Time of the Turning Chapter 20 Part One
Disclaimer: Kindly refer to disclaimers 1-19. This one would only be a variation on the same.
Dedicated: To japonicastar, for the wicked beta.
Written: A few months ago.
Rating: No idea. It's gen and stuff.
Genre: Pretty angsty...
Type: Novel-length
Title:
Chapter Twenty -- Causality Part Two: Casting The DiceDisclaimer:
When the matter is closely examined, it is seen that there is no chance whatsoever about the fall of the dice. Back of the fall of the die are causes, or chains of causes, running back further than the mind can follow.
~The Kybalion
Flashes of images came into a momentary sharp focus, snatches of conversations long past fading in and out, succeeding each other without any order. Feelings, sounds, even smells were coursing through him like fire; Harry wheezed for air, forehead pressed against the dusty, moth-eaten old carpet, missing the pool of sick next to him by a mere inch.
“James, come look! He’s standing up on his own!” Beaming, grinning faces looking at him. Faces he could recognise only because he’d seen them many times before on photographs.
“Sirius is missing this-Where’s the camera?”
“Forget the camera, just look at him-”
“You’ve got to be joking, the bastard will want proof Harry’s starting to walk-He owes me seventy-two Galleons and three Knuts, and if his first word is Dad, he’ll owe me a smashing--”
His parents faded away, replaced by a Sirius younger than he could remember. He too, was smiling, wearing a Father Christmas hat and floating baubles for him to try and grab, turning them into shiny broomsticks, or Quaffles, or Snitches. It was followed by another scene, which he was watching from behind blue-coloured bars.
“It’s madness, Padfoot. He’ll only kill you, and then what?” The anger, the hopelessness, washed over him as well as the words.
“I’ll tell you what’s madness-That prophecy rot is madness! Going after a bloody baby is madness! We need to grab whatever chance we can get to keep him alive!"
"Sirius--"
"He’ll kill us all anyway, you know that as well as I do.”
This too, faded into another, different scene. Chris was there, not older than nine, clutching him by the arms and shaking him in a panic, while he saw Voldemort’s face from the back of Quirrel’s head, as if through a haze--
“Connor, what’s wrong? Can you hear me? Gramps! Gramps! Come here quick!”
A hospital bed, around which blurry figures were talking in hushed voices-
Dementors closing in, heading for a fallen girl. They were going to give Holly the Kiss. He had to do something, anything--
“Sirius! Get my son off that motorbike this instant!”
“He’s got to learn young, Lily-What if he needs it for something?”
“He can barely sit upright, what would he need it for?”
“Why, to attract the girls, of course.”
Chris again, older. Another day. The same panic.
“He’s gone all stiff again. His eyes are open, but he can’t see me.”
An elderly wizard coming into view.
“Son, can you hear me?”
Harry was fairly gasping for breath now, eyes unfocused, lightheaded. The jumbled images of memories flooding his head were threatening to make his brain explode; the whirlwind of colours and voices spinning around him in a kaleidoscope-like array took him to his own past, to Connor’s past, bringing forth anything and everything, from the spiders in his cupboard to Dudley hunting him with his friends, to faces he’d never before seen, an elderly woman carrying an enormous birthday cake out into a garden, a girl on a pony…
To Voldemort’s resurrection, that botched rescue mission at the Department of Mysteries, Sirius falling through the veil… His dad, sitting him on a child’s broomstick and talking non-stop about how Sirius had sent it; Remus, carrying him at what looked like a funeral; a huge black dog, doing a backflip in the air to catch a red frisbee, turning in the next instant into a laughing, handsome young man, who accepted a pint of beer from a tall blonde woman that looked several months pregnant, stealing a kiss from her before it too, faded into another memory.
Each scene playing before his mind’s eye was as vivid as the next, alive as memories buried for years surfaced again, and he could recognise faces he never knew he knew, complete partial pictures, understand, to some extent, what was going on...
Flying horses. Death Eaters. Dementors. Moody, in front of a blackboard set out of doors, laughing harshly at some chelmish answer to his quizzing. A stone chute, filled with mud at the bottom. Bellatrix, hunting him and Chris down deserted streets… There was no ending it; the memories started speeding up, swirling around him, faster, faster…
* * *
A glass was hovering in front of his fogged eyes, never quite coming into focus.
“Here, drink this. And try to keep it down.” He was back at Grimmauld Place, back on the old, torn-up carpet of the Drawing Room. Harry sat up dizzily, supporting himself on one hand, while the other reached shakily for the proffered glass of water.
“Feeling better?” Chris asked, crouching next to him and looking him up and down quizzically. Harry nodded, swallowing and tasting bitter bile in his mouth. He righted his glasses, which were dangling off one ear, in an attempt to regain his focus.
“What was that?” he breathed.
“The truth.” Chris answered simply, then shrugged one shoulder. “He unlocked you.”
“Wasn’t aware I was locked,” Harry mumbled, trying to make sense of it all while simultaneously attempting, rather poorly, to regain control of his motor muscles.
“Of course not,” was the condescending reply. Harry looked up at the younger boy next to him, silently demanding a better explanation. An explanation, period.
“All right, all right,” Chris said, getting to his feet with a groan and pulling out his wand. “I’ll tell you what I know. Sit over there.” He gestured at the nearby sofa, clearing off the splatters of sick and shuffling over after Harry, who staggered to the sofa as instructed, wishing the world would stop that tilting and spinning around.
“I reckon it’ll be hard on you for a few days,” he began, “but I believe you’ll get a grip on things soon.” Harry was having a hard time following already. Get a wha? “You better-Connor's not doing too good, and he won’t get better unless you try and control it too.”
“Control what, exactly?”
“Those fits, what else?” Harry didn’t know how to even start going on about that.
“That’s what it is?” he asked, trying not to slur his words.
“I reckon,” Chris answered. “Gramps tried to find a cure for years. He didn’t manage, not quite at any rate.”
“A... cure?” Ah, but wasn’t he the perfect example of wit and a ready mind at the moment. He decided to sip his water, which was soothingly cool, refreshing his throat. It felt raw and strained, as if he’d screamed himself hoarse. He couldn’t remember uttering a sound, though.
“For this link you have with Connor,” Chris told him, gesturing in the air as he hunted for a way to put it. “It’s twisted-Those visions of Voldemort you have…” That he was saying the name made Harry give it more than a passing notice. “He gets them too. You get hurt, or upset or something… He’s right there. And he goes all stiff and shaking. It’s gotten pretty bad sometimes.” He snorted without much humour at Harry’s blank look. “What, you think it’s some sort of blessing, being in your head?”
“No,” Harry replied. “I just…” He shook his head, to clear it, or to try and think, he didn’t know. It wasn’t working, whatever it was. “How is that possible?”
Again, a shrug for an answer.
“I said I’d tell you what I know, I can’t tell you what I don’t,” Chris stated. “He’s had those dreams, or whatever you want to call them, since we were little. Nobody really knows why. He’d have nightmares, about a cupboard under the stairs, and this fat bloke and his fat kid… But it got really bad around the time you started at Hogwarts. That business with the Philosopher’s Stone-”
“You know about that?”
“He fell off a horse,” Chris carried on, ignoring him. “I thought he’d cop it-we were racing, and he fell back. When I turned to look, I saw him flailing around, screaming. Then he seized up and fell off. He was out cold for days, nobody could figure out what all was wrong with him. Not until later.”
Harry swallowed. He’d been out cold for days too, after the business with the Stone.
“Afterwards, he said it was like being in two places at once.” That was something Harry could relate to, at least.
“I’ve been getting… I’ve been seeing through him too, but… How’s that work?”
Chris only raised an eyebrow.
“I mean,” Harry said, trying hard to phrase it properly, “I’d never gotten those… I guess you can call them visions. Whatever. I’d never had them before.” Not from another kid he’d never even seen, at any rate.
“Course not,” Chris answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Gramps put up wards while Connor was in St. Mungo’s that first time. High enough, far enough, so the link would be broken. It didn’t quite work-Connor kept getting those visions, all the wards did was keep anyone else from getting anything from him.”
“To keep me out," Harry supplied.
“To keep you out,” Chris confirmed. “It was good enough, I s’pose. For a while. It helped keep us safe.”
“Until…”
“Until he died, yeah. I imagine you got it hard then, all those spells stopped working, all at once.” Chris shrugged. “Connor had it bad then too, I reckon. He’s told me some. He used to tell me everything that happened, and we’d try and piece things together, but he stopped doing that.”
“Why?”
“Last thing he told me was he’d get this recurrent dream, about the Ministry, a corridor, and a door, and a room full of… What were they?”
“Spheres,” Harry whispered, stomach clenching.
“That would be the one, yeah. It was driving him mental. Then one night a couple of months ago I heard him thrash around like mad. It was a bad fit.”
A ‘bad fit’ hardly sufficed to describe what had happened then. Harry could see it all over again; the flight on the Thestrals, the ambush, Sirius’ death… Voldemort possessing him. It had been a nightmare.
“He wouldn’t tell me what he saw. Hasn’t said a word about any of it since.”
Suddenly Connor’s open contempt was a lot easier for Harry to understand. He’d as good as killed his… His father.
And so much else besides.
“I read some of what happened in the papers,” Chris went on. “He hasn’t breathed a thing about that, or what’s going on now, either, but I’ve got eyes. Grams tried to help him with it when she was around, and I reckon she sort of managed to help him keep a hold on himself when it happened, to deal with what he saw, like. But she’s gone now, and he’s hardly sleeping. He’s awake half the night, and when he does get some sleep, he doesn’t rest. He keeps talking in his sleep, moaning and writhing. I reckon it’s because you’re not sleeping either.”
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” Harry said, and it was honest.
“What, like you can do anything about it? As far as I know, you’re shite at keeping them in check,” Chris said, shaking his head. “What makes you think you could keep anything from leaving your head and going to his?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Too right you don’t,” Chris replied. “But you will-you should figure out how to do it. It’ll kill him one of these days otherwise.” Which wasn’t really doing much by way of helping anything at all.
“I thought they were just… just dreams.” It put everything in a new perspective, all he’d been seeing and hearing of late… it was still impossible to wrap his mind around it, though.
“Yeah, well. They’re not,” Chris answered. “And I reckon you’ll be getting loads more. Gramps put up this block, but he only managed to shut you off, not Connor. Now the block is down, you’ll see more too. It’s only fair.”
“So that’s why he’s mad at me.”
“No. He’s mad at you because you do nothing about it.”
“What can I do?”
“Kill Voldemort?” Chris suggested, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Harry could see it wasn’t meant as a joke.
“Easier said than done.”
“I reckon it is,” Chris conceded, shrugging. “But it’s got to be you. Either that, or you can do something so Connor can get a go at living without you hacking away at his head every five minutes.”
Harry didn’t know what to make of it. He was still shell-shocked over what had happened, what was still happening, and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
It made sense though. A strange, twisted sort of sense, but sense nonetheless.
“What’s the thing with Sirius?” he asked, deciding to get to the other bit of news he still had trouble with.
“There’s no thing with Sirius,” Chris replied, suddenly curt. “Bloke was our dad,” he muttered after a moment, kicking at the foot of the sofa with his heel.
“He never mentioned having kids.” Not that Harry had ever tried to learn more about what his Godfather had gotten around to doing before he got stuck in Azkaban. But he did believe Sirius would have at least tried to get in touch with his kids. He hadn't been the sort to just ditch someone, was he?
No, he hadn't.
“I don’t reckon he knew about us being alive,” Chris said, and Harry could sense the same sort of bitterness he’d sensed in Connor welling up. “Or he didn’t remember. But if he forgot, I don’t reckon he did out of his own choosing. I reckon Gramps made him forget, just like he made everyone else forget we existed. Connor believes otherwise, though.”
“Why?” It was a simple question, but Harry could tell the answer was anything but; Chris was hesitating.
“How much do you know about the time before you were sent to live with those muggles?” he asked in return.
“Not really much.” And Harry had reasons to believe what he knew wasn’t nearly enough, either. Another thing he’d never really bothered to find out about, taking what little he did know for a fact, and leaving it at that.
