"Blood is the god of war’s rich livery."

~Christopher Marlowe

CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Color of Christmas

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley arrived the next morning with a suitcase each and several large and interesting looking bundles (which Harry suspected were full of gifts), the bad news that Lucius Malfoy had been spirited out of Azkaban ("not that we weren’t expecting it!" Mr. Weasley had told him grimly) and poor old Errol in a cage. They would be staying for a week and were promptly given one of the most comfortable guestrooms, which were located down by the kitchens off the same stone hallway that led to the Hufflepuff common room.

Mr. Weasley had letters from Bill, Charlie and the twins all assuring their parents that they would be up to Hogwarts to spend Christmas day with their family and a curt note from Percy declining his mother’s invitation to join them and which, (McGonagall assured Harry privately) was probably for the best, seeing as that a good number of the Order had accepted her offer of Christmas dinner at Hogwarts.

Ron had been worried that having his parents (particularly his mother) at Hogwarts for an entire week would be more than he could reasonably stand, but all his fears turned out to be unfounded. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley divided their time fairly evenly between their own guestroom down by the kitchens, taking long walks around the grounds hand-in-hand like a pair of teenagers or chatting with the other teachers and staff in the living area full of squashy armchairs that Professor McGonagall had conjured up in one corner of the Great Hall beside one of the larger Christmas trees.

As Christmas came closer, more and more order members began arriving at the castle and the corridors were no longer as empty as they had been and it was no longer a shock to walk around a corner and find Mad Eye Moody talking intently to Professor McGonagall or to walk into a deserted classroom and find a small knot of witches and wizards conversing in low and earnest tones.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny began spending more time in their own common room and dormitories, although this was hardly a hardship, seeing as that one common room and seven boys dormitories were more than large enough for two couples to loose themselves in.

It was an odd sensation to be able to wake up in the same bed as Ginny and not have to worry about her sneaking back to her own dormitory before someone found out. And Harry found that it was a sensation he liked entirely too much. How on earth was he going to be able to go back to sleeping in his four poster all by himself?

"Who said you’ll have to be by yourself?" retorted Ginny one afternoon about two days before Christmas. They were standing, wrapped in the comforter that had been stripped from Harry’s bed, looking out the window at the fat, goose-feather like flakes that were drifting slowly down out of a slate-gray sky.

The four of them had retired to the common room after a long lunch (during which Mrs. Weasley had regaled them all with stories of her own Hogwarts days), with the excuse that Harry and Ron wanted to continue a Wizard’s Chess game they were in the middle of.

It was a days old game – they’d been using the excuse with some regularity, but somehow never seemed to get more than a move or two in each before they became distracted. Not that anyone was complaining.

"Yeah, well, I suppose you can keep coming up as a cat," said Harry, pulling her closer under the comforter.

"I wasn’t talking about school, silly," murmured Ginny, brushing her lips lightly against his chest.

Harry’s grip tightened instinctively and Ginny giggled as he ran his hands down the length of her, making her squirm as he brushed her ticklish sides.

"I was talking about after," she said softly, putting one hand on his cheek and turning his face so that he was looking at her. "When all of this is over and we won’t have to be apart, ever again."

Harry turned his head away, looking out the window again to hide his rapidly blinking eyes.

"Don’t start that again, Harry," she said reasonably, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him closer. "You’ll end this, I know you will, and we’ll start over."

"Yeah, but Gin, you still have a year of school left," Harry pointed out.

"There have been married students at Hogwarts before," said Ginny with a shrug.

"Ginny, what?"

"I’ll be seventeen in August, Harry. We could get a room in Hogsmeade until I'’ done with my seventh year.""

"Would you parents," Harry stopped, looked down at her, and grinned. "Would McGonagall go for it? I mean, just because it’s been done before doesn’t mean she’d be willing to go for it now."

