So these are snippets set at various points after the series. Each snippet is like a window into the girls' lives after the war. It is here where I will, eventually, explore what could have been different about Cursed Child. Please, enjoy the last of The Neglected House and its Champions and thank you for your attention.

After The End

(This is based on the Tumblr post by Marauders4evr. It's a solid theory; I just poked it a little.)

May 6th, 1998

In St. Mungo's Harry sat by Lupin's bedside, tears glistening behind his glasses. Lupin had been unconscious for two days and inconsolable for another after being informed of Tonk's death.

"You say I was there?" Lupin asked curiously as Harry recounted his conversation with the Shades of the Resurrection Stone.

Harry nodded, "I thought you were dead. I mean, you showed up with Sirius and my parents and I thought you had died. And you said that Teddy would know why you died…!" He swallowed back the tears that threatened to over come him. He would not cry, not now.

"You said we were ok with you meeting Voldemort in the forest?" His head was still a little muddled so he was walking back through the story.

"Yeah. Sirius said dying was 'quicker and easier than falling asleep' and you said that Voldemort would be sure to make it quick because he wanted it to be over. My parents said they were proud of me."

Gently and slightly amused, Remus asked, "Tell me, Harry, does that sound like us? Your parents whose dying words were about protecting you? Me who, believing Sirius was the reason James and Lily were dead, lectured you on your use of the Map? Or Sirius who broke out of Azkaban when he discovered Peter was masquerading as your best friend's rat? Sirius, who died fighting beside you in the Department of Mysteries?"

Harry opened his mouth, closed it and mumbled, "No, not really."

Breaking a chocolate bar in half, Lupin passed one piece to Harry, "Tell me the story again. The bit about the middle brother and the stone."

"Hermione tells it better, but the middle brother wanted to humiliate and cheat Death so he asked for something to return life to the dead. Death gave him a stone from the river and when turned three times, the brother's wife appeared to him. But she wasn't alive, not really. She wasn't a ghost either and she eventually got sad and he killed himself to set her free."

Lupin mulled this over in his mind, "I think perhaps the stone shows us something like what the Mirror of Erised shows us, our heart's true desire. You wanted to see us again, just as the brother wanted to see his wife again. But because the stone was created by Death in response to what we are meant to perceive as a selfish request, perhaps the stone has an ulterior motive where the mirror does not. Perhaps the stone twists what we want to see in order to fulfill Death's goal for the middle brother, to lead us to our deaths."

"So… Because Death created the stone for a guy he wanted dead it's, like, cursed to convince the user to kill themselves?"

Remus smiled, "Well, assuming that the story is historically accurate and it truly was Death who created the Hallows for the reasons Beedle the Bard gives. Remember though, that Beedle was, ultimately, a story teller."

"So they might not have really been my parents or Sirius."

"Well it definitely wasn't me you saw, as I am not dead."

Remus would go on to raise his son while tutoring Hogwarts students in Defense Against the Dark Arts, those parents that had a problem with his condition generally advised their children to stay away from him. Sometimes that worked, other times the kids came to him anyway. He raised Teddy as he felt Tonks would have wanted; combining his own childhood rebellion with the wisdom adulthood had brought. He encouraged him to hone his metamorphagus skills and was touched when Teddy decided to honor his werewolf father by tapering his ears to points—which Remus maintained had nothing to do with the extra piercings Teddy could fit that way. When Teddy was thirteen they went to a Weird Sister's concert in honor of Tonks.

He battled the bone crushing sorrow that came with losing the woman he loved and there were days, especially in the beginning, where making sure Teddy was fed and clean were the only things that got him through the dark and into the day. He was responsible for someone else now and by Merlin if he wasn't going to screw it up the way he was still afraid he might.

As a toddler, Teddy roamed the castle while his dad was working, except on the days where he was with his grandma. He befriended the portraits with his mood-ring hair and gap-toothed smile and he was adopted as the school mascot by a good portion of the students. They took it upon themselves to keep an eye on him, make sure he didn't fall down any wells since Sirius wasn't there to reenact 'Lassie'. He pulled McGonagall's tail once when she wasn't expecting it; this amused everyone but McGonagall.

XXX

May 11th, 1998

The week after the battle that killed the Dark Lord, the girls got on with their lives. They couldn't stay working for Aberforth forever after all. So Jo dressed herself in her best non-dress robes and Apparated over to the Ministry of Magic, where she presented herself for Auror training.

The department had suffered some losses during the war, from Rufus Scrimgeour to Nymphadora Tonks and welcomed its new candidates with, well, not with welcome arms because Auror training was ruthless, diligent, and constantly vigilant, but as warmly as such a department could.

Alongside Jo, the new recruits included Harry and Ron and Neville, plus a few others she didn't know.

In Diagon Alley, staring at a dark door that filled her with nerves and excitement, Leili took a deep breath. She scrubbed her sweaty palms on her jeans, tossed her braid over her shoulder and opened Ollivander's front door.

"Step up to the counter, I'll be just a moment," his voice floated to her. She leaned her elbows on the counter and waited. Ollivander came around the corner, much smaller than she remembered. He looked old, wizened. "Ah, Miss Akina, how's your wand?"

"Trusty, as always," she held it clasped in her hands on his counter. "Mr. Ollivander," she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and said, "I'd like to be your apprentice."

"I beg your pardon?" he asked, surprised. He'd expected a much more mundane request, wand polish or something.

She panicked, "You are the best wand maker in England, and I—I don't want to replace you, mind—I'd like to learn from you. Work with you. I like seeing kids get their first wand. I always peek in your shop windows when I'm in the alley. I've learned all Hogwarts can teach me and now I'd like to learn what you can teach me. I won't give away your secrets and if you'd rather pass the business to your children, I understand. But I'd like to learn from you, if you'll teach me."

He considered her in silence for a moment. By simply looking at her wand, clutched in her hands, he knew he'd sold it ten years earlier. "You graduated from Hogwarts some time ago, correct? Why come to me now?"

"There was something I had to do. Someone I had to protect. The war is over and they're safe now, or at least as safe as they can be, considering."

"Young Mister Potter, was it?" His eyes twinkled, reminding her of Dumbledore.

"Good guess," she laughed.

"Oh, it was no guess. I knew the moment I sold that wand, that we would see great things." He tugged her wand out of her grip and she let him, even if it felt like she was losing a security blanket.

"Mm…" she hummed. "He's just getting started, I think."

He looked at her wand, turning it this way and that way, giving it an experimental wave and then held it to his ear, "Mister Potter is destined for great things, yes, but you, you chose to do great things."

She squinted at him, a little suspiciously, "…Is my wand telling you that?"

Instead of answering her, he inspected her wand. She'd kept it in good shape. "Ebony and Dragon heartstring, a stubborn wand for a stubborn witch. And yet, the wand's flexibility gives credence to your own. You wish to be my apprentice?"

"I do."

He handed her a blindfold as he went to pull down two more wands from the shelf, "Put that on." She tied it securely around her eyes and waited. "The wand chooses the witch, Miss Akina, let us see if yours will do so." He lay her wand on the counter beside the other two and shuffled them around. "By this point in time, you should have developed a bond with your wand. You should be able to tell me of the wands on this table, which one is yours. You may not touch them, that would defeat the purpose."

She debated asking exactly what the purpose was. Pick out her wand with out seeing or touching, hmm? A shell game. She could be ok at these; admittedly that was when she could see.

"Relax your mind, Miss Akina. Let your magic do the work."

How was she supposed to do that? "Can you give me a hint?"

"You want to be my apprentice? You must prove it to me."

What did this have to do with making wands? Nevertheless, she took a few deep breaths, almost like she was going to Apparate. She fixed an image of her wand in her mind and tried to recall exactly how it felt in her hand, how it felt to do magic with it. She let her hand hover over the counter. "This one. I think."

She heard him shuffle, then say, "Again."

"…Here." More shuffling. Again and again she chose and again and again he shuffled, mixing in new wands every turn until she knew she was looking for a familiar warmth and a faint tingling in her fingertips because it wasn't there. "It's not here." She couldn't see it, but every time she found her wand, golden magic sparkled at the tip, her wand continued to choose her and this was what allowed her to distinguish it from the others without sight or touch.

"Take off your blindfold, Miss Akina. Well done."

"I passed?"

"Oh yes. Eventually, you'll be able to do that with perfect accuracy with every wand you ever make. Ever wondered how I remember every wand I've ever sold?"

"We all do."

"That's how. You imbue the wands you make with a bit of your own magic and the two will resonate, similarly to how you and your own wand resonate. The resonance will tell you about the wand, things like the wood and core material. Come on into the back, I'll show you around." Fingertips tingling, Leili stepped past the counter and into the rest of her life.

Eventually, the new government heads would get around to expunging the Gringotts break-in from all five records. They'd been lucky that Voldemort had chosen to attack Hogwarts as soon as he did because it meant that no one had time to pursue criminal actions—or indeed any other kind of action—on them. If the government wanted to pursue and prosecute who broke in to the bank, they were going to have to prosecute their golden boy Harry Potter as well as Jo and Leilani. This left everyone feeling pretty sure they were safe. They were still cautious about it, treating it kind of like an inside joke; if you know, you know but if you don't, they sure as hell weren't going to explain it to you!

XXX

—

Late May/Early June 1998

After Voldemort's defeat, Headmistress Minerva McGonagall asked former Professor Galatea Merrythought to return, she also asked Marcus Flint to teach. Marcus needed the job. More than that, he needed someone to trust him. As a former death eater, jobs—and trust—were hard to come by.

Possible employers saw the faded Mark on his arm and turned him away. But she had taught him, she knew what he was like and she knew from Severus and Harry how a scar could define a person, so she had invited him for the interview. She asked him off the record how he had come to join the Dark Lord's ranks and what he had done while part of it and he told her. He told her every painful detail. The things he'd done, the things he hadn't done; the people he'd hurt—intentionally and not.

She hired him on the spot.

Marcus and Galatea split the years; guest lecturing in each other's classes when asked but Professor Merrythought wanted to return to retirement.

Jo was forgiving Marcus and they had moved in together and for once in his life, everything was starting to go right.

XXX

—

After June 15th 1998

For a while, everything had been good, Marcus had a good job, an amazing fiancée, but then everything changed the day Aurors broke down their door. "MARCUS FLINT," someone shouted, "YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR TREASON."

"Wha-HEY!" Jo yelled as they pushed her back. It was a miracle they hadn't come in wands a-blazing. "Marcus!"

At the back of the herd surrounding her bewildered fiancé was the head Auror, Gawain Robards. He didn't usually come out for simple arrests, there was something else going on. "Auror Robards! What is going on? Why are you arresting him?"

