The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane. For a second they stood quite still, wands directed at each other's chests, then, recognizing each other, they stowed their wands beneath their cloaks and started walking briskly in the same direction.
"News?" asked the taller of the two.
"The best." replied Severus Snape.
The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles, on the right by a high, neatly manicured hedge. The men's long cloaks flapped around their ankles as they marched.
"Thought I might be late." said Yaxley, his blunt features sliding in and out of sight as the branches of overhanging trees broke the moonlight. "It was a little trickier than I expected. But I hope he will be satisfied. You sound confident that your reception will be good?"
Snape nodded, but did not elaborate. They turned right, into a wide driveway that led off the lane. The high hedge curved with them, running off into the distance beyond the pair of impressive wrought-iron gates barring the men's way. Neither of them broke step, In silence both raised their left arms in a kind of salute and passed straight through, as though the dark metal were smoke.
The yew hedges muffled the sound of the men's footsteps. There was a rustle somewhere to their right. Yaxley drew his wand again, pointing it over his companion's head, but the source of the noise proved to be nothing more than a pure-white peacock, strutting majestically along the top of the hedge.
"He always did himself well, Lucius. Peacocks..." Yaxley thrust his wand back under his cloak with a snort.
A handsome manor house grew out of the darkness at the end of the straight drive, lights glinting in the diamond-paned downstairs windows. Somewhere in the dark garden beyond the hedge a fountain was playing. Gravel crackled beneath their feet as Snape and Yaxley sped toward the front door, which swung inward at their approach, though nobody had visibly opened it.
The hallway was large, dimly lit, and sumptuously decorated, with a magnificent carpet covering most of the stone floor. The eyes of the pale-faced portraits on the walls followed Snape and Yaxley as they strode past. The two men halted at a heavy wooden door leading into the next room, hesitated for the space of a heartbeat, then Snape turned the bronze handle.
The drawing room was full of silent people, sitting at a long and ornate table. The room's usual furniture had been pushed carelessly up against the walls. Illumination came from a roaring fire beneath a handsome marble mantelpiece surmounted by a gilded mirror. Snape and Yaxley lingered for a moment on the threshold. As their eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light, they were drawn upward to the strangest feature of the scene, an apparently unconscious human figure hanging upside down over the table, revolving slowly as if suspended by an invisible rope, and reflected in the mirror and in the bare, polished surface of the table below. None of the people seated underneath this singular sight was looking at it except for a pale young man sitting almost directly below it. He seemed unable to prevent himself from glancing upward every minute or so. Sat next to him was another boy who looked disgusted, not by the human above but by the pathetic boy sat next to him.
"Yaxley. Snape." said a high, clear voice from the head of the table. "You are very nearly late."
The speaker was seated directly in front of the fireplace, so that it was difficult, at first, for the new arrivals to make out more than his silhouette. As they drew nearer, however, his face shone through the gloom, hairless, snakelike, with slits for nostrils and gleaming red eyes whose pupils were vertical. He was so pale that he seemed to emit a pearly glow.
"Severus, here." said Voldemort, indicating the seat on his immediate right. "Yaxley...beside Dolohov."
The two men took their allotted places. Most of the eyes around the table followed Snape, and it was to him that Voldemort spoke first.
"So?"
"My Lord, the Order of the Phoenix intends to move Harry Potter from his current place of safety on Saturday next, at nightfall."
The interest around the table sharpened palpably, Some stiffened, others fidgeted, all gazing at Snape and Voldemort.
"Saturday...at nightfall." repeated Voldemort. His red eyes fastened upon Snape's black ones with such intensity that some of the watchers looked away, apparently fearful that they themselves would be scorched by the ferocity of the gaze. Snape, however, looked calmly back into Voldemort's face and, after a moment or two, Voldemort's lipless mouth curved into something like a smile.
"Good. Very good. And this information comes..."
"...from the source we discussed." said Snape.
"My Lord."
Yaxley had leaned forward to look down the long table at Voldemort and Snape. All faces turned to him.
"My Lord, I have heard differently."
Yaxley waited, but Voldemort did not speak, so he went on. "Dawlish, the Auror, let slip that Potter will not be moved until the thirtieth, the night before the boy turns seventeen."
Snape was smiling.
"My source told me that there are plans to lay a false trail, this must be it. No doubt a Confundus Charm has been placed upon Dawlish. It would not be the first time, he is known to be susceptible."
"I assure you, my Lord, Dawlish seemed quite certain." said Yaxley.
