Surpassing Danger
Chapter 39: Flower and Fade (Arc 7)
By Anne B. Walsh
Author Notes:
BYOT. Bad Things begin once more.
Luna pressed her fists to her lips in delight as she watched the scene on the surface of her cauldron. Harry and Hermione had just torn apart the embattled pair of pale-blond boys; now Hermione was pinning down one of them with her own weight, the silver blade she'd drawn from its sheath at her waist pressed lightly against the side of her captive's jaw, while Harry hoisted the other one to his feet, an arm around his back to help him regain his balance.
"Good," she whispered, her voice echoing in the dark, empty room around her. "Good, very good, you've got it right, now remember the prophecy…"
Fox writhed, trying to get Neenie's attention, but she only bared her teeth at him and covered his mouth still more securely with her sleeve-shielded hand. "Stop that," she said, emphasizing her words with a slight pressure of something sharp against the side of his face. "We're not fooled."
Yes, you are! Fox shouted mentally, over the sound of Draco's noisy blubbering against Harry's shoulder. You've got it wrong, damn it, you mixed us up, can't you tell that's not me—
"I said stop." Neenie twisted her wrist a little, bringing the shining silver dagger in her hand into Fox's line of sight, its pommel stone gleaming like Harry's eyes as he glanced their way. "Do you understand me?"
After one instant of utter stillness, Fox managed a fractional nod.
"Good." Neenie looked away from him. "Harry, do you remember that little bit of prophecy Luna gave us a while ago?" she said, the sound of her voice bringing both boys' faces towards her, Harry's neutral, Draco's tearful. "Those four lines she got while she was working on a project with me?"
"I…think so?" Harry frowned. "Was that 'Abhor the spell from last to first' or something?"
"'First to last', but yes." Neenie smiled warmly at Draco, who returned the expression shakily. "Don't you think it was probably meant for right now?"
Harry's lips moved as he dredged the quatrain out of his memory. "Seems like," he agreed when he was done. "We've done the third line already, the one about knowing a lie from truth." He thumped Draco gently on the back, then bestowed a glare on Fox. "So now for the rest of it. Breaking the spell, helping the ones who need help, all that sort of thing."
"We should probably be ready to run." Neenie looked around dubiously. "There'll be a final strike in case anyone breaks the spell, that's just the sort of thing he would think was clever…but are we going to be able to find any sort of safe place?" She turned her head slowly, scanning the horizon, and allowed her gaze to dip just for a moment as she looked past Fox.
Swiftly, Fox blinked twice at her, and cut his eyes to the right.
"We'll make one if we can't find it, it's nothing to worry about," said Harry breezily, turning away from Fox and Neenie to face Draco full on. "Got yourself under some pretty nasty magic, didn't you," he said, his tone still light. "Want me to get it off?"
"Please." Draco didn't quite clasp his hands under his chin, but his worshipful look came close to nauseating. "Thank you so much for this, I thought no one would ever be able to help me, but to have it be you—"
"Easy, now." Harry patted Draco's arm. "We're not out of the woods yet. This may hurt some, but it's got to be done. Do you trust me?"
"Of course I do." Draco bristled up, insulted. "Aren't you my brother?"
"Oh, I am." Harry grinned, taking firm hold of Draco's shoulders. "I am all of that. Neenie, ready?"
"Ready." Neenie's weight shifted on Fox's chest as she prepared herself to move quickly.
"Hey," Draco began, looking sideways at Fox, "but what about—"
Harry's hands tightened their grip.
Draco shrieked in terror as flames engulfed him, engulfed Harry, roaring around them as though they'd offended some ancient god, swirling first one way, then the other, almost but not quite masking the two figures at their heart—Harry stood unmoving, unchanging, as Draco shrank and twisted under his hands, screaming in pain and fear while streamers of the substance coating him melted and evaporated in the merciless heat of the fire Harry had summoned—from having the same general form as Harry, an inch or two taller but built on more slender lines, he was nearing the size of Meghan, then of a goblin, then of a house-elf—
"Now!" Harry shouted, the flames cutting off with the word, as he spun and flung the child he held towards Neenie, who had already pushed off and was bolting towards him in the direction Fox had indicated, arms open to receive. Passing her by, Harry skidded to a stop beside Fox and went to one knee, grabbing Fox's hands in his. "Some day, isn't it?" he remarked.