"Treason, Auror-in-training Mongomery. Your fiancé is a Death Eater."

"Was. Past tense," Marcus said. He would never deny his membership as one of Voldemort's goons, the faded tattoo on his arm was proof enough, but he could at least keep repeating the point that he wasn't anymore.

"There's no such thing as a reformed Death Eater," one of the Aurors snarled, taking half a step forward.

"Really?" Jo said dryly. "You really want to have this argument right now, while you're holding him at wand point?"

"He'll be given a fair trial, Auror-in-training Montgomery," Auror Robards said sympathetically.

"Fair?" she asked incredulously. "Fair like the one Harry Potter was given before the start of his fifth year? Where the trial was moved so that the accused would be sure to miss it? Or fair like the ones held for the first generation of Death Eaters? Where the accused was put in a cage after who-knows-how-long with the Dementors?" She fumed. "Or fair like the Americans who send the accused into a death chamber filled with a hypnotic sludge? Or how about fair like Rubeus Hagrid, who was imprisoned for opening the secret chamber under Hogwarts when actually it was opened by a possessed eleven year old?!" Her voice rose to a shout at the end and she was gesturing so wildly that the two aurors that flanked her took several surreptitious steps away so she wouldn't accidentally (on purpose) smack them.

The Head Auror blanched slightly before recovering and repeating, "He'll be given a fair trial."

"Before you haul me away to my probable doom—"

"Marcus!" Jo took immediate objection to the phrase, to the mindset; he was giving up!

Marcus repeated louder, "Before you haul me away to my probable doom, I'd like to say good bye."

Auror Robards hesitated before nodding, just once. Marcus turned with exaggerated slowness and crossed the room to Jo who was fuming at the actions of the man who was technically her boss. Marcus cupped her face, noting the tears she was holding back by a thread. She was angry and she was scared.

"I'll fix this," she said, wrapping her fingers around his own and turning to kiss his palm.

"I love you," he murmured. "No matter what happens, I love you."

"Don't say that! If you say that it means you don't think you're coming back and you are coming back, if I have to sail to Azkaban and break you out of jail by myself. You're coming back."

"Don't be ridiculous. Leilani would have your back the whole time."

His hand muffled her bubble of a laugh; he kissed the top of her head and turned back to the Aurors who wound incarcerous around his wrists. They left and her apartment echoed with the ghosts of their footsteps. She called Leili—thank god for cell phones.

"Hey Jo," Leili greeted. "What's up?"

"Marcus has been arrested. I need you to tell Professor McGonagall and Draco and get over to the ministry. They want to put him on trial for being a Death Eater and I'm not risking losing him because they want to make a point."

"Got it." They hung up without so much as a goodbye

Jo Apparated to Whitehall, the last time she'd been to the Ministry she'd borrowed Umbridge's fireplace but in this case it would make a better impression if she used the visitor's entrance. No way in hell was she letting them railroad Marcus into a cell in Azkaban.

Minister Shacklebolt was in the process of getting rid of the Dementor guards and replacing them with a rotating shift of Aurors but he was getting some pushback from people who thought it was unnecessary—after all Dementors had been loyal guards up until recently. Surely with Voldemort gone they would go back to being the good little pet monsters they were. So far he'd succeeded in getting the lower levels, minimum security as it were, transitioned but as an all-but-convicted Death Eater, Marcus wouldn't be put with the likes of Mundungus Fletcher (imprisoned 1997, later escaped.) Jo both did and did not want to know how on earth he'd managed to impersonate an Inferius.

She popped into sight in a shadowed alley and strolled purposefully toward a red phone box. She dialed 6-2-4-4-2 and a voice echoed inside the box, "Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. Please state your name and business."

"Jocelyn Montgomery, saving my fiancé."

The returned coins chute spat out her badge. "Thank you, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes. "Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium." The floor moved like a lift, lowering her into the Atrium. It was much the same as the last time she'd been here, the statue crushing Muggles beneath Magic's Might was gone and the old fountain that had been partially demolished during the fight to rescue Sirius had been repaired and reinstalled.

Jo ran across the atrium's floor, skidding sideways into a fast closing lift. "Auror Headquarters, please," she gasped to the man who controlled floor lever. The only surprise he showed was a brief blink before his nod.

A few minutes later the lift opened again and she sped down the hall, almost over shooting the office door. She yanked it open and went inside, "Auror Robards!" she called to the back of his head. "Where is Marcus?"

"He's been taken to the holding cells in preparation for his trial before the Wizengamot," he said before brushing past her. As he paused near the doorway he turned back to her, "Come on," he said. "I'm going that way."

Jo ran after him, "Why are you doing this?"

"It's not just your fiancé, we're rounding up all the Death Eaters we can find. Obviously the last time we arrested and interviewed the Death Eaters, we didn't do a very good job. Two of them went on to become teachers; one of them sat on the School board and regularly threatened the other members. One of them was smuggled out of Azkaban! Sirius Black was sent to prison without a trial. We need to do it right this time and that means arresting everyone bearing Voldemort's mark and putting them on trial. We have a fully vetted Wizengamot, mostly promoted Magical Law Councilmembers. I promise it will be fair. In fact, I'm glad you're here, it makes finding witnesses easier."

"I'm glad you said that actually, since the witnesses have just arrived. If you could just tell me how to get to the holding cells from the Atrium, I'll bring them down." She canceled the charm on her pendant as she memorized the directions. She returned to the Atrium to find a lost but determined Leilani, Draco, Professor McGonagall and a near-life size portrait of Albus Dumbledore, escorted by half a dozen baffled looking aurors.

Jo wrapped Leili in a hug, "Thanks for coming."

Leili rubbed Jo's back both to brace and comfort, "You know I'll come when you call. We got to Draco right as the Aurors arrived to arrest him. McGonagall talked them into standing down since we were heading here anyway. I'm not sure what use he'll be, a Death Eater testifying on behalf of another Death Eater? I'm not sure how well that's gonna go over."

"We'll see. Come on, we gotta go see Marcus before the trial starts. By the way… Dumbledore?"

Leili shrugged, "He wanted to come."

On level ten, down the hall from the courtrooms Draco was ushered into a holding cell. He bit back the automatic response of "My Father Will Hear About This" because there his father was: in a cell, looking more bedraggled than Draco had ever seen him. The line wouldn't have done him any good now anyway; Lucius had been all but convicted of Death Eater Activities and he didn't want to rely on his father's name anymore.

During Marcus' trial Jo spoke passionately about how yes, her fiancé was technically once a Death Eater but only because he'd been forced into it. She spoke of how he had tried to escape it but like Draco had been dragged into a life that he hadn't wanted. She spoke of how he would burn the world down for her and how she couldn't be happier with him in her life. He was a good man and a loyal one and she couldn't ask for anyone better to share her life with. She spoke of the time it took to understand what he had done and why he had done it and how she had come to forgive him. He was a Slytherin and he was cunning and he had ambitions but those were not bad traits to value or have. His cunning had saved her life and his ambitions were to be better than his parents, how could they fault him for that?

Leili spoke of the Slytherpuff Alliance and how much good it did for the students and how it had been he who had approached them with the idea. She spoke of how she had come to forgive his crimes against her best friend, how the grain of rice that had tipped the scale in his favor was how much he loved Jo. He loved her more than his own life, as he'd broken her heart to save her from Voldemort's schemes, a choice that surely would have meant his death if anyone had found out.

Professor McGonagall spoke of how he'd been a good student and was an even better teacher. She too spoke of the Alliance and how he still fostered goodwill between the hated and the over looked. He always had a kind word and a moment to spare for his students—no matter their house or family ties.

Upstairs, owls flooded Minister Shaklebolt's office with student testimonials.

Draco explained how he'd come to turn his back on his parents and the life they had chosen for him. He told how, as a student, he'd looked down his nose at the Alliance but the Alliance had still come to his assistance as a Death Eater, even if it had only been Marcus acting in everyone's best interest.

Jo and Leili walked Dumbledore's portrait forward like the Eater-Island Moai when Draco yielded the floor.

"We must not mistake those in the paintings for actual people, Miss Montgomery," one woman said.

"No, you're right, but the subject spends a lot of time and energy and magic teaching their portraits and this is Dumbledore we're talking about. If you could just hear him out…"

"I'll allow it," the head of the Wizengamot said.

Dumbledore's portrait was as eloquent as Dumbledore himself would have been, waxing poetic about how they had allowed Severus Snape to work at Hogwarts after the first War and Marcus' situation was not so very different. He spoke of no evidence that Marcus had done anything wrong while he acted as a member of the Death Eaters; he had neither hurt nor killed anyone and we all did things we regret. His speech went on for some time and by the time he was done, tears misted the eyes of many a member.

Finally Marcus was brought into the courtroom. He was pushed into a chair with heavy iron manacles on the arms and legs to secure his wrists and ankles.

"You sit here before us accused of Treason. You hearby give your consent to be interrogated under the influence of the potion Veritaserum?"

"Yes."

One of the Aurors standing guard took the little green vial from the head of the Wizengamot, they tipped his head back and shoved their fingers into his cheeks to force open a mouth that had already voiced his perfect willingness to comply.

"HEY!" Jo snapped. "He said he'd do it! You don't have to force him like a dog you've caught chewing on your slippers! Asshole!"

Ignoring her, the Auror squeezed three drops down Marcus' throat. Veritaserm wasn't infallible, it could be countered by an antidote or someone particularly skilled in Occlumency or if the potion had been tainted or brewed incorrectly. They waited two minutes before resuming the questioning.

"You are Marcus Jaime Flint?"

"Yes."

"You reside with your fiancée Jocelyn Montgomery?" They rattled off the apartment's address. His fingers stretched and strained to caress hers.

"When not at Hogwarts, yes."

Jo dropped to the floor beside his chair, her head angled so he could skim his fingertips through her hair. She threaded her fingers over the arm of the chair to twine with his.

"You did knowingly join the followers of Lord Voldemort AKA Tom Marvolo Riddle Jr.?"

"Yes…" Marcus paused briefly, wondering if he should add "unwillingly." But he decided he didn't want to make it look like he was making excuses or claiming influence of an unforgivable curse.

"Do you understand the charge against you?"

"Yes."

"Do you have anything to say in your defense?"

"I did it because I wasn't presented with a choice. My parents were Death Eaters; they expected me to join them. I stayed at Hogwarts for as long as I could but I was going to end up a Death Eater if I liked it or not. I did my best to stay on their good side for the sake of people I care about and that meant not 'rocking the boat' as Jocelyn likes to say. I did my best to not to hurt, kill or endanger anyone. I will never excuse my actions, for there is no excuse, but I will have it known that I did not then and do not now subscribe to Voldemort's beliefs." He looked at Jo and even the blind could see how completely mad for her he was, how his face changed into something softer, kinder. "My fiancée is a muggle-born woman. She is a Hufflepuff, I am a Slytherin; we should hate each other. We don't. The trait our houses share is loyalty. I am loyal to her. I am loyal to the Slytherpuff Alliance. I am loyal to my students. Despite the mark on my arm, I am not loyal to Voldemort."

