Without being able to comprehend what just happened, Dalbert waved his wand and cried, "Expelliarmus!" Belladonna turned her wand from Max, who collapsed to the floor quivering, to the intruder to block his spell, causing it to hit the ceiling instead. The black cords vanished from around Max with a sound like water being poured onto a hot frying pan.

"Incendio! Immobulus! Expelliarmus!" Dalbert would call.

Belladonna was spitting out curses Rose had never heard before, and colors were escaping her wand that she had never seen before. The house began to crumble around them at spells rebounded and shot of walls. Rose was pulling at the knot behind her, trying desperately to get it untied. Will was trapped behind Belladonna, being unable to make it to his brother as it was obvious, he wanted to do. Rose drug herself painfully across the disgusting floor, half bound, to Max who was shaking in a corner. She used the fire poker in the corner to hack at the bindings, finally ripping them off of herself. She groaned as she attempted to sit up and she shook Max hard by the shoulders.

"Please be alive, please be alive!" she pleaded. Rose checked his pulse and was relived to find that it was still pumping.

"Max!" she yelled, shaking him more vigorously. "Max, get up! We have to leave! Max! er, Sylas! Whoever the heck you are! Come on!"

"Sylas!" Rose turned to see Will yelling from the floor, having to duck under the wand fire. "Sylas! Get up! Iversen!"

Max blinked. He twitched, and weakly opened his eyes. His whole body was quivering and he was gasping for words.

The battle before them continued. Dalbert thundered the very first curse he had used, not aiming for her, but for the ceiling above. The curse blasted a hole through the floor of the upper story, and a mountain of rubble collapsed on top of her, burying her in ash, and wood. Will made a mad dash toward Max, jumping over the heap that was his mom. In slow motion it seemed, Will lurched himself forward, arm outstretched. Max reached forward also, their fingers were inches apart when a dust covered hand burst from the rubble, catching Will's ankle, and as the boys reached for each other, Will vanished from sight and the heap from the floor caved in; Belladonna had apperated with Will.

Max was frozen there, his arm outstretched toward nothing. A ringing silence followed, but was broken by a loud CRACK! The entire ceiling above them was caving in. Professor Dalbert took Max around the arm, and Rose around the waste, and backing into the fireplace, apperated.

Rose collapsed onto the floor and she heard Max do the same right behind her. She opened her eyes to find that he was bent over a familiar floor. Cold Hogwarts stone lay beneath her hands and knees. She looked up and was surprised to see that she was on the floor of professor Dalbert's office.

"Rosie!" said Al rushing forward and ducking under Kemp's hand which had reached out to stop him. He slid on his knees toward her and Max. Rose noticed that he had a tear streaked face and wide eyes. Scorpius had started forward, but had turned away gagging, probably at her mangled leg or at both her and Max's blood covered robes.

"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" Professor Dalbert was saying. "What on earth were you thinking! You could have been killed! Why didn't you tell a teacher?"

"Professor, perhaps it would be best to discuss this later, at least after the children have been looked over and mended by Pomfrey." Said Professor Kemp.

Rose hardly remembered being brought to the hospital wing. Dalbert, who seemed furious, had carried Rose, not wanting to wait for a stretcher to be conjured up. Al and Scorpius insisted on supporting Max who was fit enough to walk, but not climb stairs. The Matron had bustled in, and after a quick explanation about their condition, ("Her leg is broken, and his wrist is dislocated and they're both shredded with glass.") she began tending to them, looking angry as well.

"We were doing so good!" she would mutter. "Half the amount of injuries this year, and then this happens.

Matron looked over Rose. "It's not just broken dear." She said prodding her leg uncomfortably. "It's shattered, worse than that, pieces have seemed to have stabbed into your flesh." Rose thought about how Belladonna had stomped on it.

"Will it hurt?" she asked timidly.

"No more than breaking it in the first place would." Pomfrey sighed.

"But I do have to first magnetize the bone fragments to the center again, then we can start mending."

"What about Max?"

"I don't know what to give him…" she said mournfully looked over at his bed where he lay silent and still, but wide awake. "I treated his wrist well enough but he was hit by a powerful dark curse. With his condition though, he'll be better within the day."

"But that's what Belladonna was trying to do!" said Rose. "To take away his healing powers!"

"Did she succeed?"

"I don't know… she didn't finish."