"You have—" Fox shoved himself upright in time with Harry's heave. "—no idea."
"Want to bet?" Harry steadied Fox for the first few steps, until he found his balance. "We got there about the time Dumbledore said he was trying."
"Huh. Guess you do have some idea, then."
The sons of the Pack sprinted after their sister and the little boy she carried in her arms as the world began to shake around them.
Draco buried his face in the shoulder of the girl who held him tight (Neenie, he remembered, her name was Neenie, sometimes Hermione, but always Fox's twin) and tried to keep from crying, but so much had happened—first the magic that had tried to make him act like Fox, and then the magic that had made him try to hurt Fox, and now all the magic was gone, he was just himself, no mixed-up memories or spells trying to make him be seventeen when he wasn't, he hadn't ever been—
And I'm never getting to grow up that far, either. He risked a quick glance over Neenie's shoulder and stifled his whimper in her robes. Behind the running shapes of Fox and Harry, looming tall and terrible, shaking the ground underfoot and the sky overhead, was a towering wave of sickly green, half water, half magic, his father's magic—
I hate him. Draco's jaw set as he stared up at the evidence of what Lucius Malfoy really wanted and cared about, how much he treasured the son who'd returned to him after so long. When that wave broke, when it crested and fell, whatever it touched would be wiped out of existence, destroyed without a trace. I hate, hate, hate him, I'll never help him again, but I won't have a chance to do anything to stop him either, we'll never get wherever we're going in time—
Then he saw them.
Well behind Harry and Fox, very near the wave's leading edge, two other figures stood, their backs to him and their hands upraised above their heads. He couldn't tell for sure if they were men or women, not from this far away, but both of them had long cascades of hair spilling down their backs, one sleek and fiery red, the other a mass of brown curls, very like the one bouncing beside him with Neenie's every stride—
"Here!" called a voice, and Draco's head snapped around in shock. He knew that voice, he'd heard it before—
The woman standing beside a carved stone opening in what could equally have been a cliff or a wall smiled at him. She was slim and straight and pale, with soft blonde hair spilling across the shoulders of her robes, and her heart was in her blue eyes as she steadied Neenie's hasty climb to the opening, which Draco could now see led to a slickly polished tunnel.
"I love you," the woman said softly to Draco just before Neenie pushed off, and one cool finger stroked against his cheek. He started to reach back towards her, but a turn in the tunnel hid her from sight.
"I love you, too," he whispered back nonetheless. "Mother."
Harry nearly lost his stride as he saw who was waiting for them at their objective.
I knew Fox's mum helped keep him safe, but I wasn't expecting this!
Narcissa Black halted her son with one hand and waved Harry into the tunnel with the other. "He must close it," she said. "It is his place." Her voice reverberated slightly in his ears, as befit her status as—whatever the hell you call a dead person who's come back to help you. Revenant, maybe? That seems to fit…
Shoving aside his wonderings to be revisited if they should live through the next thirty seconds, Harry accepted Narcissa's hand up to the tunnel opening (her skin was cool, he noted, but not utterly frigid) and pushed off, glancing behind to be sure Fox was following.
Only his training—once you're out, you don't go back—kept him from clawing at the walls of the tunnel, trying to stop himself, to be sure he'd seen what he thought he had.
There was someone else back there. Two someone elses. Holding off that wave, keeping it from falling on us before we could get here. I only got a second's worth of a look at them, but—
An echoing boom told him Fox was safely inside, and had sealed the tunnel behind him. Harry exhaled a long breath of relief. "One of them was a witch with red hair," he whispered on the end of it. "And the other one looked like Danger, only she wasn't."
Maybe Narcissa knew she wasn't going to be able to handle it on her own, and called in reinforcements…
The tunnel twisted, turned, and dumped out into a small, comfortable bedroom, with Neenie seated on the edge of the bed, a shivering four-year-old cradled in her left arm. Harry rolled and came back up on his feet with his wand in his hand, nodding to his sister, who had her own out as well, trained on the tunnel's exit.
Fox will forgive us for being careful if it's really him back there, but no amount of forgiveness will make up for dead if it's not.