"Will you give us names of those who are true Death Eaters?" Amelia Bones asked. Susan Bones was her niece, and she'd heard the stories about a strange alliance between Hufflepuff and Slytherin.

"Yes."

"Very well, all in favor of conviction?"

Approximately a dozen members were not convinced of Marcus' innocence but majority rules. The gavel banged twice, "The accused is acquitted of the charges and is free to go." The manacles released automatically and Marcus leapt to his feet, pulling Jo into his arms and lifting her feet off the ground as he swung her around.

They retreated to the stands to wait for Draco's trial, also conducted under Veritaserum. It would go similarly and he too would be released, but by a narrower majority. His family was too well known, his father had escaped punishment last time by claiming Curse Influence and some members wanted to make an example of him but Amelia Bones was the deciding vote and she voted he too be released; Dumbledore's portrait was very convincing.

XXX

—

December 31st 1998

The day after Jo's Christmas-time wedding to Marcus he tried to keep her from seeing what was written in the Prophet about it.

It had been a lovely wedding, Jo's sister had been a bridesmaid and her brother had been a groomsman. It had been the best day of Marcus' life.

But that's not what Rita Skeeter said.

Somehow, she had found out about the skull and snake scar on his arm.

He had tried to get rid of it. He'd even gone to Leilani's tattoo artist to cover it up but no ink would touch it. So he'd resigned himself to the scar, surrounding it with an abstract sleeve tattoo: splashes of color that swirled up from his wrists and curled up over his shoulders meeting in the middle between his shoulder blades; it disguised the skull and snake scar even if it didn't actually cover it.

She knew and that's what she wrote about. Not Jocelyn's dress or how her mother had cried, but his stupid scar.

"Rita Skeeter, gossip correspondent for the Daily Prophet, had the privilege yesterday of attending one of the most talked about weddings of the year. Jocelyn Montgomery married Marcus Flint, supposed former Death Eater and one of He-Who-Must-Not-be-Named's trusted supporters. Why a so-called Champion of Hufflepuff would marry an allegedly 'reformed' Death Eater remains a mystery. Perhaps this Hufflepuff is not what she seems. What do the sleeves of her white gown mask? Another Dark Mark?"

It went on from there. Of course, the article was factually incorrect on several levels. For one, their wedding was actually one of the least talked about. Until now, only a few people had known about the brand on his arm and the wedding party had been small, only Jocelyn's family and friends were invited. Ergo, nothing to talk about, it was just another wedding.

For another, Rita Skeeter had not been invited, and for all appearances, had not been present.

Marcus had no contact with his parents, he wasn't even sure they had survived the war and what cousins he had who were even mostly decent people, he had never known due to their having been disowned. He was on a quest to find them, but his family records were less obvious than the Black's were. The Black Family kept their family tree on the walls, the Flints didn't; so tracking down wayward cousins who didn't want to be found was harder than expected.

He hid the article from Jocelyn because they were supposed to be on their honeymoon and he didn't want to spoil it for her.

Of course, she saw it anyway.

Her exact words were, "She's a bug, and someday, somebody's gonna squish 'er like one." And then she chewed the hell out of him for trying to hide it. "Why did you hide it?" she asked, a touch demandingly.

"I was trying to protect you!" he defended.

"For Merlin's sake, Marcus," she deflated. She was still annoyed, but less so now that she understood what had been going through his brain. She took his face in her hands, "I don't want you to protect me! Watch my back. Fight at my side. Don't try to protect me; I don't need it. It's thinking like that that had you not telling me about being threatened into the Death Eaters."

He'd been floored when she had asked him to marry her. For one thing, he'd betrayed her trust so badly by becoming a Death Eater (not that he had wanted to or had really any choice in it) that he hadn't expected her to ever forgive him or really trust him ever again. For another, he had always planned on his asking her, not the other way around. He loved her, more than anything else in his life and after recovering from the shock, of course he'd said yes.

Leilani and Fred didn't seem to mind that Jo had upstaged their "official" wedding by proposing to him. Leilani, for one, had been ecstatic, there had been quite a lot of squealing and happy shrieking; Marcus swore his ears had rung for a week. She'd hugged him and Fred had shaken his hand and then George had fed him a ton-tongue-toffee.

"And for god's sake, don't call Rita Skeeter up to correct her, it'll only make it worse."

He blinked, that's exactly what he'd been thinking of doing.

XXX

—

(In the interest of credit where credit's due: the wingardium leviosa joke, my records have it posted by tumblr user "Argumate". It's a good joke so I borrowed it.)

May 7th, 1999

Leili sat up in bed, a new baby girl asleep in Fred's arms. She'd gone into labor three weeks earlier than expected. The baby was small, but average for "late preterm babies". She was one of the lucky ones, she breathed and ate well on her own and was only slightly jaundiced; nothing a little filtered sunlight wouldn't cure.

They were trying to name her. Their first daughter: a redhead, like her daddy. He was sitting at Leili's feet rocking the baby slowly as he mulled. "Let's name her Wingardium Leviosa!" He said, eyes sparkling with mischief.

"What? No!" Leili said automatically, and then her curiosity got the better of her, "Why?"

"So that when her teachers call her name, things will go flying around the room."

Leilani laughed, of course that was why. She was pleased that the war hadn't cost Fred his sense of humor. He had a great big grin on his face. "That's brilliant, but no. How about Paige? Maybe she'll be a trickster like you and George and then you can say she's named Paige because she's a page out of your own book."

It was his turn to blink at her, "That's terrible. I love it!"

Leili couldn't help the snort the preceded her chuckle.

They had gotten "officially" married after the end of the war, June 15th. It had been a moderately large affair, in part because Fred had so much family—Aunt Muriel had not been invited. They did not tell their parents that they were already married. They did have a talk with the priest who "married" them to make sure they weren't confusing any legal nonsense by doing it this way. Of course the whole thing was moot when Molly came looking for them and over heard about half the conversation. The shrieking could be heard around the world.

"YOU'RE MARRIED?!" she cried from behind them.

Leili damn near jumped out her skin in surprise, "Merlin and Morgana, don't sneak up on me like that! Jeez!"

"Hi Mum." Fred said guilelessly.

"Don't you 'hi, mum' me, Fred Gideon Weasley! How long have you been married?!"

Leili turned a slight grimace on Fred, "We almost made it."

"November 15th."

"Seven months," she whispered, shocked. Then louder, "SEVEN MONTHS?!"

"At least I'm not pregnant?" Leili offered.

"You're pregnant?" came a surprised voice from behind Molly. Ginny had heard the shouting and come to investigate.

"Shit!" she swore softly while Fred laughed his ass off beside her. "No, Ginny, Ginny come here!" She picked up her skirts and hustled after the sixteen year old before she could start spreading it around. "Ginny! Ginny, come back!" She ended up chasing after her, leaving Fred to deal with his mother.

"Honestly, Mum, it's not a big deal. And if you listened to Potterwatch you'd have known months ago, I proposed to her on-air."

The look on her face had the preacher pressing her gently into a chair before she fainted dead away. "I'm going to have a heart attack..." Molly mused to herself.

At last Leili returned, sister-in-law in tow. She scooped up her skirts and crouched in front of Molly, "Mrs. Weasley, I love your son. Yes, I married your son. Yes I did it in secret because I wanted to know that if I died in the war we would have had at least that much time together and my only regret would have been that we didn't get more. Yes I did not tell you because when we met so much had just happened and we didn't want to add to the burden. We put this sham wedding together for you. For you and for my parents who, yes, also don't know—unless my sister told them and they're keeping it quiet from me. We did it for you guys because we didn't want you to feel as though you had missed something. I promise only Fred and George knew." She conveniently left out the other three people who had been at the original wedding, no sense in making this any worse.

"Oh no, we all knew." Ginny said brightly.

"What?" all three of them asked.

"Percy guessed right away and after seeing you in St. Mungo's, and I remembered seeing your ring when you came to visit the room of requirement! I didn't realize who you were but I heard the Potterwatch proposal. Bill must have known you were dating because Fred brought you to the wedding. That just leaves Ron and Charlie and Dad, they might not know."

Fred was still laughing his head off, even harder now and Leili had to fight to keep a straight face, "I guess we were idiots to try and keep it quiet, huh?"

The preacher cleared his throat, happy to have faded into the background while all this family drama was happening, "Shall we do this, then?"

Fred helped his wife to her feet and kissed her soundly, earning hyperventilation from his mother.

"Look at it this way, Mum," they heard Ginny say. "You can preemptively plan Ron and Hermione's wedding!" This did not make the hyperventilation stop.

As Fred had once promised, everyone was allowed to wear what they wanted. The guests were told not to buy anything special to wear, just pull something out of their closets and show up. Some showed up in t-shirts and jeans and felt silly when the bride walked down the isle in her dress, white lace over satin with a long, flowing skirt dip-dyed in three main colors: yellow at mid-shin that darkened briefly to orange before becoming dark pink and transitioning into purple with just a hint of midnight blue at the edge. They felt a little bit better when the best man wore his quidditch leathers and had the bride dying of laughter. The groom's tie matched her dress, his suit a dark teal that, well at least it didn't clash.

They did their first Husband and Wife dance to "You stole my cauldron" at Fred's request and she nearly died laughing because she'd sung it in the car the day she realized she loved him. She danced with all his siblings, some twice. Ginny had the pleasure of a Polka as did Bill, Percy got a Waltz to "Andante, Andante" and she didn't cry, no not even a little bit, that's sweat you see on her cheeks, not tears thankyouverymuch. She danced with Charlie and she had to remind Ron how to waltz because he was so stiff they might as well have not been movie, much to Hermione's amusement. George led her in something exhausting and it was a beautiful evening.

They spent their honeymoon in Hawaii, swimming with dolphins, picnic-ing on the beach (they did not have sex on the beach because that's how you get arrested for public indecency and besides, sand.) and just enjoying being able to breathe without the threat of hell on earth hanging over their heads all the time. Now here they were, eight months later with a relatively unexpected addition.

"Paige Weasley," Fred mused, "Middle name?"

"She was born at dawn so Aurora? Paige Aurora Weasley," Leili offered.

XXX

—

Dec. 1st, 1999

Jo lay back against her pillows, her firstborn swaddled in a blanket and propped upright in her lap. Amanda Jane Flint. She had her daddy's pitch dark hair and her Aunty Jillian's artic blue eyes. She had her mommy's dimples, though. Jo ran her fingertips over Amanda's hair; she was a month old yesterday, born on Jo's favorite holiday, Halloween.

