HARRY:

"Harry, could you help me with something?" Hermione asked from where she was curled up on an armchair with The Tales of Beedle the Bard in one hand and Spellman's Syllabary in the other. "I'd ask Lucy, but she's really the best person to keep watch during sunset, with the light playing as many tricks as it does."

I nodded and set aside the dish sponge. "What's up?"

"This symbol," she muttered.

"I never took Ancient Runes, Hermione," I said as I dried my hands on the nearest rag and crossed the room.

"I know that, but it isn't a rune and it's not in the syllabary, either." She pointed to the top of a page. "All along I thought it was a picture of an eye, but I don't think it is! It's been inked in, look, somebody's drawn it there, it isn't really part of the book. Think, have you ever seen it before?"

I studied the symbol for a moment. "I think that's the same symbol Luna's dad was wearing around his neck at the wedding."

"I was thinking that, too!" Hermione replied.

"Well, then, it's Grindelwald's mark."

Hermione blinked at me. "What?"

"Yeah, I talked to Viktor about it at the wedding," I said with a nod. "Grindelwald apparently carved it into a wall at Durmstrang. People thought it would be cool, or something, to wear it or copy it down, so Viktor saw it a lot when he was, er, teaching said people otherwise. I don't think the Lovegoods really know what it means, they don't strike me as the Dark Magic type, but it is most certainly Grindelwald's mark."

"I've never heard that Grindelwald had a mark," Hermione said with a confused frown. "There's no mention of it in anything I've ever read about him."

"Well, according to Viktor, it was on a wall at Durmstrang and he was under the impression Grindelwald carved it there when he was a student."

"That's very odd. If it's a symbol of Dark Magic, why is it in a children's book? What kind of person would ink it in?"

I shrugged. "Beats me. It's certainly strange. And you'd think Scrimgeour would have recognized it when he looked through the book. He was Minister, he ought to have been expert on Dark stuff."

"You'd think. He must have thought it was an eye, like I did. All of the other stories have pictures over the titles."

Hermione returned her attention to the book, and Lucy ducked into the tent only a couple seconds later, her pale face barely visible beneath the scarf she'd wrapped around the bottom half of her face and the Benny hat tugged down over the top half.

"I'm sorry, but it's so cold out there," she managed through her chattering teeth.

"Merlin's pants, don't apologize, no one wants you to freeze to death out there," I chided, rushing over to the stack of blankets in the corner and wrapping the thickest one around her. When that did nothing to still her shivering, I rubbed my hands up and down her upper arms. "Where's your temperature-changing shirt?"

Lucy yanked down the collar of her coat to reveal that she was, in fact, wearing it. "It doesn't do much good for anything other than my upper body."

"Well, you're welcome to grab one of the jars of Hermione's bluebell flames, or you can help me with dishes if you'd prefer hot water to hot fire," I replied.

Without another second of hesitation, Lucy dropped into the nearest armchair and extended a hand, wordlessly summoning one of the jars to her. She curled around it, pulling her knees to her chest and the blanket tight around her, then glanced up at me with a pleased look.

I smiled at her, then lowered myself onto another chair and braced my hands on my knees.

"While you're both in here," I said slowly, "I've been thinking. I — I want to go to Godric's Hollow."

Hermione glanced up. "Yes, I was thinking the same. I really think we'll have to."

"Did — " I had been expecting far more resistance from her. "Did you hear me right?"

"Yeah, she did, Hermione and I have talked about this already," Lucy piped up. "We were just waiting for you to be ready. We didn't want to pressure you, since Godric's Hollow has more weight for you than it does for us."

"I wanted to wait until you'd recovered from the full moon," I replied.

Lucy smiled. "Thanks."

"Anyway, yes," Hermione said, setting aside her book and straightening up in her armchair. "You want to go to Godric's Hollow. I agree, I think we should. I mean, I can't think of anywhere else it could be either. It'll be dangerous, but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems it's there."

"Er — what's there?" I asked.

Hermione stared at me incredulously. "Well, the sword, Harry! Dumbledore must have known you'd want to go back there, and I mean, Godric's Hollow is Godric Gryffindor's birthplace — "

"Really? Gryffindor came from Godric's Hollow?"

"Harry, did you ever even open A History of Magic?" Hermione retorted, a rare smile on her face.

I found myself smiling back even as my face heated. "Erm, well, I might have opened it when I bought it, just the once."

Lucy burst out laughing as Hermione lunged for her copy of the book.

Hermione huffed as she flipped through the pages. "Well, as the village is named after him, I'd have thought you might have made the connection. There's a bit about the village in A History of Magic, right here, it says, 'Upon the signature of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689, wizards went into hiding for good. It was natural, perhaps, that they formed their own small communities within a community. Many small villages and hamlets attracted several magical families, who banded together for mutual support and protection. The villages of Tinworth in Cornwall, Upper Flagley in Yorkshire, and Ottery St. Catchpole on the south coast of England were notable homes to knots of wizarding families who lived alongside tolerant and sometimes Confunded Muggles. Most celebrated of these half-magical dwelling places is, perhaps, Godric's Hollow, the West Country village where the great wizard Godric Gryffindor was born, and where Bowman Wright, wizarding smith, forged the first Golden Snitch. The graveyard is full of the names of ancient magical families, and this accounts, no doubt, for the stories of hauntings that have dogged the little church beside it for many centuries.'" Hermione glanced up at me as she set the book aside. "You and your parents aren't mentioned, because Professor Bagshot doesn't cover anything later than the end of the nineteenth century. But you see? Godric's Hollow, Godric Gryffindor, Gryffindor's sword; don't you think Dumbledore would have expected you to make the connection?"

"Yeah, I guess," I relented sheepishly.

"It's alright," Lucy said. "Godric's Hollow means a lot more to you than just what's in the book. You want to go there for personal reasons too, yeah?"

I nodded, grateful, as always, for Lucy's understanding.

"Bathilda Bagshot lives there too," Lucy added. "Muriel said so at Bill and Fleur's wedding."

Hermione gasped suddenly. "Harry, what if Bathilda's got the sword? What if Dumbledore entrusted it to her?"

"He might have done that!" I agreed. "So, are we going to Godric's Hollow?"

"Yes, but we'll have to think it through carefully, Harry. We'll need to practice disapparating together under the invisibility cloak for a start, and perhaps Disillusionment Charms would be sensible too, unless you think we should go the whole hog and use polyjuice?" Hermione wondered aloud. "In that case we'd need to collect hair from somebody. I actually think we'd better do that, the thicker our disguises the better — "

I glanced at Lucy, who was shrinking back into her seat, looking embarrassed.

