17

Chapter 17: From the frying pan into the Fyre

Chapter Text

As he blinked to himself in the early morning light, Remus slowly came awake. Turning his head he looked at the perfectly mundane watch he was wearing, seeing it was just past nine in the morning. Despite having only had about five hours sleep he felt fairly good, all things considered, at least partly because he'd watched Voldemort be vaporized by something absolutely terrifying but apparently also reasonably amenable to conversation. This was quite the step upwards in his opinion. No longer having the threat of the now-late Dark Lord hanging over them was certainly going to improve many people's outlooks on life.

Mind you, having Skitter around might dampen that just a touch, but time would tell.

On the other hand, the revelations that had come out of the entire event were going to have some serious ramifications, for probably quite a while, he suspected. Dumbledore had clearly been playing fast and loose with the truth, mostly by omission (he hoped), but the end result was going to be very awkward to deal with. Amelia Bones had not been happy the last he'd seen of her, and to be brutally honest neither was he. He was, in fact, quite upset with the older man. And had spent some time before he fell asleep last night reevaluating a large chunk of his life, going over all the things Dumbledore had told him, and more critically, not told him, about all manner of issues.

He didn't like to think that the elderly wizard was a bad person, and there was still a chance this wasn't the case, but one thing he was certain of was that Dumbledore had been keeping secrets he had no right or authority to, which had resulted in a lot of damage. And that fucking prophecy… Why on earth had he decided not to tell anyone about something that critical? He'd obviously known about it from the very beginning, and his reaction when Harry had played it was telling.

No, there were many things wrong with the entire situation and he was kicking himself for never having noticed. How could he have been so blind to so many problems going on around him? He'd been living in Hogwarts for an entire year and not picked up on most of it! Nor, from what he'd seen, had any of the other staff. Which was… well, worrying was a very mild word for what it was.

At least Sirius was going to get cleared, so something good had come out of all this. The Lovegood girl's comments at exactly the opportune moment had definitely set the cat amongst the pigeons, as had Hermione's well-deserved rant.

Delores Umbridge was toast, that much was clear, and the thought made him smile grimly as he flung the covers back and got out of bed. He'd never liked that woman, on the few occasions they'd crossed paths. Absolutely one of the nastiest pieces of work he'd ever come across and the stories he'd heard about her paled into the background in light of what Harry had told them all the night before. It was a good thing he'd left Hogwarts before she'd arrived, since he was fairly certain that one of them wouldn't have walked away.

He was somewhat surprised that hadn't already happened, to be honest. She made very few friends. Even a lot of the supporters of the Dark apparently loathed the woman, which said it all.

Yawning, he scratched himself, then got dressed, brushed his teeth, and drank a little water, before exiting his room. Grimmauld place, as horrible as it was overall, was at least quiet at the moment since the Order members weren't present, Dumbledore was presumably still tied up at the DMLE, Kreacher was… probably torturing a cat somewhere or something but at least wasn't lurking around muttering evil thoughts, and that damned painting was silent for once.

He and Sirius had returned here last night, both exhausted, too tired even to talk after the whole nearly dying horribly part of the evening, and had both gone straight to their respective beds. He'd heard Sirius snoring mere moments after his door closed, his friend so knackered that even his fuming anger towards quite a few people no match for the requirement for sleep. Now, though, when he paused at Sirius's door and listened, there was no sound. Tapping quietly on it, he waited, then after a moment carefully opened it and peered in. An unmade bed met his eyes, but no Sirius Black.

"Hmm," he mumbled, closing the door again. "I wonder where he got to?"

His friend wasn't generally an early riser, certainly he hadn't been in their school days, although his stay in that ghastly torture chamber probably hadn't helped his sleep pattern all that much. On the whole Remus was quite impressed how resilient Sirius was to have recovered as much as he had done since he'd escaped, although it was obvious his friend needed a lot less stress in his life than he'd had for far too long, and probably some professional care. It had been more or less impossible for the latter to occur up to now of course, but hopefully as soon as he was officially cleared and likely received considerable restitution he could be talked into getting that help.

Heading downstairs to the kitchen on the dual basis that he was starving and it was the most likely place to find Sirius, Remus slowed as he passed the library, hearing through the door an aggrieved muttering in a very familiar voice. Puzzled, he opened the door and went into the enormous room lined with shelves everywhere you looked, the sound of Sirius talking to himself growing louder. "Damn it, I know it's here somewhere… OW! You little shit, get back here!" Remus hastily shut the door as he heard a skittering sound, pulling out his wand at the same time. "Moony! Stop that fucking thing! It bit me!" Sirius shot around the corner of one of the rows of shelves in hot pursuit of a more or less book-shaped thing with far too many teeth which was somehow scuttling determinedly towards the door. Having flashbacks to the Monster Book of Monsters, which was not something he remembered fondly, Remus aimed at it.

"Stupefy!" he cast, then ducked as the spell rebounded from the book-think and nearly got him in the face. "Shit!

"It's magic resistant!" Sirius shouted.

"No! Really?" Remus snapped back. "How can you tell?"

"Stop being sarcastic and catch it!"

"How?"

"I have no idea!"

