5

I had forgotten (shameful, as our mutual shopping trip was only the day before) just what an effect it had upon wizarding society when two of its most famous figures went gadding about together in public. We had to keep a good head of steam on just to avoid getting bogged down in crowds as we made our entrance to St. Mungos.

The hospital staff practically fell over themselves to permit us entry when I swept before the desk and proclaimed that we were there to pay a visit to Harry's Godfather.

Remus was already there.

Sirius was a mess. Better physically than he had been in the films, after all, here he hadn't had to swim the better part of a small sea, and was granted new clothes, baths, good food and a shave upon his arrival rather than staying as a fugitive.

But his eyes... No, those were those of a haunted man. However, they came alight upon seeing Harry.

Only the two men were there in the room when we arrived, and they did not either like or trust me nor welcome me being there. But, it was obvious they were delighted in seeing Harry.

I felt a sudden wave of caution strike me as I'd entered, perceiving through their body language that these were two desperate men, feeling abused by the system (and indeed, Sirius was most foully abused by the Ministry and its lackeys, while I could hardly say Remus had enjoyed his treatment either) and they were pranksters and rule-breakers from their youth onward. I saw, in a moment, that these men would feel no compunction at all against stealing Harry and making a desperate escape with him.

Inwardly, I sighed. Outwardly, I didn't dare to. I hated to get caught in this mess, as I liked both these men. Putting a hand on Harry's shoulder to stop him from entering further, I paused in the doorway, staring at the two Marauders. It was confrontation time, and I really hated that, as I both liked and respected both these men.

"Okay, let's get right to the guts of it," I proclaimed to them. "You don't like the way the Ministry has treated either of you, and I don't blame you. I think you are good men, cruelly used by our wizarding government. You especially don't like the fact that I am Harry's guardian right now, when both of you feel you owe it to James and Lily to take care of him. Mr. Black, they made you his godfather with the full expectation of you taking him in should they die. But that didn't happen. It should have. I disagree with Dumbledore about the priorities of Harry's treatment. Albus explained to me his purpose is to have Harry staying in a home where dwells the blood of his mother, in order to sustain some ancient protection based on his mother's love. Dumbledore tells me I have it, and that is why he presented to me the boy, and a stack of already filed paperwork putting me as his guardian. He as good as stole Harry from you, and I don't blame you for being upset. But we must get one thing clear: Now that I AM Harry's guardian, I am going to do the job that I've been given. I am going to do it as well as I know how. If by my life OR death, I can protect him, I will!"

Oh, and only part of that was because, if I didn't, this whole world was toast.

A minor consideration at best.

I scanned them with diamond sharp eyes, daring them to make objection, but I had well and truly surprised them both by my frontal attack on simmering issues. Suddenly I dropped the confrontational act and smiled. "However, I feel that in order to have complete development as a young man, Harry needs to know his father's best friends. I want you to be his friends as well. Dumbledore tried to keep you both separate from him. I don't see any point in that, only harm. Harry needs to know who his parents were, and it would be best to hear from those who knew them well. I do not fit into that category, but you do. Remus, I invited you to be my teaching assistant in large part because it would give you a perfect opportunity to spend most of this year at school near Harry. So I invite you again to consider it. Sirius..." I gave him a grin. "Every boy needs a dog. What's better, if he leaves the owl at home he can take you as his animal for the year. I am a known quantity. If anyone tries to do Harry harm it would be automatic for them to consider how to get by me. But guards they DON'T know about! That's the key. And better yet you can be his friends, and Harry is sore in need of them. I'll give you the summer to consider it. And I invite you both to be frequent guests to our home in any case."

I gave Harry a small shove forward into the room, smiling all the while.

We spent a pleasant ten minutes together before I left Harry with the pair, feeling they were no longer in danger of kidnapping him. They were only somewhat at ease with me, those hurts I'd mentioned were still too raw, so I left in order that they could get on to the real stories, the ones containing pertinent details they didn't want to share with any nonmembers of the in club, ie, fellow Marauders or their heirs.

However, before making my departure, I saw to it that, while leaning over to adjust a buckle on my shoes, I bumped Sirius and whispered that, if they had any clues they wanted to drop on Harry about how to begin mastering an animagus transformation, I'd promise not to notice in any official capacity.

Then I made my exit.