"We don't need polyjuice," I said. "You said you can't take it, right, Lu?"

Lucy nodded.

"We really ought to do it," Hermione replied fretfully.

"I want to go back to Godric's Hollow as myself," I said in a small voice.

"I understand, Harry, but You-Know-Who must know you're going to go back there," Hermione insisted, "and walking in there looking like yourself is, for lack of a more eloquent word, suicide."

Lucy offered me a knowing look. "After the war, you can go back looking like yourself, okay? I'm sorry, but me looking like me is going to cause enough of a problem — "

"I think you'd be able to take polyjuice potion actually, Lucy," Hermione interrupted.

"You know as well as I do that it's for human transformations only — "

"Hermione managed to turn herself into a cat," I said. "And in the Seven Potters aftermath, Kingsley checked to make sure Remus was really Remus. Maybe it would work for you, Lu."

Hermione nodded. "Precisely. Why would Kingsley have done that if there wasn't a chance that polyjuice worked for those types of transformations?"

"Because it sounds like it was all very stressful and he was most likely just making sure..." Lucy sighed. "Look, polyjuice doesn't work for half-breeds — "

"You're not a half-breed." Hermione cocked her head at Lucy. "You should know that, with all of your magical creatures expertise. You're not classified as a half-breed."

Lucy blinked. "I'm not?"

I knew Lucy. I knew she knew everything there was to know about magical creatures. If Hermione knew Lucy wasn't a half-breed, Lucy should have known that too.

"Lucy... who told you that you were?" I asked.

Lucy blinked several more times, her mouth slightly open as she struggled to breathe, staring at the ground. After a minute, she looked at Hermione, unspoken question in her wide eyes.

"Half-breeds are humans with non-human ancestry," Hermione said softly. "Werewolves are just humans with a magical affliction. There's nothing ancestral about lycanthropy, as far as anyone knows."

Lucy retreated deeper into her little blanket cocoon. "Oh."

"I researched it after what Umbridge said to the centaurs," Hermione continued. "Hagrid is technically a half-breed, and so is Fleur. I've always somewhat suspected that, er, Gilderoy Lockhart is too, given the way he made me, er, lose my head a little bit. Lockhart having at least a little veela ancestry would make me feel better."

That comment made me grin, and Lucy looked a bit amused.

"Anyway, I think it would work for you. It's worth a shot, at least."

"Wait a minute," Lucy said, sitting up straighter in the chair. "Fleur's a half-breed. She turned into Harry."

Hermione gasped. "You're right!"

"Fucking exclusionists," I muttered.

"Someone must not have wanted half-breeds, correctly classified or not, knowing they could transform into so-called 'normal people,'" Hermione spat. "It's utter nonsense, but unfortunately, that seems rather likely." Hermione closed her eyes and sighed before opening her eyes again. "You know, since Ron's not — Lucy, if you want to try a dose before we go, just to make sure it works, you could try taking a dose, just so we make sure there aren't any unexpected consequences."

"I'd feel better about doing that before we go to Godric's Hollow," Lucy said with a nod. "We can try that tomorrow, then depending on how that goes, make a plan, then go to Godric's Hollow shortly after that. Is that okay with you, Harry? Mione?"

I nodded. "It sounds good to me."

"Yeah," Hermione agreed. "Alright. So, are you turning into me or Harry?"

Lucy abruptly shed her blanket cocoon and cradled the bluebell flames to her chest. "I'm going back outside now."

She practically fled the tent as I exchanged an amused look with Hermione.

"I'll keep her company," I whispered, "since she has the Horcrux and the whole half-breed realization could be a bit..."

I couldn't find the right word, but Hermione nodded to show she understood the point I was trying to make anyway.

"I'll start the polyjuice potion, so it'll be ready to go for her tomorrow night," she said.

I nodded. "Sounds good."

With that, I snatched the blanket from the armchair and made my way outside.

The December chill stole the breath from my lungs and instantly sapped any warmth that the exposed skin of my face might have once possessed, but I spotted Lucy's form curled up a short distance away from the tent and made my way over without thinking twice about it.

"You were right, it is cold out here," I managed as I lowered myself to the forest floor beside her. "I don't suppose I could persuade you to just come inside with me and leave the tent unguarded for the night."

Lucy shook her head, so I tossed the blanket over the two of us (and I mean over, over the tops of our heads too, it was cold) and pulled her close. She curled up against me without any hesitation. She was always happy for any excuse to be close to me those days, and I felt the same. We were huddling for warmth against the bitter winter cold. Surely Hermione would understand that, should she poke her head through the tent flap and see our single lumpy form.

"So, Amos?" I asked.

"Yes." Lucy's voice was small. "It wasn't just him, though. Thinking werewolves are half-breeds is such a common misconception I... didn't even realize it was a misconception. Everyone knows we're not human, even if they don't use the proper terminology. I don't even know if the polyjuice will work — "

"Saying your name did," I interrupted. I kissed the top of her head. "You're already more human than you thought."

Lucy nodded. "I guess. I think I'm just more comfortable keeping my expectations low. Life is less disappointing that way."

"Well... alright, honestly, I'd love to argue with you, but I'm currently freezing my bollocks off in the middle of the woods somewhere and I know you are too. Somehow, my expectations for this whole Horcrux business were too high."

Lucy snorted. "It's not so bad. We saw mooncalves."

"There's that classic Lucy silver lining." I squeezed her shoulder. "I won't be offended if you'd rather turn into Hermione, by the way."

"Are you kidding? I want to be tall for once! I'm turning into you!"

I laughed, but Lucy was perfectly serious. I ended up staying out there with her until her four hours with the Horcrux were up. When Hermione came outside to relieve her, the two of us headed into the tent, Lucy for eight hours of sleep, since she'd done her shift for the night, and me for four, since I wanted to keep Lucy company on her shift rather than sleeping.

Once Lucy was awake the next morning, we packed up the tent and started our disapparition practice under the invisibility cloak. We revisited almost all of the places we had camped previously, just to make sure we could consistently stick the landing. Though none of us said anything out loud, I knew we were all keeping our eyes peeled for Ron too, on the off-chance he would be waiting for us in a place we'd already been. Ron was nowhere to be found, though, so we apparated one last time to a new location, a seaside cliff, and set up camp for the night.

🩵💛❤💜🩷

LUCY:

As soon as the polyjuice potion was ready, Harry dropped a couple of his hairs into the vial before passing it to me.