The book, growling in a deep tone that was frankly more than a little disturbing, charged at Remus, lunging at his leg. He yelped and kicked it as hard as he could, connecting and flinging it back towards Sirius in a shower of parchment. His friend screamed and hit the deck as the book barely cleared his head, landed on the other side of the library, and dived into the shadows behind one of the shelves.

The rumbling growl came again, making both of them look around warily. "Merlin damn it!" Sirius snarled as he clambered to his feet. "Watch where you're kicking homicidal artifacts you pillock."

"You're the one who let that damn thing loose!" Remus replied indignantly, whirling as a papery skittering sound zipped past behind one of the ranks of shelves, his wand raised. Sirius was looking around cautiously, also holding his wand, a spare family one he'd dug out a few days ago. They moved closer together as the rustling sounded again, moving upwards to the dimness over the tall shelves. In seconds they found themselves back to back, each covering half the library. "Why did you do that?"

"I didn't do it on purpose!" Sirius responded hotly, his wand moving to aim at where the sound was coming from. Unfortunately it was shifting from place to place, not helped by the odd acoustics in the large room. "I was looking for something else and accidentally triggered some old spell. Fucking thing went for my throat out of nowhere." He put his free hand over Remus's shoulder and waved it at him. "Look, it drew blood even!"

There were indeed toothmarks on his fingers, slowly oozing red.

"Has anyone ever told you that your family is totally insane?" Remus remarked, ducking as the book appeared out of the dark, flying towards the pair of them from a corner having apparently dived off a shelf. He hit it with a piercing spell which did nothing but slightly alter its course, at least enough so it missed him and slammed into the floor, then dashed for cover again. The reflected spell left a neat hole in the ceiling that both of them stared up at.

"It's not news to me, Moony," Sirius replied after a worried pause. "I also vote we don't use spells that can kill us again, all right?"

"No argument from me," Remus said somewhat nervously. "But what can we use?" The pair followed the sounds with their wands. The growling was getting more vicious…

"I don't… Aha! I do know," Sirius said, his face brightening slightly with an evil grin. The book made an appearance again, this time on the floor at the far end of the library, slowly but with steadily increasing speed heading towards them. He watched it carefully, then shouted "Kreacher!"

"Nasty traitor master called for AARGH!" the deeply disturbing house elf said as it appeared directly in front of Sirius, and right between him and the now-charging book, which leaped on him from a few feet away and latched onto his shoulder. "NASTY HORRIBLE BITEY BOOKY MONSTER!" he screamed, slamming the thing with his fist as it chewed on him.

"Just take care of that will you?" Sirius said happily, watching with satisfaction as the elf flung himself backwards and landed on the book, driving it into the floor. The thing grunted and bit down harder, making him yelp again and punch it right between the pages. "Put it back on the shelf when you're done." Putting his wand in his pocket, he smiled as the two odd beings rolled over and over on the floor, both growling and spitting. The racket got louder, until both book and elf vanished with a pop.

Remus put his hand over his eyes and squeezed slightly, wondering if the screaming he thought he could hear somewhere in the distance was real, then looked at his old friend who was grinning. "You are a horrible, horrible person," he stated as he put his own wand away.

"Yeah," Sirius chuckled. "And you know as well as I do that little bastard deserved being chewed on for a while." He shrugged happily. "With any luck they'll kill each other. Or one will eat the other. In either case they're out of my hair for the moment." He looked at his hand, shook it, and scowled. "Damn it that hurt."

"Here," Remus sighed, pulling out his wand again and casting a quick healing spell. Sirius flexed his hand and nodded.

"You always were better at that sort of thing than I was," he commented with a smirk.

"Because you lot were the ones needing healing and someone had to be responsible about it," Remus muttered as he put his wand away once more.

"You? Responsible? That's not the Moony I remember!" Sirius put his arm around his friend's shoulders. "But if it makes you feel better we can pretend it's true."

Shaking the arm off, Remus sighed heavily. "Why are you poking around in here anyway? I'd have expected you to be having breakfast, not doing research in the largest collection of dark books this side of the DoM."

His face suddenly losing the smile and becoming grim, Sirius stepped away and looked around. "Last night when Harry was talking about what happened in the Chamber of Secrets, and the possessed book, I kept thinking it reminded me of something. I couldn't remember what though. But when I woke up this morning it hit me…" He headed for one of the shelves, vanishing down the narrow space between it and the next one, Remus following after a few seconds. "Reggie told me about something years and years ago, something he'd read in a book in here, and I was looking for that book. Because if I'm right…" His voice faded away, sounding both deeply furious and more than a little worried.

"If you are right?" Remus prompted after a moment or two, watching as his friend scanned the shelves, being very careful not to touch anything just in case.

"If I'm right, we might have a problem. Or more than one problem, actually." Sirius sounded far away as his eyes kept moving, until he finally froze, staring at one specific volume. "Ah. I think…" He pulled out his wand and cast a couple of spells Remus didn't recognize at all, with the effect that several of the books briefly glowed a rather threatening deep scarlet, although the one he was interested in didn't. "Don't touch any of those ones," he advised as he very cautiously removed the old crumbling black leatherbound book from the shelf at arm's length, then stepped back quickly. Remus made sure he was well out of range. Opening the cover, Sirius scanned the page.