“Figures.” Chris briefly raised his eyes to the ceiling, heaving a sigh. Just like Sirius used to, when he was about to talk about something nasty or difficult.... Harry could now see the similarities, could recognise them, link them to the face they evoked, and it was possible, now, to tell who they belonged to. The twins were to Sirius what Harry was to James; a copy, with deliberate differences so small it was hard to tell them apart.
“You do know your parents and Sirius had a plan to fool Voldemort, don’t you?”
Harry nodded mutely, that much he did know.
“Well, at least something,” Chris said. “I’m betting you know the official tale, don’t you,” Harry didn’t know what to say to that either, so he only nodded again.
“You see, originally our dad was supposed to be your Secret Keeper. But he got second thoughts about it. Didn’t want to be tortured into telling, or conned into it, I reckon. Connor believes he got cold feet.”
“He’s not much of a fan, I’ve noticed.”
“Can you blame him?” Chris asked him in return, cocking his head to the side. Harry had no answer for that, so he resumed, with a small scoff. “Whatever the case, they picked that rat Pettigrew, and… Well, you know the rest that went down. What nobody really knows is, Sirius had gotten together with our mum, and we were well on the way by the time they decided to go into hiding.”
Harry hadn’t heard of that, not even a mention… Ever.
“I reckon they were desperate, what with Voldemort and all the Death Eaters on their heels all the time, and you being just a tiny ankle-biter and us nothing but buns in the oven and all. I don’t reckon that prophecy did much to help matters along much, either.”
“You… you know about that?” Was there anything these boys didn’t know?
“Don’t look so surprised,” Chris suggested, looking grimly amused. “It makes you look rather dimmer than you are, and mate, it’s a fair bit. That propecy’s the reason it’s all so ruddy screwed, isn’t it? The reason you’re hunted like the last butterbeer in the Arctic winter, the reason your parents are dead, the reason Gramps got killed… And our mum, and our dad, and so many others.” He’d risen to his feet while speaking, his voice growing harder, more bitter as he carried on with his list. Harry had trouble not flinching away. “So many dead, so many lives torn to little bits. All for you.”
The tone in which it was delivered, the finality of it, made something inside Harry crack.
“It’s not like I wanted any of it to happen!” Harry snapped hotly. “I didn’t choose any of this!”
“You’re pissing in the wind if you think that’s going to get you any sympathy from this end,” Chris told him coolly, effectively shutting him up. He hadn’t wanted sympathy, had he?
Had he?
“You wanted the truth; now you get to deal with it. We’ve had to, all our lives.”
Harry took a deep, steadying breath. His head was still spinning, buzzing with thoughts, answers, and more questions than when this started.
“It was Gramps who helped them with the Fidelius Charms,” Chris continued his tale after a few eternally long moments. “Connor’s never had much patience for the story, but Grams told me once how it was back then, for them. Attacks every other day, wearing them down, the shaves getting narrower every time… I reckon that ought to excuse them for not seeing the obvious. They did know there was a spy, though. They just missed exactly who it was, didn’t they.” Harry turned his glass round in his hands, finding it easier to focus on it than on Chris.
“They’d planned for the worst, in a way. I figure they knew it could happen at any moment, so they prepared for it as best they could… Your dad was mum’s Secret Keeper, and in the likely event our dad copped it, he’d be our guardian, just like Sirius was yours. But then they were betrayed… and everything got shot to shite.”
That was a way of putting it.
“We were born that night Voldemort offed your parents,” Chris said, in a pensive sort of tone. “I like to think that our dad would’ve stuck around if he’d known, y’know, that we were there. But as it was, he was more… occupied… gathering up what was left of your parents then, getting you out of the rubble, losing his marbles, that sort of thing.”
“He was-” Harry began hotly, but Chris cut him off, with a dismissive wave of his hand. Harry’s mouth snapped shut.
“You don’t need to defend him with me,” he said calmly, almost sadly, but it was gone the next moment. “Don’t waste your breath. He made his choices, didn’t he? They all did.”
“He lost his head!”
“Yeah, that he did.” Chris agreed quietly, but then he shrugged it off again, carrying on with his story. “Mum lived right across the street from your family. That blast when you offed Voldemort… It happened just as Connor was being born. It nearly killed mum.”
“Wha?” Of all the things… Harry couldn’t but stare at the other boy, aghast.
“She did the same thing your mum did for you, she chose to die so Connor could live. Gramps had a hard time coming to terms with that. It did mess things up quite a bit more…”
Suddenly Connor’s words earlier were clear as the water he was holding. ‘You lived, you sorry little shite’. Harry swallowed; so that was what he meant. By living, Harry had indeed mucked their lives up beyond belief. Undeterred, Chris carried on.
“Mum lived long enough to name us; James and Sirius. I reckon that’s the only reason Gramps let us keep the names… Because she picked them. She was a bit of a sap, our mum.” Oh. So he was James. Harry’d been wondering what his real name was.
“Grams told me that’s when dad came running in, after that giant bloke took you away to the Muggles. Went completely round the bend when he saw mum, not that he’d been completely sane before, mind. And Gramps, well… I’m not sure what happened, really. Grams said he lost his head too, but I have my doubts… If there ever was one to know what to do, no matter what, it was him. Grams said Gramps told dad we were all dead, or maybe obliviated him, and took us into hiding.” Harry could only imagine what sort of blow that would have been for Sirius. “Made everyone forget we’d ever existed. Connor believes dad ditched us, though… that he knew we’d lived and chose to leave anyway.”
“What do you believe?” Harry rasped out. He couldn’t have spoken any louder if he’d tried, past that rock-hard lump lodged in his throat.
“I believe dad did what he had to do,” Chris answered, but Harry had the distinct sensation that he was trying to convince himself… And that it wasn’t the first time he did that either.
Looking up, Harry saw that he too, was focusing on something else rather than on him; he was looking at the tapestry, hands in his pockets, a certain hollow air about him that made him realise that relating the story was as hard for Chris as it was hard for him to hear.
“The way things worked out… It was one royal mess. I mean, dad was in worse danger than ever, got all those crimes pinned on him in a blinking…” Chris raised his eyebrows, cocked his head to the other side. “I reckon being a Black didn’t help him much there either,” he said, looking the charred family tree over with a small, humourless smile. “Dark blood will out and all that rot. Everyone lapped Fudge’s story right up.”
“Yeah,” Harry mumbled, swallowing.
“After he got chucked in Azkaban, Gramps tried to make a case for him, but there was no proof to back it up, they’d done things so thoroughly it was impossible to prove dad hadn’t copped anyone; Gramps couldn’t convince Dumbledore, even-Or rather, Dumbledore didn’t want to be convinced.” Harry looked at him sharply, what did that mean?
“Much less Fudge-that fat bastard used the notorious Black capture to get the Ministry for himself. He wasn’t going to let dad go so easily.” Chris paused, then shrugged that off as well. “Everyone was ready to believe anything, no matter how stupid. Just like now.”
Harry remained silent, shaking his head. He’d known Sirius lost everything after his parents died, had never thought it would have been so much more than what he’d believed it to be.
“Did you ever see him? After he escaped?” Harry asked in a small voice. Chris shook his head, no.
“Gramps asked us if we wanted to… He helped him go to the Antilles or something, with that hippogriff of his. Connor didn’t want to see him.”
“Did you?”
Chris shrugged.
“I couldn’t see what good it would do. Bloke never even knew about us, or else he had that memory block, so it was pretty much the same thing… He’d sworn himself to you, to fighting the war, so that pretty much wiped us from the picture.”
“But you were his family,” Harry argued. “If he’d known about you-”
“He’d probably have wanted to stick around, who knows.” Chris finished for him, conceding the point fairly. “And who’d have looked after you then, eh? He had a duty to fulfill, one that was more important than either of us.” One Harry botched up beyond recognition.
Again, Harry had no answer to that, but he didn’t agree with what he was hearing. Sirius would have been wild to meet his kids, no matter the circumstance, the danger, or the cost. He’d earned that right, in spades. But this too, was denied him. Harry couldn’t help wondering, if Sirius were alive now, what would the state of things be?
Nothing compared to what he was facing, he was sure.
“I’m not here to convince you of anything,” Chris broke the silence, reading his mind as if he’d spoken aloud. “I’m just here to tell you how it is. You don’t need to like it, it’s still the truth.”
He didn’t like it, that much was certain.
“Look, what’s done is done,” Chris said after another moment, sighing. “The bloke did what he could under the circumstances, and so did everyone else. It’s stupid to argue over what could have been, when it’s long over and they’re all dead. Instead of wondering why they did what they did, we ought to focus on what we’ll do about things as they are now. Wishful thinking’s wishful thinking, nothing more.”
Maybe, but Harry couldn’t help it any more than he could help wanting to get one thing straight.
“He wasn’t an idiot, though.”
“I never even met him, how could I know?” Chris’ tone was rather bland, the offhand tone back to the forefront. Harry got to his feet, moving to the window, head buzzing with more answers than he'd ever thought he'd get, hundreds of questions being generated the more he turned it over, threatening to make his brain explode.
“Connor’s got his reasons to be mad at him… and at you,” Chris stated. “And I respect those. You ought to do the same.”
"It's hard to respect what you can't understand," Harry replied, looking out the grimy panes and at the derelict old park outside, which was bathed in the same grey drizzle that had covered it all day and held no more advice than the rest of the world. The sun was setting, but oncoming nightfall, Harry believed, would bring no more clarity to him than daytime had so far.
"All you can do, then, is try to." Harry wasn’t sure he would be able to. He wasn’t certain of anything anymore, and yet, what he’d just heard… It was overwhelming, yes. But it made sense. The rug had been pulled cleanly from under his feet; he didn't know what to do about any of this, or what conclusions to get to.
“Do you get them too?” he asked. It wasn’t as out of the blue as it might have seemed.
“No, I don’t,” Chris answered levelly, catching on at once. “I don’t see through your eyes or spaz out, if that’s what you mean.”
“But you know. Deep inside, you always know what’s happening.” It wasn’t a question, which was perhaps what surprised Harry the most; he had started wanting to make sure of a doubt, ended up making a statement.
“We’re twins. Sort of comes with the package.”
* * *
There was a certain something about a battle Tonks feared she'd never get used to; the buzz of excitement right before they apparated together, the momentary confusion as they reached their target site, the rush of adrenalin as they launched the attack-or in this case, the defence-against the Death Eaters, but the moment her boots touched ground, for a fleeting moment every time, she wondered what in the seven circles of hell she was doing, could not understand what prompted anyone to hurt anyone else, couldn't see the point in what they were doing, wished the war didn't pit brothers against each other. And during this one instant, this blink of an eye, she had this urge to just leave the entire world behind, hide in a cave, and forget about it all. And during this time, she just knew it was the right thing to do.
One blink of an eye.
The next instant, the thought was gone, once more replaced by the war-happiness that was a characteristic trait of her family; she liked to duel, and the momentary wavering gone, her head was as clear as ever, she suddenly knew again why she was doing what she was doing, why she'd chosen the life she had, and that, she did act upon.
Every time.
"Potter was right-They're already here!" Moody's familiar bark was as comforting as his words were unsettling.
"We're not blind, Mad-Eye," George quipped from a foot or two away. Tonks snickered, even if the situation didn't warrant it; they were standing on the Longbottoms' lawn, and the damage was clearly visible even from here, the yelling, flashes of spells, noises of things breaking, all evidence enough of the goings-on inside.
"We're not deaf either," Fred added brightly from her other side, casting a blasting curse at the nearest window, where he could see two dark figures running around, to lob one of their newest products, the Sticky Bomb something or other, into the dining room. "Yell at them, not us."
“Yeah, now they all know we’re here too,” Tonks supplied brightly, grabbing on to the nearest person to keep from toppling over. “Sorry, Hestia, these roots-you’d think they’d learn to stay out of the way.”
"It'll rock the room in three...two... one."
George's warning did not go ignored. As one, every Order member sought a way to apparate or blast their way inside, avoiding the dining room as well as they could. The Twins' Sticky Bomb did not only make a prodigious amount of noise-- having left them both deaf for a few days upon testing-- but it also glued any wizard within range to the ceiling, with little hope to be gotten down before an hour's time... when it stopped gluing newcomers to the said ceiling.