I accepted the vial as it glowed gold, wondering if polyjuice potion would taste better or worse than wolfsbane, since they were both notorious for being awful.

"If something goes wrong, I think you should just be able to summon the potion out of me," I said. "Just stick a wand in my mouth and... you know."

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Sounds unpleasant. I hope it doesn't come to that."

"Yes, well, you and me both," I replied. I glanced at Harry, who looked almost as apprehensive as I felt. "Are you alright?"

"I'm just not particularly looking forward to you turning into me," he said.

I shrugged. "At least there won't be seven of you this time. Well, here goes nothing. Cheers."

With that, I tipped the vial to my lips, closed my eyes, and chugged the potion.

It burned all the way down my throat. My body seemed to explode with a grotesque groaning sound that made my ears ache, and then it was over.

When I opened my eyes again, I was the same height as Harry. It was a little difficult to tell, though, because the whole world was blurry.

"I'm guessing it worked?" I asked in a voice that was not my own, but Harry's. I clapped a hand over my mouth. "Oh Merlin, that's disturbing."

Harry sounded equal parts amused and horrified. "Yeah, tell me about it. Usually the transition is a lot slower than that. One second, you were you, and then the next, you were me. Here." Harry removed his glasses, then placed the frames on my face. "How's that?"

"Better, thanks," I replied, looking around the tent, which looked very different from Harry's taller point of view. I glanced down at Hermione, able to see clearly just how wide her eyes were as she stared at me. "So how long will I be like this?"

"The dose is supposed to last two hours, but for you, I don't know. With how suddenly you turned into Harry, I'd suspect it won't last as long."

"My heightened werewolf magic must burn through it faster than a typical human's magic," I mused.

Hermione nodded. "Time will tell."

"Quite literally," I agreed. I turned to Harry with a smile. "Being tall is fun. I'm rather jealous that you get to see the world from this angle all the time. I was rather enjoying the blurry vision, though, since mine is often so overwhelmingly sharp, so you can have these back."

Harry accepted the glasses from me warily before putting them back on his face. "I do hope you won't be offended if I don't look at you or talk to you until this wears off because this — " He gestured to me. " — is somehow even more unsettling than having six of me running around."

I grinned, determined to be a little shit since the opportunity had so beautifully presented itself. "I'm Harry Potter, and I harbor a secret love of singing in the shower. While I'm not opposed to singing a Weird Sisters song every now and then, Muggle opera is my passion — "

"I'm going to go keep watch outside!" Harry declared, striding in the direction of the front of the tent. "Fetch me when you're back to normal!"

"You can run, but you can't hide from the truth!" I called after him.

Harry flashed a rude gesture over his shoulder, grinning in spite of himself, then ducked outside.

I experimentally moved my — Harry's — arms around, then walked a couple steps forward.

I gasped. "He crosses so much distance with every step! This is so odd. And blurry vision — wow, usually this only happens to me when I'm on the brink of consciousness. Harry just sees like this, on his own? He can just choose to have less sensory input whenever he wants? It doesn't have to be so overwhelming all of the time?"

"I guess," Hermione said. "Perhaps sometime we can all turn into you, to see what it's like."

"I wonder how that would work. You wouldn't have my magic, I don't think, because I still feel like myself even if I look like this." I cupped my hands in front of me and conjured a handful of sparks, the majority of which were green, for amusement. "Well, that's fitting. Anyway, yes, that would be an interesting experiment. I wonder what exactly polyjuice changes, and how, and — I can't believe this worked."

I closed my fists around the sparks and glanced in Hermione's direction. I couldn't see the specifics of her face, but her body language suggested that she was at least a little disturbed.

"I can sit down and shut up until I'm back to normal. Having witnessed all seven Harrys that night, I know how unsettling this is," I said. "Or perhaps I should demonstrate Harry's opera?"

Hermione giggled, shaking her head. "Please don't. You can do whatever you want until it wears off, but kindly refrain from opera."

"I'd appreciate that as well!" Harry called from outside. "I don't sing opera!"

I laughed menacingly. "Oh, but you could!"

"But I don't!" he replied.

I cleared my throat and conjured the lyrics of "Take It Easy" to the front of my mind. "Well, I'm running down the road, tryin' to loosen my looooad — "

"AAAA — "

Harry's shout of displeasure was interrupted by his silencing spell cracking into place, and I doubled over laughing as Hermione did the same.

"I would rather enjoy a bit of music, though," I remarked as I wiped tears of laughter from my — Harry's — eyes. "It's been so long since we've, you know, had any amount of fun."

Hermione sobered up in an instant. "It feels wrong to — to try to — without — "

"I know," I said. "I miss him too, and so does Harry. But sitting around moping won't bring Ron back any sooner, and we're just sitting around waiting for the polyjuice to wear off anyway, so..."

I crossed the room and turned on the radio, crouching in front of it as I scanned through various stations, my face practically pressed up against it to see the buttons because of how awful Harry's vision was. The second I found music, I stopped and jumped to my feet. It was unfamiliar to me, something soft and instrumental.

"This is from The Nutcracker ballet," Hermione whispered. "I used to see it with Mum and Dad every year around Christmas."

The sorrow in her voice made me reach for the radio again. "Do you want me to turn it off?"

"No. No, this is comforting."

Hermione gravitated toward the radio, and as she got closer, I could see the contemplative nostalgia on her face. She lowered herself to the floor of the tent and pulled her knees to her chest, staring at the radio with rapt attention.

I walked over to the tent flap and poked my head outside, cutting through Harry's silencing spell.

"I'm not going to sing anymore," I said to Harry. "If you're interested in listening to The Nutcracker ballet, I found it on the radio."

"I always wanted to go see it with the Dursleys," he commented without turning toward me. "I'm not really in the mood to be reminded of that right now, but..."

"Mione said she always saw it with her parents. Maybe once this is all over, we can all go together."

Harry nodded. "I'd like that. Lucy, you're my best friend and you know I love you, but I was rather serious about not wanting to see or talk to you until you're back to normal, though, so if you please — "

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going, I'm going," I replied, smiling ruefully as I ducked back inside.

I joined Hermione in front of the radio, and we listened to The Nutcracker in silence until my vision started to clear. Fortunately, the transition back to myself was slower than my transition into Harry, more like air leaking out of a balloon than a balloon popping, so I had time to adjust.

Hermione checked her watch. "Well, that was almost exactly an hour, so you burn through polyjuice twice as fast as we do," she said. "When we go to Godric's Hollow, you'll need a double dose of whatever we decide to take."