But the person who swung his slender frame lithely out of the hole in the wood-paneled wall, then closed it with a murmured, "Thank you, Mother", had an oval-triangular face set with lively blue eyes, topped by waves of sandy brown hair, and the little boy Hermione was holding made a noise caught somewhere between joy and consternation at his appearance. "Fox," he said, his child's treble beginning to waver. "Fox, I'm sorry—"
"Ah-ah." Fox crossed the space between them with three brisk steps and plucked little Draco out of his twin's hold. "Remember what Professor Dumbledore said. No apologizing for things that aren't your fault."
"But—"
"No buts." Fox sat down beside Neenie, so close that their hips brushed together, swinging Draco easily into his lap. Harry opted to sit on the floor, leaning his weight against the bottom corner of the bed. "It was the magic on you that made you do all those things, Lucius's magic, and now it's gone—you don't want to hurt me anymore, do you? Hit me or choke me or pull out your wand and hex me?"
Draco shook his head hard.
"And there you are." Fox smiled comfortingly at his smaller self. "The magic's off. You're just you now, Draco, and that's all you'll have to be, ever again."
"You promise?"
"I promise." Fox stroked his fingers along his face and touched them to Draco's cheek. "Pack honor. Speaking of which—" He nodded towards Hermione. "I know you've heard their names already, but it's politest to do it anyway. This is my twin sister, Neenie, and down on the floor over there is my brother Harry, though sometimes we call him Wolf."
"Just don't call me late for dinner." Harry extended his hand towards the little boy, who looked at it dubiously for a moment before closing his own around it. "Pleased to meet you, Draco."
"You too." Draco smiled briefly, then turned to accept Hermione's handshake as well. "Fox tells me lots of stories about—"An enormous yawn interrupted his words.
"Little sleepy?" said Fox sympathetically. "It's been quite a day. Sleep's probably the best thing for you." Shifting the little boy's weight until it rested against his upper arm, he turned to scoot more fully onto the bed, his voice taking on a lulling, almost hypnotic quality. "Nothing to worry about now, Draco. We're here. We'll take good care of you, we won't leave you alone, there's nothing to be afraid of anymore…"
Draco smiled sleepily up at his older self as his silver eyes drifted shut. "Love you, Fox," he murmured, just before his body went limp in utter relaxation.
"Love you too, kiddo." Fox leaned over to lay Draco gently down against the pillows of the bed, covering him with a soft green-and-gray throw Hermione handed him and bending down to drop a kiss against the cap of blond hair. "Sweet dreams."
Catching the ragged edges to his brother's scent, Harry got quietly to his feet, moving outward from the bed. Hermione did likewise on her twin's other side as Fox gestured a shimmering curtain, like a Privacy Spell, around the sleeping boy. "There," he said, looking down at the image of what he'd once been. "He should be all right for a while…"
As he turned to take a step away from the edge of the bed, his knees buckled under him.
Hermione darted in for the catch, Harry half a second behind her, easing his siblings down to the floor, holding them tight as Fox clung to Neenie, shaking in every limb. "Merlin's bloody mother and the ship she rode in on," Harry's brother choked out. "That should not have worked."
"Are you complaining?" Harry grunted as Fox's back-jabbed elbow hit him in the ribs. "Now I know it's you, you always did fight like a girl—"
"Which girl?" Fox could have been either laughing or crying through his words. Judging by his scent, Harry thought it was most likely both. "Because if you mean one of the Pack-mums, or our Warrior ladies, that's not an insult, it's a compliment."
"Suit yourself." Harry caught Hermione's eye over Fox's head. "Can you get me out of here?" he mouthed at her. "And back in, once I'm finished?"
His sister nodded, her eyes thanking him silently for his understanding.
"Back in a minute, Fox," Harry said, shoving his brother affectionately on the shoulder, then standing up. "I'm just going to duck out and make sure nobody spots us where we are in the real world."
"Good plan." Fox grinned, though the expression looked a bit sickly. "Getting captured again would suck a whole nestful of dragon eggs."
"You said it," Harry agreed, and wrapped a quick blanket of tame fire around the twins before stepping through the gleaming portal Hermione gestured into being in the air before him.