In patterns.
With their knickers attached to their faces.
Tonks had been to the Longbottom house several times, which allowed her to apparate into the front room without much trouble, even as the entire house shook from the blast. Startled screams reached her ears, mingled with shouted spells and the blinding flashes of multicoloured light they emitted as they were cast. None of that bothered her overmuch; she was too accustomed to it to be disoriented. The debris littering the ground was far more of a challenge to her, not to mention, she barely manged to dodge what was flying at her.
Neville soared across the once prim and tidy room with a scream, crashing into a settee and upturning it, while two masked Death Eaters followed suit, one of them fairly dragging one leg.
"That’ll teach you to hex me, you worthless lump," Dolohov snapped, blasting the settee aside while clutching his leg, as the other rounded in on Tonks, who yelled out a Hurling Hex and leapt aside, even as a green flash of light illuminated the room and hit the far wall, and the as yet unnamed Death Eater hit a bookcase, which fell over him.
"Die, blood traitor,” Dolohov said, pointing his wand at Neville, who was trying to get to his feet, heaving for a breath. “Avada Kedavra!"
“No!” Green light filled the room a second time, much too close-
And blasted a hole right through the floor, right on the spot Neville had occupied a split second earlier.
Tonks took quick aim, sending a Hammer Hex at Dolohov, who toppled over with a yell, which was cut off abruptly as Reductor Curse whizzed past her, hitting him full in the chest.
She'd never seen Neville so angry.
"Wotcher, Neville," she said, helping the dishevelled lad up. "Good aim. Alright?"
"They're cornering Gran upstairs," Neville answered with a shaky nod, already leading the way to the doors. "Good thing you arrived-who else is here?"
"Everyone," Tonks answered, hurrying out after him.
"Let's get them, then."
This was easier said than done: Everywhere around them, there was debris blocking the way; bookcases blasted apart, bits of wall and ceiling raining on them as they tried to climb the stairs. George-or Fred, there was no telling who-was pointing his wand and laughing at a Death Eater hovering in midair by his ankle, who was furiously fighting his robes, which were flapping around on his head, exposing some sort of dark green underpants that were… rather less than flattering.
And then Neville went crashing to the floor with a startled cry.
“Where do you think you’re going?” One of the Lestrange brothers had, somehow, managed to appear right behind them, and whipping around, Tonks saw it was Rabastan towering over them, his brother approaching from behind. “Longbottom is ours.”
Like hell.
Tonks delivered her answer in the form of a Stunner, and soon spells were flying back and forth. She spun a circle around Neville, who was struggling against invisible bonds, cursing in frustration. Rodolphus added himself to the mix, and in between deflecting curses aimed at Neville and herself, and retaliating as best as she could, Tonks had no chance of freeing the boy.
Help came in the form of the upside-down Death Eater-gone-projectile, who was thrown against Rabastan, flattening him.
“Just like tenpin bowling,” Fred-or George-chortled, but Rodolphus was quick to react-a spell missed him by a mere inch, and the wall behind him cracked.
Then it exploded.
“Look out-” Tonks cried out, throwing up a hasty shield to protect herself and Neville from the wreckage, but it was already coming crashing down in a cloud of dust.
“George!” She couldn’t see anything, and there was no time to lose. She cast a Reductor Curse at Lestrange, missed, took the small opening to see if George had been hit- “George!” she yelled again, stunning the other Lestrange as he tried to get up.
“It’s-Fred,” a familiar voice corrected to her immense relief, and he emerged from the settling dust the next moment, covered in the stuff from head to toe. His wand was aimed straight at her, and a quick glance told her Lestrange was approaching from behind. “That could’ve squashed me flat,” Fred said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re trying to kill me-Reducto!” Tonks threw herself onto the floor atop Neville, and a cry of pain told her Fred had managed to hit Lestrange-and that Neville wasn’t taking too kindly to being squished.
“Sorry,” she said, peeling herself off Neville and freeing him with a muttered, “Finite.” There was no time for further conversation, though; Fred was fighting Lestrange, soon joined by George, who was coming from outside, sporting a cut on the side of his head.
“Come on,” Tonks told Neville, giving him a hand up and kicking a stirring Rabastan in the face. “We need to get you out of here.”
“We need to get Gran,” Neville wheezed, Tonks rolled her eyes.
“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s you they’re after,” she said, dragging him back down as a spell whizzed past, entirely too close for comfort. Hestia bolted past them, chasing yet another Death Eater into the kitchen, where an almighty clatter momentarily drowned out all sound. “We’ll get her; right now we need to get you somewhere safe-”
“I’m not going anywhere without her!” Neville shot back, tearing himself away from her and heading for the stairs again.
Tonks cursed under her breath, following.
“Up here,” Neville said harshly, even as Fred and George lobbed Lestrange into the dining room with a cackle.
Cries and shouted spells rent the air, which was buzzing thick with magic. The walls shook from the spells hitting them, and looking up, Tonks had a glimpse of a crystal chandelier shaking ominously right over their heads. Soon her attention was snapped back to her immediate vicinity, however-someone fell from the upstairs storey, rolling down the stairs upon landing-all she could see was that it was a Death Eater-and they barely managed to avoid being hit and dragged down. Neville gave him a sound kick in passing, grabbing Tonks’ arm and pulling her along.
“C’mon,” he urged, reaching the top of the stairs and thrusting his arm forward at once. “Stupefy! Everbero! Gran, where are you?”
As if in response, a keening wail was heard, loud and piercing and chilling to the bone.
There was no need to see it to know what was happening: Augusta Longbottom had just been hit with the Cruciatus. Paling, Neville sped up, following the sound to its source, ignoring everything around him. Tonks could barely keep up, and keep him from getting hit by spells left and right.
“Wait, dammit. Neville!” But it met with deaf ears, and any amount of swearing she did helped not a jot to make him listen.
The upper levels were in much the same state as the rest of the house. Tonks narrowly managed to shove Neville aside as a door was blasted clean off its hinges, followed by Bill, who, upon hitting the ground, raffled himself up and retaliated with a Bone Crushing Hex, before he hurled back into the room. Moody was barking something unintelligible at a Death Eater she recognised as Rookwood, as they traded spells with incredible speed-
They’d reached the end of a corridor, which opened into a solarium, which was now missing a few panes. Tonks skidded to a halt and made Neville stop before he lunged headlong into the room
“Watch it!” It was not one second too soon; a Killing Curse shot past, flaring green and smashing an entire side of the tainted glass windows in.
“LEAVE HER ALONE!” Neville bellowed furiously, wand raised and aimed at the two Death Eaters cornering the frail-looking witch, who had backed away and was presently against the wall.
“Or else what?” A lazy voice asked, and one of the Death Eaters turned around. Neville froze, wide-eyed, chest heaving without breathing.
It was Bellatrix.
“You’ll wet your nappy?” She cackled, turning her wand on him now.
“The boy is to be brought in alive,” the other wizard said, without turning around, but Bellatrix ignored his warning tone and advanced in on Neville, who stood, wand still raised and battered, a few steps into the room.
“Oh, but I’ve missed you, little chub.” The tone was chillingly affectionate. “Can you scream louder than she does? Let’s find out-Crucio!”
The scream that followed was deafening.
* * *
Hogwarts was very quiet during the holidays as a common rule, bathed in a sort of slumbering state during the months between term and term. The repairs having to be made this year were few, and most of the faculty had taken advantage of the holidays to go on a well-earned vacation themselves. Even the school poltergeist had taken some time off; as the summer wore on, the level of noise and sound in the ancient wizarding school was reduced to the quiet scuttling of the House Elves going about their tasks, or Hagrid’s work with some of the more dangerous magical creatures under his care out in the grounds.
Today was no different, and the sleepy quiet still pervaded the entire castle and grounds-save for one chamber.
Albus Dumbledore's office was alive with dozens of voices, all arguing at the same time. And yet, had anyone stepped into the room, all they would have been able to see would have been the old headmaster, pacing the office by himself, his pet phoenix for sole company and surrounded by a few score portraits, whose occupants were dozing in their frames.
These were neither quiet nor slumbering at the moment, however, busy pitted against each other in a debate that was more than just two-sided, and which was showing no signs of being over yet.
“My dear friends, please,” Dumbledore said placatingly, for perhaps the third time. It went unheard by most, but his time was running out, and they were not helping him think, as he’d hoped.
“I do need to find the answer to several matters, not just this one,” he reminded them. “And I would like to reach a conclusion before news comes from the Longbottoms.”
“But the Potter boy. Surely this scrap of parchment can wait until you have found a solution for his situation-” Dilys Derwent said sternly. She had never been one for Divination. Neither had Albus, not until he was given the Prophecy of the Chosen One… and now the one he had spread out on top of his desk. “If he does not have a Guardian before he turns sixteen, the Trace shall fall off him, he’ll come of age early, and that could be disastrous.”
“He’s old enough to be unbound, isn’t he?” Everard muttered. “In my time, you came of age at fifteen.”
“Yes, but he’s got the blood magic protecting him until he’s of age-”
“If he doesn’t have a guardian in two days, he’ll lose the blood protection.”
“Maybe that’s how it has to be, ever thought of that?”
“Fabio, you know he’s a mediocre wizard at best; he needs all the protection he can get, for as long as he can get it.”
“I shall address the matter with him as soon as possible,” Dumbledore said, loud enough to make himself heard over the babble.
“Who shall you appoint?”
“Shouldn’t the boy be asked whom he would wish to have as a Guardian?”
“After that good-for-nothing great-great-grandson of mine?” Phineas scoffed. “A baboon on a laxative potion could do a better job.”
“Enough,” Dumbledore said sternly. “I know it’s hard for you to accept, Phineas, but Sirius did do a good job of it. As well as he could under the circumstances, and despite our intervention.”
“Yes, get over it,” Citronella said primly. “He was a good boy, and ever so handsome…”
“And a cock-up,” Phineas maintained.
“I was thinking of appointing…” Dumbledore tried once more.
“Minerva,” Dilys supplied at once. “She’d be capital at the job, and she offered once to take care of him.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of…”
“Not the werewolf,” Everard said. “Think of the political consequences-”
“The Black kid was an escaped convict, yet he didn’t lose his rights as a guardian,” Fortescue interrupted. “The werewolf isn’t too bad an idea… Except for the bit where he’s-”
“A werewolf, perhaps?” Phineas suggested shrewdly.
“Afraid of the commitment,” Fortescue finished dryly.
“Not to mention, a werewolf,” Phineas supplied, in a smug, irritating tone that brooked no arguments.
“What about Molly Weasley? She’s as good as raised the boy.”
“Molly is having a hard time coping,” Dumbledore said delicately. “She did not approve of her younger children running off with Harry last term, and she is having her doubts as to so much as allowing them around him. Arthur is willing to take him in, as are her older sons, but she is reluctant to take on such a momentous task.”
Dilys merely rolled her eyes, but once more, the portraits felt the need to share their thoughts.
“She has to think of her family,” said Armando Dippet. “You cannot blame her, all her brothers died in the first war, and she has seven children who are being targeted for direct connection with the Potter boy.”
“They did all survive the battle at the Department of Mysteries, though,” Citronella supplied.
“And they might not do so the next time,” Everard pointed out.
“I fear Harry’s credibility has suffered greatly amongst the Order,” Dumbledore said. “His visions of Voldemort have always unsettled them; and he was manipulated into going to the Department of Mysteries, which, as we well know, was a disaster. They believe he cannot be trusted, though his intentions are good-there is no way of telling whether what he is seeing is the truth or not, not without a substantial risk to anyone involved.”
“Well, what did they expect?” Phineas asked. “The boy is a hothead, and Voldemort knows that as well as everyone. It makes him fallible and predictable.”
“Who did you want to be his guardian, then?” Dilys prompted, tapping her frame warningly with her wand. Phineas lost the smug expression, eyeing her warily.
“I was thinking of asking Alastor,” Dumbledore answered. “But he has recently taken in two wards, whose guardianship he was also recently given.”
“Oh yes, the McAlpin boys, isn’t it?”
He nodded heavily.
“Perhaps Minerva will take the job. I would rather Molly did it, but I cannot force her into taking him in. I shall conference with them tonight.”