"I could fit the whole world in my palms right now," Marcus said reverently.

"That is literally impossible, you do know that right?" Jo replied archly.

Marcus wrapped one hand around Jo's chin and the other around the back of their daughter's head, "Are you sure?"

Jo rolled her eyes and smiled, "I'm not sure if I want to kiss you or throw you off a bridge."

"Can I pick?"

She kissed him.

XXX

—

December 1999

Over the winter break, Headmistress McGonagall re-placed the Defense Against the Dark Arts want-ad in the Daily Prophet.

A week after placing the ad, Minerva got an unexpected visitor to her office. Harry Potter.

McGonagall was pleased to see Harry; this job would normalize his life, just as it had done for Marcus, if not even more so. It wouldn't be fair to the other applicants if she hired Harry without the formality of an interview, but she knew when he walked in the door that between his personal experiences with the dark arts and his Auror training, he was the perfect fit for the job.

So they went over the kinds of things he would teach his students, year by year. She found that he tackled the curriculum much as Professor Lupin had, with some minor, but notable, influences from his year of being taught by Barty Crouch JR, in the guise of Auror Moody, as well as his year teaching his fellow students in the Room of Requirement.

She asked why he was leaving the Aurors. He told her that while being an Auror was worthwhile, it didn't make him happy. When he had met Moody the first time, being an Auror seemed like the best way to both capitalize on and escape the fame that had been thrust upon him at a year old. But now, having done the training and been on the job, he found that it just didn't fit.

He could do the job.

He could be good at the job.

But the job wasn't good for him.

After spending more than seven years as the object of a Dark Wizard's attention, one year getting into that Wizard's twisted mind, another year of training and 6 months of actual Auror work, he found it was a feeling he didn't want to return to.

Professor Merrythought would finish out the year with her students and retire in September, allowing Harry to take her seat.

XXX

—

YEAR INDETERMINATE

As an Auror in the Magizoology office, Jo hunted down people mistreating magical animals, most of the time it was something like a puffskein puppy mill or someone raising fire crabs and killing them for the jewels on their shells but sometimes she'd get to travel to new and exotic places.

For those trips she'd pack Amanda up, stick her in a Baby Backpack—"Muggle invention, all the rage these days for hands free baby carrying," she'd tell people, fighting the urge to roll her eyes—and, assuming Marcus wasn't working, the three of them would go off on a grand adventure that at one point or another saw Jo arresting someone.

They got to see new places and introduce Amanda to all sorts of animals; they even met a young Graphorn. Amanda had gone stock still at first sight but warmed up to the creature when it tickled her face with its mouth tentacles. More craft minded than her sister, Jillian made her niece a stuffed animal Graphorn just the right size for cuddles.

They took so many photos, partly because Marcus had never really had family photos before, not like this, so he wanted to capture every single moment. When Marcus did have to work, Jo and Amanda went on their own adventures and Artemis took the photos back to Marcus when they were within flying distance, otherwise Jo attached them to self-timed port-keys that frequently landed in the mashed potato bowl at feast time. It wasn't always potato; sometimes it was yams or something equally messy and Marcus always wrote to tell her what her photos had landed in. There was one time Peeves stole the letter and the photos and Marcus had to chase him down to get them back—she was still laughing at that one.

Jo missed him when they were apart like this but she was glad to spend the time with her daughter. If Amanda was destined to be an only child, it wasn't for her parents' lack of trying. Jo was of the opinion that reunion sex was the best.

XXX

—

2000

Waiting at a counter of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, picking up Paige before the shop got too busy, Leili picked up a Daily Prophet open to the gossip page.

"Oh! Oh ew!" she cried in horror and disgust.

"What is it?" Fred asked.

Wordlessly she handed him the paper.

He read, "Rita Skeeter, gossip correspondent, has it on good authority that celebrated wand maker Ollivander's assistant Leilani Akina-Weasley has been hiding her husband's death at the hands of Death Eaters for two years. My source confides she has done this with the help of George Weasley, brother to the Late Fred Weasley, co-founder of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Sources close to the family say that in public, Fred is nothing more than a well crafted illusion spell and in private, the witch has kept up appearances by having children with her late boyfriend's twin brother."

"Why Leilani, I never knew!" Fred quipped with a teasing grin.

"I am gonna jinx that woman from here to high heaven!" She seethed. "Where does she get off on saying that?!"

Little Paige came toddling into the room, drawn by the sound of her mother's fury. "Mumma?" She asked.

Fred scooped her up and together they descended on Leili with hugs and kisses and blown raspberries. "Furthermore," the article continued, "it is the belief of this writer that daughter Paige Weasley is not only George's illegitimate child but also a squib!"

"Paige is two years old, you wing-nut!" Leili growled at the paper.

Fred finished the paragraph, "It is unknown how Angelina Johnson-Weasley is taking the news."

"Probably better than me," Leili remarked. "Alright, we gotta go. We'll see you tonight."

Fred gave her a peck on the lips and blew a raspberry on Paige's cheek.

"You ready to go see Amanda?" Leili asked. Jo's daughter was almost 6 months younger than Paige so they played together a lot. They were thick as thieves and just as trick minded as Fred and George, which made them great friends of Teddy Lupin. Teddy had proclaimed the little girls as his little sisters and Harry was pretty sure they three would be the next Marauders.

Look out Hogwarts, here they come, brave, intrepid, and then some.

XXX

—

Ollivander

2001

That morning, the newspapers read: The Wizarding World woke up to a shock today, with the news that famed wand maker Garrick Ollivander died last night at the age of 93. Ollivander has been the leading wand maker since his appearance on the scene in the early 20th century. He was predeceased by a wife and daughter and is survived by apprentice Leilani Akina-Weasley. It is widely believed that the 22 year old will inherit the business. A funeral will be held tomorrow at 11 o'clock in Diagon Alley.

"Most unfortunate," a woman said, as she finished reading the obituary. "Most unfortunate. And at 93 no less! Why he was still quite young! Quite young."

"I'm afraid Mr. Ollivander never fully recovered from the treatments of the war. He was held captive for a year, after all. A year at the hands of You-Know-Who, it's a miracle he survived," the woman's companion added. "Have you met the new girl?"

"No, but my brother has; his son is starting school in September, they said she was very nice. My nephew liked her, asked her if she knew Harry Potter!" They laughed. "That man is his hero, practically worships him. Asks everybody he meets if they knew the Boy Who Lived. He couldn't stop talking about it when she said that she did, in fact, know Mr. Potter. Told him that Mr. Potter had bought his first wand from that very shop, from Mr. Ollivander himself! Said she was married to Mr. Potter's brother-in-law. She made that little boy's day."

XXX

—

September 2001ish

Marcus had been promoted to Head of Slytherin House, he'd tried to protest that he wasn't worthy but Headmistress McGonagall had just fixed him with a pursed lip stare over the rims of her glasses. It had shut him up pretty quickly.

It was the beginning of a new term and the Feast had just ended. He considered giving some sort of "Welcome to Slytherin!" speech to the new kids but decided against it. He wasn't a speech person.

He was making rounds through the common room before heading off to his own bed when he heard it. He followed the sound of tears and came across a newly sorted boy sobbing his little heart out in a corner.

A seventh year girl met him partway there, "I've tried getting him to cheer up, but he doesn't want anything to do with me. He just cries harder."

"I'll take care of it, thank you, Emily. You'll get your new buddy this week, are you ready?"

Emily beamed, "So ready!"

He smiled back, a rare occurrence when he was her age but a much more common one now. "Off with you now. Go on, go study something."

"It's the first day of school!"

"All the more reason you should study something," he teased.

She huffed and stuck her tongue out at him before scampering off to her dorm.

He shook his head, both at her and at himself—thank god all the time turners had been destroyed and he didn't have to worry about his school aged self skipping into the future; he'd give himself a heart attack and then Amanda wouldn't exist.

With a groan, Marcus sat himself down across from the firstie. He didn't say anything.

Eventually the kid looked up and demanded, "Go Away!"

"I could do that, sure. I'd be derelict in my duties as your head of house, but I could do that." He made a big show of getting up—he had a two year old at home so his drama was still amped up to about 11.

"What's… der…deralicked?"

Marcus paused, "Derelict: shamefully neglectful." Jocelyn teased him about his vocabulary, but he couldn't live with her and not pick up some things.

"The other kids hate me now. I only just got here and they already hate me all because I was sorted into stupid Slytherin!"

"They don't hate you; they don't know you. Do you want to know why you were sorted into Slytherin? Because you value cunning, and you probably have ambitions and you will use your brain to get what you want. You will strive to be the best you can be and you will watch the world burn to save someone who belongs to you. …I helped set fire to the world to protect my wife and she nearly killed me for it. The other students may make us out to be villains but we have more in common with them than they realize. Later this week, after I get to know you a little better, I'm going to introduce you to someone, someone to help you adjust to life here. I promise they will not hate you, or think you're evil. Ok? Now, go get some sleep." He tousled the boy's hair and headed off to his own bed.

At the end of the week, he gathered the first and seventh year students to the room of requirement while Professor Sprout, still going strong as Hufflepuff's Head, brought the same year Hufflepuffs. Seventh year Slytherins were paired with first year Hufflepuffs and second year Hufflepuffs were paired with first year Slytherins.

When the seventh year student graduated, their buddy was re-paired the following year and so on and so forth. This was the system he and Jocelyn and Leilani had devised that day in the Three Broomsticks and it worked pretty well.

In the early days it had been the three of them who paired the buddies, and as they prepared to graduate they passed the baton to the head boys and girls but that hadn't always worked 100%. After the Alliance became a more open secret, Marcus had taken back the reigns. His first year of teaching he'd paired them by himself but found it easier to include Professor Sprout in the process.

He'd been shocked to learn that she had only the faintest knowledge of the Alliance—mainly that it existed. She had wondered more than once about the sudden influx of Slytherin-Hufflepuff friendships but didn't realize there was an official buddy system going on behind the scenes.

Marcus cleared his throat, "Welcome to the Slytherpuff Alliance. Some of you know how this works, some of you don't. Slytherins, Hufflepuffs, meet your new best friends. We have some suggested pairings but you don't have to stay where we put you. We don't have an even number of students so there will be a bit of doubling up."

Professor Sprout called out names and the new buddies formed little groups. There was the occasional switching when someone knew that this first year would really be better off with that person. The 11 year old was shuffled over to their new-new buddy and the 17 year old was free to align with someone else.

"Professor Flint!" the no longer crying firstie called, running up, dragging a seventh year Hufflepuff behind him. "This is Fern! She likes all the same things I do! And she doesn't think I'm evil!" His face and voice were full of rapturous wonder while Fern looked only slightly embarrassed.