"This is the one," he said softly, in a somewhat revolted voice. Turning pages, he worked his way through the volume, his face twisting a few times in revulsion, before he suddenly stopped about halfway through. His eyes widening, he read the page, then slammed the cover shut and threw the book to the floor without warning. "He fucking knew!" he screamed in fury, making Remus step back again, confused and wary. "He had to have known! I'm going to kill that whiskery fucker. I'll pull his liver out his bloody nose with my bare hands!"

He sounded absolutely unhinged with fury, making Remus very worried indeed. His friend was a little… volatile… these days, and he was all too aware that Sirius was in fact more than capable of being extremely dangerous given a good reason.

"Calm down, Siri," he said quietly, moving forward and putting his hand on the other man's shoulder. Sirius was staring at the book on the floor with his hands clenching and unclenching, grinding his teeth and red in the face. "What are you talking about? What's that book?"

There was no response for about thirty seconds other than deep angry breaths as Sirius clearly tried to get himself under control. When he finally spoke it was with a tight voice that was just this side of homicidal rage. "That book is a compendium of rituals designed to defeat aging or even death," he said very clearly. "Some of the darkest magic I've ever heard of. Written by some of the worst people to ever live."

Remus looked at the book with worry, as Sirius prodded it with his toe. "Why do you even have that?" he asked.

His friend gave him a look, then glanced significantly around the thousands of book surrounding them. "This is the Black library," he responded bitterly. "My family was, as you've so cogently just said, fucking insane. They loved this sort of magic. I hate to think how many other books here have something even worse in them, but I guarantee you at least ten percent of them were written by people who make Voldemort look like a nice chap you'd want to buy a drink for."

Remus felt somewhat ill at the thought, and worse at the realization that his friend wasn't even slightly joking. Bending over, Sirius retrieved the book, which didn't appear to have taken any damage at all. He opened it to the section he'd been reading and handed it to Remus, then pushed past him towards the better lit and more open part of the library without another word. Watching him go, the werewolf shook his head, then looked down at the page and started reading. What was a horcrux?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"That ancient bastard!"

Sirius looked up at the ceiling, smiling somewhat humorlessly, then went back to making some tea. A pop behind him made him look over his shoulder at a very, very bedraggled and ragged house elf who also looked murderously furious. He was holding his shoulder in his other hand and glaring.

"Nasty bitey book is dead," he snarled.

"Good work," Sirius replied, pouring hot water into the teapot.

"Nasty traitor Master should be dead too," the elf muttered darkly.

Putting the lid back on and turning around, Sirius bent down slightly. His eyes met those of the house elf. "Nasty vicious house elf will treat his master and his master's friends with respect, or his master will find more bitey books for Kreacher to play with." He smiled very, very toothily at the elf, whose eyes had widened quite a bit. "Believe me when I say there are much more bitey books in that library… Don't push your luck, or you're going to find out that while I don't hold to my family's values, I am still a Black. Nod if you understand." His face was inches away from Kreacher's, who swallowed slightly.

Then nodded.

"Excellent. I'm glad we had this little talk. You can go." He straightened up.

Kreacher stared at him, then said very quietly, "Master is definitely a Black," before vanishing with a pop. He'd sounded almost… impressed.

Pouring out two mugs of tea, he handed one to Moony when the other man stormed into the kitchen holding the book he'd given his friend upstairs. Remus looked like he wanted to strangle someone. Sirius knew exactly who, of course.

Drinking half the tea in one shot, Remus sat at the table with a thump and tossed the probably indestructible book on it with disgust. "He knew."

"He must have done. Or at least suspected. There are very, very few ways a book could become 'possessed' and combined with all the other things Harry said…" Sirius sipped his tea, watching his old friend stew over the information.

"A horcrux is the only real possibility," Remus finished for him.

"Yes."

They looked at each other for a long moment.

"The question, of course, is why didn't Albus bloody Dumbledore bother to mention anything at all about this to the people who actually know about that sort of thing?" Sirius finally said, moving to sit as well. He prodded the book with one finger, shaking his head. "He's not a curse breaker. He's an alchemist, yes, and a very old and learned man, true, but he is not someone trained to deal with dark rituals unless he's hiding a lot more of his past than anyone realized. But there are experts who deal with this sort of thing. Why didn't he call on them? Even if he didn't know about Riddle's horcrux before that diary, he must have at least suspected afterwards. He's not stupid. Possibly senile, but not stupid. But he didn't tell anyone about any of this. Nor about that bloody prophecy, or the basilisk, or a whole pile of other problems he's not qualified to do anything about. Why?"

Moony met his gaze with a baffled look of his own. "I have no idea," he shrugged helplessly. "But I'm definitely beginning to rethink almost everything I thought I knew about Dumbledore. And not in a way that makes me even slightly happy."

They sat in silence, finishing their tea, until eventually Sirius got up and started rummaging around for something to eat. "Bacon and eggs do?" he commented as he stuck his head in the fridge.

"Perfectly," his friend replied. Shortly they were engaged in cooking up a very large amount of food, both being starving.

"We're going to have to tell Madam Bones about this," Remus said a little later, pointing at the book in the middle of the table with his knife, before going back to eating. Swallowing, Sirius nodded agreement.