"Sounds good. I'll go let Harry know, you enjoy your Nutcracker."

Hermione nodded, so I got to my feet and grabbed a blanket before making my way outside and erecting a silencing spell.

"I'm me again," I said, sitting beside him and wrapping the blanket around our shoulders.

"Thank Merlin, it's even colder out there tonight than it was last night, I was about to give up and come back in."

"You could have asked me to fetch you a blanket at any time, you know I wouldn't have minded," I pointed out.

"You weren't you," Harry muttered, shaking his head. "You were right, the morning of the wedding, that's just downright scary."

"I can only imagine how much stranger it is for you to be looking at yourself like that," I remarked. "Anyway, I burn through polyjuice twice as fast, so I'll just take double whatever amount you two take when we go to Godric's Hollow."

Harry nodded. "Alright."

I reached for his hand and held it tight. "Are you ready?"

"I think so," Harry whispered. "It's just... Godric's Hollow was supposed to be home. Now I'm going back looking like someone else, just to try to get a sword to destroy a locket, and I'm going to be looking over my shoulder the whole time hoping that the same person who murdered my parents isn't lurking around every corner waiting to have another go at me."

"I'm sorry, love," I murmured. I squeezed his hand. "We can go back one day, properly. I promise."

Harry nodded, and the two of us listened to the raging of the sea below us until Harry's four hours of wearing the Horcrux were up and it was time to pass it to Hermione. I wanted so desperately for it to be a romantic moment, the same way I'd wished for our time alone the night before to be romantic, but that was an impossibility. The locket was a wedge between us. Even though it only ever rested against one chest at a time, it managed to hang over our heads every minute of the day. I hoped and prayed that we'd find the Sword of Gryffindor in Godric's Hollow just so we could rid ourselves of the weight of the locket and all it meant, just a momentary triumph before we resumed our search for the other Horcruxes. Glimmers of light were enough those days, like the stars above us whose light was brave enough to span legions of darkness just to reach us. The light of hope hadn't been extinguished yet.

🩵💛❤💜🩷

HARRY:

"I hate you both," Lucy said as she glared at the vial of polyjuice I offered her.

I grinned. "Sorry, Lu, but you have the most experience being short."

"And logistically, it makes the most sense," Hermione continued, less teasing, more matter-of-fact. "You're the most powerful of the three of us, so if we happen to run into trouble, you have the best chance of having the element of surprise. No one would think to attack a child first."

"Unless we run into Fenrir Greyback," Lucy muttered. She shook her head. "Forget I said that. But next time, someone else is being the child, and I'm being one of the parents."

"Deal," I said.

Lucy lifted her vial in a half-hearted toast. "Cheers."

The three of us downed the potion, and by the time our transformations were complete, I was a balding Muggle man, Hermione was his short Muggle wife, and Lucy was their even-shorter daughter. We'd decided the day before that two adults and a child would be less suspicious than three adults, and Lucy had reluctantly agreed at the time that it made the most sense for her to be the daughter, but she seemed to be having second thoughts.

"I fucking hate you both!" Lucy announced in the little girl's high-pitched voice, crossing her arms over her chest in a way that made her blonde pigtails swish.

Unable to help myself, I laughed so hard I could barely stand, and Hermione appeared to be suffering the same fate beside me. Lucy, meanwhile, stubbornly maintained her glare at us after she'd changed into child-sized Muggle clothes and stowed the empty cauldron and her normal clothes into the bumbag that she had to shrink to fit around her waist.

"Are we going to Godric's Hollow or not?" Lucy asked.

"Right, right," Hermione replied, clutching at a stitch in her side. "We're on a time limit, come on, we should go."

"I'll do the apparating, since you two buffoons seem to need the reminder that I'm not a child, contrary to what my current outward appearance would suggest." Lucy stepped in between us and grabbed our hands, having to lift her arms nearly above her head to do so. "Fuck, alright, I'll admit it, this is funny."

And then all three of us laughed, but only for a moment, because the gravity of what we were about to do was beginning to settle on our shoulders. I tossed the invisibility cloak over us, and Lucy disapparated us.

We arrived in the middle of a snow-covered road with cottages on both sides. Night was falling above us, and all was quiet.

Hermione groaned. "All this snow! Why didn't we think of snow? After all our precautions, we'll leave prints! We'll just have to get rid of them — you two go in front, I'll do it — "

"Let's take off the cloak," I said.

"But — "

"We don't look like us, and there's no one around," I argued. "Come on."

I yanked the cloak off and shoved it into one of the pockets of my coat, and we proceeded down the street. I looked at the cottages we passed, wondering if any were the place I'd once called home, wondering if I'd recognize it, wondering if I'd be able to see it in the first place, wondering if it was still standing in the first place.

After a minute or two, we reached the village square, which appeared to host both a Christmas tree and something that looked like a war memorial. A couple dozen people bustled back and forth beneath the glow of Christmas lights and street lamps, but my eyes were drawn to the little church on the other side of the square. I could faintly make out soft organ music and singing, a song I didn't recognize.

"I think it's Christmas Eve," Hermione said in a hushed voice.

I couldn't think of anything to say in response to that. I didn't keep track of dates anymore, relying instead on the pocket watches to tell me when the full moon was approaching.

Hermione followed my gaze. "They'll be in there, won't they? Your mum and dad? I can see the graveyard behind it."

My stomach did a somersault. I'd longed to set foot in Godric's Hollow, to stand in the place I'd seen so often in photographs and dreams alike for so many years, but on the precipice of coming into contact with such a tangible piece of my history, I felt small and afraid.

Lucy reached up and grabbed my hand. It wasn't Lucy's hand, not really, but knowing she was by my side was a comfort regardless. She led the way, and I followed her, because why wouldn't I?

As we passed the war memorial, Hermione gasped and pointed at it.

It had transformed, once we'd gotten close enough, to reveal that it was not in fact the obelisk that Muggles thought it was. Instead, it was a statue, of Mum and Dad and me.

I was just a baby in my mum's arms, no scar on my forehead. One of my dad's arms was around my mum's shoulders, and I was clinging to the fingers of the hand of his other arm. They weren't smiling in the statue, because I supposed that was hardly appropriate for a memorial statue, but I was beaming, mouth stretched wide in a toothless grin. My parents did look happy, even though they weren't smiling; there was a certain warm glow in their eyes that was apparent even in the stone. But more than that, there was determination, and fear, and, above all, love.

And Merlin, they looked so young.