Taking one or two other security measures to insure they didn't try to run away with him, just in case they were better liars than I gave them credit for, I began wondering what to do with my time while I gave them some privacy, when I recalled one of my other errands.

It had no particular place on my 'to do' list, as I did not consider it urgent. It was just a 'fit this in somewhere, because it would be nice if it worked' sort of idea.

But! I happened to be on scene with some time on my hands, so now was a good time.

Asking a nurse, I got directed to the room of Frank and Alice Longbottom, in the long term spell damaged ward. There was something that I wanted to try, and this looked like a good time to experiment, confident of two things: One, was that I could hardly do any harm, and Two, I might do a great deal of good.

I was astonished at the SIZE of the long-term spell damaged ward. It seemed twice the size of the rest of the hospital, at least, and I labored under a dark suspicion that I was seeing only a small part of it. On asking my nurse for an explanation, she replied that they still had many patients from the last reign of terror. Frank and Alice were not alone, they were merely the last in a long string of torture victims. There were literally thousands of witches and wizards in their condition at St. Mungos, some who'd been as young as six years old when driven mad by Crucio spells.

That spell had been used on younger children, but none younger than six had survived those experiences to end up here. Still, the remnants of the victims of a twenty year campaign of torture, among other things, had found a more or less permanent home there.

There were no spells left to cancel, and so the hospital staff felt helpless to treat them, so those comatose bodies got warehoused in the vain hopes of them getting better on their own, somehow.

The wizarding world truly didn't think things through. There was an appalling accuracy to JKR's statement that wizards couldn't do logic to save their lives.

My jaw firmed, and my proposed experiment jumped up a few notches on my priority list.

The original Lockhart had one skill. He'd been gifted with memory charms. On entering the rooms of Frank and Alice, and ensuring I was alone, I used my best charms to determine their mental state, something a good Obliviator like Lockhart had to be proficient at. After all, the memories you are erasing are not always recent, and the goal of a Ministry Obliviator is to erase just enough to escape muggle attention. It would be awfully suspicious to leave a bunch of mental vegetable around. People would notice.

There was almost no activity in their minds. I could not read thoughts, that was a different and much scarcer skill called Legilimency. Still, I could take a look at the book of someone's mind, even if the cover remained closed to me, and on inspecting closely enough I could see a small swirl, like a blender at the bottom still moving, slowly for now but enough to keep shredding any of the mind's attempts to reorder and heal itself.

That 'whirling blender' I felt sure was the experience that drove them insane in the first place, their brutal torture by the LeStranges.

It took just a second to erase that event, and that event alone, from their minds. A second diagnostic showed that the source of the churning was gone, but that their minds were still largely blank and empty, still caught in something of the current left behind by the former constant churning.

Well, given enough time I was certain that things would settle down for both of them and they'd be able to rebuild their minds, gradually regaining sanity and ability. St. Mungo's policy of waiting for them to get better should actually work in their cases now.

However, I was in a hurry, and of no mind to wait.

I was angry at Moldyshorts for depriving so many people of their lives. Death was one thing, but permanent insanity was almost worse, and here he had inflicted it, laughing, on countless people, and their innocent children.

Well, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

Those memory charms I had used to reinforce my own past recollections to catch up on my schoolwork, I now used on them, bringing back ordinary days and carefree times, their marriage to each other and the birth of their son.

Already I could see how, using those as an anchor, or a seed if you will, for the mind to restart itself and begin ordinary operation, the couple began to recover. For the first time in I knew not how long (actually, on thinking that I did the math and pegged it at about eleven years now) they began to stir as churned up memories began to grow back into structures, fitting into place and forming back into the minds of the people they had once been.

It was still too early to tell the extent of the recovery they would be making, but I already counted this a success. I could feel in my bones that they would be alright.

I was in the next room without hardly thinking about it, doing the same to another couple in their condition, then another, and another, achieving the same results each time.

I was caught up in some sort of madness. I was hardly aware of the fallout of my actions, hardly caring, only feeling this urge to rush through this as fast as possible. I heard a scream from far behind me, and the crashing of plates as they got dropped. I'd later learn that was the reaction of an orderly on finding Frank stumbling out of his room to ask what he was doing there, and how long had it been.