"I know. One more thing to dump on the poor woman, but she needs to know." He sighed faintly, reaching for his drink. When he replaced it, he added, "I cannot understand what Dumbledore's game is. None of this makes sense. But he definitely knows a lot more than he's been open about. And I can't help wondering how on earth none of what happened at Hogwarts managed to get out, especially considering all the people who go out of their way to dig up scandals."

"A lot did get out," Remus commented.

"Not the really important things, though," Sirius replied. "The basilisk, that stupid stone, all the other times something appalling happened, somehow it stayed inside Hogwarts. None of the children told their parents as far as I can see, or it would definitely have ended up in the Prophet if not the Wizengamot. The number of lives at risk is ridiculous, but…" He shook his head in confusion. "Harry told me about quite a lot of it, and even then for some reason I didn't make much of it at the time. That doesn't make any sense at all now."

Remus was looking thoughtful now. "There are some very odd things that happened, I agree," he said slowly. "I forgot my potion on a full moon night then went after them, for example. Which I'd never done before, and never have since."

Sirius stared at him, feeling very worried. "That… is a good point," he finally replied. "Looking back on it, there are all sorts of iffy situations I can think of. Not only the obvious ones either."

"There's something very wrong with that school," his friend remarked after they'd looked at each other for several seconds. Sirius nodded silently.

They went back to eating. When they finished, Remus looked at the book, reaching out and pulling it closer for examination. "You know, there's another question all this raises," he said in a somewhat disturbed tone.

"Which is?" Sirius asked, pouring another cup of tea with the last of the contents of the pot.

"Did he stop at one?"

Their eyes met in horrified conjecture.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Sighing, Amelia Bones massaged her temples, thinking that retirement sounded like a good idea right now. Ideally retroactively, if she could pull it off.

Unfortunately the total cockup last night in the DoM had destroyed the entire stock of Time Turners and she'd been told, with considerable annoyance, that it would be years before any more could be made. So that was out.

Pity.

And now this. Picking up the parchment she read it again, then lifted her eyes to meet those of Moody, who seemed torn between trying not to laugh and being his normal somewhat dour self. "Lass certainly has a style all her own," he commented after they'd looked at each other for a few seconds.

"That is indeed one way to put it," she grumbled, shaking her head and rereading the frantic and somewhat incoherent report she'd just received. Apparently the goblins had been their normal selves to Skitter, which was… probably unwise. Rather to her surprise Gringotts was still there, although the dirty great hole in the supposedly-unbreachable door had likely come as nearly as much of a shock to the little bastards as it had to everyone walking past in the street at the time.

Apparently 'supposedly-unbreachable' somewhat failed in the face of Skitter making a point…

For a moment she tried to work out just how much magic would have been required to even dent the several tons of rune-reinforced bronze-sheathed goblin silver the door had been made of, then gave it up as a bad job. It was certainly far, far more than even Dumbledore on his best day could ever have dreamed of wielding. Skitter Fyre, which she was starting to believe was actually a distinct thing and much worse than Fiend Fyre because it was driven by intelligence, had gone through it like it was made of tissue paper.

Which was all sorts of worrying, but she couldn't spare the time to curl up in a little ball under her desk and shiver, so she didn't. At least the girl, or whatever the hell she really was, seemed quite agreeable most of the time, and more restrained than she'd have expected. And by the eye-witness statements from the people who'd been in the bank at the time and were also currently capable of talking in English rather than tongues, she'd been very polite and it was the goblins who decided to kick the dragon in the arse. Almost literally.

In all honesty she wasn't all that surprised that they'd lacked enough sense of self-preservation to avoid what happened, since that more or less defined a lot of the goblins she'd met. They shared a fair few traits with wizards, and that one was far too common.

Working her way down the report, she saw that the last mention of Skitter, in the company of the Grangers, Harry Potter, and Luna Lovegood, had been with them all entering Flourish and Blott's, which… almost made sense? A book store was a good place to go to get background information on things in general and it seemed plausible that Skitter was trying to learn more about the world she found herself in. Amelia was more than passingly familiar with Xenophilius Lovegood, as his wife had been a friend of hers at school, and knew he, like Pandora had been, loved reading. It seemed entirely likely that his daughter would share that trait.

And Susan had mentioned Hermione Granger more than a few times. Apparently the girl was doing her best to memorize the entirety of the Hogwart's library, from what her niece had told her, and somewhat worryingly was apparently well on the way to succeeding. Susan had said she'd never met anyone who read that fast before, and the Granger girl seemed to have an excellent memory to boot.

She didn't know as much about the Potter boy as she probably should do, especially if he was now a friend of Skitter, and resolved to do some background research beyond all that necessary to look into the story he'd told her earlier, a story that had raised far more questions than it had answered. In very annoying and to be honest worrying ways.

Dumbledore had a lot of explaining to do, she thought with enormous irritation.

Pushing the scroll to one side, she folded her hands on her desk and regarded Moody. "I think we should probably leave well enough alone for now," she said after a moment, watching him. "Skitter made her point, got her reward, and left. As long as she's content to wander about being relatively peaceful I don't believe we need to get involved."