"Welcome to the Alliance, Kevin."

XXX

—

I got the idea for this from a picture I found, if anyone would care to claim it, I'll give due credit. FYI, The original post was from Tumblr users the-evil-twin and autisticsimon. The drawing I saw is not the one by songofsunset in that same thread.

December 2003

When Paige was four years old, at Christmas her Gramma Molly presented Uncle George and Aunt Ginny with her traditional Weasley Sweater. (Guaranteed to be warm and cozy, best paired with tea and biscuits. A sure-fire pick-me-up when you're feeling blue. Patent Pending.)

As they pulled on the soft wool, the family fell into peals of laughter. George's sweater stopped half-way down his chest! And Ginny's nearly reached her knees! George struck a pose while his mom snapped a quick picture with the camera she had been gifted.

Ginny pulled off the too big sweater and held it out to her brother, but George grinned at her and said, "I wear it better, and you know it."

"Oh, George!" Molly said with a grin.

That year, Paige's family grew by two. Fred and Leilani welcomed twins, Pele Annabelle with trademark Weasley red hair and a boy who was born, as his mother had been, with downy gold-blonde hair. They named him Leolani George, Leo for short.

XXX

—

2004

It was family dinner day with the Weasley clan. It would also go down in Weasley Family History as the day the 'no cell phones at the table' rule was introduced. Arthur, against his wife's better judgment, had recently procured a new Motorola Razr.

He loved it. He was baffled by it to be sure and was constantly coming to the kids for help with his new contraption.

Not-so-secretly and almost immediately after getting it, he had taken it apart. "Just to see how it works, Molly-dear!"

Molly, of course, didn't buy that for a second, he'd said the same thing about that car and the next thing she'd known, three of their children had flown it to Surrey and back!

XXX

—

2008

The v-necked top Jo wore revealed part of a long, jagged edged white scar. Amanda was 9 when she asked about it, "Mom? How'd that happen?"

Jo rubbed at the scar, as though if she rubbed it hard enough it might go away. "I was about 15 and Hogwarts hosted something called the Triwizard Tournament—it was a big contest with three parts meant to be played by three students from different schools—and the third event was a maze the champions had to go through to reach a trophy hidden somewhere in the middle. This Tournament was different from previous tournaments by one simple fact: someone had rigged the judge, the Goblet of Fire, to allow a fourth champion to compete. You know who the fourth student was?"

"You?" Amanda guessed.

"I'm flattered!" Jo laughed. "Try again."

Amanda thought about it for a minute, trying to remember all the stories her parents had told her over the years. It came to her, "Uncle Harry."

"Yes ma'am! The Boy Who Lived himself, and as usual, someone was trying to kill him. Your Aunt Leili and I were watching with the rest of the school when I had a stroke of what could probably be called either bravery or extreme stupidity and I summoned the trophy. I realized after I had done it that while I had stopped Harry and Cedric from falling into whatever trap the cup would drop them into, that trap was now hurtling towards us.

"Turned out, the cup was a portkey and we were transported to a graveyard in Little Hangleton, Yorkshire. We found ourselves surrounded by Death Eaters, one of them cut open my arm," she rolled up her sleeve to show her daughter the fine white scar, "and used the blood he collected, as well as the bones from the grave I standing on and the dude's friggin hand, his whole hand that he cut off at the wrist, to revive Voldemort, the darkest wizard of our time."

Amanda's eyes grew big and round as her mother detailed the drama of her youth.

"When we tried to escape, I was caught by a severing spell and Leili was thrown into a headstone. That's what caused the scar, the severing spell. If I had been alone, I probably would have died, but Leili saved us. When we got back to the school your dad pounced on the death eater—masquerading as a teacher—who had rigged the judge and the trophy. Beat him bloody."

Amy laughed, "Go Dad!"

Marcus came around the corner and kissed the top of her head. Her hair was still dark but her eyes had turned hazel before her first birthday. Around his right wrist he wore a roughly braided friendship bracelet Amanda had made when she was seven. "What are we talking about?"

"The time you pummeled a Death Eater, rescuing Mom and Aunt Leili from Certain Death!"

"Bu-bu-bu-bum! Woooooo~!" Jo imitated The Labyrinth's False Alarms.

XXX

—

Sept. 1st, 2010

"Here we are, King's Cross Station, platform 9 ¾," Leili said, trying not to show her daughter, now 11, how much she was going to miss her. She didn't want to embarrass her unnecessarily.

Pele and Leo, now 7, were holding hands and trying not to cry. They were so used to having Paige and Amanda around, the house was going to feel awfully empty without them. Dark haired Amanda noticed how down the twins seemed and nudged her best friend with her elbow.

Paige wrapped the twins in a great big hug and promised, "Soon as we get settled I'll steal a Hogwarts toilet seat and send it back to you. Ok?"

Fred began to howl with laughter. It was the exact thing he and George had offered to do for Ginny. Their mother, however, had frowned upon the idea.

Grinning like fiends, the twins nodded enthusiastically. Paige glanced at her mother who simply said, "If you can figure out how to get it home, without getting caught, I won't stop you."

"Really?!" Paige gasped and suddenly a whole world of tricks opened before her.

"I'm sure your dad can give you a few suggestions," Leili suggested with a wicked smile and a glance at her husband.

Fred wiped a tear from his eye; he couldn't wait to tell George about this.

Jo leaned over to Marcus, hand out, "You owe me twenty. Pay up."

Marcus rolled his eyes and passed over the Muggle money. They'd been betting on their daughter and adopted niece since Leilani had introduced the girls as babies.

XXX

—

September, 2010

Paige and Amanda sat down in their first DADA class. Amanda was expecting her dad to walk through the door but instead it was Paige's Uncle Harry.

Headmistress McGonagall had decided that it would be best for Marcus not to teach his daughter's class, to avoid any whisper of favoritism which would hurt both him and Amanda, so even though it was Marcus' turn to teach the first years, he and Harry switched time tables for this hour.

Harry walked in wearing one of Mrs. Weasley's sweaters and the whispers started. He smiled as he came around and leaned on the front of his desk, not unlike Dumbledore had done as a young professor.

He used to hate the stares and the whispers but he found now he kind of enjoyed it. He sipped a cup of tea as he waited for the whispers to stop. It helped that the whispers were well intended now, where they hadn't always been before.

"Got that out of your systems? Brilliant."

Someone in the back raised a hand.

"Yeah?"

"Are you really married to the Harpies' Weasley?!"

"Weasley?" someone else whispered. "Like Weasley's Wizard Wheezes?"

He grinned, not many eleven year olds made the connection between Quidditch and sweets. "Yes, I am Harry Potter, yes I am married to Ginny Weasely of the Harpies. And yes, I can get free sweets at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes." The latter was something he only took advantage of when teaching Patronuses. Otherwise, he paid for everything. "And yes, I am Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived and Chosen One who defeated the dark wizard Voldemort. And yes, I am your Professor."

Paige waved at him, not a big wave, a small one, just to say hello. He raised his mug and nodded to her and to Amanda. Amanda looked vaguely relieved, though he couldn't say if it was because he didn't make a big deal over knowing her or if it was simply that she was glad she wasn't in her dad's class.

—

XXX

Summer 2010

When Paige and Amanda returned home for summer they taught Paige's Muggle grandma how to play quidditch. Between all of them they had almost enough players since someone (Leilani) had to sit behind Grandma on the broom. Over the summer they brought in various cousins to play the missing spot.

XXX

—

2014

Three years before Albus Potter came to Hogwarts, Pele and Leo began their first year at school. They watched his brother navigate the hallways and stuck like little mismatched burrs to Paige and Amanda who would let the twins help with pranks; like the day they rolled a homemade glue-bomb across the floor of the most traveled hallway and watched as people took two steps and promply walked out of first their shoes, then their socks before coming to an abrupt halt or face planting entierly as they lost their balance.

XXX

—

(I have no intention of re-writing Cursed Child. For the most part, I liked it. There were obviously some things I'd change, and some things I thought were dumb, but over all I did enjoy it. So here, a Neglected Version of some events.)

After Albus uses the time-turner twice:

September 2020

"Albus Severus Potter, what in the name of Merlin's pants do you think you're doing?" Jo asked, arms akimbo, staring down at the young Potter.

"What do you mean?" Albus scowled. Jo was related by only the flimsiest of reasons; she was his uncle's wife's best friend. Somehow that made her his aunt, he'd never had reason to resent it before.

"You are fiddling with time, aren't you?"

"What do you mean? Of course not! Time turners were all destroyed."

"I'm aware; I was there. But! I am uniquely versed in what Time-turning feels like. Your aunt Hermione used one in her third year; the déjà vu was absurd."

"Scorpius, you're not encouraging this are you?"

"No!" the little blonde boy blurted, Albus' Aunt Jo kinda scared him. Not like Albus' Aunt Leilani did, though. There were rumors that she'd killed people when she'd been in school, but if you tried to ask her about, she just got real quiet and then she'd smile this too bright, too wide smile that was somehow brittle and tell you that you shouldn't listen to rumormongers. Then, of course, when you weren't looking, Jo would come up and smack you upside the head with her book.

XXX

—

What the boys saw:

After humiliating Cedric Diggory at the Triwizard Tournament, they returned to their own time to find Harry Potter was more than 20 years dead, Albus had never been born and Scorpius was the so-called Scorpion King. Cedric is the Death Eater who killed Neville.

What actually happened:

Jo, disguised as a grindylow, was swimming after Harry when she saw Cedric rising through the water. She made the choice to continue after Harry, trusting Leili to help Cedric.

Leili watched in horror as Cedric ballooned and the crowd laughed. She stood up and made her way out of the stands. "Hang on Cedric, I'll get you down from there!" she called. Cedric managed to lodge himself in a tree, stopping himself from floating further away. "Finite," she cast.

Cedric quickly deflated. "Thanks," he called back. He hopped down out of the tree, "I lost my wand."

"I'll help you find it. You ok?"

"I've just been humiliated in front of three schools and my parents, no, I am not okay."

"That's fair."

Harry still came in second in the task since he felt the need to rescue everyone—some things stayed the same, no matter how you meddled.

In the third task, Jo summoned the cup and things proceeded as according to history, it was as the girls made their escape from that Graveyard that things changed.

"Leili, get to the cup!" Jo shouted. After a very brief pause, Leilani changed course and ran for the cup, dully aware of a searing pain in the right side of her ribcage.

Jo got up to follow but a severing spell knocked her off her feet. A bleeding gash opened diagonally across her chest. Jo tried repeatedly to stand, failing miserably as she hemorrhaged.