I was not in a calculating frame of mind. Filled with righteous anger at the treatment of these people and the ignorance of the magical world that had not enough rationality to even TRY and cure them, I rushed from room to room, finding what victims of torture I could discover and curing them almost in a rush to escape my own abhorrence of that practice.

It was not long before nurses, then Healers, caught up to me, but I was in no frame of mind to stop and explain. If they'd tried to stop me I might even have tried to fight them. However, they didn't. They'd encountered a trail of people getting better where none had ever recovered before, and simply followed that trail to its source.

They did not try to stop me. They did, in fact, start to help me. Some of the patients I'd missed they maneuvered before me. Others they brought out of obscure corners and placed onto beds in my path. I passed by anyone who wasn't a torture victim, having no idea how to cure any but the malady that had so upset me, until I came upon a girl who was somewhere in her mid twenties, and who was not only a victim of Cruciatus torture, but had also been subject to severing curses and was missing both hands and legs.

It was too much. My mind rebelled. I couldn't stand it.

So, recalling as I did muggle theories as to reconstructive surgery, and knowing far better than I did before a small amount of medical magic, I put an Engorging Charm on her upper arms. Then with quick, neat cutting curses I divided some of this extra skin and flesh, and from it reassembled both of her hands, ordering tersely for a nurse to bring her blood replenishing potions and enough Skele-grow to restore those missing bones.

Professional healers took over from me as I moved on. Inspired by my acts they did what minor transfigurations and techniques they could and set to rights all of the little errors I'd made, certainly more than a few, I am sorry to say. But at the end of the day that girl would have working hands. At my insistence they'd also go back at some later date and rebuild her lost legs.

The new tissue would take some time to stabilize, based as it was on an Engorging Charm, which could be canceled. However, given sufficient time the body could go through and replace all of that tissue as part of its normal function, and then the replacements would have grown as sturdy as the rest.

I would soon be credited with a medical breakthrough when all I'd done was borrow an idea from muggle science. Wizards simply had the spells to do it properly, that's all. But limb loss would never again be a problem in the magical world.

I would actually be credited with two breakthroughs that day. One, was an effective treatment for over exposure to the Cruciatus, and the other using spells to reconstruct lost limbs. Both of these would be hailed as greater than any other medical advance in known memory.

Both of them I'd based on muggle ideas, who'd actually put thought into what they did. Although, I did have to agree when some began cynically pointing out that this was a far better advance than Albus 'discovering' one of the uses of dragon's blood was as an oven cleaner.

Yah, and you could use a flamethrower to clean ovens, too. The point?

A few hours later I collapsed, exhausted. Only then did my sense of drive leave me. But there had been enough Mediwitches and Healers who'd followed me around, witnessing my performance, that they carried on in my stead. By mid morning, when I awakened to the taste of Pepper-Up Potion, nine tenths of the long term spell damaged ward was expected to be released in hours, and the various department heads of the Ministry, plus Fudge himself, had crowded into what was a very nice room where I found myself lying, and were almost competing with themselves over who got to congratulate me more.

As brown-nosers, suck ups, sycophants and flunkies they knew their place well and were eager to fill it. I'd be getting an Order of Merlin, First Class, out of this at the very least, if not more than one.

A very contrite Padfoot and Moony rejoined me later, explaining that they had already snuck out of the hospital with Harry, intending to go out on the run, when they'd heard of what I'd been doing.

Frank and Alice Longbottom had been friends of theirs, too. And they felt they owed me one, good enough to give me a chance, at least. And, if I was still offering, they'd love to accept that invitation to visit Harry often.

I agreed.

Skipping out on Ministry workers who no doubt could have eaten up the rest of my day, if not all of the following week, telling me how great I am, I made my escape from the hospital and moved with Harry to intercept the Hogwarts train, which ought to be arriving any moment now.

Floo was such a useful thing! I really had to learn to apparate, but that was a comparatively new skill for magical transportation, and none of Lockhart's aged victims so far had been masters of it. So floo it was. We arrived at the station in time to see a depressed Hermione just leave it with her parents along in tow, showing obvious concern for her.

I darted over to make an intercept, grabbing her arm, then leaning over to put my hands on my knees and puffing, still exhausted from my work earlier, I said, "Hold there!" laughing with a grin, even as I panted. Shooting her a smile in between great heaving breaths, I asked her, "Aren't you going to say hello to Harry?"

"Harry!"