"No use worrying about it now, anyway," said Ginny, shrugging in a way that brought even more of her body in contact with his. Harry could feel his ability to reason quickly slipping away. "It may take you longer than another year to track down the last two Horcruxes – let alone track down Voldemort himself, in which case, I’ll be waiting for you when it’s all over. But if things were to come to a head sooner than that, and provided Hogwarts doesn’t get leveled in the process or something, I don’t see how McGonagall or anyone else would be able to see their way clear to denying you anything you asked, let alone something like letting your wife finish her final year at Hogwarts."

Not having to wait another whole year to be with Ginny? It was more than he could have hoped for. But the thought of what he might have to face between now and then made him shiver involuntarily. But then Ginny was snuggling against him with a contented sort of sigh and Harry found all worries about the end of the holidays – or anything beyond right here and now melting away. He’d worry about that later, he had more important things to do, like-

"Harry!"

Ginny’ ;s hands had grasped his wrists in an almost painful grip.

Harry looked up, startled by her tone.

"Ginny, what, did I hurt you?"

"No, Harry, look!"

She was pointing out the window to where the edge of the Forbidden Forest came closest to the lake. Harry looked, but he couldn’t see anything but the fat snowflakes, which were falling so thickly now that they nearly obscured his vision.

"I – I don’t see anything," said Harry, squinting at where she pointed. Just then, beneath the trees, a shadow shifted.

"There, did you see it?" said Ginny, her voice rising slightly.

"I saw something more," said Harry, frowning, "could be a Thestral maybe."

"It wasn’t big enough to be a Thestral. And besides, they don’t come that close to the edge of the forest," said Ginny a note of nervousness now in her voice. "Not unless Hagrid lures them with meet or something.

"A Centaur maybe?" suggested Harry. "Or Grawp maybe, he’s been helping Hagrid with his gamekeeper duties."

"I’d know if it was Grawp," said Ginny with a grimace. "Couldn’t bloody well mistake him for anything else now, could I? No, this was closer to being man-sized, but it didn’t look like any sort of man I’ve ever seen. In fact, it didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before. And it crossed there," she pointed to the span of ground between the lake and the forest. "Right there, see the footprints?"

Harry could just make out some oddly shaped depressions in the snow. He could feel his frown tightening slightly. "Think we should tell someone?" asked Harry, staring at the section of forest where he had seen the shadows shifting. "Hagrid maybe, he could get Grawp to look into it. There weren’t very many creatures in the forest that could stand up to Grawp. Harry had a feeling that even the Acromantulas would steer clear of him.

"I don’t know Harry. Telling Hagrid might not be such a good idea," Ginny pointed out.

"Why?"

"You know Hagrid," said Ginny with a sigh. "If Grawp doesn’t kill it, Hagrid would probably defend it."

"You’ve got a point," Harry conceded. "Lupin then," he said after a moment’s consideration. "He just got in this morning. I saw him at breakfast."

* * *

After an hour’s searching Harry found Lupin in Professor Slughorn’s office. The pair of them were seated in armchairs by the fire while Slughorn occasionally gave the potion bubbling on the hearth a vigorous stirring.

"Coming up on the full moon, Remus?" said Harry by way of greeting.

Lupin gave Harry a wry smile before pulling him into a bone-crushing hug.

"I was wondering where you’d got to, Harry," he said brightly.

"Come in Harry, come in!" called Slughorn. "Have some crystallized pineapple, or a glass of mead perhaps? I’m just finishing up the Wolfsbane potion for Remus, he’ll be needing it in a day or two. Remus," he said, barely pausing to draw a breath. "Our boy here has been doing a wonderful job as Defense teacher. The students have been making excellent progress!"

"I’m certain they have," said Lupin, smiling at Harry. "Harry is known for his excellent instincts when it comes to dealing with the Dark Arts."

"Naturally, naturally," said Slughorn, patting Harry’s shoulder with a plump hand. "We were just reminiscing about old school days," said Slughorn, beaming at Harry.

"I’m sorry to interrupt, Professor," said Harry quickly. "But could I borrow Remus for a moment? There’s something I need to ask him."