And I also know that Fox needs to fall apart for a minute or two. He opened his physical eyes, noting with relief that no one had found them in their tiny expanse of corridor, though some of the shouting was closer than it had been. He probably needs a lot longer than that, but that's what he's going to allow himself right now, and he won't even do that if I'm there watching. If it's just him and Neenie, he won't have to pretend, he can let go for a little while—the only thing better would be if Danger or Letha were here, but they're not, so we'll have to make do…
Thoughts of Letha reminded him of a technique she'd once discovered out of sheer ignorance that it shouldn't be possible, and had later taught to her cubs as a curiosity. A few moments later, a smoky mist was flowing from the tip of Harry's wand and forming itself into illusory blocks of stone across the entrance to the corridor, giving the impression of an unbroken wall.
"There," said Harry in satisfaction, finishing his work with a quick snap of the wrist. "It won't fool anyone who knows the castle, but the Death Eaters don't, or haven't for a long time."
It also wouldn't fool anyone who had some kind of locating spell on Fox. Which Lucius probably still does. He glanced back to where the twins lay side by side on the stone floor, hands still entwined within their rope cocoon. But I might be able to do something about that…
He laid his hand against the nearest wall and concentrated, as he had done a few weeks before when he, Neville, Meghan, and Letha had worked together, the rest of the Pack and Pride joining their magic in support, to rouse Hogwarts's inherent magic just enough that the castle would understand its approval was desired for Professor McGonagall as the next occupant of the Head's office.
Hi, he said mentally as he felt the magic waking again, a little quicker than it had been on the previous occasion. Remember me?
Hogwarts did, and liked what it remembered. This one was like another one, long-gone but lovingly preserved in the castle's memories.
Good to know. Listen, there's some people here tonight who shouldn't be. Especially this one. Harry brought up his memories of Lucius Malfoy, of the man's arrogant walk, his sneering face with its single scar below the left eye, his carefully enunciated pureblood diction. If he tries to find us here, can you confuse him for a while? Send him down the wrong corridors, make stairways come out where he doesn't expect them, that sort of thing?
Hogwarts would be glad to do that thing for this one.
Thanks. Appreciate it.
Withdrawing his consciousness, Harry caught his breath—what passed for Hogwarts's 'mind' thought at a different rate than human beings did, and the need to match paces could drain a lot of energy—then walked slowly back towards his siblings. Sitting down beside them, he opened the front of Hermione's robes.
A certain person deserved to get his treasures back.
Fox leaned against the side of the bed, letting the last of his current bout of shakes work their way out of him. Neenie's arms were strong and warm around him as they had been so many times, as he'd thought they never would be again, and the fire Harry had left behind was helping to fight his after-combat chills. "You scared me half to death, you know," he muttered. "Making me think you'd got it wrong like that."
"We thought there might be magic to watch out for something like that." Neenie squeezed him a little tighter. "And we weren't wrong, were we?"
"No, you were every bit right." Fox spent a moment or two just breathing, drawing himself down to calm, as he had done in his room at Malfoy Manor when his personal nightmare began. It seemed fitting to do the same on this, the night when it finally ended—
A sudden weight around his neck made him look down in surprise. Then he felt a grin erupt on his face which boded to be so wide that his cheek muscles would hurt for hours afterwards, as within his mind small blossoms of knowledge began to flower. Horcruxes, yes, and Hallows, and Sanctuary, and the year—it's all here, everything I left behind, it's back again, I'm me again, every bit of me, right at the end of things—
"Good for Harry." Neenie reached around and tugged gently at Fox's pendant chain, hanging in its proper place at last. "And I suppose the next thing will be—yes, there it is," she finished as Fox reached down to his side and came up with his green-stoned dagger, its hilt still holding a faint warmth. "Did you see—"
"That you were using this, instead of your blue one, to threaten me?" Fox sheathed his dagger again, feeling his grin, impossibly, widen. "Why do you think I stopped fighting you?"
"Oh, good!" Neenie laughed. "I'd hoped that's why it was, but I couldn't be sure—"
"Dream or no dream, you were going to have a hard time doing anything to me with a blade that goes straight through things when I tell it to." Fox pushed himself a little further upright, now that his arms were able to do so once more. "But Neenie—how did you know?"