Having caught sight of the boy behind me, Hermione launched herself at him in a tremendous hug, and in a quick monologue to her parents, described how she'd been so depressed not to see him, especially since having heard about his abuse at home, and wanting to tell him about their having given their permission to her to invite him to stay at their home for a week or two.

All of this caught Harry in a rush, and he hastened to explain that he had a new guardian now, and I seemed to be alright.

I chuckled, having caught my breath by the time this little revelation was done. "Thank you for that assessment, Harry. But I was the one to request that Miss Granger ask permission to take you in for a couple of weeks. That was long before I became your guardian. I was certain this whole issue would take longer to settle, actually. But I find I myself could use a vacation, else the Ministry will kill me with kindness, burying me under a host of awards."

I caught sight of Nymphadora in the crowds, and motioned her over while the others considered that. "Dora, are you done with your goodbyes and things?"

She nodded, so I clustered the group together. "Okay, this is what I propose we all do. I think everyone here needs some time off. I'll pay for everything. So what I suggest is that we go find the Granger's car, then drive it to a hotel while Dora makes a swift run to our house to pick up next years school books. Yes, Hermione we already bought your copies to save time. You may pay us back if you wish, otherwise you can consider them an early birthday present. Your choice. But then, having those, we meet at the hotel, and I show you how we could be spending the best summer of our lives. Okay?"

Everyone was agreeable, so we split up to carry out the plan as advertised.

Behind us, unnoticed (I cannot be aware of everything) Frank and Alice Longbottom had escaped from their minders at the hospital, and made a very tearful and touching reunion with their son as he came off the train. It was quite an epic moment for all involved as heartfelt exchanges of hugs and joy and tears of gladness were displayed on all sides.

Nor was Neville quite alone in this singular form of happiness, as recovered patients began to escape from overworked hospital staff and made their reunions to loved ones and family all across the British Isles.

It was an event that stood in grave danger of becoming Lockhart Day, and being celebrated for years to come.

Presently unaware of this rather momentous shift, I proceeded with the Granger family to their car, where belated introductions were made away from the crowds.

I was Gilderoy Lockhart, and was going to be Hermione's Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at school the next year. The bushy haired one gave a startled jump upon hearing the news, a favor I returned with a warm smile.

Her parents were, in contradiction of fan convention, NOT Dan and Emma, but rather Ted and Miranda Granger, and, waiting for us in the car, was a younger sister to Hermione by the name of Moria.

Miranda, Hermione and Moria all being Shakespeare derived names, owing to a devoted grandfather who had started this as a family tradition.

Now, I'd been somewhat curious about this, as early on Rowling had claimed in an interview or other official release that Hermione had a younger sister, and then later on changed her mind. I'd been a bit perplexed as to which way that might go. But, on having been introduced to the young lady, I felt a terrible fear and apprehension grab hold of my heart.

What if Rowling were correct - BOTH times!?

Say, just for the sake of argument, that Hermione did have a younger sister. Seeing as how I'd just been introduced to her, this was a fact I could hardly deny. However, for her later to NOT have a sister could also be true... if said sister were to die.

There was a thing called 'child mortality' for a reason. People died, even young ones, quite often of natural causes. It could be something so ordinary as a sickness or a car accident that caused it.

Or a suicide. Those happened with appalling frequency nowadays. And with an elder sister who was an accomplished witch, but not having any access to magic of her own (as we never did see said sister enter Hogwarts)... yes, I could see a disturbed and jealous young teen ending her own life over such a sentiment. Such things had happened before. And the outpouring of grief over such an event could be mind-blowing.

So that could contribute greatly to the change we all saw in Hermione in the later two books. A death in the family can often change a person, more so when the tragic event came at the victim's own hand. But either way, with Harry as stressed as he was by events already, Hermione had a good chance of not mentioning such a thing for fear of burdening him further. Thus, since those books were largely written from Harry's perspective, we could hardly know if she had chosen to keep it a secret from him.

And, such a thing could shatter family bonds if they were weak enough (and Hermione DID spend most of each year at school, with a considerable portion of her summers also spent among magical folks, a terrible amount of neglect of her muggle family), thus leading to what Hermione had done to her parents that had seemed so very unbelievable and unlike her at the time.

I began to feel a terrible, awful responsibility, as it became clear to me that there was so much I both wanted and needed to do, including saving this little lady's life, that I could hardly afford to spare the time to do it all.