I stirred from my reverie and continued walking toward the church, melancholy swelling in me as I started to be able to pick out the words of the Christmas carol. It was "Away in a Manger," something I remembered from a Christmas program I'd done as a child. I walked faster all the way to the graveyard, trying to tune the song out.

The graveyard was illuminated by the glow of the stained glass window behind it, casting colorful beams of light onto the tombstones.

Once we'd reached the graveyard, we all went our separate ways, inspecting each name on each headstone.

"Over here!" Hermione called softly after a couple of minutes.

My head whipped her direction, my heart racing. "Is it — ?"

"No, but look!"

Lucy and I rushed to join her at the site of the grave belonging to Kendra and Ariana Dumbledore.

Why had he never told me that we shared such tragic connections to the same village?

"What does 'Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also' mean?" Lucy asked, reading the quote beneath the two names and two sets of dates.

"I don't know," I replied.

"Harry," Hermione started tentatively, "are you sure he never mentioned — "

I shook my head. "No. Let's keep looking."

With that, I marched off to where I had been and continued inspecting tombstones, trying not to let the bitterness I felt toward Dumbledore overshadow the magnitude of the moment in which I found myself.

"This isn't your parents, Harry," Hermione piped up, "but it does have the symbol in the book on it. I think the name is Ignotus?"

"Yeah, it looks like that," Lucy confirmed once she'd gotten close enough to Hermione to see the symbol and the name.

I nodded. "Cool. I'm going to keep looking for my parents, alright?"

"Of course," Lucy said, nodding at me.

I continued inspecting the tombstones, my anxiety growing with each new name I read.

"The McKinnons are here," Lucy called from a distance. "The whole family. They all died the same day. It looks like one of the kids — the youngest — was the same age as your parents, Harry. Marlene McKinnon."

Curiosity piqued, I made my way over to Lucy to see for myself what was written on the massive headstone, and surely enough, Marlene appeared to have been the same age as my parents.

MARLENE MCKINNON
BORN 15 SEPTEMBER 1959
DIED 2 AUGUST 1981

"How precious it is to be loud and loved, even for a little."

"That's an amusing epitaph," Hermione said from behind us. "I've never seen anything like that. It must have been something said either by Marlene or about Marlene."

"Yeah," Lucy agreed. "Maybe both."

After a second, we dispersed again. Lucy stopped abruptly when she read the name on a smaller headstone, only a couple of steps away from the McKinnons, and she got to her knees to brush the snow off of it.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Come see for yourself," she replied in a shaky voice.

I hurried over to crouch down beside her.

CASS
BORN 28 MARCH 1960
DIED 15 AUGUST 1981

The cricket on the hearth has stopped chirping.

"It has to be her," Lucy whispered. "I don't know why her last name wouldn't be here, but it has to be her."

"That quote feels... almost ominous," Hermione said.

Lucy nodded, looking up past the headstone. She went still. "Harry."

I followed her gaze, all the way to a large headstone of white marble, and I felt myself pulled toward it by an invisible force. When I found myself standing in front of it, hiraeth like I had never known threatened to bring me to my knees.

JAMES POTTER 
BORN 27 MARCH 1960 
DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981 

LILY POTTER
BORN 30 JANUARY 1960
DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

I read the quote aloud, horror rising in me. "Isn't 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death' a Death Eater idea? Why is that there?"

"No, not in that way," Lucy assured me, her little hand once again reaching for mine. "Fuck, I hate this polyjuice, but — no, they didn't mean it like that. I think it just means, well, continuing to have an impact on the world after death. Facing death with the hope of conquering that too, in the form of a legacy. In the form of you."

The tears started to fall then, too fast for me to even think about stemming the flow, not that I wanted to stop in the first place. After all I had endured, I felt like I'd earned the right to weep over my parents' graves. They had no way of knowing their sacrifice would mean as much as it had, but there I was, seventeen years old, alive and fighting to remain that way, doing everything in my power to stop their murderer from killing anyone else.

Hermione held tight to my other hand, and Lucy abandoned the idea of holding my hand entirely, instead wrapping her arms around my leg in a desperate attempt to comfort me as much as possible. I hated the thought of the three of us wearing the skin of strangers to visit my parents' grave. I hated the crushing survivor's guilt, and, worse than that, the suffocating feeling that I'd squandered their sacrifice by taking so long to bring Voldemort down, if I'd even succeed in doing so one day at all. I hated everything about the circumstances in which we found ourselves, and in that moment I wanted, just for a second, to be beneath the snow with my parents.

But Hermione was lifting her wand. A Christmas wreath formed in midair, and I lunged forward to catch it. Gently pushing Lucy out of my way, I knelt down and placed it on the ground, then got to my feet again.

I turned and started walking out of the graveyard, never once looking back. I wouldn't look back, not until I could visit my parents' grave as myself.

Hermione and Lucy followed me out of the graveyard, and I tossed the cloak over us. We hadn't gone far at all before I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Oh Merlin," Lucy breathed as she saw why I had stopped.

The Fidelius Charm must have died with my parents, because before us was a cottage with a gaping hole in the right side of the top floor. It was too dark to make out any details of the room that I knew must have been my nursery, where the Killing Curse had backfired. The rest of the cottage appeared to be undamaged, aside from the wear and tear of sixteen years and the overgrowth of ivy and hedges that hadn't been tended since long before that fateful Halloween.

"I wonder why no one's ever tried to rebuild it," Hermione wondered out loud.

"Maybe you can't rebuild it? Maybe it's like the injuries from Dark Magic and you can't repair the damage?" I guessed.

Lucy shook her head. "Even then, why rebuild it? This house is its own memorial, in a way."

I walked closer then, standing at the gate, gripping it with two hands. A tangible thread to my past. My past was there, before me, untouched by all except time. Interesting, really, how life had grown up to embrace the site of such tragic death. Ivy nearly reached the roof.

"Harry, look," Lucy said, pointing to a little sign that was rising up out of the ground. "I can't read it, I'm too little, would you mind...?"

Hermione nodded, reading aloud, "'On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981, Lily and James Potter lost their lives. Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard ever to have survived the Killing Curse. This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters and as a reminder of the violence that tore apart their family.' And there's graffiti too. I wish they hadn't written on the sign!"

"No, it's... it's great," I said, smiling in spite of myself. "I'm glad they did. This one says, 'Good luck, Harry, wherever you are,' and this one, 'Long live Harry Potter,' and this one, 'If you read this, Harry, we're all behind you!'"

"Someone's coming," Lucy hissed.