His twin frowned at him. "How could we not?" she asked. "When you gave us such perfect clues?"
"Clues? I didn't give you any clues! I wanted you to get away from there, to not get involved in this mess…" Fox stopped. "And that's it, right there, isn't it?"
"That's one of them." Neenie laid her head momentarily against his shoulder. "You love us, Fox. You've proved that, over and over. And when you love people, you don't want them to get into trouble for you. The only problem is, when you love people, most often they love you back."
"And then they want to get into that same trouble, if only to get you out of it." Fox chuckled, and noted gratefully that the sound was almost back to normal. "All right, so what else was there?"
Before Neenie could answer, a flash of light signaled the reappearance of Harry, who dropped down beside them with ease, crossing his legs. "What else was there what?" he asked.
"How did we know which of them was which," Hermione elaborated, waving her hand between Fox and the sleeping child on the bed.
"Oh, that." Harry snorted a laugh. "Fox, the day you beg for help in a fair fight is the day I get down on my knees in front of Voldemort—and how do you get fairer than fighting yourself?"
"And even if it hadn't been fair, if he'd had some kind of advantage that meant you really needed the help, that's not how you would have asked for it," Neenie finished. "You would have made a joke out of it, said something like, 'Whenever you're done staring, I could use some help here'."
Fox rested his head against the mattress behind him. "Some people," he remarked to the empty air, "might get a little testy about having their siblings know them this well." His gaze came down to rest on Harry and Hermione again. "But then some people would still be wrapped up in Lucius's damn dirty magic instead of sitting here free with said siblings." He glanced behind him. "And one little bitty complication."
"Yes, what are you going to do with him?" Neenie turned to look at Draco, curled into a ball under his throw, one lock of hair falling across his closed eyes. "He can't exactly stay here…"
"Why not? It's where he was before all this started. I just improved on it." Fox flattened a bit of the carpet under his palm. "Besides," he said without looking up. "Unless I've been reading the calendar wrong, it isn't going to be a problem for very long."
"Yes, and that is not something I'm just going to allow," Neenie began heatedly.
Harry made a small noise, cutting her off and bringing Fox's head up. His brother, his alpha, was regarding him closely, starting to nod. "You know something," he said. "You've worked something out about tonight. Haven't you?"
"Worked something out?" Hermione's voice went momentarily shrill. "You mean—"
"I mean," Fox broke in, turning to face her, hoping she would read in his eyes his need for her to stay calm, to keep him calm in turn, "that I think I understand something the Ravenclaws told me once. They said that Luna's vision—that gravestone, and the person she meets there, and the things they say to one another—is a moment when two very different paths cross. That either path could lead to that point, so they can't tell for sure which one we're going to take. But tonight's the jumping-off point for both those paths. The moment of balance." He felt his smile turn wistful. "I've had a lot of time to think about it, this past month or so."
"And where did your thoughts take you?" Harry asked, his tone more strongly resembling Moony's professorial prompting than he probably realized.
"They took me to…readiness." Fox held out his hands, palms up. "Being ready and willing to walk down either one of those paths, to flower or to fade, whichever one comes to me. I have to believe that I've been told as much as I have, and only as much as I have, for a reason. If I expect one resolution over the other—if I even hope for one over the other—then somehow that tips the scales so that everything goes wrong." One hand sank to his knee, the other went up to head height. "So I have to be totally open if I want to win this. Completely ready for either way it could fall out."
"Including that you may well die tonight." Neenie sighed between her teeth. "I don't like it, Fox. I understand it, but I don't like it."
"I'm not too thrilled by it either. But." Fox extended his hand towards her, and after a moment she closed her own around it. "Whatever happens, Lucius won't be able to hurt you any longer. Not after I get done with him."
"What are you going to do?" Neenie asked, cradling his hand in hers.
"Something he did to me once already, or to the little one. Though he fixed it afterwards, and I'm not going to." Fox glanced back at Draco again. "I'm going to steal his magic. Tear it out of him by the roots."
Neenie's eyes widened. Harry whistled soft and low. "Permanently?" he asked.