"And it's not like we can actually stop her," he grunted, smiling grimly. She sighed a little, shaking her head.

"No. That is definitely a valid point. Hopefully no one will tickle the sleeping dragon and give her cause to show us more of what she's capable of."

He gave her a look, which she returned, before she closed her eyes and leaned back with a sense of immense exhaustion and deep annoyance with life in general. "Hopefully only a few people will tickle the sleeping dragon," she grumbled. "People no one will miss."

His laughter didn't help much. She couldn't stop a small smile of her own though.

"If any of the left-over dark fools want to try to get revenge, I suppose there's more rewards coming the girl's way," he chuckled.

"Merlin. Why me," Amelia sighed, opening her eyes and glaring at the horrible sight of Moody grinning. "Stop that."

He shrugged, not in fact stopping that. Giving it up as a bad job, she picked up another report. "Umbridge?" she queried, even as she started reading.

"Still vowing bloody revenge in between screaming insults," he replied, his grin fading. "Woman hasn't got the wit to know she's so deep in shit she's done for. I think she's assuming Fudge will bail her out yet again."

"Not this time," she replied with satisfaction. The Minister was not only sufficiently terrified of Skitter and Amelia now after their very, very long talk the night before, but was at least smart enough to know that with so many of the rich purebloods a fine layer of soot on the walls, he was extremely unlikely find anyone to help him this time. And once she'd finished explaining, with considerable dark delight, how he only remained Minister at her sufferance, he'd been so pale and sweating that she thought he finally, finally realized that he had nowhere to turn. The legal situation put her firmly in the driver's seat and she was absolutely determined to take this opportunity to deal with a whole host of problems that had built up for decades.

Cleaning up the remaining Death Eaters was only part of that. Rooting out the corruption in the Wizengamot and the Ministry itself was the larger part of the problem and one that would likely take months at least, but now she had both reason and authority she was going to use both to whatever extent was required to finish the job once and for all. No more imperious excuses, no more bags of galleons changing hands under the table, no more blatantly guilty bastards ending up right back where they started from while innocents paid the price. When the history of these events was written in years to come there would be no epilogue showing everything went right back to where it had been beforehand, unlike the previous time.

She was going to clean the Ministry more thoroughly than all the elves in Hogwarts put together could do no matter who screamed about it. For the sake of her niece and the other children if nothing else.

The fact that it gave her a wonderful sense of schadenfreude thinking about how so many deeply corrupt individuals were going to find cold hard reality tapping them on the shoulder and smirking was just a bonus…

Reaching for a sheet of parchment, she thought for a few seconds, then wrote out an order, signed it, authorized it with a tap of her wand, and handed it to Moody. He took it from her and scanned it, his craggy face breaking into another evil grin. "Veritaserum, full questioning. Everything Potter, Lovegood, and Granger reported, anything else that you found at Hogwarts, you get that out of her. And don't stop until she's told you everything she's ever done since she was a toddler shitting herself in bed."

"It will be a pleasure," he growled, putting the documentation away in his robes. "Never did like that bitch."

"Make sure you get a list of everyone else she incriminates. Names, dates, places, actions, the works." Amelia smiled grimly. "If it turns out she's an unmarked Death Eater I wouldn't be surprised, but I doubt we'll get that lucky. But we might find she can lead us to one of Voldemort's lot, she seems the type to be in the same circles. I want to round up every single remaining Riddle supporter. With him and so many of his closest followers gone, we finally have a chance to wipe out the entire group. They'll be in disarray at the moment, I expect, but if we don't move fast we might find they regroup even without the dark arsehole telling them what to do. Or worse, slip away and lurk somewhere until all this bollocks starts up again in another decade. I do not want to risk that."

Moody nodded understanding. He seemed very pleased, and for him, cheerful, which wasn't surprising as he'd wanted to do this for many years, as had she. Politics had made it impossible, but now, thanks to something terrifying turning up, they finally had a chance to finish the war for good.

And with luck prevent the next one.

"What about Hogwarts, Dumbledore, and the Minister?" he asked giving her a thoughtful gaze.

"Dumbledore and Fudge are my problem for now," she replied, tapping her fingers on the desk. "Hogwarts… Yes, we're going to have to look into that. And keep our eyes open in case any of the children of defunct Death Eaters decide it would be a wonderful idea to keep up family traditions, for revenge or any other foolish reason."

"Wouldn't put it past some of them," he agreed dourly. "Like Malfoy's spawn. Doesn't stop to think, that one. I could name other names."

"Most of Slytherin house to start with, I expect," she commented, receiving a nod. "Damn. All right, we'd better get on top of that before it kicks off. I'm half inclined…" She thought, then nodded slowly. "Yes. I think that's probably the best approach. Flooding the school with enough aurors to keep a lid on some stupid child raising havoc is probably impossible, we don't have the manpower at the best of times, and right now we need all hands on deck anyway." Sighing a little, she stood up. "I need to talk to a very irritating old twit."

"Good luck," Moody chuckled, turning to leave. "Try not to strangle him with his own beard."

"You have no idea how close I came last night," she grumbled as she collected a few things then headed after him, getting a snigger back. "Daft old bastard..."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Minerva looked up at the sound of her floo activating, distracted from the parchmentwork she was going through. A familiar voice sounded. "Minerva? Are you there?"