My smile vanished instantly as we turned to face the person approaching.

She was old, I could tell that much from her posture and from the patches of grey hair that were poking out from under her hood. She was no Muggle, because she was staring at the house that would have been invisible to Muggles. Oddly, though, I got the distinct sense that she could see us too. That she knew who we were and why we were there.

Just as the thought crossed my mind, the old woman beckoned to us with a shaky hand.

"How does she know?" Hermione asked in a panicked whisper.

I stared at her for a long moment, growing increasingly certain that she was Bathilda Bagshot, and that she was somehow connected to Dumbledore. Maybe she did have the sword and maybe she was waiting for us and maybe Dumbledore had mentioned the invisibility cloak and maybe not all was as lost as we thought, maybe Dumbledore had tried to look after us after all.

"Are you Bathilda?" I called.

When she nodded, the three of us shuffled forward after her, letting her lead us down the street to her house. She opened the door and gestured for us to go in before her.

The first thing I noticed was the foul smell, and I was glad for a second that Lucy wasn't technically a werewolf in that moment, meaning her sense of smell wasn't as powerful as it often was.

Once the door closed, I removed the invisibility cloak.

"Bathilda?" I asked again.

With a nod, Bathilda shoved past us and walked into her house.

"I'm not sure about this," Hermione whispered.

But the Horcrux against my chest was beating. It must have known, somehow, that the sword was close.

Lucy and Hermione had both offered to wear the locket for more time that day, so I didn't have to wear it in Godric's Hollow, but I'd insisted. It was consistent with our Horcrux rotation schedule for me to wear it for those hours, but more than that, it felt like my burden to bear, in Godric's Hollow more so than anywhere else. I wanted to bear the full weight of history, see if my shoulders were strong enough to do what I needed to do.

I offered a half-hearted grin. "Look at the size of her; I think we could overpower her if we had to. Listen, Hermione, I should have told you, I knew she wasn't all there. Muriel called her 'gaga.'"

"Come!" Bathilda barked from the other room, and both Lucy and Hermione jumped, Lucy going so far as to draw her wand.

"It's okay," I said, leading the way into the dark sitting room.

Bathilda was walking around lighting candles with matches, little by little illuminating just how filthy the sitting room was. It was coated in dust, and the foul smell was even stronger in there than it had been in the entryway. I found myself wondering why no one had come to check on her, and that thought made me so sad I extended a hand to her.

"I can light the candles," I offered.

She handed me the box of matches, and I dutifully finished lighting the rest of the candle stubs scattered throughout the room. The last one was in the midst of over a dozen dust-coated picture frames, which I cleaned with a whispered "Tergeo."

A lot of the photographs were missing from their frames, but one at the back caught my attention. It was the face of the boy I had seen in my vision, the one who had stolen from Gregorovitch.

I snatched it off of the table and lifted it for Bathilda to see. "Miss Bagshot? Who is this?"

When she didn't give any indication that she'd heard me, instead watching Hermione and Lucy light a fire in the fireplace, I crossed the room and held the picture out in front of her.

"Miss Bagshot? Who is this?" I asked as the Horcrux beat faster against my chest. When she just stared at me without answering, I moved the picture closer, and repeated myself more slowly and louder than before. "Do you know who this is? This man? Do you know his name?"

"Harry? What are you doing?" Hermione inquired.

"This picture, it's the thief, the thief who stole from Gregorovitch!" I looked pleadingly at Bathilda. "Please! Who is this?"

Still, Bathilda did not reply.

"Why did you ask us to come with you, Miss Bagshot? Was there something you wanted to tell us?" Hermione asked.

Bathilda, staring at me without giving any indication that she'd registered Hermione's questions, jerked her head in the direction of the hall.

I blinked. "You want us to leave?"

Bathila jerked her head again, then pointed at me, then herself, then the ceiling.

"Oh, right. I think she wants me to go upstairs with her," I said.

Lucy started walking toward the hall. "Alright, then, let's go."

But Bathilda shook her head rapidly, repeating the same motions again.

"She wants me to go with her, alone," I said.

"Why?" Hermione demanded loudly.

I shrugged. "Maybe Dumbledore told her to give the sword to me, and only to me?"

"Do you really think she knows who you are?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, I think she does," I replied with a nod.

"Well, okay then, but be quick, Harry," Hermione said.

Lucy looked even more apprehensive than Hermione, but she merely nodded at me when I glanced at her.

I glanced back at Bathilda. "Lead the way."

As she shuffled from the room, I slipped the framed photograph into the pocket of my coat, and I followed Bathilda upstairs to a bedroom so dark I reached for my wand to light it.

I jumped as soon as my wand ignited, because Bathilda had gotten unexpectedly close to me in the couple of seconds of pitch-black.

"You are Potter?" she rasped.

"Yes," I said, "I am."

The Horcrux was going ballistic against my chest.

"Have you got anything for me?" I asked. When she didn't answer, I repeated the question louder. "Have you got anything for me?"

She closed her eyes, and in the span of a single second, my scar twinged, the Horcrux lurched against my shirt, the dark room disappeared, and the words "Hold him!" left my mouth in a voice that did not belong to me.

Unsure of what had happened or why, I focused again on the sword.

"Have you got anything for me?" I asked yet again.

"Over there," she replied.

She didn't lead me anywhere, but instead pointed to the dressing table below the window, which appeared to be covered in dirty laundry.

I slowly made my way over there, keeping my eyes on her. "What is it?" I asked.

"There," she said again, pointing.

I started to turn, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw her give an inhuman twitch. I whirled around just as a giant snake crawled out of what had once been Bathilda's neck.

Before I could raise my wand, the snake sunk its teeth into my forearm, and the force of the bite sent my wand flying. I started to shout, but the tail of the snake caught me beneath the ribs and forced all of the air out of my lungs.

I hit the ground hard, and Nagini started slithering on top of me, pinning me down.

"No," I choked out.

Nagini hissed as she wrapped around me. "Yes... yes... hold you... hold you..."

I tried to summon my wand, but nothing happened, and I tried to push the snake off of me, but nothing happened.

Then I wasn't there, I was flying, through the night, nothing beneath me —

And then I was back, and Nagini had let me go, because Lucy was there, wand slashing through the air.

The window behind me shattered, and I nearly slipped on my wand as I dove out of the way of the broken glass that rained down.

I reached for my wand and jabbed in the direction of Nagini, but before I could cast a spell, my scar exploded with pain more intense than I'd felt since that day on the floor of the Ministry.

"HE'S COMING!" I screamed.