"No, it grows back. Takes about six months, but it does. But he'll be basically a Squib most of that time, and you know how well that'll go over with His Dark Lordliness." Fox nodded at Neenie's soft, satisfied exhalation. "Means he probably won't go home right off, he'll lurk around us for a while to see if he can nick a few things to help him out, since we have some Muggles and Squibs on our team already. Plus it hurts like bloody blue blazes, which is not a negative from my point of view."
"Nor mine." Harry leaned back on his hands. "So even if he walks away tonight, instead of you, he'll be down his magic, which gives Luna a nice easy shot at him when the vision happens. And if he doesn't—if you're the one who walks away instead…" He looked around the room. "You know, this is a decent place, but it could stand to be a bit nicer. Especially if your mini-me, or whatever you want to call him, is going to spend a while in here."
"Why don't we go with little brother?" Neenie suggested. "You do have the same parents, just like you told him earlier. And speaking of which, out beside the entrance to this place, was that really—"
"My mum?" Fox nodded. "She didn't come alone, either. You might not have seen them, you were in a bit of a hurry, but right behind us, holding that wave off—"
"I saw them." Harry touched his chest, over where his pendants hung. "My mum. And yours, Neenie. Your born mum. Rose."
"My—" Hermione blinked, taken aback. "But she was a Muggle! How can she have—"
"Does that matter?" Fox asked quietly. "She loved you."
"I know, but…" Neenie sighed. "And now I feel awful, because she did love me, I know she did, and so did my father, but I don't miss them, because I never knew them. I was too young, just like you were, Harry, I only have stories and pictures, Moony and Danger are who I think of when I think about parents, and Padfoot and Letha right behind that—"
"And that's the way they would have wanted it," Harry said in a tone of certainty. "Because they did love you, Neenie, and that means they would want you to be happy with the Pack-parents, instead of still theirs but miserable because they weren't around." His eyes went momentarily distant. "Trust me. I know."
"That's right, you would." Neenie sketched an archway in the air with her free hand. "Because you saw your born parents, at the Department of Mysteries. James and Lily…" She laughed suddenly. "How funny!"
"What?" both boys asked in unison.
"Our mums!" Neenie pointed at the three of them, one at a time. "Rose, Lily, Narcissa! How did I never see that before?"
"Too busy living?" Fox suggested.
For some reason, this struck everyone as exquisitely amusing. Before long, three Pack-cubs lay flat on the floor, little gurgles of laughter rising and falling as each of them tried, and failed, to sit up once more.
"That ceiling really is a bit of a mess," said Neenie conversationally after several minutes had gone by. "And we should do something with the outdoors, if he's going to be here for a while. He's an active boy, he should have some room to run."
"I can do that, the outdoors bit." Fox achieved upright status on his fifth try. "We've put together how many forested dreamworlds by now?"
"I don't keep count. They all look alike to me anyway." Harry rolled onto his hands and knees, shook his head like Wolf might, and shoved from there to his feet. "What do you want me doing?"
"Fix the fireplace," said Fox promptly, pointing at it. "Smokes something awful, I never could get it to draw properly. Which probably explains the ceiling."
"This I can do." Harry trotted over to it and poked his head inside to peer up into the chimney, suppressing a sneeze with one hand.
"And I…" Neenie glanced around until she spotted the leather chair Fox had crafted for himself, in front of a desk with several Muggle-style television screens set in the wall above it. "I'll sit over here for just a bit. If I may."
"My room is your room." Fox swept her a grand bow. "Got something special in mind?"
"Yes, actually. But I have to see if it will work." Neenie seated herself in the chair and waved two fingers in a circle, shutting herself off behind a Privacy Spell of her own.
"All right, then," Fox murmured, turning to what would, in Malfoy Manor, have been the door onto the balcony, but here had led nowhere at all, until now. "Let's see what we can do with this…"
Luna sat back, satisfied, as her love and his siblings embarked on their work. A quick check of her watch showed her fifteen minutes until midnight, when it would become 5 June.
And then I'll know. Then I'll finally know…
The picture on the surface of the Imprimatus Potion flared up once and went dark. Luna looked sidelong at it.
Or maybe I won't.