Dozens of stabbing pains were working their way through her leg. Max had his hands folded on his stomach and was staring up at the ceiling. The sun was now completely up and a murmur of voices were heard passing the closed hospital doors.

"Now explain exactly what happened." Said Dalbert sternly.

Rose looked over at Max to see if he would take up the challenge. Finding that he wasn't, she started, wondering how much she should tell.

She told them about the ransom letter, that Will would die if Max didn't come, about them getting there, meeting Belladonna Drury. What she had stolen, what she wanted, why she had kidnapped and the curse she had used on Max. She told Professor Kemp about Dalbert arriving and dueling Belladonna, and how she had disapperated with Will before they could grab him.

Professor Kemp was striding across the room and Dalbert was scowling with his arms propped over his knees.

"You do know that she would have killed both of you?" he asked.

"Without hesitation. You two would have been dead."

"But we're not…" said Rose. "I appreciate you coming to get us, but you're making me feel as though I was supposed to die." She said this with more sass than she had meant and both Al and Scorpius raised their eyebrows.

"Look," Dalbert sighed. "You scared me, really bad. When I get scared, I tend to become angry. You should have warned a teacher. I would hate for anything to happen to any of my students, especially the two brightest."

Max turned his head for the first time at this.

Scorpius made a small noise of indignation. "Shut up Scor, you know we're lousy." Whispered Al.

Rose remembered Professor Kemp giving a, she thought it was probably a lecture, but she was too busy thinking about how hungry she was to pay much attention.

"What do you think?" asked Dalbert. "Should we take away house points?"

"Take away?" Madam Pomfrey asked indigently, sitting up from having just given Max a spoonful of pink liquid. "We're lucky these kids are alive! We're not about to punish them for surviving!"

"We're not punishing them for surviving." Said Kemp. "We'd be punishing them for leaving the school, being out of bed in the middle of the night, breaking and entering, and unauthorized floo travel."

"Think about what Harry Potter had done!" she exclaimed. "He himself snuck out multiple times, broke multiple rules and saved us from a thieved stone, a monster, escaped prisoner, hag of a woman, and you-know-who-himself!"

"But those were all services for the school." Said Professor Kemp, rubbing between his eyebrows. "This was for personal matters."

"To save a human's life and catch a convict!" she snapped. "Those were acts as selfless as any. Now these kids need rest!" she dared to shoo the headmaster himself from the room, followed by Dalbert.

After the door was shut, she turned back toward them with a stern expression.

"Now don't you try pulling a stunt like that again." She said severely. "That was a foolish thing to do!" and she left the room into her office leaving Rose and Max in their beds, Al and Scorpius beside them.

Rose turned sharply, surprised to see something white fly across the room and hit the wall opposite. Max had thrown his pillow.

"I was that close!" he growled. "I almost had him!"

"If you had grabbed him, you would have vanished with Belladonna." Rose tried to reason.

"I didn't even get to talk to him."

"The Ministry is probably on their tale right now. Since this happened, and because they now know that she had stolen the potion, I bet you anything that she's back on their radar!" said Al.

This seemed to cheer him up a bit.

"Sorry about breaking your leg, by the way." He said timidly.

"It's getting better now." She said, pulling back the sheet and staring at the swollen purple leg.

Scor made a choking noise beside her and she hit him on the arm.

"What was going on back here?" she asked curiously.

"A lot." Said Al. "We watched you two vanish and couldn't follow. So we ran out to find Professor Kemp. Here's your wand by the way, it was on the floor in the office, I expect Professor Dalbert was standing on it when he disapperated." Al handed Max his oak wand and continued. "We tried and tried, but couldn't figure out the password, so we went looking for Professor Dalbert."

"But we didn't know where he slept." Scorpius interrupted. "Finally, we found it, and he scared us half to death as he pulled his wand out on us. I think we just frightened him. Anyway, we quickly told him what had happened, and he told us the password to Professor Kemp's office and to go tell him what was going on. So we did."

"Keep in mind that it takes ten to fifteen minutes to get from one place to the other around here." Said Al.

"We gave the gargoyles the password, went up a ridiculous staircase,"

"I thought it was rather cool.

"And had to wake the headmaster from his sleep, which was scary too, but he took it a lot better. As we were trying to explain what was going on, Dalbert burst through the door to grab Professor Kemp's floo powder, mumbling something about not being able to find his. Then we all made our way into Professor Dalbert's office and waited until you three showed up on the floor covered in ash."