As she reached for the cup Leilani turned, looking for Jo. She couldn't leave without her. Instead of seeing her best friend running like her tail was on fire, she found her collapsed on the ground. "Jo!" she called.

Jo looked up, pushing herself to her knees in the grass, glancing from Leili to the Death Eater behind her. Pressing her wand arm across her chest, she tried to stem the flow of blood. Leili stood frozen for the space of a heartbeat, maybe two, though it felt like minutes, before the Death Eater exploded into a thousand pieces and a fine pink mist. She didn't have the time to process what she had just done.

Across the Graveyard, Voldemort pointed his wand at Jo, "Avada Kedavra!"

"ACCIO JO!" Leili's shout swallowed the rest of the curse.

Jo zipped through the air to Leilani who caught her, fell back, slammed her hand down on the cup and they were gone.

They landed back at school but something was wrong.

Jo wasn't breathing.

"Jo," Leili said shaking her shoulder. "JO!" The curse had been finished and it had hit its mark.

Jo was dead.

Tiny arcs of lightning flared sharply as someone touched her shoulder. A bolt of connected Leilani's arm with Mad-Eye Moody, it entered through his hand and exited out his back when he hit the ground. "Jo! Jo, wake up. Please, wake up! Please!" Hot tears rolled down her face.

"Leilani…?" A voice said by her ear.

"You're safe dear," that was Professor Sprout.

"Jo?" Leili asked, hoping that if she just kept talking, maybe Jo would hear her name and wake up. But she didn't.

"Lei…?" the first voice said again. Only one person ever called her Lei: Fred. She turned to look at him.

"She won't wake up…!" Her voice was little-girl-lost.

Fred swallowed, his own brown eyes bright, "I know."

He held out a hand, she went to take it but pulled back when she saw the sparks on her fingers, "I don't want to shock you…"

He closed the distance and took her hand anyway. He pulled her gently towards him, and she buried her face in his chest, one hand clasping his, the other holding Jo's.

If he was being shocked, he didn't show it.

She sobbed like her heart was broken, because it was. Fred held her and stroked her hair. He would never dare tell her not to cry, never shush her, never tell her it was ok, because it wasn't and never would be. He did tell her he loved her, though.

"I love you," murmured into her hair as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I love you," as he rocked her gently while her tears soaked his shirt. "I love you," as she cried herself into unconsciousness. "I love you," as he sat next to her in the hospital wing while the matron patched her up.

"What am I gonna do without her, Fred?" Leili asked after relating the whole tale to Dumbledore.

Padfoot was lying on her bed with his big blocky head on her knee. He didn't have the heart to panic her by showing her his human face and she needed the warmth of a dog right now. Plus she was absentmindedly stroking his fur and it had been years since anyone had run their fingers through his hair and he was a horrible person for thinking about that right now.

"I don't know," Fred said honestly. "You've got me, though. I won't leave you."

"I'm not leaving you, either." She snorted and rolled her eyes at herself. "Jo'd say we're giving her cavities. Merlin, I miss her already. Oh my god, what am I going to tell Jillian?" Tears threatened again as she was overcome with a wave of panic.

Padfoot whined and stood up on the bed to drape his paws over her shoulders and rest his chin on top of her head—as close to a human hug as he could get while he still had a tail.

When Cedric was approached later, he seized the opportunity. He joined the Death Eaters.

Leilani was horrified when she found out, but he had a plan! He knew all about the Slytherpuff Alliance and this was the perfect opportunity to do something useful. He'd pass along information to the Alliance.

They spent years like this. As the Dark Lord continued to rise, muggles, muggle-borns and those who loved them were hunted. Some went into hiding, others stayed and fought and were frequently tortured to death.

After Jo had been killed, her family moved to a small desert town a few hours away. Leilani's parents went to Hawaii, moved into the house Aloiki's parents had left the family when they had died.

Her parents had tried to convince their daughters to move with them, but Leili couldn't leave. She wouldn't leave Fred and she couldn't leave Harry. She and Jo had set out to protect that boy and by Merlin and Morgana she was going to do it.

She and Cedric exchanged coded letters, he told her where Voldemort was heading next, sometimes no more than a few minutes before he attacked. They saved as many people as they could, but sometimes they just… weren't quick enough.

Harry and Neville were killed in the Battle for Hogwarts and suddenly Cedric was stuck. He'd killed Neville. He hadn't meant to! He'd missed on purpose! But the missed spell caused the bridge to collapse and Neville had drowned.

Cedric paraded the 'kill' around to keep his cover intact but he hated himself for it. The guilt ate him up inside.

Without Jo there to stop her, to make her take a break, Leilani kept sorting the wounded into triage.

Without Jo to help her, Leilani didn't go looking for Fred.

Without Jo, the hour passed her by. It wasn't until Fred was brought into the Hall that she stopped.

When she did, the world stopped around her. Something inside her broke beyond repair. She'd carried on after Jo's murder, under the premise of "she would want me to" but when Fred had been pronounced dead after being brought into the hall, it shattered whatever had been left. She screamed as though she was being used for crucio practice but she couldn't hear it above the silence in her own head.

He'd promised her he'd never leave her! He'd promised!

There was no Jo to turn to for help, Fred was lying broken on the floor and there was nothing she could do. The lightning on her skin exploded around her, arcing out into the floor, the walls, anyone who was close enough without the sense to dodge and she didn't care.

More than 20 years after the war had been lost, Leilani was a different person. Cedric saw it in the skirmishes the Alliance staged. In the letters they exchanged. As a student, Leilani had been good-humored and never happier than when she was with Fred. As an adult, she was subdued. Cold. Reckless.

As a Death Eater, Cedric had more hope than Leilani did. He could hope that the war would someday be over and he could go back to his life, but she couldn't ever get back the things she had lost. She didn't speak to her family, "to keep them safe," she said.

She didn't have to talk Jo out of insane ideas; she came up with them herself, instead. She didn't have Fred to turn to when yet another person she knew died or went missing. She swallowed her sorrow, squashed her tears and nurtured her anger. Her anger was her lifeline, she fed it and fanned it into a sustainable flame and she used it to keep herself going.

Working with Dumbledore's Army, the Alliance passed on the list of Voldemort's horcruxes to Cedric. All but one had been destroyed. The problem was that Voldemort kept Nagini with him at all times. Cedric couldn't get near her.

Then came the day when Scorpius and Snape walked into the shrieking shack and changed everything.

Hermione tackled Scorpius, pinning him to the wall. "Make one move and your brain will be a frog and your arms will be rubber."

"He's safe," Snape declared. When Hermione didn't remove her wand from the boy's throat, he rolled his eyes, "You never could listen."

Leilani stepped out of the shadows as Ron ran in declaring, "I'm armed! And entirely dangerous!" He looked anything but, with his wand the wrong way around. Losing Fred and Harry seemed to have addled his brain more than a little.

"It's my fault, it's all my fault. Mine and Albus'." Scorpius moaned around the wand in his throat.

"Dumbledore is dead," Hermione said, pressing harder.

"Not that Albus," Scorpius choked out.

"You may want to sit down," Snape advised. The ensuing story was a lot for anyone to swallow.

Eventually, they all sat down.

"How's your father, Scorpius?" Leilani asked, sounding more curious than she had in years. It was a surprise even to her own ears.

"He's confused," the young Malfoy admitted.

"Ok. Tell us what's going on," Hermione said, all business.

Scorpius did.

At the end of the story, his audience was reeling. Hermione studied the time turner while Ron tried to digest that the whole of history lay with Neville: sweet, clumsy, overlooked, dead Neville.

Hermione asked, "To be absolutely clear: in the other time, before you meddled…?"

"Voldemort is dead. Harry killed him. You're Minister for Magic."

Hermione blinked, "Really?"

Scorpius nodded.

"Sweet. What do I do?" Ron asked eagerly.

"You're head of the Aurors. But you're mostly focused on bringing up your kids."

"I bet their mother is hot…" Ron daydreamed.

Scorpius coughed.

Leilani took the hint. "Ron. How do you feel about Hermione?" She knew what things had been like in school; it wasn't hard to put two-and-two together to get four.

"Why?"

Scorpius explained, "You two have kids. Together. Rose and Hugo." Ron and Hermione were stunned. "Married. In Love. Everything. You are constantly astounded by it."

"Shut your mouth when you're looking at me, Weasley," Hermione snapped. Ron's jaw shut with an audible click. "And Snape? What's he like in this other world?" she asked.

"Dead, presumably," Snape said.

Scorpius' eyes widened as his mouth twisted into a grimace, "How did you know?"

"You were a little too surprised to see me. How?"

"Bravely."

"Who?"

"Voldemort."

Snape scowled, "How irritating."

Scorpius looked at Leilani: she was sitting on the floor, legs straight out in front of her, crossed at the ankle, leaning back on her elbows. She was the only one who hadn't asked about the other timeline.

He understood that while the Leilani he knew scared him a little, she was nothing compared to this Leilani.

This Leilani was hollow; darkness collected around her. Here, her eyes were a flat, unforgiving grey. This Leilani had killed, willingly killing bits of herself in the process to provide a little safety to others and if he could bring a little light back into her life, he'd do it. She'd cropped her hair short as a boy's and scars stood out starkly against the freckles on her nose and cheeks.

"Leilani?" Scorpius asked.

"Can it possibly be worse than it is now?"

"No." In the copy of Hogwarts, A History that he had read, there had been a list of the dead. He knew what this version of his best friend's aunt had been through. At least, he thought he did.

She blinked, considered the opportunity before her and then said, "No."

"No?"

She repeated herself, "No. I don't want to know. Knowing what happened in the other timeline won't help me do anything I need to do here. So, no."

Scorpius frowned; this wasn't anything like how he expected Albus' aunt to be."They're alive," he said anyway, ignoring her choice. "You and Fred got married right after the war. You've got kids. Jo Montgomery married Marcus Flint. They have a daughter." He said it so fast that she didn't have time to stop him. He thought she needed to hear this, whether she wanted to or not.

She was on her feet in a second, the anger she kept at a constant simmer rising as she did until it was boiling and she was shouting, "What did I just say?! I said: I don't want to know! What good is it if Fred is alive there? He's deadhere, now, today! Knowing that I could have had a different life doesn't help me in this one! The fact that you think it does just proves to me that you have no fuck-ing clue what you're actually doing. Why don't you leave the saving of the world to the adults, little prince?" she sneered. "Go home to your daddy, at least he understood when he fucked up."

Scorpius flinched away, he hadn't expected this; he'd thought she'd be grateful after she heard.

She stomped out of the room. Scorpius and Albus were stupid kids. She shouldn't have snapped, but it was either shout or sob and she didn't cry anymore.

"What do we need to do to fix this?" Hermione asked, redirecting the conversation to more useful topics.