"If he has been Confunded, naturally he is certain." said Snape. "I assure you, Yaxley, the Auror Office will play no further part in the protection of Harry Potter. The Order believes that we have infiltrated the Ministry."
"The Order's got one thing right, then, eh?" said a squat man sitting a short distance from Yaxley, he gave a wheezy giggle that was echoed here and there along the table.
Voldemort did not laugh. His gaze had wandered upward to the body revolving slowly overhead, and he seemed to be lost in thought.
"My Lord." Yaxley went on. "Dawlish believes an entire party of Aurors will be used to transfer the boy..."
Voldemort held up a large white hand, and Yaxley subsided at once, watching resentfully as Voldemort turned back to Snape.
"Where are they going to hide the boy next?"
"At the home of one of the Order." said Snape. "The place, according to the source, it has been given every protection that the Order and Ministry together could provide. I think that there is little chance of taking him once he is there, my Lord, unless, of course, the Ministry has fallen before next Saturday, which might give us the opportunity to discover and undo enough of the enchantments to break through the rest."
"Well, Yaxley?" Voldemort called down the table, the firelight glinting strangely in his red eyes. "Will the Ministry have fallen by next Saturday?"
Once again, all heads turned. Yaxley squared his shoulders.
"My Lord, I have good news on that score. I have...with difficulty, and after great effort... succeeded in placing an Imperius Curse upon Pius Thicknesse."
Many of those sitting around Yaxley looked impressed, his neighbor, Dolohov, a man with a long, twisted face, clapped him on the back.
"It is a start." said Voldemort. "But Thicknesse is only one man. Scrimgeour must be surrounded by our people before I act. One failed attempt on the Minister's life will set me back a long way."
"Yes...my Lord, that is true...but you know, as Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Thicknesse has regular contact not only with the Minister himself, but also with the Heads of all the other Ministry departments. It will, I think, be easy now that we have such a high-ranking official under our control, to subjugate the others, and then they can all work together to bring Scrimgeour down."
"As long as our friend Thicknesse is not discovered before he has converted the rest." said Voldemort. "At any rate, it remains unlikely that the Ministry will be mine before next Saturday. If we cannot touch the boy at his destination, then it must be done while he travels."
"We are at an advantage there, my Lord." said Yaxley, who seemed determined to receive some portion of approval. "We now have several people planted within the Department of Magical Transport. If Potter Apparates or uses the Floo Network, we shall know immediately."
"He will not do either." said Snape. "The Order is eschewing any form of transport that is controlled or regulated by the Ministry, they mistrust everything to do with the place."
"All the better." said Voldemort. "He will have to move in the open. Easier to take, by far."
Again, Voldemort looked up at the slowly revolving body as he went on. "I shall attend to the boy in person. There have been too many mistakes where Harry Potter is concerned. Some of them have been my own. That Potter lives is due more to my errors than to his triumphs."
The company around the table watched Voldemort apprehensively, each of them, by his or her expression, afraid that they might be blamed for Harry Potter's continued existence. Voldemort, however, seemed to be speaking more to himself than to any of them, still addressing the unconscious body above him.
"I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those wreckers of all but the best-laid plans. But I know better now. I understand those things that I did not understand before. I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be."
At these words, seemingly in response to them, a sudden wail sounded, a terrible, drawn-out cry of misery and pain. Many of those at the table looked downward, startled, for the sound had seemed to issue from below their feet.
"Wormtail." said Voldemort, with no change in his quiet, thoughtful tone, and without removing his eyes from the revolving body above. "Have I not spoken to you about keeping our prisoner quiet?"
"Yes, m-my Lord." gasped a small man halfway down the table, who had been sitting so low in his chair that it had appeared, at first glance, to be unoccupied. Now he scrambled from his seat and scurried from the room, leaving nothing behind him but a curious gleam of silver.
"As I was saying." continued Voldemort, looking again at the tense faces of his followers, "I understand better now. I shall need, for instance, to borrow a wand from one of you before I go to kill Potter."
The faces around him displayed nothing but shock, he might have announced that he wanted to borrow one of their arms.
"No volunteers?" said Voldemort.
"You may take mine my lord." A voice spoke up and the table all turned their head to the youngest boy in the room.
"Atticus..." Voldemort said. "A pity that a boy more than half your age shows more courage and loyalty to his master than some of you." He said to the rest of the room as they avoided his gaze.
Atticus moved to draw his wand out now.
"That will not be necessary Atticus..." Voldemort calmly stopped him. "While I am fond of your loyalty, you will need your wand if you are to put an end to the one you once called brother..."