"Who's there?" she said, standing up and turning in a slow circle. "Someone did that, and I know it wasn't me…"
A faint glimmer of light caught her eye. She turned to face it, and sighed. "I should have known," she said, extracting a letter addressed to Draco Black from beneath an empty flask. "What do you want now? I've been very patient with you, but—"
But you can't see this, no more than anyone else can, whispered the faintest of voices within her mind, too quiet even to tell if it was male or female. Didn't you hear him? The only way to get the outcome we want from this night is to be totally open to everything—
"Including letting Lucius kill him?" Luna curled her lip. "Revenge might be satisfying, but it won't give me back my Fox."
Neither will your watching tonight, Luna. It will make things worse, not better. The voice, hushed though it was, sounded utterly convinced. I can't force you not to, but if you ever trusted me, you won't.
Luna turned the letter over and over in her hands, watching the gentle glow within the parchment fade away.
Then she tucked it into her pocket, extinguished the candles with her wand, and slipped out of the toilet, making sure to lock the door behind her.
When the boys reconvened a short while later, Fox streaked with tree sap, Harry sooty but satisfied, Neenie was just straightening up from where she'd been tucking something into bed beside little Draco. "What do you think?" she said, smiling.
"Of—" Harry began, coming around the bed. Then he stopped short. "Wait, is that—"
Fox exhaled a soft breath of wonder as he caught a glimpse. "That's perfect, Neenie. Just perfect. It was the one thing I was worried about, I promised him he wouldn't be alone, and now he won't be—but how did you do it?"
"Oh, everyone's got a piece of themselves that never grew up." Neenie flexed her fingers, contemplating her work. "I just had to find mine, and ask if she wanted to come out and play with a nice boy who needed a friend."
Cuddled up beside Draco, nose pillowed on her paws, a tricolored kitten twitched her tail in her sleep.
"So I guess we're almost done," Neenie said absently, looking around the room. "He should be very happy in here…for however long he'll have it…"
Her lips quivered, and she whirled, catching Fox in her arms with a sob. "I love you so much," she whispered. "It's not fair, we've only had this tiny little last bit of time together, and now…"
"I know." Fox held her close to him, stroking her hair, soothing both of them at once with the motion. "But I'm not going far this time, Neenie. No matter what happens, we'll see each other again. You know that."
"Doesn't stop it from hurting." Harry's voice was rough. "Or us from wishing it didn't have to be this way."
"Agreed." Fox freed one arm to add Harry to the embrace. "But we had those few minutes in the kitchen with the whole Pack, and now this with just us. It matters, you know. It really does. Because this way…" He had to stop and swallow, but his voice, when it returned, was strong. "This way, if I die, I die on my feet. As myself. Standing tall, protecting the people I love." He sighed. "Tell everyone…well, you know."
"That you love them." Neenie lifted her head to look up at her twin. "That you'll always be watching out for them. And not to do anything you wouldn't do."
"Which doesn't put all that many limits on us, mind," Harry added.
The three shared one final, tight embrace. Then Fox released his brother and sister, stepping back from them. "You'd better go," he said. "We all should. It's nearly midnight."
"Excuse me!" Neenie tossed her hair over one shoulder. "Are you implying that I'm an ugly stepsister?"
"Not touching that one." Fox held up his hands in surrender. "Not touching that one with a ten-foot wand."
"Eleven-foot?" suggested Harry.
Laughing, the three figures disappeared from the dreamworld they had made for the last piece of Draco Malfoy within the mind of Draco Black, and awakened in their corridor at Hogwarts still smiling. Harry loosed the coils of rope which had bound their hands together, and they all sat up, watching one another closely in the candlelight.
"You might need this," Harry said after a few breaths of silence, extracting a wand from inside his robes. "Sorry about Disarming you, I wasn't sure who was in control."
"It's fine. Worked out in the end, didn't it? And no, I won't need it." Fox waved the offer away. "Give it to Neenie if you like. To remember me by."
"Why not?" Harry handed the wand over as requested. "How're you going to get his magic out of him without it?"
"It's not a wanded spell. Skin-to-skin, like our twin-bond." Fox extended one hand. "All I have to do is touch him."
"And how do you plan to get him close enough to do that, if you can't defend yourself?" Neenie inquired, running the wand through her fingers.
Fox hissed between his teeth. "I knew it was too easy."
