missed a couple, but I can always put them in later." Pat plunked himself down in the desk chair, leaned back, and put his feet up on the corner of the desk. "How do I look?"

"You're seriously opening yourself up to that?" Fox snickered. "And you can't make that old pun anymore, because it'll call the RC's if you do!"

"Don't say that," Carrie hissed, flicking her nephew's ear with a forefinger. "I thought you knew better than to—"

"I do believe I heard a challenge," Pat said idly. "Don't let the door hit you anywhere sensitive on the way out."

Carrie gave Fox a look which promised retribution and started down the stairs, her feet impacting solidly on each tread. Fox shrugged one shoulder and pulled the door most of the way closed. "Enjoy yourself," he said through the remaining crack, before his footsteps skipped lightly down the corridor.

Pat barely heard. Already, his hands were rolling a piece of paper into the typewriter, setting themselves over the keys, preparing to let the stories now clamoring within his mind have their freedom.

But which one should I start with?

The light, teasing tones of his nephew's voice echoed back through his subconscious and answered this question for him.

The vision took hold, and he began to type as in a trance, spellbound by what he saw.

---

Hermione stormed down the seventh floor corridor, anger mounting ever higher in her heart as her mind replayed the bit of conversation she'd caught between Harry and Lavender Brown before Potions.

"Is Hermione Granger still visiting him?"

"Yeah, I think so. Well, they're friends, aren't they?"

"Friends, don't make me laugh. She didn't talk to him for weeks after he started going out with me! But I suppose she wants to make up with him now he's all interesting…"

Him, meaning Ron. And yes, of course I want to make up with him. I always want to make up with him, even when he's been the world's biggest idiot. Which he has fairly often. I keep seeing bits of something better, something more in him, but then it's gone and he's the same stupid prat he's always been…

Why can't I get him out of my heart? Why has it always been him? She turned a corner blindly without noticing the tiny girl slumped against the wall, snoring over a jar of frogspawn. I wish it wasn't. I wish I could just take everything I feel for him, all that irrational rubbish that my heart keeps coming up with, and hide it somewhere it'll never be found.

In the opposite wall, a door began to form.

Or maybe I'm the one who ought to hide. Find somewhere I can go and leave my feelings behind for a while. Talk to someone who'll understand about… about liking, caring for, the most unsuitable person in the world, the one person you wish you didn't, and the one person you know you always will…

The door solidified fully as Hermione looked up. Somehow unsurprised, she crossed to it, pulled it open, and stepped through it.

• Previous
• The Waiting Game The Last Horcrux The Rite of Sealing The Chronicled Worlds The New Neighbors The Guided Tour The Best Case The Vital Questions The Worst Case The Truest Friends The Next Steps The Wakening Powers The Secret Desires The Known Names The New Arrivals The Hardest Choice The Last Beginning The Unasked Question The Power to Choose The Enemy Revealed The Final Elements The Just Deserts The Story Continues
• Next