Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and its characters belong to JK Rowling.

Prologue

On the night of Dumbledore's funeral, the wizard known as Barnabus Grey packed his suitcase. He wasn't entertaining thoughts of escape. The idea of fleeing the country, no matter how tempting, was not feasible. Bitter experience had taught him that no place on earth was safe when the Dark Lord was truly determined to find someone. The last time he had tried to run… But he wouldn't allow himself to think of that. He turned the black grief that that memory had conjured into pity for the Potter boy and his sister, who would almost certainly be the Dark Lord's first targets now that a second war was inevitable.

Barnabus picked up his suitcase and smiled mirthlessly when he realised that all his worldly possessions now fit into such a small container. All of his valuables – treasures of both magical and muggle history, collected painstakingly over decades – had been sent out of the country with his daughter, Clara, the moment the news of Dumbledore's death had reached his ears. He no longer knew where Clara was hiding, having wiped that knowledge from his mind when she sent word that she had arrived safely. By the end of the night he would believe her to be dead.

It is a terrible thing, devising your own child's death, but that was precisely what Barnabus had been doing for the past few days. The only chance for Clara's survival was to convince the Dark Lord that she was dead, and so Barnabus had created a spell that would wipe away his memories of the last three years with his daughter and replace them with a single false one: her death. Creating that memory had been more difficult than Barnabus had anticipated. Would it cause him more pain if she had been taken by an accident or an illness? He had decided on an accident, hoping that the hardest part of the process was over, and then realised that he would have to work out the specific details of her death. Had she fallen off her broom or had she become the victim of a backfiring experiment? Had he been there to witness it or had someone from St Mungo's informed him?

Barnabus ran a shaking hand over his face and ordered himself not to dwell on it. In a few hours he would be able to think of nothing else, and he would remain in the grip of a terrible grief unless, by some miracle, the Dark Lord fell and Clara returned to him. Instead he turned his thoughts to his own fate. The packed suitcase was testament to his strong hope that the Dark Lord would allow him to live. If so, he would take his place in the new world, sliding back into the role he had played in the first war. Once again he would be professor, collector, custodian.

Murderer.

The inescapable word rose to the surface of his treacherous mind.

Barnabus sat in an armchair opposite the door, suitcase balanced on his knees, and waited for them to come.