Scorpius explained the spells he and Albus had used to thwart Cedric. Hermione, Ron and Snape agreed to accompany him into the past to set it right. When they were done, before they left to put the plan into motion, he crept out of the room and found Leilani just outside the little shack. She'd been listening

Scorpius edged up close to her and saw with some surprise he was actually about two inches taller than she was, when had that happened? In his world she was his best friend's aunt, but here she was a stranger. A deadly stranger. He hadn't killed anyone exactly, but he was the reason so many of them didn't exist now; him and Albus and the stupid plan to fix things that weren't really broken.

"Do you ever feel remorse for the—the people you've killed?" he asked quietly.

Flatly now, "It depends on who it is I've killed."

Scorpius blanched.

She shrugged, "I can tell you I know their names. If that makes you feel any better."

"You're not going to survive this war… are you?" It wasn't really a question. "You have no intention of surviving," Scorpius realized.

"If that concerned me, I'd have brought it up months ago."

Big grey eyes stared at her in shock.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," she scoffed. "I don't need your misplaced concern. I need to get the job done. You need me to get the job done. Besides, if what you're saying is true, then it doesn't matter if I survive this war because this isn't the right reality."

Horror mingled with the shock in his eyes.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, "I don't want to live like this anymore, little prince. I don't think you do either and you've been here for what, a week? Try 20 years." Hearing the remnants of the Order moving inside, she sighed. "Here," she said, pulling something on a long chain off over her head. Jo's necklace. "Take this. It's got a tracking charm on it. Activate it and I'll find you. Now get out of here, go get your friend back."

After they had gone, the knowledge that she—that they were happy in another reality finally hit home for Leilani, though she wasn't going to admit it out loud.

For a moment, she was jealous of the other her, she had Fred, Jo, parents, kids: a family. But here, she didn't have any of that. Fred and Jo were gone, it had been 20 years since she'd spoken to her parents or sister; she knew they were alive but for all she knew, they thought she was dead.

How come the other her got to have it all? Though… there had been a moment, a brief, shining moment, when she had had it all. But then Fred had been killed and she'd gone after the death eater and had taken two Stuns to the abdomen. She was lucky she wasn't dead.

Flashback

Just post the Fall of Hogwarts

June 1998

Voldemort had taken residence in the minister's office and his Death Eaters were holed up in Malfoy Manor. They had been for months now. Rumor stated that the Malfoys were not particularly pleased with their compatriots living in their house. The manor was protected against Appartition, true, but she'd gotten in once before. She could do it again. Last time had been easier; she'd had Dobby. This time, she dropped into the center of Stonehenge, lucky for her there was nobody around to see her appear out of thin air.

She slipped into her animagus form and flew for the Manor.

Jo's voice was in her head, saying, This is a profoundly stupid plan.

I know, she thought back.

Then why are you doing it?

They killed you.

Four years ago. If you're avenging me, why now?

They killed Fred.

As a figment of Leili's memory and imagination, Jo should have known that.

You're going to get yourself killed. Her figment Jo warned.

Voldemort won't be there. Without him there, I have a chance to get out.

A slim one! You're planning suicide by Death Eater. I wouldn't have wanted this. Fred wouldn't have wanted this. Your parents definitely don't want this.

I know.

Leili's mental Jo gave a little sigh and said, Tell me the plan.

This is where the fault lay in her mental Jo; the real Jo would have tried harder to stop her. But then, the real Jo was four years dead and this one was just an echo inside her broken head.

Without Voldemort there, and with his hold on the country pretty much a sure thing, security won't be as strict as it was in March. I won't be able to Apparate in, but what's stopping me from walking in?

Um, the Death Eaters?

Won't kill me on the spot. I wrote Ced, made sure he was on patrol today. Besides, I'm a schoolmate of Draco's and Marcus' and Cedric's, that's three Death Eaters; I'm your best friend and a member of Dumbledore's Army. They're gonna want to find out what I know first. Then they'll kill me.

Harry's dead, why would they care about a member of a leader-less resistance?

You've been dead for four years so I don't expect you to know, but last I checked: I'm on their most-wanted list. A hint of pride accompanied the thought.

This is the stupidest thing you have ever done.

Do you have a better plan?

Yes. Go HOME.

Too late. She dropped down behind Cedric who was indeed outside the gates, as promised, but there was another Death Eater with him. They were smoking. Oh, things just got complicated. She pulled herself to her full human height—which wasn't very tall, 5'2" at loud she said, "Smoking, nasty habit."

Startled, they turned on her, wands drawn. Her empty hands were up, surrendering. Her surrender faltered when she recognized the Death Eater with Cedric. Her face lost its teasing humor. She'd never thrown a punch before, but that didn't stop her from trying it now. Her fist swung wildly and connected solidly with his jaw.

Jesus! That hurt! she told her mental Jo.

That's why when I actually hit someone I aimed for the soft, squishy bits. You know: stomach, jugular, groin. You're lucky you didn't break something.

I'm not so sure I didn't. Ow.

Marcus Flint wiggled his jaw, running two fingers along the spot where her punch had landed. He smiled genially back at her, as incarcerous wound ropes around her wrists, "Hello, Leilani. Nice to see you again."

Her lips curled as she snarled, "Traitor." She attempted to shake out her hand but was hampered by the bindings.

"Now, now, is that anyway to treat an old friend?"

"You are no friend of mine!" Leili continued to snarl at him, "I am going to rip your guts out through your nose when I get out of here."

"Good luck with that," he said.

Privately, Marcus was disappointed; he'd hoped Leilani would have figured out by now that he wasn't in the Death Eaters because he wanted to be. It was the family business, so to speak. His parents were die-hard Death Eaters, they had never given up that their Dark Lord would return. He'd joined after Jocelyn had died, after he'd been given no other choice. If he had joined before, like his parents had wanted, maybe he would have been in the graveyard that night. Maybe he could have saved her. But he hadn't been and she was dead. He had to live with that guilt now.

"Leilani, he's not what you think—" Cedric started.

"Let her think what she likes," Marcus shrugged, waving Cedric off.

"Are you gonna take me inside or what?" she interrupted.

They brought her inside the Manor.

"This little tart says she has valuable information to trade," Marcus said as they approached the back of what could only be described as a throne-like chair. Leili figured it must have belonged to Lucius, as head of the house he would be the one to warrant a throne.

She turned wide, surprised, almost amused eyes on Marcus, "I'm a tart now, am I? Fascinating. Funny what going Death Eater will do for your vocabulary."

What happened to your brain-mouth filter? I distinctly recall you had one.

It died when you did.

"What information do you have that you think we could possibly want?" Lucius drawled, turning his chair to face them.

"I will tell you anything you want to know about the Slytherpuff Alliance and Dumbledore's Army if you tell me where I can find Death Eater Rookwood."

"Is that so? And why do you come to us now?"

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to look a gift-horse in the mouth? Just point me toward Rookwood and I'll tell you anything you want to know."

Cedric was suppressing the urge to gape at his fellow Hufflepuff. He sincerely hoped she was bluffing, or at least had some very good, bad information to pass on.

"Information first, since there's no guarantee you'll live to pass it on."

"Fine, then." So she told them, she sold out her friends, her year-mates, the people she'd spent six years protecting. She told them everything. And if they tortured her, that's what they would find. If they tried Occlumency on her, that's what they would find. She hid everything she still cared about by hiding nothing.

What are you doing!? Cedric wondered as he fought he urge to slap a hand over her mouth and drag her from the house.

She hadn't told him the plan, she hadn't told anyone the plan, except for George. Last night she had sat down with him and explained what she needed, she needed to bury the truth, the real hidey-holes, the real plans so deep beneath a layer of lies that without his help, she would never be able to tell truth from fiction. In the layer of lies he planted red herrings, places the order had been, places they made it look like they were coming back to.

Both she and George knew that if this didn't work, she was dead. He made her secret keeper to the lies and then helped her forget, forget everything except her mission: to find and kill the man who had taken Fred away from them. If she survived, George would find her and put her humpty dumpty head back together again. She knew if she survived, she had to find George and tell him Rookwood was dead.

When she was finished, she said, "Our bargain?"

Draco's father gestured and Cedric removed the ropes, "I hope you know what you're doing."

"Don't worry, Ced, it'll be over before you know it," she whispered back. She held out an unbound hand toward Marcus. "My wand?"

He slapped it handle first into her palm and she caught a strange look in his eyes as she turned, he looked…sad. But no, that couldn't be, Marcus Flint was a heartless betrayer and death eater, he wouldn't look sad.

Rookwood sent spells hurtling towards her before she turned to face him. "Not to be a proper duel, then?" she called as she ducked. "Fine."

Spells were thrown about the room, some landing, others going wild, some bouncing off hastily thrown shields. Leilani tried to block out the things he was saying, tried to stop the feeling she'd betrayed everyone she'd ever loved and for what? To die, hopefully taking Rookwood with her.

Rookwood's Crucio caught her off-guard; it hit seconds before her shield went up. She crumpled into a screaming ball of pain, her consciousness splintering as darkness danced in front of her eyes. She knew someone had gotten inside her head, causing that half-second delay. She'd never been a good Occlumens and in a room full of Legillimens, that was bad. Her lightning shot out around her like an earthquake, striking anyone not quick enough to duck. She heard Rookwood's cry of surprised pain when he was hit and a grim smile spread across her face.

Shaking and panting, Leili hastily constructed an illusion spell that sent copies of her through the room. She ducked and dove through them as they moved around her, a giant shell game intended to disguise her and confuse him. Between one illusory copy and the next she vanished. She was extremely grateful she'd had to practice disillusionment spells as often as she had at school, it meant she was now very good at them.

Leili had no idea how long the duel continued on for but she was running out of energy, illusions took a lot out of her. Of course, even blind squirrels, broken clocks and Death Eaters got lucky sometimes. A randomly fired Cruciatus curse found her and once he had found her, there was no more hiding, only unending pain.

It was getting hard to breathe, to think, the only thing she had been doing for a while now was screaming and shielding. She tried to block out the things Rookwood was saying he'd do to her when she gave up, the things he'd make her watch him do to everyone she'd come here to betray. There was a maniacal glint in his eyes and he licked his lips like a cat looking at a mouse. She shuddered but her revulsion was lost inside shaking she couldn't control.

Her copies burst and vanished when struck by Rookwood's spells. She was getting desperate, if she didn't end this soon, he would and it would suck.

Gathering up the scraps of her strength, she wordlessly sent a stunner at Rookwood and dashed away. Rookwood shouted and spells went shooting into her copies. There wasn't time to shield or duck as twin jets of red spell light collided with her. She heard herself yelp and then the whole world went black. In the blink of an eye, her illusions and disguises faded away, leaving her exposed and unconscious on the floor. They must have thought she was dead—or soon about to be—because they didn't finish her off.