“As long as it’s not the werewolf,” Phineas drawled lazily.
“There is another matter of importance I wished to address,” Dumbledore told them, stopping his pacing up and down his office, and gesturing to his desk.
“The colour of your new purse?” asked Dilys, feigning innocence and gesturing at the feathered, hot pink and purple item sitting atop the desk. “Pink has never suited you, no matter how much you like it or how fluffy it is, lad.” Dumbledore smiled mildly.
“I happen to be fond of it,” he told her. “But I meant the letter I received from Angus McAlpin, the day after he died. It contains several pieces of information I am having trouble putting together. I was hoping you could aid me to do so.”
“What all are we talking about, then?” Phineas asked, showing a glint of curiosity that was very rarely seen. The other former Hogwarts Heads also leaned forward, likewise intrigued, now the issues they had deemed more important were settled. They always loved new challenges to their minds, new developments. It probably took care of the monotony of being, well, a portrait.
Dumbledore suspected it was because of this that they had left this matter for last.
“The main piece of this puzzle is a prophecy,” he informed the portraits. “Angus told me very little about it, just that it was a complement to the one I already have. I cannot understand what it means…”
“As is the case with just about every prophecy made.”
“You’d think the Seers would try being less cryptic. Why can’t they just tell it as it is? Or will be?”
“It’s their sport, I wager.”
“What is the fun in trying to crack the riddles otherwise?”
“Does Voldemort know of this one?” Phineas asked.
Albus shook his head.
“Let us hear it then.” Dumbledore nodded, striding to his chair and sitting down.
“When the Second Darkness befalls us, when the Dark One walks again; when fear and darkness reign and the soul-less roam the land, then shall the Didymoi come forth, set into motion the Time of the Turning.”
“Sounds like what’s happening now, doesn’t it?” Citronella pointed out, tapping her nose with her birch rod wand.
“Time of the Turning, eh?” Phineas scoffed, shaking his head. “They get fancier every time.”
“Don’t you mean more ridiculous?” Everard wondered, smirking.
“Hush now, he’s not done yet.” Dilys snapped, moving out of her frame and into Armando Dippet’s, who had to scoot aside to make room for her.
“For someone not interested in Divination, you’re certainly keen,” Armando said, squeezing his chair out of the way so he too, could hear the rest.
“It’s not that I am interested in it,” Dilys said primly, “it’s that he’ll act upon it. Again.” She gestured at Dumbledore impatiently. “Go on now, boy, I want to hear the rest.”
“If you’d pack it in for a minute, you’d let him finish.”
Dumbledore couldn’t bring himself to smile at the exchange. Instead, he cleared his throat again, popped a sherbert lemon in his mouth, and carried on reading.
“Of kin, yet not of kin; Princes sons of Princes sons of Kings. Old pacts hold fast, unbroken by death or strife. As the Fathers, two as one; by choice and blood bonded, conjoined in heart, mind, soul. Fates entwined, two yet one: one hope for the Light-or the Dark.
Feared by the Dark One the Didymoi are, yet by him made, unwittingly-his undoing and his victory he created. Blindly he shall wish, fear, crave for this power, for he shall know it upon sight. Should he manage all is lost; for a thousand years and one, Light no more shall bless the land.
Three wills as one, as two. Three, at war. One, champion for the Dark, self-appointed. One, chosen champion of the Light; marked by Darkness, yet untainted, holds a power unknown. One, the twice-born, kept in secret, holds the key. Choices weigh hard, appearances deceive. Dark and Light crash, collide. Duality unmade, victory of Light or Dark lies in their hands… For a thousand years and one.”
There was a long, thoughtful silence in the office after Dumbledore had finished reading the Didymos Prophecy for a third time. Even Fawkes was watching the wizened wizard intently, as if he too, were waiting for a verdict on the text.
It was Fortescue who broke the silence.
“Well, son,” he stated, folding his hands over his rather prominent belly with a chuckle. “That certainly made no sense at all.”
It would be a long evening.
* * *
"They're talking about sacking Fudge," Chris commented aloud, turning a page on the Prophet. Lying on the other bed, Connor merely scoffed, not bothering to so much as look at his brother.
Night had fallen, and a storm was lashing London, rattling the shutters and drumming a rhythmical tattoo against the windows. There was, as yet, no news from the Order or the Longbottoms, and the few inhabitants left at Grimmauld Place had drifted apart after a silent, tense dinner, as though by an unspoken agreement; there was little else to do but wait, and none wanted the others' company.
"Says here people are rioting," Chris went on, seemingly unbothered by the fact he was getting largely ignored, much as he had been all evening. “Looks like they’re starting to believe Fudge fudged it up. They’re on about the disappearances, too. Another three kids have gone missing…”
“Four,” Connor corrected, and even this one word came out grudgingly. He had been sulking ever since he unlocked Harry, and this was perhaps the first word he’d spoken since; grunts didn’t qualify as a valid form of conversation, after all, for all they told volumes. Chris raised an eyebrow; he’d expected to get the silent treatment at least until the next day.
“You’d think they’d at least get it right,” he quipped, but there was nothing light-hearted in the way he was looking his brother over. He was facing the wall though, away from him, so there was little he could infer by observation alone. “When was the last?”
“This morning.” It was a disturbing thing to hear. Chris lowered the paper, biting his lip. Connor had stopped telling him what he saw months ago, but he had every reason to believe it was because what he was seeing had reached a whole new level.
“Do you know what they want them for?”
“No. But I bet it’s not a casting for a play.”
The silence was restored; Chris reluctantly turned to the paper again, but he couldn’t focus on what he was reading, busy instead turning matters over in his head. Everything was a mess, as far from good as it could possibly get, but it wasn’t like Connor to be this bitter. If he traced it back, he could almost pinpoint when it had started-the day the fire broke out in stable seven-when things had begun to go from bad to worse. But they’d been in trouble before, and though it had never been this bad, it had never threatened to make them drift apart.
They’d never kept secrets from each other before.
What had Gramps told him? The question surfaced again, as it had so often in the past few days. Sure, Connor had told him some things, but not nearly everything, and Chris didn’t need to be his twin to know something was deeply wrong; and he wanted to find an answer to that question before things got so much worse.
Perhaps it was that he was tired, he mused, skimming the paper without taking in a single word he was reading. He felt much the same after all, the constant aches from half-healed wounds could do that to one. And he knew Connor wasn’t sleeping, just as Harry wasn’t sleeping either. He wondered, for maybe the first time that day, if it had been the right thing to do, unlocking the Potter kid. Would the spaz fits lessen, as he hoped, or would they become worse, as he was starting to fear?
And… Would Connor have unlocked him anyway, even knowing it would make things worse?
“There’s this article here,” he said, propping himself up on one arm, “says there’s reasons to believe one Sirius Black was really innocent of the crimes he is charged with.”
“Bully for him,” Connor muttered. Chris fell silent, lowering the paper.
“I know you hate the bloke,” he said. “But even you can’t deny it’s good news.”
“Yeah, fat lot of good it does,” Connor countered, sitting up and looking at Chris in exasperation. “The bloke’s dead, what does it matter if people think him innocent now?”
“I don’t know. It’s just nice to know his name will be cleared, I s’pose.”
“If you say so,” Connor conceded, bunching up his pillow before burying his face in it. “Whoop-de-bloody-do. Go tell Potter of it, I bet he’ll be so delighted he’ll wet himself.”
“Yeah, right,” Chris answered with a small chuckle, shaking his head. “He’ll probably have a breakdown or something.”
“Sore topic and all,” Connor concurred at a murmur, but he didn’t elaborate.
He never did anymore.
“Don’t you think we should give him a hand?” Chris asked after a moment’s silence.
“You reckon?” Connor gave him a dismissive wave, running his good hand through his hair. “All he does is mope, for crying out loud. Give him a hanky, why don’t you, as you’re so keen on helping.”
“He’s as lost as we are,” Chris insisted. “He doesn’t know half of what he should-He doesn’t know what to do, at all. He’s been kept in the dark-”
“He hasn’t done much to figure it out either,” Connor said harshly.
“But not even the Order believe him--”
“I wouldn’t either,” Connor said. “If listening to him were sure to lead to me copping it.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Supreme Sodhead,” Connor said. “He plants stuff in his head. And Potter is rubbish at telling truth from lies. He just… acts out of reflex. You can’t trust someone like that.” He stood up, and for a moment Chris thought he’d stomp out of the room. Instead, he just went to the trunk Mad-Eye had brought, rummaged in it for a moment, then extracted a very battered tome of Muggle anatomy and returned to his bed, to read.
“Connor?” Chris ventured a while later, putting down the paper, where he’d been doodling on a picture of Fudge. The podgy Minister for Magic now sported horns, a black eye, was lacking several teeth, and had a moving caption on his forehead announcing he was a dolt.
“Hmm?” Connor had been doing some doodling of his own, in between examining notes stuck in between the pages of the book.
“What will happen now?”
“’Choo mean?”
“What will happen now,” Chris repeated levelly, “now you’ve unlocked Potter?”
“I don’t know.” Connor shrugged one shoulder
“Pardon?”
“I… don’t know what's going to happen?” Connor repeated, wrestling his arm out of the sling and leaning against the headboard.
“You don’t have so much as a clue?” Chris couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Connor closed the book, setting it aside.
“Nah.”
“Why'd you do it, then?”
“Well, like you said, it’s only fair.”
“Yeah, but... didn’t you feel any change? Anything different?”
Connor shrugged again, then shook his head.
“I reckon you were right,” he said after a moment. “Everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it? And… Maybe that link thing is supposed to be working for a reason. So I took the block down, to, dunno. See what happens.”
“And are you feeling alright?”
“Yeah, I don’t feel any different.”
“He did, for sure.” Chris had been meaning to tell him for hours. “He was properly shocked and things, twitching and writhing… What all did he see?”
“Everything he’d forgotten,” Connor replied quietly, eyes fixed on the wall opposite. “Everything he’d missed.” Chris let out a low whistle. He must’ve missed a lot, then.
“You reckon he’ll pop?”
“It’s not like I’d ever done it before, is it? Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
Chris turned to the crossword, frowning at it. Wait and see, then, was the plan.
Could he be blamed if he didn’t like it at all?
* * *
“Padfoot, mate…” James prompted for perhaps the tenth time in as many minutes.
“Shh, I can hardly hear what they’re saying over your yammer.”
“Trot your furry arse closer, then.”
“I happen to like it from here.” Sirius was leaning against the wall of Reg’s old room, from where he was watching his boys, his new favourite pastime. With endless freedom and time on his hands at last, James hadn’t thought he’d take to watching the living right away, but that’s pretty much all he did. Most of the time, anyway, when he wasn’t being dragged into doing something else by his best mate and assorted partners in crime.
Being dead, after all, was much more than just clinging to the living-something James could not, perhaps, claim to have learned; he’d spent most of his time around the living too, after all. However, now he and Sirius were together again, the greater part of his wait was over. He could focus on everything else there was to do, concentrate on showing Sirius all there was for him in the world of the dead, and make up for years of suffering as best as he could.
Not that he was alone in his endeavours. His parents, Alphard, Sabrina, the Prewetts, McKinnons, most of their friends who’d not survived the war either, and most surprisingly, Regulus-everyone had welcomed Sirius with open arms, when he’d finally made it through to them.
It was a good thing, he mused as he paced up and down the room while waiting for Sirius to have ogled his fill, that the Lands of the Dead were not bound to the limits of time. If they were, they wouldn’t have the chance to do half of the stuff they got up to lately.
Because Sirius liked it down here, or so he claimed.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
“You’re not precisely missing much,” James informed after a moment, looking over Chris’ shoulder. No matter how much they were called by other names, to him they were best known as Padfoot’s Puppies. “Just more bitching over you…Oh look, he’s improved Fudge.”
Sirius came closer, snorting appreciatively at the paper on his eldest’s lap, where an apoplectic and much deformed Fudge was shaking his fist at him.
“He’s good,” he commented proudly. “Wonder if he does portraits too.”
“He does cartoons as well. Pretty decent, for a pup.”
“Atta boy,” Sirius said, returning to his post by the wall.
“We’ve been here for hours,” James complained, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe. “I’m bored.”