"I'm here, Albus," she called, quickly standing and moving to where she could look into the fireplace. Wavering through the flames she could see the face of Albus Dumbledore, who looked back at her and smiled briefly. "Where are you?"

"Still at the Ministry, I'm afraid," he replied somberly, the smile vanishing. "And I won't be able to return just yet, unfortunately. You're going to have to continue running things for now. I have no doubt you'll handle the task splendidly."

"Don't try to sugar coat it, Albus," she snapped, kneeling down in front of the magical fire. "I was dropped into this without warning, although at least with that ghastly harridan gone I can undo all the damage she caused. Or try, at least. It's going to take a lot of work to properly repair things."

"Indeed," he sighed. "But we have little choice in the matter. How is everything going?"

"Well enough," she replied, somewhat tiredly. "The students are mostly still celebrating no longer having Umbridge and her stupidity hanging over them. However, the Slytherins, well…" Making a small gesture of resignation, she shook her head. "There are many who are not having a good time of things for obvious reasons. And there have already been a number of incidents in the corridors due to, well… everything. There are those that are missing the temporary power they were abusing, and a considerably larger number who are feeling somewhat aggrieved about having been the target of that abuse. Not without reason, if I'm honest about it."

He looked somewhat concerned. "Nothing serious, I hope?"

"Not so far but I wouldn't want to promise that can't happen." Minerva shook her head sadly. "I'm afraid that grudges were created during this whole sorry affair that may take a very long time to be settled, if they ever are. I can't see any quick and easy solution to it though. Or, indeed, a slow and difficult one other than trying to keep everyone involved as far apart as possible to let tempers cool, which is difficult under the circumstances."

Albus nodded understandingly. "I see. That does suggest that the path I'm considering is the right one."

She looked at him suspiciously. "What path?" Minerva queried, frowning. He sighed, shaking his head, then took a deep breath.

"I believe we need to end the school term early," he said with an expression of sadness. She gaped at him, then closed her mouth with a snap.

"Early?"

"I fear so. I have been discussing it with Amelia and I think she's correct. Your information just reinforces that opinion. The exams are over, and the term has less than two weeks left in any case, so the student's scholastic endeavors won't be badly affected. Sending everyone home early is for the best, as it will allow tempers to cool off and the bereaved to deal with their loss. The alternative is likely to end up with someone causing sufficient trouble that we have an even worse situation on our hands." He met her eyes seriously, and after some time she nodded a little.

"I… am forced to agree," she replied softly, feeling a sort of sadness. "A dark day for Hogwarts, though. We haven't ended a term early for nearly one hundred and twenty years, despite the war…"

"I know. But these are extraordinary circumstances, which we can but bow before. On the positive side we do at least finally have an end to Voldemort." She couldn't help the tiny flinch at the name, but she was getting used to it. He noticed and smiled with amusement. "I'll arrange things with the school board, if you can handle everything at Hogwarts, please?" She nodded agreement. "I think it's too short notice today, but tomorrow is Saturday so that would seem like a sensible time to send everyone home. If we announce it now, they can all get ready to leave, and their parents can be notified. I realize it's a lot of extra work on top of everything else but I do believe it's for the best."

"You're probably right," she muttered. "Damn them all."

"That is likely," he said mildly, making her laugh despite herself.

"I'll arrange the announcements after lunch. I'm going to have to round up all the staff and explain the situation first," she said.

"You have full authority to do whatever is required, Minerva," he assured her. "If you need anything please don't hesitate to contact me." Glancing to the side, he nodded, then looked back to her. "I must go, Amelia needs me again."

"Before you do," she quickly said, "Do you have any news on the three students we appear to be missing? Miss Granger, Miss Lovegood, and Mr Potter."

He smiled. "Amelia talked to all three of them just this morning, to make sure they were all right," he assured her. "They're fine. They were at Miss Granger's house and appeared to be getting on well with her parents, I'm told. I expect they'll return home shortly, but for now considering their… escapade… I think it best to leave them alone for the moment. They're in no danger."

"How will we get their belongings to them?" she asked.

"Hmm. Yes, I see what you mean. Well, we can either arrange to have them transported to Hogwarts to collect them after everyone else has left, or have their belongings packed up and returned directly. A message could be sent asking which they'd prefer. I'm sure you can sort that out, Minerva. I leave it in your capable hands." His eyes twinkled as she glared at him.

"You are the most infuriating man possible at times, Albus, you do know that, I hope?" she snapped.

Winking at her, he vanished, the fire turning yellow again.

Grumbling more or less good-naturedly to herself despite her annoyance about a whole host of things, Minerva stood up and went to locate the rest of her staff to break the news to them.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Luna's coming back," Taylor commented to Hermione, who she was standing next to as the pair browsed the shelves. Harry was in the next aisle, while both the adult Grangers were studying a section of books on the other side of the shop. Several wizards were more or less surreptitiously watching her, and the others, hastily looking away every time she happened to look in that direction. Not realizing, of course, that she saw them all anyway…

Now the blonde girl was walking back down the street towards the bookshop in the company of a man with shoulder-length white hair, wearing a yellow robe that clashed horribly with almost everything else. On the other hand most of the other wizards clearly had no sense of color either, so it didn't stand out all that much all things considered. He was smiling down at Luna who was happily chattering away to him, obviously very fond of his daughter.