"I must be the one to finish him..." Atticus said with a slight disdain heard in his voice.
Voldemort let out a satisfied smile at this.
"Your loyalty will be rewarded Atticus. You shall join us when I attend to Potter and be given your chance to deal with the other."
"Thank you my Lord." Atticus bowed his head.
Voldemort's eyes travelled round the table more now before settling.
"Let's see...Lucius, I see no reason for you to have a wand anymore."
Lucius Malfoy looked up. His skin appeared yellowish and waxy in the firelight, and his eyes were sunken and shadowed. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.
"My Lord?"
"Your wand, Lucius. I require your wand."
"I..."
Lucius glanced sideways at his wife. She was staring straight ahead, quite as pale as he was, her long blonde hair hanging down her back, but beneath the table her slim fingers closed briefly on his wrist. At her touch, Lucius put his hand into his robes, withdrew a wand, and passed it along to Voldemort, who held it up in front of his red eyes, examining it closely.
"What is it?"
"Elm, my Lord," whispered Malfoy.
"And the core?"
"Dragon...dragon heartstring."
"Good." said Voldemort. He drew out his own wand and compared the lengths. Lucius Malfoy made an involuntary movement, for a fraction of a second, it seemed he expected to receive Voldemort's wand in exchange for his own. The gesture was not missed by Voldemort, whose eyes widened maliciously.
"Give you my wand, Lucius? My wand?"
Some of the throng sniggered.
"I have given you your liberty, Lucius, is that not enough for you? But I have noticed that you and your family seem less than happy of late...What is it about my presence in your home that displeases you, Lucius?"
"Nothing...nothing, my Lord!"
"Such lies, Lucius..."
The soft voice seemed to hiss on even after the cruel mouth had stopped moving. One or two of the wizards barely repressed a shudder as the hissing grew louder, something heavy could be heard sliding across the floor beneath the table.
The huge snake emerged to climb slowly up Voldemort's chair. It rose, seemingly endlessly, and came to rest across Voldemort's shoulders. Its neck the thickness of a man's thigh, its eyes, with their vertical slits for pupils, unblinking. Voldemort stroked the creature absently with long thin fingers, still looking at Lucius Malfoy.
"Why do the Malfoys look so unhappy with their lot? Is my return, my rise to power, not the very thing they professed to desire for so many years?"
"Of course, my Lord." said Lucius Malfoy. His hand shook as he wiped sweat from his upper lip. "We did desire it...we do."
To Malfoy's left, his wife made an odd, stiff nod, her eyes averted from Voldemort and the snake. To his right, his son, Draco, who had been gazing up at the inert body overhead, glanced quickly at Voldemort and away again, terrified to make eye contact.
"My Lord." said a dark woman halfway down the table, her voice constricted with emotion, "it is an honor to have you here, in our family's house. There can be no higher pleasure."
She sat beside her sister, as unlike her in looks, with her dark hair and heavily lidded eyes, as she was in bearing and demeanor, where Narcissa sat rigid and impassive, Bellatrix leaned toward Voldemort, for mere words could not demonstrate her longing for closeness.
"No higher pleasure." repeated Voldemort, his head tilted a little to one side as he considered Bellatrix. "That means a great deal, Bellatrix, from you."
Her face flooded with color, her eyes welled with tears of delight.
"My Lord knows I speak nothing but the truth!"
"No higher pleasure...even compared with the happy event that, I hear, has taken place in your family this week?"
She stared at him, her lips parted, evidently confused.
"I don't know what you mean, my Lord."
"I'm talking about your niece, Bellatrix. And yours, Lucius and Narcissa. She has just married the werewolf, Remus Lupin. You must be so proud."
There was an eruption of jeering laughter from around the table. Many leaned forward to exchange gleeful looks, a few thumped the table with their fists. The great snake, disliking the disturbance, opened its mouth wide and hissed angrily, but the Death Eaters did not hear it, so jubilant were they at Bellatrix and the Malfoys' humiliation. Bellatrix's face, so recently flushed with happiness, had turned an ugly, blotchy red.
"She is no niece of ours, my Lord." she cried over the outpouring of mirth. "We...Narcissa and I...have never set eyes on our sister since she married the Mudblood. This brat has nothing to do with either of us, nor any beast she marries."
"What say you, Draco?" asked Voldemort, and though his voice was quiet, it carried clearly through the catcalls and jeers. "Will you babysit the cubs?"