"Wow…" said Rose. "Your adventure sounds more exciting than ours."

"Hardly." Said Al. "It mainly just involved a lot of running, I think I've lost five pounds."

"Max? What took you so long?" asked Rose. "By the time we got to the office, you should have been long gone."

"I spent most of the time looking for the floo powder." Said Max. "and the other half hiding it."

"Scor, Al?" she said. "Will you please get us food?"

"What do we look like? House elves?" said Al crossing his arms.

"At this point, I don't care if you're a dragon or a troll, we need food."

"Women." Said Scor patting Al on the shoulder and standing up. "They're all, get it now or get it now!"

"I said please."

"We're going." Said Scor with his hands raised and he and Al left the room.

"So what's your real name?" she asked quickly.

Max half smiled for the first time.

"That's why you wanted them gone?"

"No, I really want food."

"…My birth name is Sylas Clark Iversen." He said slowly. "When dad and I ran away, he had it legally changed to Vladimir D'artagnan Everard. So they're both my real name."

"So do you want me to start calling you Sylas?" she asked.

"Call me Max." he said. "Anything else?"

Rose thought for a moment.

"Yes." She said. "Why can't you lie?"

Max smiled. "It's been bothering you, yes?"

"All year!" she groaned.

"When I was… six I think, she injected me with a serum, a truth telling serum."

"Veritaserum?"

"No. Veritaserum causes one to have to tell the truth out of compulsion, I can lie, it just hurts really badly."

"I saw you lie to Calvert the other night."

"Of course you did."

"Why would she do that?"

"Because I was a compulsive liar and she thought that she'd make me better. The serum, it did contain veritaserum, but that was just an ingredient. My habit of lying was quickly broken because the potion stabs at my brain when I lie, making it feel as though my head was going to split open."

"Why didn't you just tell me that before?"

"Because you could use it against me. Knowing that I can't lie? Could you imagine? People would be coming to me all the time. Do you like me? Do you think I'm a good person? Did I get this answer right? Should I break up with him? Does this skirt make me look fat? It would be terrible."

"Max," she said more seriously. "I was just thinking… If Will really was at Hogwarts for a week, then why hadn't he revealed himself to a teacher or authority? He could have easily escaped, why hadn't he done it? Do you think he wants to stay with her?"

Max didn't respond.

"That thought crossed your mind too, huh?" she asked.

"I doubt he wants to stay, you saw her hit him. But I was wondering, unless she used the imperious curse on him." Said Max.

"We're not going to have closer are we?" she asked sadly. "The year is supposed to end with closure. But Will's still gone, Belladonna's still on the run and you're still invincible."

"I'm not invincible. But yes, no closure…"

"Through all of that," she said. "we didn't accomplish anything did we? This whole year has been leading up to this, but we didn't close the mystery, or catch the bad guy, we didn't win a metal for acts of services to the school and we emerge with broken bones and shards of glass. Doesn't this all seem pointless?"

"Will is alive…" Max said slowly. "That's enough to know right now. It'll rise up again, I'm sure. But that was a burning question, I thought he was dead. Now knowing he's not, that he'll live to see tomorrow, I feel as though I have completed something, I get a sliver of closure."

"Max?" she said, thinking up a question that she hadn't thought of until just then. "Why didn't you stun me with your wand? You were perfectly capable to, and it would have made your job so much easier."

Max thought for a moment. "Why didn't you punch me when I was trying to shove you into that cupboard?" he decided to ask.

"I…" she thought. "Well I couldn't bring myself to. Locking me in the cupboard was rude of you though."

"Really? I thought I was so nice…" he smirked.

Rose threw a stare at him. "You heard all that?" she asked going red.

"Every word…"

"Hey!" said Al as the doors burst open again. "I have food!"

They all ate brunch in the hospital wing that morning.

"I have a surprise!" said Scorpius. "Our report cards are in!"

"Really?" said Rose taking hers. "That was fast."

"One-two-three-" they all opened them together.

Before any of them could say a word about their grade, Scorpius jumped up on the hospital bed waving his card in the air. "I got by in potions!" he called.

"What?" said Al in disbelief, taking the card from him. "…Well they don't except much."

Scorpius punched him in the arm. "Ow! Hey! I'm kidding! Good job bud!"