Where would one even start preventing an event when you had no idea how it would even happen? Or if? Or when?

Since saving Harry and defeating our resident Dark Idiot MUST be my highest priorities, I could hardly say I could be certain to spare enough time to pick up any clues as the uncertain, yet horridly possible, event drew near.

And yet... by the previous line of logic it seemed clear to me that if I could not prevent this sad event, however it occurred, I could not be sure of saving our bushy haired genius from becoming that awful person at the end of the books who had prompted many fans to say "Who is this person, and what has she done with the real Hermione?" As many of Rowling's later depictions of her main female character jarred gratingly on the nerves of those who'd liked her in the first parts of the series.

Brrr! And I'd been feeling so invincible a moment ago, too.

Tumbling into the car, and magically widening the back seat (as I had acquired a few tricks on those trips down memory lane, despite feeling I'd need a road map in the future to keep all of those new lanes straight), we arrived shortly at a small hotel, collected Tonks from her errand (she could apparate, and I resolved to get her to teach us), and once we had gathered in a small crowd concealed by the hedges just outside of the lobby, I took out one of my Time Turners, put its chain around everyone's neck, and span us back a week.

Gesturing toward the parking lot, I began to grandly explain what had just happened. "Ted, Miranda, Moria and Hermione Granger, Harry and Dora, you will perceive, if you look to the parking lot, the absence of the Granger's car. It is not there, or rather I should say that it is not there yet. It will be in one week's time." I gave in to the urge to twinkle my eyes at them. "You see, this handy little device is a somewhat rare magical object known as a Time Turner - and I find it of particular use in fitting in extra lessons. However, as the Granger family adults inform me they can only afford to take a couple of weeks off each summer for a family holiday, I thought I should treat you all to another. You, at this moment, are back one week from where we were a second ago. Ted and Miranda are probably at their dental practice dealing with patients. Harry and Hermione are still at school, and I'd wager Moria is also. So, for that matter, is Dora. But! We are also here. So, since we are all already filling out our responsibilities nicely, that means we have an extra week of holiday to spend however we like. And I would be most happy to cover all the costs for this myself, so the past Grangers do not get surprised by any unexpected charges on their credit cards."

Eyebrows raised and mouths opened.

I beamed over them a wide grin, then took the entire party over a ferry to France, where we all discussed where we wanted to go, then dipped through an international floo connection to their chosen spot for sun - Italy.

So, no sooner did we arrive and emerge from the international floo than I sent off a message immediately to one of my fans native to Italy, a frequent pen pal, in fact, inquiring as to whether he would mind if I dropped by for a visit, say mid-afternoon-ish, and brought along some friends?

Then we hit the beaches.

Since Hermione's parents had brought no luggage, and her school uniforms were hardly suitable for either her or her sister out in and among the muggle public, I got everyone a small wardrobe, showing them all a trick by getting fairly cheap stuff from a Goodwill store and then transfiguring it into good clothes of whatever design they wanted.

Everyone was impressed by that trick. But, as I explained, the smaller the change the longer it was going to last, and this was plenty small enough to last a week, easily, even at my low level of ability.

And, it had the added benefit that when the spell expired they would still be wearing clothes, no sudden nakedness as everything you're wearing suddenly reverts back into handkerchiefs, or anything like that. The clothes would be ugly and worn, but that would be the extent of the embarrassment. And with that eventual end in mind, we could use them hard in the meantime.

That was one of those things Rowling had never explored or explained. For if you could create anything via transfiguration and conjuration, why was there even a magical economy? Who would BUY anything if, for a few wand flicks, you could make it?

Well, on arriving here, I'd learned that transfigurations and conjurations were temporary, and that you could not create any magical properties that way. So, if you transfigure a carrot into a mandrake for a potion, your potion is going to fail as it has none of the magic that's supposed to be in a mandrake. And if you ate a pig that had been transfigured out of a desk, you'd find yourself with a lump of wood in your gut at some point.

But for disposables, like vacation clothes, hey! Knock yourself out.

I looked at Harry and nodded, reaching under my shirt to pull out a necklace, on which hung a locket. Inside of that locket was a portrait, which swung open on a little concealed catch operated by the portrait itself (something like the Fat Lady on the door to Gryffindor Tower) to reveal a trunk, shrunk down to minuscule size, and inside of that trunk was all of my camping gear.