The hilarity mounted, Draco Malfoy looked in terror at his father, who was staring down into his own lap, then caught his mother's eye. She shook her head almost imperceptibly, then resumed her own deadpan stare at the opposite wall.
"Enough." said Voldemort, stroking the angry snake. "Enough."
And the laughter died at once.
"Many of our oldest family trees become a little diseased over time." he said as Bellatrix gazed at him, breathless and imploring. Voldemort looked to the Grindelwald's for a moment and they knew he was refering to Y/n. "You must prune yours, must you not, to keep it healthy? Cut away those parts that threaten the health of the rest."
Atticus found himself nodding at these words.
"Yes, my Lord." whispered Bellatrix, and her eyes swam with tears of gratitude again. "At the first chance!"
"You shall have it." said Voldemort. "And in your family, so in the world...we shall cut away the canker that infects us until only those of the true blood remain..."
Voldemort raised Lucius Malfoy's wand, pointed it directly at the slowly revolving figure suspended over the table, and gave it a tiny flick. The figure came to life with a groan and began to struggle against invisible bonds.
"Do you recognize our guest, Severus?" asked Voldemort.
Snape raised his eyes to the upside-down face. All of the Death Eaters were looking up at the captive now, as though they had been given permission to show curiosity. As she revolved to face the firelight, the woman said in a cracked and terrified voice. "Severus! Help me!"
"Ah, yes." said Snape as the prisoner turned slowly away again.
"And you, Atticus? Draco?" asked Voldemort, stroking the snake's snout with his wand-free hand.
"I recognise her face my lord. But nothing more." Atticus answered staring at the women.
Draco shook his head jerkily. Now that the woman had woken, he seemed unable to look at her anymore.
"But you would not have taken her classes." said Voldemort. "For those of you who do not know, we are joined here tonight by Charity Burbage who, until recently, taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
There were small noises of comprehension around the table. A broad, hunched woman with pointed teeth cackled.
"Yes...Professor Burbage taught the children of witches and wizards all about Muggles...how they are not so different from us..."
Atticus's face scowled with disgust and one of the Death Eaters spat on the floor. Charity Burbage revolved to face Snape again.
"Severus...please...please..."
"Silence." said Voldemort, with another twitch of Malfoy's wand, and Charity fell silent as if gagged. "Not content with corrupting and polluting the minds of Wizarding children, last week Professor Burbage wrote an impassioned defense of Mudbloods in the Daily Prophet. Wizards, she says, must accept these thieves of their knowledge and magic. The dwindling of the purebloods is, says Professor Burbage, a most desirable circumstance... She would have us all mate with Muggles...or, no doubt, werewolves..."
Nobody laughed this time. There was no mistaking the anger and contempt in Voldemort's voice. For the third time, Charity Burbage revolved to face Snape. Tears were pouring from her eyes into her hair. Snape looked back at her, quite impassive, as she turned slowly away from him again.
"Avada Kedavra."
The flash of green light illuminated every corner of the room. Charity fell, with a resounding crash, onto the table below, which trembled and creaked. Several of the Death Eaters leapt back in their chairs. Draco fell out of his onto the floor. Atticus stayed sitting looking amused and delighted at the dead woman's body.
"Dinner, Nagini." said Voldemort softly, and the great snake swayed and slithered from his shoulders onto the polished wood.
It was the next evening and sat on Hermione's bed reading a newspaper was Y/n. On the front there was a small piece about the resignation of Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher at Hogwarts. Y/n however was on page ten, reading an article titled.
'ALBUS DUMBLEDORE REMEMBERED by Elphias Doge
I met Albus Dumbledore at the age of eleven, on our first day at Hogwarts. Our mutual attraction was undoubtedly due to the fact that we both felt ourselves to be outsiders. I had contracted dragon pox shortly before arriving at school, and while I was no longer contagious, my pockmarked visage and greenish hue did not encourage many to approach me. For his part, Albus had arrived at Hogwarts under the burden of unwanted notoriety. Scarcely a year previously, his father, Percival, had been convicted of a savage and well-publicized attack upon three young Muggles.
Albus never attempted to deny that his father (who was to die in Azkaban) had committed this crime, on the contrary, when I plucked up courage to ask him, he assured me that he knew his father to be guilty. Beyond that, Dumbledore refused to speak of the sad business, though many attempted to make him do so. Some, indeed, were disposed to praise his father's action and assumed that Albus too was a Muggle-hater. They could not have been more mistaken, As anybody who knew Albus would attest, he never revealed the remotest anti-Muggle tendency. Indeed, his determined support for Muggle rights gained him many enemies in subsequent years.