Rose was staring down at her card, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"What's wrong?" said Al taking the card from Rose.

"I… I got two points less than mom did." She said mournfully.

"Rosie?" said Al slowly. "It you don't cheer up about your perfect score, I'm gonna dump this pitcher of pumpkin juice on your head."

"No don't!" she shouted as Al raised it up. "No! I'm wounded!"

Rose wasn't able to walk until the following day. They emerged from the hospital wing to find some people in really high spirits, some, in low. Professor Kemp had to write to both her and Max's families to tell them what had happened. Max never received a reply, and Rose had gotten six owls, all from different family members. Rose had dropped them into the orange juice and claimed that she couldn't read the now smudged ink.

"Rose!" called James, hurrying toward her after breakfast. "Mom and dad just wrote to me and told me to never let you do anything like that again or I'd be in just as much trouble. What the heck did you do?"

"I used the guy's bathroom because I couldn't make it to the girl's in time." She lied without looking up.

"Eww!" said James. "I see why our folks are upset, I got three letters like that."

It was more bitter than sweet as Rose packed her trunk with all of her spell books, extra clothes, cauldron, vials, telescope and broom. The feast was that night and they were to leave the next morning. That day, the four friends took one final tour of the grounds. They walked along the lake, shook tentacles with the giant squid, skipped stones, visited the garden one last time, said goodbye to Yoman. They had tea with Hagrid who was more furious than anybody that they had pulled a stunt like they did.

In response to why he wasn't overly depressed about his brother still being missing, a question asked by Scorpius who wasn't good with words, Max told them that he was quite confident that the Ministry would catch her soon, that he was now aware of the situation and knew that Will wasn't chained to a wall or anything.

The sun was setting and the four of them sprinted into the hall to find it decorated just like the welcoming banquet, except that the room was clothed in green and silver, serpent banners. Al and Scor sat apart, as was encouraged to sit with your house. The feast itself was spectacular. She and Max ate happily while the rest of the Gryffindors seemed sour about Slytherin's win. But the two of them were perfectly alright with Slytherin winning, sure, they hated to see Poppy and Fraunk, Stewart and Relctory celebrating as if they had done anything to help earn the cup. But they both knew that Al and Scorpius, Keith, Olivia and a handful of other members had worked hard to answer questions and win matches.

Professor Kemp announced that, obviously, Slytherin was in first place, followed by Hufflepuff, then Gryffindor, then Ravenclaw. Molly didn't seem very happy about this, but Hufflepuff cheered louder than ever. Full and exhausted, they made their way up to bed.

Rose stretched out on her warm sheets, knowing that she was going to miss them. She wasn't as bothered with Danielle's snoring, and for the first time, she cuddled Cromwell back.

She closed her eyes to sleep, and when she opened them again, she was in the little row boats heading back across the lake. She blinked again and she was now on the train, heading home.

"But I don't want to go." She said.

"You'll be back in two months." Reasoned Scorpius.

"Yes, but when I go back, I'll be lectured about what I did."

"Just think of a song you like, and play it again and again in your head until the talking it over." Suggested Max. "That's what I do."

"But you hum when I'm talking…" she said slowly.

Al and Scorpius laughed, and Max didn't respond.

"So what's going to happen to you?" asked Al. "Still coming back next semester? Even though Belladonna knows where you are?"

Max shrugged. "I might change my name again. What do you guys think about Malcom?"

"I don't mind it." Said Rose. "I'll just call you Max, for short."

They bought armfuls of candy and sweets, and wore their poor wands out doing as much magic as they could, trying to make up for not being able to use them over summer. The fields and mountains that sped by outside the window, soon became cities and buildings, and they knew that they were entering London.

"We'll write over summer right?" Rose asked.

"Of course." Scor and Max said.

"And you'll send me birthday presents right?" said Scorpius half joking.

The train soon came to a screeching halt at King's Cross Station, and having understood the concepts of 'the weak don't survive' they all pushed and shoved to get off the train.

Nobody moved out of the way for Scorpius anymore, all knowing that he was not a threat. They all said goodbye, knowing that they'd lose each other on the platform, and started forward, looking for their families. Al spotted his parents and ran toward them excitedly. Rose found hers and saw that they looked half pleased to see her, half ready for a long talk. Rose took a deep breath, and started toward them, maybe exaggerating her limp just a bit.