"By all means my boy. The potion won’t be ready for another two days anyway," said Slughorn to Lupin. "So take you’re time. I’ll bring you some when it’s ready."

Harry explained all about the shadow at the edge of the woods that Ginny had seen, and the set of footprints it had left behind.

"Could have been anything," said Lupin thoughtfully, "but if Ginny said it was like nothing she’d ever seen before-"

"Then it was probably something unusual," finished Harry.

"It should be looked into at any case," said Lupin, nodding. "I’ll take Moody and Hagrid. If it’s a creature, Hagrid will know immediately. If it is something else, then it would be best to have Moody along. In any case, we should know more by suppertime. See you then?"

Harry nodded and watched, feeling inexplicably anxious as he watched Lupin walk briskly away.

* * *

But Lupin wasn’t at Supper. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were all waiting anxiously to find out what the strange thing Ginny had seen had been.

"Probably a vampire," said Ron, looking excited.

"What is it with you and vampires, Ron?" wondered Harry idly.

"I’ve just never seen one is all," said Ron with a shrug.

"No," said Ginny with an evil grin. "He’s got neck-biting on the brain is all."

To Harry’s astonishment, Hermione turned bright pink and tugged at the collar of the high-necked jumper she was wearing.

It hadn’t escaped any of them that not only had Lupin not shown up, but Hagrid and Moody were both absent from the dinner table as well.

"You don’t suppose they actually found something, do you?" wondered Ron as he ate his way through his fourth slice of apple crumble.

"You saying I was lying?" said Ginny in an icy voice.

"Of course not," said Ron with a dismissive wave. "You saw something, but you said yourself, you didn’t know what it was."

"No, I said that I’d never seen anything like it before," Ginny corrected him.

Harry, who was working on his second helping of pudding, ignored them. He couldn’t seem to shake his growing sense of dread; a dread accompanied by an almost certain feeling that something, somewhere had gone terribly wrong.

* * *

"Harry?" The gravely voice wasn’t Ginny’s. Neither for that matter was the hand on his shoulder.

"Whatimzit?" muttered Harry groggily, reaching for his glasses. He fumbled them on, to find Remus Lupin standing beside the bed. In the harsh light of the wand he held above his head, Lupin looked even older and grayer than he did in daylight. Harry started guiltily, glancing to where Ginny lay tangled in the bedclothes beside him.

"After midnight," said Lupin briskly. He didn’t seem in the least disturbed to have found them in bed together. "Look, Harry, you need to come downstairs, now, both of you," he added, nodding towards Ginny who was now sitting up beside him, the sheet drawn up to her chin. "Where’s Ron?" Lupin added, looking around the dormitory.

Harry opened his mouth to say he didn’t know, but Lupin preempted him. "We need to find them, now. Everyone’s meeting in the hospital wing. Tonks is upstairs now in the girls dorm, she was supposed to be collecting you and Hermione," said Lupin to Ginny.

"The hospital wing?" said Ginny, speaking for the first time since Lupin had entered the room. "Please don’t tell me that someone else has been hurt!"

"I-" Lupin cleared his throat. "McGonagall sent Tonks and I to collect you lot. We’re not supposed to tell you any more until everyone is accounted for." At the look on Ginny’s face he added gently, "it’s no one from your family, Ginny." He turned to Harry. "Do either of you know where Ron or Hermione might be?"

"I can find them quicker if – I’ll get them," said Ginny, turning quickly into her cat form and slipping into the shadows.

Lupin stared after her. "Minerva’s suspected for some time that Ginny had Animagus powers," he said slowly to Harry. "But I don’t recall her ever saying that Ginny had ever managed to actually change."

"That’s probably because McGonagall doesn’t know," said Harry, unable to keep the grin off of his face as he remembered the stunned looks on Ron, Hermione and Neville’s faces as they had watched Ginny turn from a cat back into a girl after McGonagall had made her surprise visit to the boy’s dorm a couple of months previously. "Sirius taught her the basics the summer before her fourth year and she figured the rest out for herself."