In a matter of months, however, Albus's own fame had begun to eclipse that of his father. By the end of his first year he would never again be known as the son of a Muggle-hater, but as nothing more or less than the most brilliant student ever seen at the school. Those of us who were privileged to be his friends benefited from his example, not to mention his help and encouragement, with which he was always generous. He confessed to me in later life that he knew even then that his greatest pleasure lay in teaching.
He not only won every prize of note that the school offered, he was soon in regular correspondence with the most notable magical names of the day, including Nicolas Flamel, the celebrated alchemist, Bathilda Bagshot, the noted historian and Adalbert Waffling, the magical theoretician. Several of his papers found their way into learned publications such as Transfiguration Today, Challenges in Charming, and The Practical Potioneer. Dumbledore's future career seemed likely to be meteoric, and the only question that remained was when he would become Minister of Magic. Though it was often predicted in later years that he was on the point of taking the job, however, he never had Ministerial ambitions.
Three years after we had started at Hogwarts, Albus's brother, Aberforth, arrived at school. They were not alike. Aberforth was never bookish and, unlike Albus, preferred to settle arguments by dueling rather than through reasoned discussion. However, it is quite wrong to suggest, as some have, that the brothers were not friends. They rubbed along as comfortably as two such different boys could do. In fairness to Aberforth, it must be admitted that living in Albus's shadow cannot have been an altogether comfortable experience. Being continually outshone was an occupational hazard of being his friend and cannot have been any more pleasurable as a brother.
When Albus and I left Hogwarts we intended to take the then-traditional tour of the world together, visiting and observing foreign wizards, before pursuing our separate careers. However, tragedy intervened. On the very eve of our trip, Albus's mother, Kendra, died, leaving Albus the head, and sole breadwinner, of the family. I postponed my departure long enough to pay my respects at Kendra's funeral, then left for what was now to be a solitary journey. With a younger brother and sister to care for, and little gold left to them, there could no longer be any question of Albus accompanying me.
That was the period of our lives when we had least contact. I wrote to Albus, describing, perhaps insensitively, the wonders of my journey, from narrow escapes from chimaeras in Greece to the experiments of the Egyptian alchemists. His letters told me little of his day-to-day life, which I guessed to be frustratingly dull for such a brilliant wizard. Immersed in my own experiences, it was with horror that I heard, toward the end of my year's travels, that yet another tragedy had struck the Dumbledores: the death of his sister, Ariana.
Though Ariana had been in poor health for a long time, the blow, coming so soon after the loss of their mother, had a profound effect on both of her brothers. All those closest to Albus and I count myself one of that lucky number... agree that Ariana's death, and Albus's feeling of personal responsibility for it (though, of course, he was guiltless), left their mark upon him forevermore.
I returned home to find a young man who had experienced a much older person's suffering. Albus was more reserved than before, and much less lighthearted. To add to his misery, the loss of Ariana had led, not to a renewed closeness between Albus and Aberforth, but to an estrangement. (In time this would lift, in later years they reestablished, if not a close relationship, then certainly a cordial one.) However, he rarely spoke of his parents or of Ariana from then on, and his friends learned not to mention them.
Other quills will describe the triumphs of the following years. Dumbledore's innumerable contributions to the store of Wizarding knowledge, including his discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, will benefit generations to come, as will the wisdom he displayed in the many judgments he made while Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. They say, still, that no Wizarding duel ever matched that between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945. Those who witnessed it have written of the terror and the awe they felt as they watched these two extraordinary wizards do battle. Dumbledore's triumph, and its consequences for the Wizarding world, are considered a turning point in magical history to match the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain, he could find something to value in anyone, however apparently insignificant or wretched, and I believe that his early losses endowed him with great humanity and sympathy. I shall miss his friendship more than I can say, but my loss is as nothing compared to the Wizarding world's. That he was the most inspiring and the best loved of all Hogwarts headmasters cannot be in question. He died as he lived, working always for the greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy with dragon pox as he was on the day that I met him.'
Y/n finished reading but continued to gaze at the picture accompanying the obituary. Dumbledore was wearing his familiar, kindly smile, but as he peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles, he gave the impression, even in newsprint, of X-raying
"Y/n, it's time." Hermione voice called out and Y/n put down the paper now taking out his wand, giving a small wave and causing the paper to vanish into thin air. Over the summer he had hit his 17th birthday and was now allowed to use magic outside of school.