Taylor felt a pang of sadness as she abruptly missed her own dad. She'd see him soon enough, though. No matter what.

Hermione glanced at her, then at the door, just in time to see Luna and her father enter. Luna looked around then pointed. Her dad stared at Taylor, his eyebrows up and his slightly crossed eyes somewhat wide, looked down at Luna again, then shrugged as he followed her across the store. Harry spotted her and moved to join them as did the Grangers. "Daddy, this is Skitter," Luna chirped happily, stopping next to her and Hermione. "She saved us all from a fate worse than death. Or death."

"That is indeed a good thing, my little cupcake," her father said gravely. He bowed his head slightly. "Thank you, Skitter."

"You're welcome," she replied, smiling a little internally.

"And this is Hermione Granger, a friend of mine," Luna went on, indicating Hermione who smiled, "And this is Harry Potter. Another friend. I have three friends!" She looked pleased. Her father chuckled, ruffling her hair.

"A decent number," he commented.

"And those are Hermione's parents," Luna finished, as Richard and Jennifer came to join them. Richard held out his hand.

"Richard Granger," he said.

Luna's father looked closely at him then nodded in an approving manner. "I agree," he said with a smile, shaking hands. "Well done. I am Xenophilius Lovegood. Please call me Xeno."

Looking mildly baffled, Richard nodded back. "My wife, Jennifer," he added. Jen held out her hand, which Xeno took and inspected carefully.

"A very fine example of a hand," he said, shaking it. She smiled at him, with a glance at her husband. Harry was muffling a snicker and Hermione just sighed faintly. Taylor got the impression she knew where Luna had received her slightly unusual outlook on life from. And she also got the impression that Xeno Lovegood was probably having a lot of fun fucking with people…

Although he might also be a little nuts. It was hard to tell.

"You are not a local, are you, Skitter?" he commented a moment later. Taylor glanced at Luna who shook her head slightly. She hadn't told him yet, which was interesting.

"Not so much, no," she agreed. "I found myself here somewhat unexpectedly."

"Interesting. I have never met someone from another world before. Perhaps you might agree to an interview for the Quibbler at some point? My readers would be fascinated by your opinion on the Rotfang Conspiracy."

Hermione looked at him, then Luna, then Taylor, before turning around to resume reading the book she'd been looking at with a sort of combination sigh and laugh. Luna winked at Taylor, making her grin. Oh, yes, this guy was both nuts and fucking with people, she was sure of it.

Lisa would love him. Or want to kill him. Or both.

"We might be able to arrange something," she replied calmly. "It depends on a number of factors."

"So much in life does," he agreed.

"Perhaps we should go and sit down and talk for a while," Jen suggested, looking around at the small number of wizards now openly staring. Most of them quickly averted their eyes. "This isn't the best place for a conversation as fascinating as it is."

"Sounds like a good idea," Taylor agreed, putting the book she was still holding back on the shelf. She had enough books for now tucked away, and worst case could always come back. "I could certainly eat something."

"Ah. Food. Yes, I do enjoy that," Xeno commented with a smile. "It's very edible."

"You didn't go to school where I did," Harry muttered, shaking his head, but didn't expand on the subject. Taylor still got a fairly good idea of what he meant, since she was all too familiar with Winslow. Richard Granger put his hand on the boy's shoulder for a moment, making him look startled, then somewhat embarrassed but pleased. Hermione, Taylor saw, noticed and smiled to herself.

"I just want to get this one," Hermione said, holding up a book. She looked sideways. "And this one. And… these two."

Luna giggled. "And that one?" She pointed. Hermione put the indicated volume on the stack she was holding without a word, although she grinned. Her parents looked amused and Harry was obviously trying not to laugh. Taylor felt this was very much in keeping with her impression of the other brunette, who seemed to have a love for books her own mother would have very much approved of.

Soon Hermione had paid for the books, and they exited out onto Diagon Alley. Turning towards the tavern which marked the boundary between the real world and this odd version of it, they started walking. Only seconds later Taylor put her hand out and pulled Luna in front of her, just as a bright blue spell zoomed through where the other girl had been standing. Luna squeaked in shock, not expecting that, Harry whipped around with his wand out, beating Hermione by a fraction of a second, but not before Xeno had himself spun and dropped into a crouch with reflexes more suited to a man half his age. His wand was aimed before he finished moving and a red spell shot out of it without hesitation or words, striking the black-robed man standing forty feet away directly in the chest and knocking him flying.

Xeno Lovegood wasn't exactly new at this, Taylor thought with interest. The four other people accompanying the first asshole, wearing familiar masks and robes, scattered as their companion crumpled to the ground, his robes smoking slightly around a charred spot. Harry took aim at one of them and Hermione another, both of them snapping out stunner spells with a sharp exclamation and considerable enthusiasm. Both their targets also dropped. Luna peeked around Taylor to see what was going on while the adult Grangers had hastily moved to get out of the line of fire with commendable alacrity. Taylor was interested to note that Richard was holding a piece of brick he seemed to have found on the ground in a manner that suggested he was more than prepared to bash someone's head in with it, in a grip that told her he was also quite capable of doing so.