Harry took his out as well and we began to set things up on an open space overlooking the beach.

Now, as part of that shopping expedition I'd seen to it that we'd both loaded up on magical camping gear, including magic tents fully loaded with options and measuring about a dozen rooms each on three floors. They were top of the line models, and I'd even gotten us a discount, being frugal at heart in spite of presently being rich in body.

Now the reason for all of this was simple. Call me paranoid, but I felt it wise to both have full survival gear for potential 'live as a fugitive' emergencies that may crop up in our futures. And magic made it easy to carry enough gear so we could be including all of the comforts of home on the road. The trunk was to hold everything, and was enchanted so that all of our camping gear would magically return to it on a given command. The locket was so we could carry our trunks with us at all times, and could cause the trunk to magically return to it the same way as the trunk could call the rest of our camping gear. I fully intended to never take my locket off.

So even if we were caught in the tub or otherwise indisposed, once we'd fled whatever danger came upon us we could still reequip ourselves by calling on supplies stored in the trunk in the locket. So even if we'd been caught and attacked in our tents with our gear spread out, we could (once we'd escaped) use our lockets to call the trunks, which would in turn be able to recover all the rest of our camping equipment. Perishable supplies, like food and spare clothes, were the only part of this system that would have to be recharged periodically, unless something broke, that is.

Which, given the dangers of this environment, was sadly likely. Stray spells or other harmful measures could easily destroy any element of this. But, to avoid notice, seeing as how this WAS a mobile hideout as much as anything, and hopefully escape combat altogether, I'd seen to it that our tents, while they could not be invisible, could be the next best thing, as from the outside they appeared as simple trees. We could even change what type of trees the exteriors were, to match whatever forest we elected to hide out in.

And they were real enough on the outside for a muggle to lean up against one and not feel a thing out of the ordinary. But, place your hand on a certain knot, and say a password that we could reset as we desired, and you were in. Our balconies were concealed among the leaves, and our windows looked out likewise, clear from the inside and yet innocuous tree bits on the outside.

We could literally camp out in the middle of a muggle city with no one the wiser. No, the tent crafter had been quite amazed when I'd requested these options. I was amazed when he was able to do it, and paid him extra so I could get his permission to erase our tent specifics from his mind. After all, the value of this was in concealment, and if every tent in the wizarding world suddenly started having these options people would know what to look for.

The lockets, trunks, and tents were all ordered separately from different vendors, so as to conceal the true function of the whole system as much as possible.

And finally, both lockets were enchanted so as to stay clean and avoid notice as much as possible. So, in theory at least, even if captured by the Ministry or Death Eaters (at times it doesn't matter which), we'd still have our full survival gear hidden around our necks despite occupying the depths of Azkaban or a cell in Malfoy's basement. As we each had a spare wand hidden in and among our supplies, getting out should be much less of a problem.

I'd have to call myself a fool if, knowing of the dangers ahead of time, I did not prepare for them.

Setting up our tents to change into our swimwear, we let the Granger family use Harry's, while our 'family' I guess you could say of Harry, Tonks and I used mine.

Delayed for a few moments by the necessity of showing the Granger family around the inside of the magical tent they would be using, and explaining how to use the various magical odds and ends I did not believe they would be familiar with, I skipped off to my own to get changed, only to halt at the door to the master chambers I had pegged as my own.

"Who goesss there?" I heard a voice in the room, and instantly went on the alert.

"I'll have you know this is my room, so I am the only one who has any right to be here. State your business and be gone." I spoke back to the unseen voice, checking around the chamber while I sidled over to get a scarf I could wave around to check for invisible persons.

I'd no sooner moved around to grab one than I saw a small snake in a cage, hidden just around the side of my bed, where I could not see it from the door.

There came snickering from behind me. Turning myself around, somewhat dumbfounded, I saw Harry and Dora there, the latter with her arm casually hung around the shoulders of the former as if they truly were brother and sister. Both were regarding me in very proud modes, and Harry spoke to me. "I knew you had to be a parcelmouth, just like me. How else could you have known how to tell me all of those things you did about how it works?"

Tonks was nodding, though she'd heard only hissing, she knew what gift that hissing meant. "You knew about it in a way that said you'd done it, but told us you wouldn't even tell your friends if you had it."