"Have we taken all the steps needed?" He asked her.
"Yes. You've removed anything even remotely magical and I've taken every single photo of me since I was born and hidden them away in here." Hermione said pointing to a bag on her bed.
"And packed all our things into it as well I Imagine?" He commented.
"Yes." she said but Y/n noticed that Hermione couldn't look up at the moment so he stepped forward and took her hands into his rubbing his thumbs softly over them.
"Hermione...Do you want me to..." He began to offer.
"No." Hermione looked up at him with teary eyes. "It has to be me."
Y/n just slowly nodded with understanding. As he placed a kiss on her forehead. "I know this is hard, but it will keep them safe. We can reverse it when this is all over." He said quietly.
Hermione nodded as a tear fell from her eye now.
Y/n and Hermione took a final look around Hermione's room and Hermione picked up her small purple beaded handbag. She pulled a drawstring over herself and the bag sat comfortably on her waist. Y/n picked up a cat carrier housing both Crookshanks and Noctis.
Not a word was spoken as Hermione led the way out of the room now and Y/n silently followed. Both came to stop at the living room door peering inside. Sat on the sofa happily watching the television were Mr and Mrs Granger. Both none the wiser Y/n and Hermione were behind them.
Hermione slowly drew her wand out now and Y/n held her free hand as he gave her his silent support in what he knew to be one of the hardest things she would ever have to do in her life.
Hermione held out her wand towards them and the tip glowed dimly for a few moments before the light went out.
Y/n just watched as he felt Hermione squeeze his hand tightly before finally lowering her wand. Y/n turned his head to see more tears had begun to leak out of Hermione's eyes now and he let go of her hand to wrap it around her shoulder, guiding her quietly to the front door.
Hermione opened the door stepping outside immediately with Y/n following behind and closing the door behind them.
Taking Hermione's hand once again the pair set off down the road with nothing but a small purple handbag and two cats in a carrier.
A loud CRACK filled the air as Y/n and Hermione's feet touched the ground on the boundary just outside the burrow.
The lights were on in the burrow and both Y/n and Hermione could see several figures were in the kitchen. Their arrival however, had not gone unnoticed as the door quickly opened with Remus Lupin quickly stepping out followed by Tonks and Mr & Mrs Weasley.
Y/n saw that Lupin already had his wand drawn as he quickly pointed it at them.
"What was one of the last things you said to me before Dumbledore's funeral?" Remus asked Y/n.
"I told you that I wished you were my father." Y/n said looking at Lupin.
Remus nodded his head and turned the wand to Hermione. "And what was your boggart in your end-of-third-year exam?"
"Professor McGonagall telling me I had failed everything..." Hermione answered.
"It's them..." Lupin said lowering his wand now.
"Sorry you two, but we have to check." Tonks said to them.
"It is alright. We cannot be too safe these days." Y/n said to her.
"No, I'm afraid we cannot." Lupin nodded his head in agreement.
"Come on let's get you both inside." Mrs Weasley said gesturing to Y/n and Hermione with her arm and both began to move. "That's it." She led them and everyone else back inside.
"Have you both eaten?" Mrs Weasley asked as everyone sat down at the table.
"No Mrs Weasley." Hermione quietly answered sitting down in the chair beside Y/n's own.
"Right let me get you both something to eat and then you can take your things up to Ginny and Ron's rooms." Mrs Weasley said.
"Actually Mrs Weasley, Hermione and I would like to stay together this time." Y/n spoke up.
"Wha...but you're both...Hermione's parents would..." Mrs Weasley stammered about three different sentences at once.
"Mrs Weasley...Hermione and I are adults now, her parents both allowed us to stay together and we both think it will help save some much-needed room. Provided Ginny is alright with me staying with Hermione in her room." Y/n countered.
It was clear that Mrs Weasley wanted to dispute these facts but Mr Weasley cut in before she could. "Molly, they are both of age." He said. "If they want to stay together I think Ginny wouldn't mind. But no..." He coughed uncomfortably. "Funny business please you two."
"Well, I can see that I'm going to be shot down in this." Mrs Weasley spoke again as she looked to other members of the table, Lupin who looked very quiet while Tonks had to suppress a laugh that was threatening to burst out after Mr Weasley's input. "Fine! You and Hermione can stay together, but we'll be checking in on you."
"Mr and Mrs Granger were the same." Y/n said respectfully having expected no less. "Thank you for accepting our selfish request."
