To the one who now calls himself Harry Potter:

You belong to me, and always have. This has always been your purpose. This has always been your destiny. Accept it - embrace it.

Come to me and you need never know pain or fear again. Come to me willingly, and you can end this pointless conflict now and forever. Come to me before midnight in two days' time, and no one else need die because of your cowardice. Submit to my will, and understand. It's time, Harry.

Your schoolmates' lives depend on you obeying my command.


Bugger. Annoying, that.

Draco, Harry and Hermione have been reading their Galleons. The others are locked in their common rooms and there seems to be more Enforcers converging on the school.

MEETING AT GRIMMAULD, as soon as possible.

Draco went to see his father again, over a week ago. They talked quite a bit about the protections on the older vaults like the Malfoys', the Blacks' and the Lestranges', and so we at Grimmauld have been discussing it on and off. I gather Hermione and Draco also tried to talk to the goblins at Moddey about it, but haven't got very far.

Charlie, did you know they've got a dragon in the bowels of the bank? Hermione said she tried to tell Ragnik how inhumane it was to keep a dragon underground but he didn't seem too fussed about it. I should say, they're highly reticent about letting us in to the vaults, and well, one can easily understand why.

But we had a thought, and Charlie, Bill, Rachel, perhaps it might be worth exploring. Ragnik informed them that the scepter of the isle was originally fashioned by goblins. I believe we were hoping for a replica of it anyway, to swap out with the real one, the horcrux. If we explained what Voldemort's done to it, and gave it back to them, do you think they would be willing to destroy it? And would that help them help us get into Bella's vault at the bank? If not, then what other measures could we employ to gain their cooperation - I have faith in Draco and Hermione, but it's Gringott's. They can use all the help they can get.

Hermione has requested a small get-together tomorrow at ours to celebrate and remember Minerva.

Actually, this invitation is open to everyone, but it's as good a reason as any to test this newfound PM system.

So please extend it to any of the 'Juniors' who presumably can't see this. Three o'clock.

Sweet bloody Mordred.

Snape invited Draco down to the stillroom to help us brew. More like to help him destroy every cauldron we currently have!

Alice, for the love of Merlin, give them something to do. Can they attempt this Ministry thing, with the archives? Or go rescue a baby or steal a Sleeper for experimental potions or SOMETHING?

At this rate I'm ready to send them into New London to break into an apothecary if it'll just keep them OCCUPIED.

Moony, I sent them upstairs, anyway, just to play a game or rearrange the furniture or try to unstick my mother's portrait. I don't care what.

So, how did everything go? I'm guessing you had to leap straight back into delivering drinks. Sometimes I think we ought to stop replenishing the heating charms in the garden but then, we really do need the dosh.

Anyway, I hope that it was fairly straightforward.

We've had quite an exciting day here, on the other hand. Seven hours of contrariness punctuated by tossing two meals right across the kitchen, a 'nap' that I later learned consisted of popping the heads off all her dollies, tearing the pages out of three books and breaking the present Uncle Charlie gave her last year. And attendant crocodile tears, of course.

Then there was the whole scene when Harry, Justin and the other flyers came back here for a cup of cocoa and I forbade her coming down to visit them all. Last thing we need is for her to overhear their reports or to connect the faces she saw here with tea at Laszlo's.

Add to that, Snape was banging about in the still room complaining about the noise (a 'distraction from important endeavours' and other choice phrases) and bloody Kreacher acting all miserable again. No idea what he was on about this time. Wailing almost as loudly as Albia and apparently with just as little reason.

I've finally got her bathed and in bed but not without another row about it. Merlin, I've never seen hair that shade of green, or a face so purple. She even grew little horns when she was really going for effect.

When you do shut down for the evening, bring me back a pint or two, will you? If I'm still awake, I could use the drink.

Four days later and I still have occasional spasms. Morgana, this not being able to be Padfoot is almost as bad as when Bella cursed me and I had to stay Padfoot.

Mostly it's just being stuck in this house all the time, with that wretched elf.

I've been thinking about what we can do to prevent him betraying us if something should happen to me. Obviously, the orders I've issued him never to contact anyone who hasn't been told the secret of the Fidelius is perfectly effective while I'm alive. The question is what he'll do once I'm no longer his master. Will he accept the will as it's written, will he decide that Bella or Narcissa are his new mistresses, will he defer to Draco or Hydra or will he go and hang himself with my father's bootlaces?

It's complicated, because my mother's will actually left the property to Narcissa but my father's magical protections meant she couldn't take possession of the house. I wrote a will as soon as we were able to open it up, of course. But will Kreacher honour it if I'm not in the picture?

I think there are a few possible solutions but none of them are guaranteed. Since I can't do much else with this ankle still healing, and with my tremors I better not handle sensitive potions measurement, we may as well discuss the options.

Been thinking about you all day.

You'd hardly recognise the house, especially after using it to hold lessons here at Easter hols. And everything we've had to do to make it safe for Bea. Couple days ago she decided to pull herself up by the curtains in the parlour - you remember the ones Mother loved and Father thought were far too dark for the room - and the bottom of the drape tore away in Bea's hands. Went right back down on her bum, started to sniffle a bit but then looked at the fabric in her hands and stuffed a corner in her mouth instead. (And then spit it out in disgust. With quite a commentary on how it tasted.) Dora kept trying to look stern and busting out laughing instead. I didn't even bother with the looking stern part. I could just imagine how Mother would have shrieked about it. (Well, Kreacher did a fair impression for us, when he saw the uneven rags, anyway.) Makes me wish we'd taken a knife to the bloody things years ago. Father might not even have punished us too harshly, either - he hated those awful drapes, anyway.