"Then we're going!" Lucy shouted back.

The room was illuminated by a vibrant purple glow, and Nagini was suddenly pinned to the ceiling by what looked like a Shield Charm. Hermione dashed forward, Lucy on her heels.

The room went dark again.

Voldemort was there.

Hermione screamed and fired a spell into the darkness.

Lucy launched herself upward, wrapping her arms around the two of us and sending us all flying through the broken window into the night.

And then I was Voldemort, racing across the room just as the confusing tangle of limbs vanished with a loud crack.

🩵💛❤💜🩷

LUCY:

We landed hard on the snow-crusted forest floor.

Blood roared in my ears as I scrambled to my feet, wand slashing through the air as I cast every protective enchantment I knew. As soon as the protective enchantments were up, I detached my bumbag from my waist and tugged on my own clothes over the child's clothes, then with a quick "Revelio," I was back to myself.

I raced in a circle around the clearing, scanning the woods around us for any threats. Finding none, I turned back toward Harry and Hermione.

Hermione had transformed Harry back to himself, and she was looking like herself again.

Harry was writhing on the ground, groaning.

"Lucy, help me, he won't wake up!" Hermione wailed.

I sprinted toward Harry and Hermione on trembling legs, dropping to my knees on Harry's other side. Knowing what to do, knowing what had worked last time, on the floor of the Ministry, I grabbed Harry's hand tightly between both of my own, closing my eyes, willing Voldemort to leave Harry and take me.

Nothing happened. There was no rush of pain like last time, there was no darkness like last time.

"No," I choked out. I opened my eyes to see that Harry's were still closed. "No, no, no! HARRY!"

Harry offered me no reply.

"Hermione, the tent, please, it's too cold out here for — " I said desperately. "I'll — I'll take care of — "

Hermione nodded and wordlessly jumped to her feet.

I pushed Harry's hair back from his face and rested my hand on his sweaty forehead, right over the scar, trying to offer even a little bit of relief. Harry wrenched away from my touch, so I pulled my hand back to myself.

The Horcrux. He was still wearing it.

I ripped off his coat, ripped through his jumper, ripped through his T-shirt, exposing the locket. I tried to rip it off, but it was seared to his skin.

"GET OFF OF HIM!" I screamed at the locket as if it could hear me. I gripped it as best I could with both hands. "LET GO!"

The more intuitive side of my magic commandeered me then, a wave of something strong ripping through me as the chain of the locket snapped. I was blasted backward by the force of it, the locket clutched tightly in my hands.

"Lucy!" Hermione called from somewhere in the distance.

"I'm alright," I replied, staggering to my feet and shoving the locket in my pocket and rushing back over to Harry, who had an angry red welt on his chest.

I could heal that later, once he was awake, once it was over.

I dropped to my knees again and grabbed Harry's face, talking over the sound of the pained grunting and moaning sounds he was making. "Harry, please come back, please, please, come back to me, please. Please."

"The tent, Lucy, the tent's ready," Hermione said. "Can you — "

"Yeah, just hold the tent flap open for me, please, and bring my bag in."

I deftly wedged my arms behind his shoulders and under his knees, then hoisted him off the ground and rushed him into the tent. Ron's lower bunk was easier than trying to somehow wrestle Harry onto his own upper bunk, so I laid him down there and realized, for the first time, the trail of blood that had followed us into the tent, dripping from Harry's forearm.

"FUCK! Hermione, the snake, it got him — "

"I'll get the dittany," she replied, diving into her bag once again.

"No, wait — " I extended my hand in the direction of my bag, not taking my eyes off of Harry's face. "ACCIO WHISTLE!"

The gold whistle hit my palm with a stinging slap. I put it between my teeth and sharply exhaled what little air was left in my lungs.

"Good thinking," Hermione said. "I'll fetch something to clean his arm."

Hermione's footsteps receded, and Fawkes soared into the tent.

"Thank you," I managed breathlessly. "Fawkes, his arm — please — it was a snake — "

Fawkes perched on Harry's shoulder and bowed his head low over the gaping wounds. The second his pearly tears made contact with the punctures, they closed, leaving not so much as a scar.

"Thank you, Fawkes," I said again, sagging with relief for a second before reaching for Harry's face again. "Come back, please, come back, it's okay now."

Harry's eyes still did not open.

I choked out a strangled sound halfway between a sob and a scream, dropping my forehead against Harry's exposed chest.

Fawkes hopped off of Harry's shoulder and landed on mine, nuzzling the side of my face with the top of his feathered head.

Despair threatened to swallow me whole. What was I supposed to do?

I lifted my head when I heard Hermione's footsteps approaching. She returned with a pile of face cloths, a sponge, and a little bucket.

"I wasn't sure what you'd want," she said in a small voice. "I don't know what to do, other than wait for him to wake up and pray no one finds us in the meantime. I can keep watch tonight."

"Thank you," I replied in an even smaller voice, glancing up at her to make sure she was alright.

She was pale, understandably, and looked shaken, understandably, but she appeared to be uninjured.

"Where's the Horcrux?" she asked.

"In my pocket. I don't think any of us should wear it right now."

"Okay. Shout if you need anything," Hermione said.

I nodded as she drew her wand and hurried outside into the night.

"You can go, if you have better places to be on Christmas Eve," I whispered to Fawkes, "but I reckon Hermione could use the company, if you want to stay."

Fawkes made a sound deep in his throat and rubbed his face against mine once again before flying out of the tent.

Numb with terror, I healed the mark on Harry's chest from the Horcrux, then reached for a face cloth and pressed the tip of my wand into it.

"Aguamenti," I murmured.

Glad to have something tangible to do, even though I was apparently incapable of waking Harry up, I cleansed the blood from his arm, his hand. A quick glance confirmed that Hermione had cleaned the trail of blood from the floor as she left. I tossed the bloodied face cloth into the bucket and reached for another one, dousing that too in cool water before gently wiping the sweat from his face.

Harry's face was contorted with pain that didn't appear to ease nor worsen as I dabbed at his pale, clammy skin. I moved the cloth downward, over his scar, over his eyes, down his nose, down his cheeks, all the way to his jawline. I hadn't put his glasses back on his face. It was easier that way. I could try to convince myself that he was sleeping that way.

I tossed the face cloth into the bucket as well and pushed his hair back from his face with my hand before placing a delicate kiss to his scar.

"I'm here, my love," I whispered. Tears were leaking from his eyes at that point, so I brushed each one away with my thumb. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. You're safe. You're going to be okay. I'll be right here when you wake up. I promise."