She remained alive as Marcus was directed to "Get rid of her."

Marcus fisted a hand over his heart and gave a little bow. "It shall be done." He scooped her, limp as a rag doll, into his arms. He needed to get her to Mungo's. Simultaneous stuns could be fatal if untreated.

Cedric tried not to watch as Marcus carried their friend out the manor doors.

"This stunt was stupid, you know," Marcus told her when they were out of ear reach.

She was still out cold, but he talked to her anyway, he didn't think she'd listen to him if she was awake and it was the first time he'd had human contact outside of Voldemort's goons—and Cedric.

"It was stupid enough to rival Jocelyn's worst ideas. I'm sorry she's gone. I'm sorry I couldn't have saved her, the least I can do now is save you. So that's what will happen. If they find out you're still alive after this, I'm a dead man. So do me a favor, lie low."

Once out of sight of the manor Marcus Apparated away. He landed in an alley near the hospital, making sure to change his robes for something less death-eater-ey before running through the window of a bricked-up department store, "Purge and Dowse, Ltd."

He bypassed the surly Welcome Witch and headed straight for the fourth floor. He laid her gently on an unoccupied bed. He stuck out one arm and clamped a hand over the wrist of a passing Healer.

"I dare say, dear boy, release me!"

Marcus pointed to Leilani, "She took two stuns at once. She's still breathing, I want her to stay that way."

The Healer blanched and called for reinforcements, outlining the situation and her stats. Marcus was crowded away from her side; that was ok. He needed to get back to the manor anyway; even if he wanted to stay, he couldn't leave Cedric there alone.

As he turned to leave one of the nurses stopped him, "You're bleeding." She rolled up his sleeve to tend the wound only there was no wound; the blood wasn't his. They both frowned at his arm—the non-tattooed one, thank Merlin—then turned as someone at Leilani's side swore colorfully.

"She's bleeding!"

The nurse turned to rush back to her patient but Marcus caught her arm.

"When she wakes up, don't tell her I was the one to bring her here." The nurse nodded and Marcus walked out of Leilani's life, half expecting to never walk back in, either because he was dead or she was. He left the blood on his sleeve; it would help sell the story that she was dead.

Marcus returned to the manor, his only goal to be seen by as many Death Eaters as possible. He took dinner with them and then declared a migraine and went for what served as his room. It wasn't unusual for him to not be seen for a while when he had his migraines, he claimed that light and sound made the headaches worse, so the Death Eaters pretty much let him hide in his room, it's not like they cared about him anyway. A house elf would bring his meals and collect the dishes.

When sleep descended on the Manor, he changed into jeans and a leather jacket and snuck out. He stopped by Jocelyn's grave. It was common knowledge even among the Death Eaters that he had loved her…that he still loved her.

"She's lost her mind," he murmured.

Grief will do that. A voice whispered in his mind. But you saved her life.

"Maybe."

If you're worried about her, go see her. Talk to her. Explain. She'll understand if you explain.

"I miss you, Jocelyn." He laid a bouquet of flowers on her stone before shoving his hands in his pockets and walking away. To make sure he wasn't followed, he took a circuitous route to St. Mungo's before Apparating inside.

That night, he sat by the bedside of the closest thing he had left to a friend, outside of Cedric who was more of an ally than a friend, and waited.

Eventually, she stirred.

"Don't scream!" he whispered hastily as her eyes peeled open. "Hex me if you like, but don't scream."

"Marcus?" she asked. Leili blinked, squinted, blinked again. "I must be dreaming."

Marcus' normally stoic face smiled, honest relief and humor clearing his face of the shadows that had plagued it for years. His hair was disheveled, like he'd been running his hands through it.

Leili rubbed a hand over her face, "Yup, definitely dreaming. You haven't smiled at me since you turned Death Eater. Not that you smiled at me much before that, but you smiled at Jo."

"Will you let me explain that?"

"What for?" She yawned, "I'm dreaming; you're not going to tell me anything I don't already know. Hmmm…" She sighed, snuggling into her blankets. "It's nice, being able to talk to you. I don't talk to very many people anymore."

"Nor me. Are you okay?"

"Depends on your definition. I'm not me anymore. Not for a while, I think. But I'm alive. I think. I am alive right? This isn't some strange after-death hallucination?"

Marcus huffed a laugh, "You're alive. Jocelyn would never have forgiven me if I let you get killed."

"I miss her."

"Me too. What were you thinking? You almost got yourself killed."

"I was thinking Rookwood needed to pay. And I was thinking that if I die, I see them again."

"You've lost your goddamn mind," Marcus said, shaking his head.

She scowled, "You're awfully judgmental for a dream."

"Rookwood is still alive."

She swore softly, "Damn. I guess I'll have to try again."

"They're gone, Leilani. Killing Rookwood won't bring them back."

"It'll make me feel better."

"Well aren't you the little hero," he sneered.

Her laugh was a little hysterical, "There's the Marcus I remember!"

He scowled and rolled his eyes, grumbling, "When did you become the annoying little sister I didn't want?"

"Probably when you fell in love with my best friend."

His scowl softened slightly. "I miss her," he said quietly.

"Me too."

Two days later, Leilani woke again, this time blinking in confusion at the bright hospital surroundings.

"Hey, kiddo," a familiar voice whispered.

"Daddy?" she said. "What are you doing here?"

"I worked here, Hon; you think these people don't know my daughter when they see her? I've been shoving photos of you and your sister in everyone's faces since you were born. I'd have been livid if they had you here and didn't call me."

"How did I get here?"

He ignored the question, flagging down a passing Healer to fill her in on what had happened. "You took two Stuns, luckily not to the chest or I don't think you would have survived it. As it is, you survived but your baby did not. I'm sorry to inform you that you suffered a spontaneous abortion."

The news was delivered quickly and unemotionally.

"I'm sorry, what?" Leili blurted as her dad spluttered.

"You had a miscarriage, dear," a nurse offered far more gently, glaring at the Healer.

"You're pregnant?!" Her dad squeaked. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Was," she whispered, her arms wrapping around her belly as she curled into a ball, like she could protect what was no longer there.

She and Fred hadn't gotten married by the time he'd died. They'd been planning to, but with everything going on, it just hadn't seemed like the right time. Just because they weren't married didn't mean they were celibate, though; they lived together, slept in the same bed, did… other things in that bed. She shouldn't have been surprised, she remembered missing her period, but there had been so much going on that she'd dismissed it, putting it down to the stress of the situation—it wouldn't be the first time.

It was mid June, Fred had died in Early May. She was—had been roughly two months along and she'd been so distracted she hadn't noticed. She pressed down on the tears that threatened to overwhelm, pressed down on the utter devastation that came with. Her baby was gone.

Just.

Like.

That.

Rookwood was responsible for yet another death, she definitely was going to kill him now. She badgered her dad, the nurses, the healers, but if they knew who had brought her out of the Manor, they wouldn't say. She remembered her dream, but it was hazy, like most dreams are; everyone swore that no one had come to see her except for her dad.

She never saw Marcus again.

Present Day

Her charm bracelet burned on her wrist, the first time in a long, long time.

Something had gone wrong.

She'd given Jo's necklace to Scorpius. "In Case of Emergency," she'd told him. His lower lip had wobbled for a split second, she was sure of it, and she almost thought he might hug her but then, he'd straightened up, Hermione had Turned Time and they'd gone.

But now her bracelet was burning and she was flying. She flew faster than she'd ever flown before, just in time to see Umbridge come up on Scorpius and Snape. She was so close. Umbridge was thrown through the air and Snape's doe stood regally beside him.

"Always too dramatic for her own good…" Snape murmured to himself. Leili's dolphin burst from her wand before her feet touched the ground.

"So says the man who spent my school years sweeping through the hallways like a great overgrown bat," Leili told him, relishing the glare he shot her.

"Go," was his last order to them as he brought down the Anti-apparition spells.

They went.

Leilani took Scorpius' hand, folding space around them, she Apparated him directly into the middle of the lake. "Learned your lesson, Scor? No more screwing with time."

"No more," he promised and was gone.

She searched the lake for Jo's necklace, but it wasn't there. He'd taken it back with him.

To their surprise, and to Albus', Scorpius sought out Jo and Leilani when he got back.

Jo and Leilani sat down with them and listened to all the things they did not want to tell their parents. "Mr. Diggory came over one night and he and my dad got into a really big fight over a time-turner and whether or not it could bring Cedric back," Albus explained. "It was my idea to take the time turner. I just wanted to fix things."

"And to get back at your dad, right?" Jo asked… not un-kindly, but there was an edge to her question.

Albus mumbled a "yeah." Then, "It's just that he's always going on about how James is a better son th'n me, how he wishes I were more like James or Lily…"

"I have a hunch as to why he said that. Would you like to hear it?" Leili said. She wasn't going to try and force her theories on this kid.

"Whatever."

"I'd like to know…" Scorpius said.

"When your dad was a kid, he did some really stupid things. Both of your dads did some dumb stuff, to be honest. Jo and I were always chasing after Harry and your Uncle Ron and your Aunt Hermione. I'll bet your dad wishes, not that you were more like your brother, though I'm sure that's what you heard him say, but that you were less like him."

"I am nothing like him!" Albus barked, thumping his fist on the table.

Leili held her hands up, palms out, classic 'I surrender'. She was giving up easily, she knew, but if he didn't want to listen, she wasn't going to force it. It was a little like trying to get Pele and Leo to eat their vegetables instead of enchanting them.

"This isn't going anywhere," Jo said, leveling her best hooded-eye stare at the boys. "I have an idea. Come with me if you want the truth."

As Jo and Leili escorted the teenagers to the pensieve Leili noticed something shiny around Scorpius' shirt. "Hold up, you. What's this?" she looped a finger though the chain and pulled it free of the uniform. She froze, "Jo, are you wearing your necklace?"

"Always, why?"

"Cause so is Scorpius."

"You gave it to me," Scorpius said.

Leili blinked then frowned, "Funny, I think I would remember that."

He shifted uncomfortably. "The other you. In the other timeline."

Leili stared, "You… you shouldn't have been able to bring that back with you. The other timeline doesn't exist now, the me who gave you that never existed to give you that."

Jo turned dread-filled eyes back on the 14 year old, "It's not over."

Aaaaand this is where I lost the thread. I should go back and reread the book, but if you're reading this, I never did. If I ever find the thread again I'll finish it in a new chapter but don't hold your breath. Sorry, I know it's a bit of a cliff hanger. :\

Luna, I'd still like you to be a beta reader of my original fiction. Send an email address to DelicatelyShadyGalaxy at maildrop dot cc