Mrs Weasley sighed and she pointed her wand at a pan that flew from a nearby shelf and onto the stove. "What would you both like to eat?"
"I'm fine with anything Mrs Weasley." Hermione said.
"Yes, we will be fine with anything you cook Mrs Weasley, do not trouble yourself." Y/n added.
"It's nothing dears, all good practice for the upcoming wedding." Mrs Weasley said referring to Bill and Fleur's wedding.
"Speaking of weddings...I see you have had your own." Y/n said indicating to a ring that sat on Tonks's finger.
Tonks smiled and took Lupin's hand showing off his own simple ring. "We really wanted to invite you, but we had to keep it a quiet affair." Tonks said.
"No, It is quite alright. I am happy for you, really I am." Y/n smiled at them.
"Might I have a word with you Y/n, in private?" Lupin asked.
"Of course." Y/n said getting up from his seat and following Lupin to the nearby living room.
"With everything that has happened recently, I never got a chance to say it, I'm sorry Y/n." Lupin told him.
"Sorry?" Y/n repeated.
"I should have been there to support you more after Frieda's death." Lupin said.
"Oh..." Y/n uttered taken off guard. "Well, it is alright Professor. I know that you had to keep up with helping the Order and...I do not think there was much that you could have done really. It was Dumbledore and Hermione who helped me get out of the depressive state I found myself in." Y/n admitted.
Lupin just nodded. "I still feel I should have done more to look out for you, especially...when Frieda had made me you're godfather." Lupin says.
"Grandmother made you my Godfather?" Y/n asked.
"Yes, at the start of your fifth year, I know you're a little too old to need a..."But Lupin's sentence was stopped as he felt Y/n giving him a hug.
Slightly taken aback Lupin stood while Y/n hugged him before slowly, he hugged Y/n back and smiled.
"I suppose this would make Tonks my godmother?" Y/n asked as the two then pulled apart.
"If you'd like her to be." Lupin told him. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind at all."
"It is nice to see you happy, both of you." Y/n said.
"I know Tonks just said it before but we both really are sorry about not inviting you to the wedding." Lupin told him. "We couldn't be sure if some of Tonk's distant family would try to crash the event." Lupin explained.
"I understand." Y/n nodded. "Professor, would you mind if I asked you a question? There has been something troubling my mind for quite some time."
"I shall answer as best I can." Was all that Lupin said.
"I want to know, what my grandfather was like?" Y/n asked determined. "No one ever talks about him. I want to know who he was, what he was like, and why he is not with us..."
Lupin looking grave, indicated to one of the Weasley's sofas and Y/n taking his direction sat down.
"I suppose I should start from the beginning." Lupin said sitting down beside Y/n. "James, Sirius and I met your grandfather for the first time during our last year at Hogwarts. He was our Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher for that year."
"He taught Defence Against the Dark Arts?" Y/n asked surprised.
"Just for that year. I remember him telling us once that Dumbledore had asked him as a favour." Lupin told him. "James and Sirius as I'm sure you've heard by now were the school's pranksters. Rather like Fred and George were, if only a bit more serious." Lupin said darkly thinking back on some of the times their times spent bullying Snape. "Some teachers would brush it off, while others lost their tempers."
Y/n could imagine McGonagall getting mad at James and Sirius.
"Charles Grindelwald however, was the only teacher who was ever able to give those two a run for their money." Lupin continued.
"He...did not care about their pranks?" Y/n asked.
"No, if anything he openly encouraged them to focus their efforts upon himself and away from the other students and teachers." Lupin chuckled fondly. "And it worked. Sirius was desperate to catch him out. James meanwhile had his attentions fully on Lilly by that point." Lupin told Y/n. "While humorous, Charles was also a very clever man, very knowledgeable. He only taught us for one year but I have no doubts that we all learned the most in that year. Even Snape listened in on his lessons I heard." Lupin revealed. "As the year carried on Sirius and I started to talk to Charles more often with the pair of us very quickly striking up a friendship with him, in fact, By the end of our school year we were so close that he invited us all to join the Order when we left Hogwarts."
"I see." Y/n said taking this all in.
"I think he viewed Sirius and I as two people who needed some purpose in our lives and that leaving us to our own devices would 'waste our talents' as he put it. When we joined up Sirius got James and Lily to join too and Peter followed like always. We were all happy to be a part of the fight. James and Lily continued to grow closer, quickly becoming engaged while Sirius and I spent a lot of time with Charles and Frieda."
"You and Sirius?" Y/n asked.