"Maybe it still can be." Harry was looking at the branch of candles mounted on the wall. "Got anything in your pockets you don't mind losing?"
"Let me find out." Fox began to rummage, coming up with a few loose coins, a bit of fluff which Harry shook his head at, and then—
"Another one?" said Hermione in surprise as her twin withdrew a second wand from an upper pocket. "Where did you get it?"
"You know, as crazy as this night has been, I'm not really sure." Fox shrugged and tossed the wand over to Harry. "Guess that one's yours, then. And—ah-ha." A large piece of crumpled parchment made its appearance. "This do?"
"Perfect." Harry slid away the wand in the same pocket where he'd put the first one and extended his hand over the parchment. "Just give me a second here…"
A few moments later, Fox pocketed the parchment ball with care. "Thanks," he said. "That'll even things up quite a bit."
"You'd have thought of something else. I know you." Harry got to his feet, swirling his own wand towards the illusory stone to dissipate it. "Break a leg," he said, helping Hermione up in her turn. "Preferably his."
"I may do that." Fox grinned. "You two take care."
Neenie held up her hand and flexed thumb, ring finger, middle finger in turn, I love you in visible Pride-sign. Fox stroked his fingers down his cheek, kissed them, and blew across them in her direction.
Then Harry Potter and Hermione Granger-Lupin slipped away from the small corridor where they had fought for their brother's life, leaving him there alone.
A few turns away, Harry signaled for Hermione to hold on a moment, and laid his hand against the wall. You can let that one find his way now, he told the castle. The other one is ready.
A soft rumble shook his bones in answer.
"What was that?" Hermione asked, looking around worriedly. "Is everything—Pearl!"
Harry turned swiftly to see his younger sister at the end of the corridor, her shoulders very stiff. "What's wrong, Meghan?" he asked, starting towards her.
"I'm glad I found you." Meghan tried to smile, but her lips didn't seem to want to curve upwards. "I need your help."
"With what?" Harry reached her side and took her hand. "What's happened?"
"Mama Letha sent me…" Meghan swallowed hard. "…to find the Headmistress."
Harry shut his eyes for a moment, fighting his dual urges to curse and cry. It wouldn't help. It never did.
"She's most likely in her office," said Hermione out of the darkness, her voice thick but unwavering. "We can try there first."
"That sounds like a good plan." Harry opened his eyes and managed a smile for Meghan, who produced a small, wavering one in return. "And if she's not, her great-grandmother can have the paintings check around for her…"
Lucius Malfoy paused at the bottom of a set of stairs, breathing deeply. The scent of the air around him had changed. No longer was he following his own increasingly stale tracks in circles. Instead—
My son. At last.
He is alone now, but very recently he was not. And—oh, how interesting. Smoke and flame wound about his scent, as though he has them ready for me…
Drawing his wand, he began to stalk cautiously through the corridors, not bothering to call out. The thorough destruction of the magic he and his Master had so carefully laid on his ungrateful child had told him how useless such an act would be.
"That's right, Father," a cool voice murmured from no particular direction, "come and find me. This is where it ends. Only one of us will walk away this time."
"Indeed," Lucius replied in similarly quiet tones, straining all his senses to find where his son was speaking from. "And I fully intend that one to be me."
"That might be. And then, it might not." Draco laughed softly. "Either way, you'll never hurt my family again. I won't let you."
"Won't you?" Lucius paused beside a corner, smiling to himself. "And how will you accomplish this feat—when you are dead?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Draco countered with another laugh. "If you ask me nicely, maybe I'll tell—"
Lucius stepped into the open, the incantation ready on his lips, his wand coming down to casting position.
Draco whirled to face him, the ball of parchment in his hand igniting, his arm coming back to throw.
Twelve golden necklaces chilled ever so slightly about their owners' necks. The glow of the carvings upon them was faint and fitful, so much so that most members of the Pack and Pride did not even bother to draw their pendants from their robes.
The death they reported had hardly been an unexpected one.
Author Notes:
So…who shot first? What do you think? And how badly will you hurt me if I leave it here for a while?
More as soon as it's ready. There's plenty of "what else has been happening" to cover, after all. Thanks as always and don't forget to review!