She'd seen these Death Eaters approaching, of course. She'd tracked them from the moment they'd teleported in a couple of minutes ago, and they'd picked up more of her swarm than they'd have been even vaguely happy about within seconds, but she'd been curious to see if they were actually going to attack. One of them was one of the whizzys who'd been in the bank and had looked very angry when she'd told the goblin that she'd killed their boss, and had left when she'd removed the door. Presumably he'd gone to find some friends and come back to try to settle scores.

It wasn't going to end well for him, but she hadn't been wanting to start the fight. She was quite happy to finish it though. If they'd tried attacking anyone else she'd have done something about them already but no, they'd come directly for her and her friends.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" she said.

"Die, Muggle scum!" one of the two standing idiots screamed, firing a spell at her, some dark violet thing she'd seen the night before. Presumably it was supposed to do something lethal, but it fizzled into nothing when she flicked a small fyreball at it with a sigh. The other conscious Death Eater was resuscitating the ones that Harry and Hermione had dropped, while the first one was still twitching but looked like he'd had a much worse thing than a simple stun spell hit him. He was clearly out of the fight.

"I think not," she replied, raising a hand and pointing at him. "Last chance."

All four of them simultaneously sent a barrage of spells at her, even as Harry, Hermione and from behind Taylor, Luna, sent their own spells in the other direction. Xeno had joined the Grangers sheltering behind the corner of a building and also fired at the attackers. The mass of magic cast an eerie glow around the alley as spectators ran for cover, screaming and generally carrying on.

"Jesus, this place is crazy," Taylor sighed under her breath. A wall of fyre roared out to intercept the incoming spells, although she let the ones from her side through mostly to see what happened. The end result was another Death Eater that had apparently eaten a little more death than was good for him as Xeno's spell turned him inside out, then Hermione's blew him about thirty feet, then Harry's electrocuted what was left. Luna's hit him and nothing appeared to happen for a couple of seconds.

Then he exploded.

"Nice one," Taylor commented admiringly.

While the remaining three upright Death Eaters were wiping bits of comrade off themselves, Richard Granger stepped out of cover, took aim, and heaved the half-brick he was holding with deadly accuracy and a lot more force than Taylor expected. Or than the Death Eater that took the flying masonry directly in the back of the head appreciated. He dropped without a sound in a boneless manner that made her pretty sure he wasn't getting up again. Xeno took the distraction this provided to zap the one next to him, who also collapsed, spasmed, and went still.

For a moment, dead silence filled the street, then the remaining Death Eater howled a familiar phrase she'd heard the night before several times. He only got the word Avada out before he went up in a flash, the fyre she'd secreted on him moments after he'd arrived on the scene hungrily consuming him and leaving nothing but a faint cloud of soot.

The fyre happily flew back to her and merged with her coat, as the gaping onlookers at a safe distance watched in horror. "Anyone else?" she called out, looking around. "Or can we get on with our day?"

A mass scream sounded and every remaining spectator ran for their lives. Seconds later the street was empty as far as the eye could see. Turning to the others, who regrouped with cautious looks at the still intact if mostly very badly injured Death Eaters lying untidily on the ground, she commented, "I wonder how many of these dicks are still left? This is getting a little annoying."

Hermione was looking at the bodies with a somewhat odd mix of righteous indignation, massive irritation, and sick horror. Harry had his hand in hers and was just blankly inspecting them, while Luna was rolling her wand between her fingers and staring at it. Xeno seemed both infuriated and oddly calm. "I believe I owe you thanks yet again, Skitter," he said quietly.

"No problem," she replied, smiling a little. "I don't like people who try to hurt my friends."

"So it would appear," he agreed, putting his wand away as a couple of aurors appeared with sharp cracks, wands out, then paled as they spotted her. She heard one of them swear under his breath as he looked between them and the bodies, his eyes lingering on the glazed spot on the road where the fifth one had been. "Let's tell these good people what happened, then we can have a well deserved meal and talk. I think I would like to learn more about what's been going on." He looked down at the odd triangular eye-looking pendant he wore around his neck, fingered it absently for a moment, glanced at her with an intrigued expression, then headed towards the aurors who were urgently whispering to each other while watching her warily.

"Today has been nearly as exciting as yesterday was," Luna commented brightly. Taylor could see she was shivering a little, though, and put her arm over her friend's shoulder. Jen looked at both of them, smiled a bit, and went back to watching as Xeno explained what had happened, adding enough confusing details that both aurors were looking like they regretted their career choice.

"Very weird place, this one," Taylor muttered, shaking her head. The stories she'd have when she went home…

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Reading the report, Amelia sighed heavily, signed it, handed it back to the auror who'd brought it to her, and rested her forehead in her hands as he left. After some time, she straightened up and resumed work, musing on the fact that there was a finite supply of Death Eaters left now, and at this rate she wouldn't have to do anything herself to deal with the problem they represented if they kept on jumping into the mouth of the volcano all by themselves…

Not quite how she'd expected to solve that problem, but whatever worked.