"Sirius, as joined to the hip with James as he was understood that he had his own life to live and so gave him and Lily some room. Sirius and I had always been close friends and so he would join me on visits to see Charles who had been continuing to teach me even after we'd left Hogwarts. I was always the more academical of us marauders and Charles was more than happy to share what he knew. He was a wonderful man..." Lupin said regretfully.
"If he was so wonderful...then why is he not here? What happened to him, Why have I heard mention of him making a sacrifice? and why...does nobody talk about him?" Y/n asked next.
"We did not talk about Charles out of respect to Frieda." Lupin told Y/n. "When he was lost, she was devastated much like yourself last year and so it became an unspoken rule not to bring up the topic of him. With time and a newfound purpose of raising you and Atticus she slowly became better but I don't think she ever fully recovered, no to me it felt like a part of Frieda died on that day as well."
"The friend I told you about before, the one I lost to your parents, it was your grandfather." Lupin said. "It was mere hours after Voldmort's first defeat when Charles came to see me, I was still coming to terms with the losses of James and Lilly and what we believed to be Sirius's betrayal. But Charles had not come to talk about that, he told me to pick up my wand and come with him immediately. I asked where we were going and he told me that he and Frieda had made the decision to ambush Ivan and Priscilla with the goal of getting you and Atticus out of their grasps."
"Atticus and me?" Y/n said and Lupin nodded.
"Charles and Frieda knew it was only a matter of time before the two would go into hiding with Voldemort's fall and they knew that if you stayed with them, you'd be raised in the same darkness that had consumed them. Your Grandfather gave his life to make sure that both you and Atticus were safely taken from their custody." Lupin finally told Y/n.
Y/n could only look down at his knees as he felt tears start to form, all these years he had wondered what his grandfather had been like, but now he had learned they had given up their own life for his.
"When we met on the train for the first time. I did feel apprehension upon seeing you I admit, but not because you were a Grindelwald. No, it was because you reminded me of Charles's passing."
"How did it happen?" Y/n could only ask.
"The mission was...difficult." Lupin started, his voice thick with the weight of memory. "Your parents were prepared, their home heavily guarded by dark magic. We had to fight our way in, and every step was a struggle. But Charles was determined...more determined than I'd ever seen anyone. He knew what was at stake."
Lupin's gaze drifted to the Weasley's lit fireplace, as if he could see the past replaying in the flames. "We got separated during our fight and Charles found you and Atticus in a hidden room, just babies at the time, just a year old. Charles took you both in his arms, and when I saw him carrying you both for a moment, I thought we might actually make it out without further incident. But...we weren't that lucky. Your parents caught up to us just as we were about to leave."
He paused, the silence stretching out as he grappled with the memory. "Charles knew we had a small chance to beat them both but we couldn't be sure that we would be able to keep you both safe if we had stayed to fight. He told me to take you and Atticus and run. He said he'd hold them off, give us enough time to escape."
Lupin's voice grew quieter, filled with a sorrow that hadn't faded with time. "I didn't want to leave him, but he was adamant. He pushed the two of you into my arms and turned to face his own son, knowing full well what it meant. I ran as fast as I could, but I heard the battle behind me, the spells, the shouts. And then...it stopped. I knew he was gone."
Y/n just stayed silent.
"We later found out that he had used a spell to stop Ivan and Priscilla from fleeing so that they could be caught but at the price of his own life." Lupin said rubbing his chin roughly.
"So he was a hero." Y/n commented.
"Yes, he saved you and helped them be captured." Lupin nodded.
Y/n just nodded. "One more thing Professor, Earlier you called him Charles Grindelwald, did he take Grandmother's last name?"
Lupin nodded. "I asked him once and he said he had been cast out by his own family and stripped of their name, so he happily took Frieda's. I think that's why Sirius and he had a great understanding of one another. Both were the outcasts of their family."
"Thank you Professor, for telling me about him. I am proud to be his grandson." Y/n said.
"He would have been very proud of you Y/n." Lupin told him.
Y/n just smiled and both got up now.
"I think we had better return to the others before they start to worry." Y/n slightly joked.
"Mad-Eye and the others should be arriving soon and we want to go over the plan we have of getting Harry out of Privet Drive safely." Lupin said as he and Y/n started to slowly walk back to the kitchen. "Molly will undoubtedly try to stop you, but you and Hermione are both of age now so it's your own choices if you want to take part."
"I cannot speak for Hermione but I will take part." Y/n immediately said.
Lupin just smiled and nodded.