A bouncy ball was lobbed in his direction by way of an answer.
* * *
Dedicated: To japonicastar, for the wicked beta.
Written: A few months ago.
Rating: No idea. It's gen and stuff.
Genre: Pretty angsty...
Type: Novel-length
Title:
Chapter Twenty -- Causality Part Two: Casting The DiceDisclaimer:
When the matter is closely examined, it is seen that there is no chance whatsoever about the fall of the dice. Back of the fall of the die are causes, or chains of causes, running back further than the mind can follow.
~The Kybalion
Flashes of images came into a momentary sharp focus, snatches of conversations long past fading in and out, succeeding each other without any order. Feelings, sounds, even smells were coursing through him like fire; Harry wheezed for air, forehead pressed against the dusty, moth-eaten old carpet, missing the pool of sick next to him by a mere inch.
“James, come look! He’s standing up on his own!” Beaming, grinning faces looking at him. Faces he could recognise only because he’d seen them many times before on photographs.
“Sirius is missing this-Where’s the camera?”
“Forget the camera, just look at him-”
“You’ve got to be joking, the bastard will want proof Harry’s starting to walk-He owes me seventy-two Galleons and three Knuts, and if his first word is Dad, he’ll owe me a smashing--”
His parents faded away, replaced by a Sirius younger than he could remember. He too, was smiling, wearing a Father Christmas hat and floating baubles for him to try and grab, turning them into shiny broomsticks, or Quaffles, or Snitches. It was followed by another scene, which he was watching from behind blue-coloured bars.
“It’s madness, Padfoot. He’ll only kill you, and then what?” The anger, the hopelessness, washed over him as well as the words.
“I’ll tell you what’s madness-That prophecy rot is madness! Going after a bloody baby is madness! We need to grab whatever chance we can get to keep him alive!"
"Sirius--"
"He’ll kill us all anyway, you know that as well as I do.”
This too, faded into another, different scene. Chris was there, not older than nine, clutching him by the arms and shaking him in a panic, while he saw Voldemort’s face from the back of Quirrel’s head, as if through a haze--
“Connor, what’s wrong? Can you hear me? Gramps! Gramps! Come here quick!”
A hospital bed, around which blurry figures were talking in hushed voices-
Dementors closing in, heading for a fallen girl. They were going to give Holly the Kiss. He had to do something, anything--
“Sirius! Get my son off that motorbike this instant!”
“He’s got to learn young, Lily-What if he needs it for something?”
“He can barely sit upright, what would he need it for?”
“Why, to attract the girls, of course.”
Chris again, older. Another day. The same panic.
“He’s gone all stiff again. His eyes are open, but he can’t see me.”
An elderly wizard coming into view.
“Son, can you hear me?”
Harry was fairly gasping for breath now, eyes unfocused, lightheaded. The jumbled images of memories flooding his head were threatening to make his brain explode; the whirlwind of colours and voices spinning around him in a kaleidoscope-like array took him to his own past, to Connor’s past, bringing forth anything and everything, from the spiders in his cupboard to Dudley hunting him with his friends, to faces he’d never before seen, an elderly woman carrying an enormous birthday cake out into a garden, a girl on a pony…
To Voldemort’s resurrection, that botched rescue mission at the Department of Mysteries, Sirius falling through the veil… His dad, sitting him on a child’s broomstick and talking non-stop about how Sirius had sent it; Remus, carrying him at what looked like a funeral; a huge black dog, doing a backflip in the air to catch a red frisbee, turning in the next instant into a laughing, handsome young man, who accepted a pint of beer from a tall blonde woman that looked several months pregnant, stealing a kiss from her before it too, faded into another memory.
Each scene playing before his mind’s eye was as vivid as the next, alive as memories buried for years surfaced again, and he could recognise faces he never knew he knew, complete partial pictures, understand, to some extent, what was going on...
Flying horses. Death Eaters. Dementors. Moody, in front of a blackboard set out of doors, laughing harshly at some chelmish answer to his quizzing. A stone chute, filled with mud at the bottom. Bellatrix, hunting him and Chris down deserted streets… There was no ending it; the memories started speeding up, swirling around him, faster, faster…
* * *
A glass was hovering in front of his fogged eyes, never quite coming into focus.
“Here, drink this. And try to keep it down.” He was back at Grimmauld Place, back on the old, torn-up carpet of the Drawing Room. Harry sat up dizzily, supporting himself on one hand, while the other reached shakily for the proffered glass of water.
“Feeling better?” Chris asked, crouching next to him and looking him up and down quizzically. Harry nodded, swallowing and tasting bitter bile in his mouth. He righted his glasses, which were dangling off one ear, in an attempt to regain his focus.
“What was that?” he breathed.
“The truth.” Chris answered simply, then shrugged one shoulder. “He unlocked you.”
“Wasn’t aware I was locked,” Harry mumbled, trying to make sense of it all while simultaneously attempting, rather poorly, to regain control of his motor muscles.
“Of course not,” was the condescending reply. Harry looked up at the younger boy next to him, silently demanding a better explanation. An explanation, period.
“All right, all right,” Chris said, getting to his feet with a groan and pulling out his wand. “I’ll tell you what I know. Sit over there.” He gestured at the nearby sofa, clearing off the splatters of sick and shuffling over after Harry, who staggered to the sofa as instructed, wishing the world would stop that tilting and spinning around.
“I reckon it’ll be hard on you for a few days,” he began, “but I believe you’ll get a grip on things soon.” Harry was having a hard time following already. Get a wha? “You better-Connor's not doing too good, and he won’t get better unless you try and control it too.”
“Control what, exactly?”
“Those fits, what else?” Harry didn’t know how to even start going on about that.
“That’s what it is?” he asked, trying not to slur his words.
“I reckon,” Chris answered. “Gramps tried to find a cure for years. He didn’t manage, not quite at any rate.”
“A... cure?” Ah, but wasn’t he the perfect example of wit and a ready mind at the moment. He decided to sip his water, which was soothingly cool, refreshing his throat. It felt raw and strained, as if he’d screamed himself hoarse. He couldn’t remember uttering a sound, though.
“For this link you have with Connor,” Chris told him, gesturing in the air as he hunted for a way to put it. “It’s twisted-Those visions of Voldemort you have…” That he was saying the name made Harry give it more than a passing notice. “He gets them too. You get hurt, or upset or something… He’s right there. And he goes all stiff and shaking. It’s gotten pretty bad sometimes.” He snorted without much humour at Harry’s blank look. “What, you think it’s some sort of blessing, being in your head?”
“No,” Harry replied. “I just…” He shook his head, to clear it, or to try and think, he didn’t know. It wasn’t working, whatever it was. “How is that possible?”
Again, a shrug for an answer.
“I said I’d tell you what I know, I can’t tell you what I don’t,” Chris stated. “He’s had those dreams, or whatever you want to call them, since we were little. Nobody really knows why. He’d have nightmares, about a cupboard under the stairs, and this fat bloke and his fat kid… But it got really bad around the time you started at Hogwarts. That business with the Philosopher’s Stone-”
“You know about that?”
“He fell off a horse,” Chris carried on, ignoring him. “I thought he’d cop it-we were racing, and he fell back. When I turned to look, I saw him flailing around, screaming. Then he seized up and fell off. He was out cold for days, nobody could figure out what all was wrong with him. Not until later.”
Harry swallowed. He’d been out cold for days too, after the business with the Stone.
“Afterwards, he said it was like being in two places at once.” That was something Harry could relate to, at least.
“I’ve been getting… I’ve been seeing through him too, but… How’s that work?”
Chris only raised an eyebrow.
“I mean,” Harry said, trying hard to phrase it properly, “I’d never gotten those… I guess you can call them visions. Whatever. I’d never had them before.” Not from another kid he’d never even seen, at any rate.
“Course not,” Chris answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Gramps put up wards while Connor was in St. Mungo’s that first time. High enough, far enough, so the link would be broken. It didn’t quite work-Connor kept getting those visions, all the wards did was keep anyone else from getting anything from him.”
“To keep me out," Harry supplied.
“To keep you out,” Chris confirmed. “It was good enough, I s’pose. For a while. It helped keep us safe.”
“Until…”
“Until he died, yeah. I imagine you got it hard then, all those spells stopped working, all at once.” Chris shrugged. “Connor had it bad then too, I reckon. He’s told me some. He used to tell me everything that happened, and we’d try and piece things together, but he stopped doing that.”
“Why?”
“Last thing he told me was he’d get this recurrent dream, about the Ministry, a corridor, and a door, and a room full of… What were they?”
“Spheres,” Harry whispered, stomach clenching.
“That would be the one, yeah. It was driving him mental. Then one night a couple of months ago I heard him thrash around like mad. It was a bad fit.”
A ‘bad fit’ hardly sufficed to describe what had happened then. Harry could see it all over again; the flight on the Thestrals, the ambush, Sirius’ death… Voldemort possessing him. It had been a nightmare.
“He wouldn’t tell me what he saw. Hasn’t said a word about any of it since.”
Suddenly Connor’s open contempt was a lot easier for Harry to understand. He’d as good as killed his… His father.
And so much else besides.
“I read some of what happened in the papers,” Chris went on. “He hasn’t breathed a thing about that, or what’s going on now, either, but I’ve got eyes. Grams tried to help him with it when she was around, and I reckon she sort of managed to help him keep a hold on himself when it happened, to deal with what he saw, like. But she’s gone now, and he’s hardly sleeping. He’s awake half the night, and when he does get some sleep, he doesn’t rest. He keeps talking in his sleep, moaning and writhing. I reckon it’s because you’re not sleeping either.”
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” Harry said, and it was honest.
“What, like you can do anything about it? As far as I know, you’re shite at keeping them in check,” Chris said, shaking his head. “What makes you think you could keep anything from leaving your head and going to his?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Too right you don’t,” Chris replied. “But you will-you should figure out how to do it. It’ll kill him one of these days otherwise.” Which wasn’t really doing much by way of helping anything at all.
“I thought they were just… just dreams.” It put everything in a new perspective, all he’d been seeing and hearing of late… it was still impossible to wrap his mind around it, though.
“Yeah, well. They’re not,” Chris answered. “And I reckon you’ll be getting loads more. Gramps put up this block, but he only managed to shut you off, not Connor. Now the block is down, you’ll see more too. It’s only fair.”
“So that’s why he’s mad at me.”
“No. He’s mad at you because you do nothing about it.”
“What can I do?”
“Kill Voldemort?” Chris suggested, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Harry could see it wasn’t meant as a joke.
“Easier said than done.”
“I reckon it is,” Chris conceded, shrugging. “But it’s got to be you. Either that, or you can do something so Connor can get a go at living without you hacking away at his head every five minutes.”
Harry didn’t know what to make of it. He was still shell-shocked over what had happened, what was still happening, and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
It made sense though. A strange, twisted sort of sense, but sense nonetheless.
“What’s the thing with Sirius?” he asked, deciding to get to the other bit of news he still had trouble with.
“There’s no thing with Sirius,” Chris replied, suddenly curt. “Bloke was our dad,” he muttered after a moment, kicking at the foot of the sofa with his heel.
“He never mentioned having kids.” Not that Harry had ever tried to learn more about what his Godfather had gotten around to doing before he got stuck in Azkaban. But he did believe Sirius would have at least tried to get in touch with his kids. He hadn't been the sort to just ditch someone, was he?
No, he hadn't.
“I don’t reckon he knew about us being alive,” Chris said, and Harry could sense the same sort of bitterness he’d sensed in Connor welling up. “Or he didn’t remember. But if he forgot, I don’t reckon he did out of his own choosing. I reckon Gramps made him forget, just like he made everyone else forget we existed. Connor believes otherwise, though.”
“Why?” It was a simple question, but Harry could tell the answer was anything but; Chris was hesitating.
“How much do you know about the time before you were sent to live with those muggles?” he asked in return.
“Not really much.” And Harry had reasons to believe what he knew wasn’t nearly enough, either. Another thing he’d never really bothered to find out about, taking what little he did know for a fact, and leaving it at that.