"So you snuck a snake into my room, then waited around to see if I spoke to it?" I was amazed at their ingenuity. I mean, I knew I shouldn't be, Harry was exactly that clever early on, before the series beat it out of him. But I'd never pictured those leaps of understanding being applied to unmask me!

For that matter, how on Earth did I become a parcelmouth myself? Oh, right. That transfusion again. Well, hopefully that should be the end of it. Then again, who could tell? Rowling did not exactly develop any of Harry's powers. He might be a bunch of other things her books never explored.

Still, son of an animagus, I could at least hold out hope that he'd inherited that ability, if it was an inherited one and not simply trained, as I'd rather like to explore those options myself.

Swinging the scarf around my neck, I gave the pair a smile as I spread my hands in surrender. "Alright, you caught me. Well done, both of you, and I'd like to congratulate you on working together on this so well. For your prize, you may choose which restaurant you want to have supper at. But I do hope you will both hold my secret as precious to you as Harry's is."

They nodded, but Harry bit his lip. "But, I was wondering... you said that only the descendants of Slytherin could do it. So how do you..?"

I gave a very sad shrug. "A magical accident, Harry. Much like yours. I'll give you the details some other time, alright?" Like, when I figured out a story to use. The truth might be a bit dicy, as I didn't want to tell him why I'd been drawing his blood in the first place, because then I'd be found explaining why I'd killed the Dursleys.

And it was one of those things that didn't explain easily.

Sigh. 'Keep conscience clear, then never fear' was such a perfect motto. Why hadn't I let the magical police handle them?

Oh, right. Because as the head of the magical court system, Albus could have perverted justice once again, like he had with Sirius, to get Harry back in their care regardless of past abuses. The man seemed to have no known limit to his clout when he felt like using it.

And such a course could only have ended in the destruction of Harry.

On the other hand, I was to find that my sharing of this secret, dark gift with him built a bond of trust between us that was not likely to falter. He knew that he could trust me on certain matters, and for the very first time in his life felt that he could relate to someone, as we were both famous, both had a secret gift that we shared and could destroy us, and were building a friendship on other lines as well.

No, we were already well on our way to being very strong allies of the other.

"Can't you even give us a hint?" Harry asked as I tried to move everyone out of my room so I could change.

I sighed. Okay, showtime. "Alright, Harry. Like you, I killed an enemy to gain this ability. I wasn't born with it." Opening my eyes, I gave them a friendly gaze. "The trouble is, I don't know which one it was. There have been so many, and I didn't know at the time that any of them spoke parceltongue, so it could have been any of a large number of enemies I've defeated. It didn't even have to be a living opponent, as it could have been one of the vampires or other undead I've destroyed. So the details are lost to me."

Actually, there was a nugget of truth to that. While I might strongly suspect that it came from the transfusion and my killing off the Dursleys, I didn't know for sure. And I had, by now, defeated more enemies than just them.

I continued on in the same vein. "I don't know how or why it happens this way sometimes, so I could not tell you for certain. All I do know is that you and I are the only ones to have become parcelmouths this way that I know of. If there are more, I've never heard of them."

Harry gazed up at me. "But, since we keep this a secret, others might also?"

I nodded. "They might. But it would be far too risky to check. And, if they did, there ought to be family lines of them appearing, other than just old Salazar's. What I suspect," I propounded a new theory I'd just thought of as I stood up taller, "Is that once you'd destroyed Voldemort, the gift didn't want to just up and die as the last of Salazar's line perished, so it became in a way contagious, and you and I caught it. That could explain why others who fought his family didn't bear those gifts away, as we've done, and also says that you and I are likely the only two to have caught it."

He nodded, satisfied.

"Why wouldn't you want to tell us, if that's all you knew?" Tonks cocked her head, regarding me oddly.

I sighed, closing my eyes. "Dora, I am a storyteller. Books are how I've made all of my money, and I find it embarrassing when I've got to say 'I don't know' about something, particularly about an amazing event like that one."

She nodded, satisfied, and she and Harry both seemed to eagerly absorb this little nugget of information about me.

"We'll keep the snake in my room for another few days, if you don't mind, and Harry and I can practice discerning parceltongue from our native one. That way we are both less likely to be caught off guard by such traps in the future. But I still advise not owning any snakes long-term."

They both agreed, then things went on.