Harry merely groaned in response, one of his arms twitching for a second before going still.

I laced my fingers with his, resting our linked hands on his chest. "It's okay. It's okay. I've got you. I'm here. I love you."

I kept whispering reassurances to him, wiping the sweat and tears from his face periodically, watching him carefully. At one point I even choked out the words to "Take It Easy," the song I'd been singing so jokingly just a couple nights prior. It was Cedric's favorite song, maybe the words were imbued with an unknown healing power just by virtue of being Cedric's favorites.

Hours passed with no sign of anything changing. Harry kept groaning, his face remained pale and pained, his fingers twitched tighter around mine on occasion. Every now and then, he'd choke out a strangled sob or something in Parseltongue, but the breathless grunts and moans of pain were far more frequent and far more constant.

I never once let go of his hand. I never once stopped staring into his face. I maintained my vigil without wavering, holding onto Harry, onto hope, with every labored beat of my breaking heart.

Without any kind of a warning, just as the sky outside started to lighten, Harry's head twisted sharply away from me, and a horrific scream left his mouth, then a loud shout as he twisted to the other side, then he twisted back and emitted an inhuman shriek before he turned back to me and curled up into a ball with a gut-wrenching sob.

"Harry, Harry, it's okay," I said, hands shooting forward to cradle his face. "Harry, please — "

Harry kept crying, each sob sending shock waves through his body.

"What's happening?" Hermione asked as she rushed back into the tent, wand drawn, Fawkes trailing just behind her.

"I don't know!"

Harry screamed. His eyes did not open.

"Harry, please, wake up, come back, it's me, it's Lucy, it's — "

A horrible wail filled the tent, and I realized through tear-filled eyes the sound belonged to Harry.

"Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry — "

The sobs continued, somehow even worse than before.

I wrenched the locket out of my pocket and threw it down on the ground with so much force it bounced and skittered away.

"FUCK YOU!" I screamed, chasing it. I brought my heel down upon it, hard, over and over and over and over and over. "LEAVE HIM ALONE! STOP IT! GIVE MY BOY BACK TO ME, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!"

I screamed in rage and stomped on it once more with so much force all of the bones in my body seemed to rattle.

The locket remained undamaged.

Harry continued sobbing.

I rushed back over to him, touching his forehead to mine. "Harry, it's okay, please — "

"No," he groaned, no longer crying.

"Yes, yes, it is, it's okay," I begged. I pulled away from him and brushed his hair back from his face. "Harry, it's alright — "

"No," he groaned again as he writhed around on the bed. "No..."

"Harry, please, it's okay, you're okay — "

"No... no, I dropped it... I dropped it..."

"Harry, wake up, please," I said, clutching both of his hands in both of mine.

Then, finally, his eyes opened.

"Harry," I breathed.

I collapsed down against his exposed chest with a sob of relief, not caring that Hermione was right there, not caring about anything other than the fact that he was finally awake. I wrapped my arms around him and just listened to the wild beat of his heart as he patted my shoulder with a clumsy hand, a weak attempt to reassure me.

"Harry, do you — do you feel alright?" Hermione asked.

"Yes," Harry lied. He shifted slightly on the bed, patting my shoulder again. "We got away?"

"Yes. You've been... you haven't been quite..." Hermione cleared her throat. "You've been ill. You've been quite ill."

"How long ago did we leave?"

"Hours ago. It's nearly morning."

I lifted my head from Harry's chest and placed his glasses on his face. He studied me for a long moment. Time stretched between us as we searched each other's eyes. We'd always find our way back to each other.

"I've been... what, unconscious?" he asked when he finally spoke again, clearly unnerved by whatever expression was on my face.

"I guess," I replied. I attempted to steady myself with a deep breath. "You were in pain. You kept groaning, and — and just now, you screamed and started sobbing. The Horcrux stuck to you, I had to blast it off. I healed it, though, and Fawkes healed the snake bite." I inhaled shakily again, my heart still racing. "Do — do you want to talk about what happened last night?"

Harry shook his head, and when he spoke again, his voice was small. "Not right now." He pushed himself up to a sitting position. "I'll go keep watch."

"No," I said, "you'll stay here and rest — "

"You two are the ones who need sleep. No offense, but you both look awful. I'm alright. I'll keep watch for a while. Where's the Horcrux?"

"Er — somewhere over there," I replied with a vague gesture to the floor. "I had a bit of a temper tantrum. I don't think we should wear it today."

"Alright. Where's my wand?"

I blinked. "I — don't know."

We both turned to look at Hermione.

She bit her lip as tears filled her eyes, then reached into her pocket and extracted Harry's wand. What was left of it, rather.

The blood drained from my face. No. No no no no.

Harry reached for the two broken pieces, held together only by one strand of the phoenix feather.

"Mend it, please," he said, sounding hollow.

"Harry," Hermione replied, "I don't think — when it's broken like this — "

"Try, please," Harry insisted.

Hermione tapped his wand with her own. "Reparo."

The wood resealed itself, but when Harry tried the Wand-Lighting Charm, the light existed for only a second. When he tried to disarm Hermione, her wand twitched, but nothing more. Harry's wand then broke again, exposing the core once more.

Hermione sounded on the verge of a total breakdown. "Harry, I'm so, so sorry. I think it was me. As we were leaving, you know, the snake was coming for us, and so I cast a Blasting Curse, and it rebounded everywhere, and it must have — must have hit — "

"It was an accident, it's okay, we'll find a way to fix it," Harry interrupted. He turned to me. "Lucy, can — can you — "

"I don't know," I whispered, though I did take the wand in my hands. "Reparo."

The wood sealed itself again, but Harry had the same results when he tried to cast spells.

"Harry, I don't think we're going to be able to repair it. Remember Ron? When he broke his wand, crashing the car? It was never the same again, he had to get a new one," Hermione said.

I summoned mine into my hand and passed it to Harry. "You can use mine. Rowan wood. Phoenix feather, like yours. I don't need it."

"Thanks," Harry said. "Maybe you can give me wandless magic lessons?"

"I can try," I replied with a nod.

"Well, I'll go keep watch now." Harry's voice was suspiciously neutral as he moved past me and got to his feet. "You two sleep."

I reached for him. "Harry — "

"Sleep. Both of you. Please. I'll talk to you later."

With that, Harry strode toward the tent flap, grabbing his coat on the way, my wand in his hand, shoulders slumped in defeat. As soon as he had disappeared into the dawn, I buried my face in my hands and cried.