“Figures.” Chris briefly raised his eyes to the ceiling, heaving a sigh. Just like Sirius used to, when he was about to talk about something nasty or difficult.... Harry could now see the similarities, could recognise them, link them to the face they evoked, and it was possible, now, to tell who they belonged to. The twins were to Sirius what Harry was to James; a copy, with deliberate differences so small it was hard to tell them apart.
“You do know your parents and Sirius had a plan to fool Voldemort, don’t you?”
Harry nodded mutely, that much he did know.
“Well, at least something,” Chris said. “I’m betting you know the official tale, don’t you,” Harry didn’t know what to say to that either, so he only nodded again.
“You see, originally our dad was supposed to be your Secret Keeper. But he got second thoughts about it. Didn’t want to be tortured into telling, or conned into it, I reckon. Connor believes he got cold feet.”
“He’s not much of a fan, I’ve noticed.”
“Can you blame him?” Chris asked him in return, cocking his head to the side. Harry had no answer for that, so he resumed, with a small scoff. “Whatever the case, they picked that rat Pettigrew, and… Well, you know the rest that went down. What nobody really knows is, Sirius had gotten together with our mum, and we were well on the way by the time they decided to go into hiding.”
Harry hadn’t heard of that, not even a mention… Ever.
“I reckon they were desperate, what with Voldemort and all the Death Eaters on their heels all the time, and you being just a tiny ankle-biter and us nothing but buns in the oven and all. I don’t reckon that prophecy did much to help matters along much, either.”
“You… you know about that?” Was there anything these boys didn’t know?
“Don’t look so surprised,” Chris suggested, looking grimly amused. “It makes you look rather dimmer than you are, and mate, it’s a fair bit. That propecy’s the reason it’s all so ruddy screwed, isn’t it? The reason you’re hunted like the last butterbeer in the Arctic winter, the reason your parents are dead, the reason Gramps got killed… And our mum, and our dad, and so many others.” He’d risen to his feet while speaking, his voice growing harder, more bitter as he carried on with his list. Harry had trouble not flinching away. “So many dead, so many lives torn to little bits. All for you.”
The tone in which it was delivered, the finality of it, made something inside Harry crack.
“It’s not like I wanted any of it to happen!” Harry snapped hotly. “I didn’t choose any of this!”
“You’re pissing in the wind if you think that’s going to get you any sympathy from this end,” Chris told him coolly, effectively shutting him up. He hadn’t wanted sympathy, had he?
Had he?
“You wanted the truth; now you get to deal with it. We’ve had to, all our lives.”
Harry took a deep, steadying breath. His head was still spinning, buzzing with thoughts, answers, and more questions than when this started.
“It was Gramps who helped them with the Fidelius Charms,” Chris continued his tale after a few eternally long moments. “Connor’s never had much patience for the story, but Grams told me once how it was back then, for them. Attacks every other day, wearing them down, the shaves getting narrower every time… I reckon that ought to excuse them for not seeing the obvious. They did know there was a spy, though. They just missed exactly who it was, didn’t they.” Harry turned his glass round in his hands, finding it easier to focus on it than on Chris.
“They’d planned for the worst, in a way. I figure they knew it could happen at any moment, so they prepared for it as best they could… Your dad was mum’s Secret Keeper, and in the likely event our dad copped it, he’d be our guardian, just like Sirius was yours. But then they were betrayed… and everything got shot to shite.”
That was a way of putting it.
“We were born that night Voldemort offed your parents,” Chris said, in a pensive sort of tone. “I like to think that our dad would’ve stuck around if he’d known, y’know, that we were there. But as it was, he was more… occupied… gathering up what was left of your parents then, getting you out of the rubble, losing his marbles, that sort of thing.”
“He was-” Harry began hotly, but Chris cut him off, with a dismissive wave of his hand. Harry’s mouth snapped shut.
“You don’t need to defend him with me,” he said calmly, almost sadly, but it was gone the next moment. “Don’t waste your breath. He made his choices, didn’t he? They all did.”
“He lost his head!”
“Yeah, that he did.” Chris agreed quietly, but then he shrugged it off again, carrying on with his story. “Mum lived right across the street from your family. That blast when you offed Voldemort… It happened just as Connor was being born. It nearly killed mum.”
“Wha?” Of all the things… Harry couldn’t but stare at the other boy, aghast.
“She did the same thing your mum did for you, she chose to die so Connor could live. Gramps had a hard time coming to terms with that. It did mess things up quite a bit more…”
Suddenly Connor’s words earlier were clear as the water he was holding. ‘You lived, you sorry little shite’. Harry swallowed; so that was what he meant. By living, Harry had indeed mucked their lives up beyond belief. Undeterred, Chris carried on.
“Mum lived long enough to name us; James and Sirius. I reckon that’s the only reason Gramps let us keep the names… Because she picked them. She was a bit of a sap, our mum.” Oh. So he was James. Harry’d been wondering what his real name was.
“Grams told me that’s when dad came running in, after that giant bloke took you away to the Muggles. Went completely round the bend when he saw mum, not that he’d been completely sane before, mind. And Gramps, well… I’m not sure what happened, really. Grams said he lost his head too, but I have my doubts… If there ever was one to know what to do, no matter what, it was him. Grams said Gramps told dad we were all dead, or maybe obliviated him, and took us into hiding.” Harry could only imagine what sort of blow that would have been for Sirius. “Made everyone forget we’d ever existed. Connor believes dad ditched us, though… that he knew we’d lived and chose to leave anyway.”
“What do you believe?” Harry rasped out. He couldn’t have spoken any louder if he’d tried, past that rock-hard lump lodged in his throat.
“I believe dad did what he had to do,” Chris answered, but Harry had the distinct sensation that he was trying to convince himself… And that it wasn’t the first time he did that either.
Looking up, Harry saw that he too, was focusing on something else rather than on him; he was looking at the tapestry, hands in his pockets, a certain hollow air about him that made him realise that relating the story was as hard for Chris as it was hard for him to hear.
“The way things worked out… It was one royal mess. I mean, dad was in worse danger than ever, got all those crimes pinned on him in a blinking…” Chris raised his eyebrows, cocked his head to the other side. “I reckon being a Black didn’t help him much there either,” he said, looking the charred family tree over with a small, humourless smile. “Dark blood will out and all that rot. Everyone lapped Fudge’s story right up.”
“Yeah,” Harry mumbled, swallowing.
“After he got chucked in Azkaban, Gramps tried to make a case for him, but there was no proof to back it up, they’d done things so thoroughly it was impossible to prove dad hadn’t copped anyone; Gramps couldn’t convince Dumbledore, even-Or rather, Dumbledore didn’t want to be convinced.” Harry looked at him sharply, what did that mean?
“Much less Fudge-that fat bastard used the notorious Black capture to get the Ministry for himself. He wasn’t going to let dad go so easily.” Chris paused, then shrugged that off as well. “Everyone was ready to believe anything, no matter how stupid. Just like now.”
Harry remained silent, shaking his head. He’d known Sirius lost everything after his parents died, had never thought it would have been so much more than what he’d believed it to be.
“Did you ever see him? After he escaped?” Harry asked in a small voice. Chris shook his head, no.
“Gramps asked us if we wanted to… He helped him go to the Antilles or something, with that hippogriff of his. Connor didn’t want to see him.”
“Did you?”
Chris shrugged.
“I couldn’t see what good it would do. Bloke never even knew about us, or else he had that memory block, so it was pretty much the same thing… He’d sworn himself to you, to fighting the war, so that pretty much wiped us from the picture.”
“But you were his family,” Harry argued. “If he’d known about you-”
“He’d probably have wanted to stick around, who knows.” Chris finished for him, conceding the point fairly. “And who’d have looked after you then, eh? He had a duty to fulfill, one that was more important than either of us.” One Harry botched up beyond recognition.
Again, Harry had no answer to that, but he didn’t agree with what he was hearing. Sirius would have been wild to meet his kids, no matter the circumstance, the danger, or the cost. He’d earned that right, in spades. But this too, was denied him. Harry couldn’t help wondering, if Sirius were alive now, what would the state of things be?
Nothing compared to what he was facing, he was sure.
“I’m not here to convince you of anything,” Chris broke the silence, reading his mind as if he’d spoken aloud. “I’m just here to tell you how it is. You don’t need to like it, it’s still the truth.”
He didn’t like it, that much was certain.
“Look, what’s done is done,” Chris said after another moment, sighing. “The bloke did what he could under the circumstances, and so did everyone else. It’s stupid to argue over what could have been, when it’s long over and they’re all dead. Instead of wondering why they did what they did, we ought to focus on what we’ll do about things as they are now. Wishful thinking’s wishful thinking, nothing more.”
Maybe, but Harry couldn’t help it any more than he could help wanting to get one thing straight.
“He wasn’t an idiot, though.”
“I never even met him, how could I know?” Chris’ tone was rather bland, the offhand tone back to the forefront. Harry got to his feet, moving to the window, head buzzing with more answers than he'd ever thought he'd get, hundreds of questions being generated the more he turned it over, threatening to make his brain explode.
“Connor’s got his reasons to be mad at him… and at you,” Chris stated. “And I respect those. You ought to do the same.”
"It's hard to respect what you can't understand," Harry replied, looking out the grimy panes and at the derelict old park outside, which was bathed in the same grey drizzle that had covered it all day and held no more advice than the rest of the world. The sun was setting, but oncoming nightfall, Harry believed, would bring no more clarity to him than daytime had so far.
"All you can do, then, is try to." Harry wasn’t sure he would be able to. He wasn’t certain of anything anymore, and yet, what he’d just heard… It was overwhelming, yes. But it made sense. The rug had been pulled cleanly from under his feet; he didn't know what to do about any of this, or what conclusions to get to.
“Do you get them too?” he asked. It wasn’t as out of the blue as it might have seemed.
“No, I don’t,” Chris answered levelly, catching on at once. “I don’t see through your eyes or spaz out, if that’s what you mean.”
“But you know. Deep inside, you always know what’s happening.” It wasn’t a question, which was perhaps what surprised Harry the most; he had started wanting to make sure of a doubt, ended up making a statement.
“We’re twins. Sort of comes with the package.”
* * *
There was a certain something about a battle Tonks feared she'd never get used to; the buzz of excitement right before they apparated together, the momentary confusion as they reached their target site, the rush of adrenalin as they launched the attack-or in this case, the defence-against the Death Eaters, but the moment her boots touched ground, for a fleeting moment every time, she wondered what in the seven circles of hell she was doing, could not understand what prompted anyone to hurt anyone else, couldn't see the point in what they were doing, wished the war didn't pit brothers against each other. And during this one instant, this blink of an eye, she had this urge to just leave the entire world behind, hide in a cave, and forget about it all. And during this time, she just knew it was the right thing to do.
One blink of an eye.
The next instant, the thought was gone, once more replaced by the war-happiness that was a characteristic trait of her family; she liked to duel, and the momentary wavering gone, her head was as clear as ever, she suddenly knew again why she was doing what she was doing, why she'd chosen the life she had, and that, she did act upon.
Every time.
"Potter was right-They're already here!" Moody's familiar bark was as comforting as his words were unsettling.
"We're not blind, Mad-Eye," George quipped from a foot or two away. Tonks snickered, even if the situation didn't warrant it; they were standing on the Longbottoms' lawn, and the damage was clearly visible even from here, the yelling, flashes of spells, noises of things breaking, all evidence enough of the goings-on inside.
"We're not deaf either," Fred added brightly from her other side, casting a blasting curse at the nearest window, where he could see two dark figures running around, to lob one of their newest products, the Sticky Bomb something or other, into the dining room. "Yell at them, not us."
“Yeah, now they all know we’re here too,” Tonks supplied brightly, grabbing on to the nearest person to keep from toppling over. “Sorry, Hestia, these roots-you’d think they’d learn to stay out of the way.”
"It'll rock the room in three...two... one."
George's warning did not go ignored. As one, every Order member sought a way to apparate or blast their way inside, avoiding the dining room as well as they could. The Twins' Sticky Bomb did not only make a prodigious amount of noise-- having left them both deaf for a few days upon testing-- but it also glued any wizard within range to the ceiling, with little hope to be gotten down before an hour's time... when it stopped gluing newcomers to the said ceiling.
In patterns.
With their knickers attached to their faces.