Say. If you were our locket, where would you have hidden yourself? I looked on your bookshelves and in your bedside table drawer but I couldn't get much further. Too many ... dust balls. I'm not giving Kreacher the satisfaction of asking about it, either. But she's asked again. It's almost as if it wants to stay lost just so Miss Parkinson can accuse me of not looking hard enough.

She's got some idea she can find you with the lock of hair. Or what's left of you, I guess, to put it more accurately. Not sure that's a clever idea - or well, perhaps it is but I suppose I'm not sure she really wants the answer she might get.


Probably going to get a proper teasing, writing to you like this. At least I'm not including song lyrics and poems, Mordred, you couldn't pay me to be 16 again for all the salamanders in Arabia.

Still. Teasing or not: Three years.

Remus says it was already too late by then, you know. That nothing I could've said those last two years would have made a difference. It's not those two years, though, that were the problem.

I suppose what bothers me the most is that even at the end, when you were like a man drowning, you continually refused to take the hand I offered. So maybe Remus is right and this was always the way it had to be.

But.

The thing is I know that people can change. Opinions evolve. Mac's have done, since he's come to work with the Order. And even bloody Snivellus can't deny that the Lilys and the Hermiones of the world are just as powerful and talented as someone with nine generations of magic to the family name. Merlin, apparently even our cousin Draco sodding Malfoy has come to see the futility of the Protectorate. And you did too, even if you were too fucking proud to say so. Or too frightened.

So .. Why? Why disappear or kill yourself or get yourself killed? Just to end your own suffering? Why when you could have just let me help you? Or is this your final revenge, Goblin, for all the times I wouldn't - play with you or listen to you or do whatever you wanted, for making my escape when I could do, and not ever really checking to see if you wanted to come along?

You know, the dead ironic part is she thinks it's a mark of how strong you were. And she thinks she knows you without ever understanding how smug, how superior, how snide or how much of a bastard you could be. But the thing is that it means she can mourn you and the only anger she feels is toward Voldemort for twisting you and breaking you. Not that I don't feel that, too, but I can't seem to separate it from the other anger. Toward you for taking the coward's solution. Toward me for not being more insistent with you - or persistent, take your pick - about your friends and your choices, about Mother and Father and their stupid games. I mean, yes, Voldemort broke you. But they're the ones who malformed you first.

Circe.

I can't even apologise properly. But that's the problem. I'll never be able to apologise because I'll never be able to fix the damage. I'll never have the chance.

Except by making sure he doesn't get another single one of the Blacks. Or anyone else, if I've anything to do with it.

I swear on James' memory I am going to murder that rotten little toerag of an elf.

As you all know, we'd been waiting for the right opportunity to reveal the truth to Ellie. Bill, Kingsley, you remember Remus mentioned it to you the last time you were at Laszlo's Unlimited, that we thought we were getting close.

Well, we sat her down this afternoon. Or rather, 'Junius' and Dora did, with a shot of firewhiskey and the news that they had a shock for her.

They told her that they're part of an organisation that helps to rescue Muggleborn children out of the camps (though not about the Order in detail). She took the shot and as Remus was pouring another for her, she said, 'I've a secret for you, then. Your friend Beth asked me to help her months ago. I've been passing coded messages for her network to some of the other mudbloods who come in to the shop.'

Remus drank the shot and before he could pour another, Dora took a hit from the bottle. I decided I'd like a drop myself, so I changed and asked to be allowed to catch up. (Though actually, Ellie got one ahead at that point.)

'Sirius Black?' she stammered. 'Your bloody dog is bloody Sirius Bloody Black?'

We quickly assured her that anything she'd said or done in front of 'Sinbad' was of no consequence to us. We also, er, clarified the realities of our domestic arrangements.

And we offered to bring her over here to 12 GP to acquaint herself with the place. (Kreacher couldn't be more pleased.) Alice, thanks for the note you gave us for her the last time you were here.

Ideally, she'll be willing to stay on her own in Doughty Conduit while we all bunk here at night. That way the house will look occupied and she'll be on hand to alert us if someone should need to come back after hours. But she'll (finally) have her own bed that's not a pallet in the cellar. Tonight it's the third guest bed on the 3rd floor. Tomorrow ... we'll see.

Hey, kiddo.

Did I ever tell you about what happened after my mother ejected me from the house?

I didn't even want to be there anymore but it was still a difficult period for me. If it hadn't been for Cyrus and Grace Potter - Harry's grandparents - I might not be the principled, trustworthy, fair-minded and handsome rogue you know and love.

Well. Or something like that.

My point is, I know you feel like the only person ever to have been rejected by a parent. You're not. I don't pretend my situation was like yours, or to know exactly what you're going through, pet. Just know you don't have to deal with it all on your own. There are people in your life who care and who are here to help.

And you've got Harry. I know he does all he can to make your life as normal as possible for someone in your circumstances.

But if you do want to talk to someone who's been through something a bit similar, you've only to write me a note. Merlin, I'll even come up to Hogwarts if you like; it'd be good to see you, maybe even to see some of your mates.

Speaking of mates, I'm working on something for them to think about. Just putting the final polish on it. You can tell them, if they ask, that yes, it's true. Frank and Alice were there, though I was already on my way out of the country. I'll tell Terry that as well, so he can confirm it.

Meantime, hang in there. And don't forget you've got friends.