Tonks had been to the Longbottom house several times, which allowed her to apparate into the front room without much trouble, even as the entire house shook from the blast. Startled screams reached her ears, mingled with shouted spells and the blinding flashes of multicoloured light they emitted as they were cast. None of that bothered her overmuch; she was too accustomed to it to be disoriented. The debris littering the ground was far more of a challenge to her, not to mention, she barely manged to dodge what was flying at her.
Neville soared across the once prim and tidy room with a scream, crashing into a settee and upturning it, while two masked Death Eaters followed suit, one of them fairly dragging one leg.
"That’ll teach you to hex me, you worthless lump," Dolohov snapped, blasting the settee aside while clutching his leg, as the other rounded in on Tonks, who yelled out a Hurling Hex and leapt aside, even as a green flash of light illuminated the room and hit the far wall, and the as yet unnamed Death Eater hit a bookcase, which fell over him.
"Die, blood traitor,” Dolohov said, pointing his wand at Neville, who was trying to get to his feet, heaving for a breath. “Avada Kedavra!"
“No!” Green light filled the room a second time, much too close-
And blasted a hole right through the floor, right on the spot Neville had occupied a split second earlier.
Tonks took quick aim, sending a Hammer Hex at Dolohov, who toppled over with a yell, which was cut off abruptly as Reductor Curse whizzed past her, hitting him full in the chest.
She'd never seen Neville so angry.
"Wotcher, Neville," she said, helping the dishevelled lad up. "Good aim. Alright?"
"They're cornering Gran upstairs," Neville answered with a shaky nod, already leading the way to the doors. "Good thing you arrived-who else is here?"
"Everyone," Tonks answered, hurrying out after him.
"Let's get them, then."
This was easier said than done: Everywhere around them, there was debris blocking the way; bookcases blasted apart, bits of wall and ceiling raining on them as they tried to climb the stairs. George-or Fred, there was no telling who-was pointing his wand and laughing at a Death Eater hovering in midair by his ankle, who was furiously fighting his robes, which were flapping around on his head, exposing some sort of dark green underpants that were… rather less than flattering.
And then Neville went crashing to the floor with a startled cry.
“Where do you think you’re going?” One of the Lestrange brothers had, somehow, managed to appear right behind them, and whipping around, Tonks saw it was Rabastan towering over them, his brother approaching from behind. “Longbottom is ours.”
Like hell.
Tonks delivered her answer in the form of a Stunner, and soon spells were flying back and forth. She spun a circle around Neville, who was struggling against invisible bonds, cursing in frustration. Rodolphus added himself to the mix, and in between deflecting curses aimed at Neville and herself, and retaliating as best as she could, Tonks had no chance of freeing the boy.
Help came in the form of the upside-down Death Eater-gone-projectile, who was thrown against Rabastan, flattening him.
“Just like tenpin bowling,” Fred-or George-chortled, but Rodolphus was quick to react-a spell missed him by a mere inch, and the wall behind him cracked.
Then it exploded.
“Look out-” Tonks cried out, throwing up a hasty shield to protect herself and Neville from the wreckage, but it was already coming crashing down in a cloud of dust.
“George!” She couldn’t see anything, and there was no time to lose. She cast a Reductor Curse at Lestrange, missed, took the small opening to see if George had been hit- “George!” she yelled again, stunning the other Lestrange as he tried to get up.
“It’s-Fred,” a familiar voice corrected to her immense relief, and he emerged from the settling dust the next moment, covered in the stuff from head to toe. His wand was aimed straight at her, and a quick glance told her Lestrange was approaching from behind. “That could’ve squashed me flat,” Fred said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re trying to kill me-Reducto!” Tonks threw herself onto the floor atop Neville, and a cry of pain told her Fred had managed to hit Lestrange-and that Neville wasn’t taking too kindly to being squished.
“Sorry,” she said, peeling herself off Neville and freeing him with a muttered, “Finite.” There was no time for further conversation, though; Fred was fighting Lestrange, soon joined by George, who was coming from outside, sporting a cut on the side of his head.
“Come on,” Tonks told Neville, giving him a hand up and kicking a stirring Rabastan in the face. “We need to get you out of here.”
“We need to get Gran,” Neville wheezed, Tonks rolled her eyes.
“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s you they’re after,” she said, dragging him back down as a spell whizzed past, entirely too close for comfort. Hestia bolted past them, chasing yet another Death Eater into the kitchen, where an almighty clatter momentarily drowned out all sound. “We’ll get her; right now we need to get you somewhere safe-”
“I’m not going anywhere without her!” Neville shot back, tearing himself away from her and heading for the stairs again.
Tonks cursed under her breath, following.
“Up here,” Neville said harshly, even as Fred and George lobbed Lestrange into the dining room with a cackle.
Cries and shouted spells rent the air, which was buzzing thick with magic. The walls shook from the spells hitting them, and looking up, Tonks had a glimpse of a crystal chandelier shaking ominously right over their heads. Soon her attention was snapped back to her immediate vicinity, however-someone fell from the upstairs storey, rolling down the stairs upon landing-all she could see was that it was a Death Eater-and they barely managed to avoid being hit and dragged down. Neville gave him a sound kick in passing, grabbing Tonks’ arm and pulling her along.
“C’mon,” he urged, reaching the top of the stairs and thrusting his arm forward at once. “Stupefy! Everbero! Gran, where are you?”
As if in response, a keening wail was heard, loud and piercing and chilling to the bone.
There was no need to see it to know what was happening: Augusta Longbottom had just been hit with the Cruciatus. Paling, Neville sped up, following the sound to its source, ignoring everything around him. Tonks could barely keep up, and keep him from getting hit by spells left and right.
“Wait, dammit. Neville!” But it met with deaf ears, and any amount of swearing she did helped not a jot to make him listen.
The upper levels were in much the same state as the rest of the house. Tonks narrowly managed to shove Neville aside as a door was blasted clean off its hinges, followed by Bill, who, upon hitting the ground, raffled himself up and retaliated with a Bone Crushing Hex, before he hurled back into the room. Moody was barking something unintelligible at a Death Eater she recognised as Rookwood, as they traded spells with incredible speed-
They’d reached the end of a corridor, which opened into a solarium, which was now missing a few panes. Tonks skidded to a halt and made Neville stop before he lunged headlong into the room
“Watch it!” It was not one second too soon; a Killing Curse shot past, flaring green and smashing an entire side of the tainted glass windows in.
“LEAVE HER ALONE!” Neville bellowed furiously, wand raised and aimed at the two Death Eaters cornering the frail-looking witch, who had backed away and was presently against the wall.
“Or else what?” A lazy voice asked, and one of the Death Eaters turned around. Neville froze, wide-eyed, chest heaving without breathing.
It was Bellatrix.
“You’ll wet your nappy?” She cackled, turning her wand on him now.
“The boy is to be brought in alive,” the other wizard said, without turning around, but Bellatrix ignored his warning tone and advanced in on Neville, who stood, wand still raised and battered, a few steps into the room.
“Oh, but I’ve missed you, little chub.” The tone was chillingly affectionate. “Can you scream louder than she does? Let’s find out-Crucio!”
The scream that followed was deafening.
* * *
Hogwarts was very quiet during the holidays as a common rule, bathed in a sort of slumbering state during the months between term and term. The repairs having to be made this year were few, and most of the faculty had taken advantage of the holidays to go on a well-earned vacation themselves. Even the school poltergeist had taken some time off; as the summer wore on, the level of noise and sound in the ancient wizarding school was reduced to the quiet scuttling of the House Elves going about their tasks, or Hagrid’s work with some of the more dangerous magical creatures under his care out in the grounds.
Today was no different, and the sleepy quiet still pervaded the entire castle and grounds-save for one chamber.
Albus Dumbledore's office was alive with dozens of voices, all arguing at the same time. And yet, had anyone stepped into the room, all they would have been able to see would have been the old headmaster, pacing the office by himself, his pet phoenix for sole company and surrounded by a few score portraits, whose occupants were dozing in their frames.
These were neither quiet nor slumbering at the moment, however, busy pitted against each other in a debate that was more than just two-sided, and which was showing no signs of being over yet.
“My dear friends, please,” Dumbledore said placatingly, for perhaps the third time. It went unheard by most, but his time was running out, and they were not helping him think, as he’d hoped.
“I do need to find the answer to several matters, not just this one,” he reminded them. “And I would like to reach a conclusion before news comes from the Longbottoms.”
“But the Potter boy. Surely this scrap of parchment can wait until you have found a solution for his situation-” Dilys Derwent said sternly. She had never been one for Divination. Neither had Albus, not until he was given the Prophecy of the Chosen One… and now the one he had spread out on top of his desk. “If he does not have a Guardian before he turns sixteen, the Trace shall fall off him, he’ll come of age early, and that could be disastrous.”
“He’s old enough to be unbound, isn’t he?” Everard muttered. “In my time, you came of age at fifteen.”
“Yes, but he’s got the blood magic protecting him until he’s of age-”
“If he doesn’t have a guardian in two days, he’ll lose the blood protection.”
“Maybe that’s how it has to be, ever thought of that?”
“Fabio, you know he’s a mediocre wizard at best; he needs all the protection he can get, for as long as he can get it.”
“I shall address the matter with him as soon as possible,” Dumbledore said, loud enough to make himself heard over the babble.
“Who shall you appoint?”
“Shouldn’t the boy be asked whom he would wish to have as a Guardian?”
“After that good-for-nothing great-great-grandson of mine?” Phineas scoffed. “A baboon on a laxative potion could do a better job.”
“Enough,” Dumbledore said sternly. “I know it’s hard for you to accept, Phineas, but Sirius did do a good job of it. As well as he could under the circumstances, and despite our intervention.”
“Yes, get over it,” Citronella said primly. “He was a good boy, and ever so handsome…”
“And a cock-up,” Phineas maintained.
“I was thinking of appointing…” Dumbledore tried once more.
“Minerva,” Dilys supplied at once. “She’d be capital at the job, and she offered once to take care of him.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of…”
“Not the werewolf,” Everard said. “Think of the political consequences-”
“The Black kid was an escaped convict, yet he didn’t lose his rights as a guardian,” Fortescue interrupted. “The werewolf isn’t too bad an idea… Except for the bit where he’s-”
“A werewolf, perhaps?” Phineas suggested shrewdly.
“Afraid of the commitment,” Fortescue finished dryly.
“Not to mention, a werewolf,” Phineas supplied, in a smug, irritating tone that brooked no arguments.
“What about Molly Weasley? She’s as good as raised the boy.”
“Molly is having a hard time coping,” Dumbledore said delicately. “She did not approve of her younger children running off with Harry last term, and she is having her doubts as to so much as allowing them around him. Arthur is willing to take him in, as are her older sons, but she is reluctant to take on such a momentous task.”
Dilys merely rolled her eyes, but once more, the portraits felt the need to share their thoughts.
“She has to think of her family,” said Armando Dippet. “You cannot blame her, all her brothers died in the first war, and she has seven children who are being targeted for direct connection with the Potter boy.”
“They did all survive the battle at the Department of Mysteries, though,” Citronella supplied.
“And they might not do so the next time,” Everard pointed out.
“I fear Harry’s credibility has suffered greatly amongst the Order,” Dumbledore said. “His visions of Voldemort have always unsettled them; and he was manipulated into going to the Department of Mysteries, which, as we well know, was a disaster. They believe he cannot be trusted, though his intentions are good-there is no way of telling whether what he is seeing is the truth or not, not without a substantial risk to anyone involved.”
“Well, what did they expect?” Phineas asked. “The boy is a hothead, and Voldemort knows that as well as everyone. It makes him fallible and predictable.”
“Who did you want to be his guardian, then?” Dilys prompted, tapping her frame warningly with her wand. Phineas lost the smug expression, eyeing her warily.
“I was thinking of asking Alastor,” Dumbledore answered. “But he has recently taken in two wards, whose guardianship he was also recently given.”
“Oh yes, the McAlpin boys, isn’t it?”
He nodded heavily.
“Perhaps Minerva will take the job. I would rather Molly did it, but I cannot force her into taking him in. I shall conference with them tonight.”
“As long as it’s not the werewolf,” Phineas drawled lazily.
“There is another matter of importance I wished to address,” Dumbledore told them, stopping his pacing up and down his office, and gesturing to his desk.
“The colour of your new purse?” asked Dilys, feigning innocence and gesturing at the feathered, hot pink and purple item sitting atop the desk. “Pink has never suited you, no matter how much you like it or how fluffy it is, lad.” Dumbledore smiled mildly.
“I happen to be fond of it,” he told her. “But I meant the letter I received from Angus McAlpin, the day after he died. It contains several pieces of information I am having trouble putting together. I was hoping you could aid me to do so.”
“What all are we talking about, then?” Phineas asked, showing a glint of curiosity that was very rarely seen. The other former Hogwarts Heads also leaned forward, likewise intrigued, now the issues they had deemed more important were settled. They always loved new challenges to their minds, new developments. It probably took care of the monotony of being, well, a portrait.
Dumbledore suspected it was because of this that they had left this matter for last.
“The main piece of this puzzle is a prophecy,” he informed the portraits. “Angus told me very little about it, just that it was a complement to the one I already have. I cannot understand what it means…”
“As is the case with just about every prophecy made.”
“You’d think the Seers would try being less cryptic. Why can’t they just tell it as it is? Or will be?”
“It’s their sport, I wager.”
“What is the fun in trying to crack the riddles otherwise?”
“Does Voldemort know of this one?” Phineas asked.
Albus shook his head.
“Let us hear it then.” Dumbledore nodded, striding to his chair and sitting down.
“When the Second Darkness befalls us, when the Dark One walks again; when fear and darkness reign and the soul-less roam the land, then shall the Didymoi come forth, set into motion the Time of the Turning.”
“Sounds like what’s happening now, doesn’t it?” Citronella pointed out, tapping her nose with her birch rod wand.
“Time of the Turning, eh?” Phineas scoffed, shaking his head. “They get fancier every time.”
“Don’t you mean more ridiculous?” Everard wondered, smirking.
“Hush now, he’s not done yet.” Dilys snapped, moving out of her frame and into Armando Dippet’s, who had to scoot aside to make room for her.
“For someone not interested in Divination, you’re certainly keen,” Armando said, squeezing his chair out of the way so he too, could hear the rest.
“It’s not that I am interested in it,” Dilys said primly, “it’s that he’ll act upon it. Again.” She gestured at Dumbledore impatiently. “Go on now, boy, I want to hear the rest.”
“If you’d pack it in for a minute, you’d let him finish.”
Dumbledore couldn’t bring himself to smile at the exchange. Instead, he cleared his throat again, popped a sherbert lemon in his mouth, and carried on reading.
“Of kin, yet not of kin; Princes sons of Princes sons of Kings. Old pacts hold fast, unbroken by death or strife. As the Fathers, two as one; by choice and blood bonded, conjoined in heart, mind, soul. Fates entwined, two yet one: one hope for the Light-or the Dark.
Feared by the Dark One the Didymoi are, yet by him made, unwittingly-his undoing and his victory he created. Blindly he shall wish, fear, crave for this power, for he shall know it upon sight. Should he manage all is lost; for a thousand years and one, Light no more shall bless the land.
Three wills as one, as two. Three, at war. One, champion for the Dark, self-appointed. One, chosen champion of the Light; marked by Darkness, yet untainted, holds a power unknown. One, the twice-born, kept in secret, holds the key. Choices weigh hard, appearances deceive. Dark and Light crash, collide. Duality unmade, victory of Light or Dark lies in their hands… For a thousand years and one.”
There was a long, thoughtful silence in the office after Dumbledore had finished reading the Didymos Prophecy for a third time. Even Fawkes was watching the wizened wizard intently, as if he too, were waiting for a verdict on the text.
It was Fortescue who broke the silence.
“Well, son,” he stated, folding his hands over his rather prominent belly with a chuckle. “That certainly made no sense at all.”
It would be a long evening.
* * *
"They're talking about sacking Fudge," Chris commented aloud, turning a page on the Prophet. Lying on the other bed, Connor merely scoffed, not bothering to so much as look at his brother.
Night had fallen, and a storm was lashing London, rattling the shutters and drumming a rhythmical tattoo against the windows. There was, as yet, no news from the Order or the Longbottoms, and the few inhabitants left at Grimmauld Place had drifted apart after a silent, tense dinner, as though by an unspoken agreement; there was little else to do but wait, and none wanted the others' company.
"Says here people are rioting," Chris went on, seemingly unbothered by the fact he was getting largely ignored, much as he had been all evening. “Looks like they’re starting to believe Fudge fudged it up. They’re on about the disappearances, too. Another three kids have gone missing…”
“Four,” Connor corrected, and even this one word came out grudgingly. He had been sulking ever since he unlocked Harry, and this was perhaps the first word he’d spoken since; grunts didn’t qualify as a valid form of conversation, after all, for all they told volumes. Chris raised an eyebrow; he’d expected to get the silent treatment at least until the next day.
“You’d think they’d at least get it right,” he quipped, but there was nothing light-hearted in the way he was looking his brother over. He was facing the wall though, away from him, so there was little he could infer by observation alone. “When was the last?”
“This morning.” It was a disturbing thing to hear. Chris lowered the paper, biting his lip. Connor had stopped telling him what he saw months ago, but he had every reason to believe it was because what he was seeing had reached a whole new level.
“Do you know what they want them for?”
“No. But I bet it’s not a casting for a play.”
The silence was restored; Chris reluctantly turned to the paper again, but he couldn’t focus on what he was reading, busy instead turning matters over in his head. Everything was a mess, as far from good as it could possibly get, but it wasn’t like Connor to be this bitter. If he traced it back, he could almost pinpoint when it had started-the day the fire broke out in stable seven-when things had begun to go from bad to worse. But they’d been in trouble before, and though it had never been this bad, it had never threatened to make them drift apart.
They’d never kept secrets from each other before.
What had Gramps told him? The question surfaced again, as it had so often in the past few days. Sure, Connor had told him some things, but not nearly everything, and Chris didn’t need to be his twin to know something was deeply wrong; and he wanted to find an answer to that question before things got so much worse.
Perhaps it was that he was tired, he mused, skimming the paper without taking in a single word he was reading. He felt much the same after all, the constant aches from half-healed wounds could do that to one. And he knew Connor wasn’t sleeping, just as Harry wasn’t sleeping either. He wondered, for maybe the first time that day, if it had been the right thing to do, unlocking the Potter kid. Would the spaz fits lessen, as he hoped, or would they become worse, as he was starting to fear?
And… Would Connor have unlocked him anyway, even knowing it would make things worse?
“There’s this article here,” he said, propping himself up on one arm, “says there’s reasons to believe one Sirius Black was really innocent of the crimes he is charged with.”
“Bully for him,” Connor muttered. Chris fell silent, lowering the paper.
“I know you hate the bloke,” he said. “But even you can’t deny it’s good news.”
“Yeah, fat lot of good it does,” Connor countered, sitting up and looking at Chris in exasperation. “The bloke’s dead, what does it matter if people think him innocent now?”
“I don’t know. It’s just nice to know his name will be cleared, I s’pose.”
“If you say so,” Connor conceded, bunching up his pillow before burying his face in it. “Whoop-de-bloody-do. Go tell Potter of it, I bet he’ll be so delighted he’ll wet himself.”
“Yeah, right,” Chris answered with a small chuckle, shaking his head. “He’ll probably have a breakdown or something.”
“Sore topic and all,” Connor concurred at a murmur, but he didn’t elaborate.
He never did anymore.
“Don’t you think we should give him a hand?” Chris asked after a moment’s silence.
“You reckon?” Connor gave him a dismissive wave, running his good hand through his hair. “All he does is mope, for crying out loud. Give him a hanky, why don’t you, as you’re so keen on helping.”
“He’s as lost as we are,” Chris insisted. “He doesn’t know half of what he should-He doesn’t know what to do, at all. He’s been kept in the dark-”
“He hasn’t done much to figure it out either,” Connor said harshly.
“But not even the Order believe him--”
“I wouldn’t either,” Connor said. “If listening to him were sure to lead to me copping it.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Supreme Sodhead,” Connor said. “He plants stuff in his head. And Potter is rubbish at telling truth from lies. He just… acts out of reflex. You can’t trust someone like that.” He stood up, and for a moment Chris thought he’d stomp out of the room. Instead, he just went to the trunk Mad-Eye had brought, rummaged in it for a moment, then extracted a very battered tome of Muggle anatomy and returned to his bed, to read.
“Connor?” Chris ventured a while later, putting down the paper, where he’d been doodling on a picture of Fudge. The podgy Minister for Magic now sported horns, a black eye, was lacking several teeth, and had a moving caption on his forehead announcing he was a dolt.
“Hmm?” Connor had been doing some doodling of his own, in between examining notes stuck in between the pages of the book.
“What will happen now?”
“’Choo mean?”
“What will happen now,” Chris repeated levelly, “now you’ve unlocked Potter?”
“I don’t know.” Connor shrugged one shoulder
“Pardon?”
“I… don’t know what's going to happen?” Connor repeated, wrestling his arm out of the sling and leaning against the headboard.
“You don’t have so much as a clue?” Chris couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Connor closed the book, setting it aside.
“Nah.”
“Why'd you do it, then?”
“Well, like you said, it’s only fair.”
“Yeah, but... didn’t you feel any change? Anything different?”
Connor shrugged again, then shook his head.
“I reckon you were right,” he said after a moment. “Everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it? And… Maybe that link thing is supposed to be working for a reason. So I took the block down, to, dunno. See what happens.”
“And are you feeling alright?”
“Yeah, I don’t feel any different.”
“He did, for sure.” Chris had been meaning to tell him for hours. “He was properly shocked and things, twitching and writhing… What all did he see?”
“Everything he’d forgotten,” Connor replied quietly, eyes fixed on the wall opposite. “Everything he’d missed.” Chris let out a low whistle. He must’ve missed a lot, then.
“You reckon he’ll pop?”
“It’s not like I’d ever done it before, is it? Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
Chris turned to the crossword, frowning at it. Wait and see, then, was the plan.
Could he be blamed if he didn’t like it at all?
* * *
“Padfoot, mate…” James prompted for perhaps the tenth time in as many minutes.
“Shh, I can hardly hear what they’re saying over your yammer.”
“Trot your furry arse closer, then.”
“I happen to like it from here.” Sirius was leaning against the wall of Reg’s old room, from where he was watching his boys, his new favourite pastime. With endless freedom and time on his hands at last, James hadn’t thought he’d take to watching the living right away, but that’s pretty much all he did. Most of the time, anyway, when he wasn’t being dragged into doing something else by his best mate and assorted partners in crime.
Being dead, after all, was much more than just clinging to the living-something James could not, perhaps, claim to have learned; he’d spent most of his time around the living too, after all. However, now he and Sirius were together again, the greater part of his wait was over. He could focus on everything else there was to do, concentrate on showing Sirius all there was for him in the world of the dead, and make up for years of suffering as best as he could.
Not that he was alone in his endeavours. His parents, Alphard, Sabrina, the Prewetts, McKinnons, most of their friends who’d not survived the war either, and most surprisingly, Regulus-everyone had welcomed Sirius with open arms, when he’d finally made it through to them.
It was a good thing, he mused as he paced up and down the room while waiting for Sirius to have ogled his fill, that the Lands of the Dead were not bound to the limits of time. If they were, they wouldn’t have the chance to do half of the stuff they got up to lately.
Because Sirius liked it down here, or so he claimed.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
“You’re not precisely missing much,” James informed after a moment, looking over Chris’ shoulder. No matter how much they were called by other names, to him they were best known as Padfoot’s Puppies. “Just more bitching over you…Oh look, he’s improved Fudge.”
Sirius came closer, snorting appreciatively at the paper on his eldest’s lap, where an apoplectic and much deformed Fudge was shaking his fist at him.
“He’s good,” he commented proudly. “Wonder if he does portraits too.”
“He does cartoons as well. Pretty decent, for a pup.”
“Atta boy,” Sirius said, returning to his post by the wall.
“We’ve been here for hours,” James complained, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe. “I’m bored.”
A bouncy ball was lobbed in his direction by way of an answer.
* * *