"Incredible," said Lupin, shaking his head as Harry slipped into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and pocketed his wand.

Ginny reappeared just minutes later. She was back in girl form (and, Harry noted with amusement, fully dressed) and had a scared-looking Ron and Hermione in tow with Tonks trailing along behind. Ten minutes later the six of them, Lupin in the lead and Tonks brining up the rear, entered the Hospital wing.

The hospital wing was as full as Harry had ever seen it, though not with patients. The handful of Hogwarts students who had not gone home over the holidays were clustered together just inside the main doors, whispering and talking together in low voices and eying with some curiosity the large group of adult witches and wizards who had congregated at the farther end of the ward.

With a heavy, sinking sensation, Harry realized that most of the activity centered around a bed around which a series of screens had been erected.

Not Hagrid, thought Harry wildly as they approached the screens his eyes desperately jumping from knot to knot of witches and wizards, looking for Hagrid’s reassuring largeness. Please don’t let it be Hagrid.

Lupin led them around the screens and for the briefest of moments Harry thought that his worst fears had come true, for there was Hagrid sitting on one of the very fragile looking hospital chairs; beside him stood Mr. Weasley who was patting Hagrid’s massive shoulder. Even standing Mr. Weasley (who was very tall) only came up to Hagrid’s nose, and it took Harry a moment to realize that while Hagrid was, as usual, appearing to take up all the available space in the cramped cubicle, he wasn’t the occupant of the bed.

Lying against the pillow, his mane of grizzled gray hair matted with blood, lay Mad-Eye Moody. He looked gray, as if all the color had been leached from his face. Mrs. Weasley was bent over him, applying cold compresses to his wrists.

"Oh my god!" Hermione’s small gasp was clearly audible, but the occupant of the bed didn’t do as much as stir.

Hagrid, however, looked up. His face was puffy from crying, and he had a nasty gash that ran from the corner of his eye to just below his jaw. Madam Pomfrey had obviously already treated it, but it looked as if it had been dreadfully deep and Harry thought that it would probably leave a scar.

"He’s not gonna make it," said Hagrid, his voice gruff with emotion. "Madam Pomfrey says that even if we could get him to St. Mungo’s, that there’s nothing they could do."

"There are Healers on the way," said Madam Pomfrey who had just bustled behind the screens with a spoonful of greenish medicine at the ready. "We couldn’t risk moving him. I’ve given him blood coagulants and replenishers, but he’s bleeding internally."

"What happened?" said Ginny in a very small voice. "What did this to him? A werewolf?"

"We don’t know," came a new voice; McGonagall’s.

Harry looked around. Professor McGonagall and Kingsley Shaklebolt were standing just inside of the privacy screens, both of them looking very grave.

"Poppy, the Healers have arrived," she said quietly.

The rest took this as their cue to file out from behind the screens. Professor McGonagall motioned them into Madam Pomfrey’s office where they would have a degree of privacy even as two very serious looking wizards in dark blue robes made their way down the crowded ward.

"We went out to investigate that shadow you saw," said Lupin once he, Professor McGonagall, Tonks, Hagrid, Kingsley, Hermione, Harry and the Weasleys had settled themselves on the various pieces of furniture scattered around Madam Pomfrey’s rather cramped office.

"It had left footprints all right," croaked Hagrid, shaking his great shaggy head. "But they weren’t footprints left by any creature I’ve ever seen. There were three of us, all of us armed, so we didn’t think twice about following the footprints into the forest."

Beside him, Hermione gave an involuntary shudder. Their last foray into the Forbidden Forest had brought them into contact with a heard of murderous Centaurs.

"Did – did you find the owner of the footprints?" asked Ron, his voice rather shaky.

"It found us," said Hagrid flatly.

"We’d stopped in a clearing," began Lupin, trying to explain. "Or rather, the footprints had stopped in the clearing."

"One minute they were there, the footprints and the next they were gone. They just – stopped." supplied Hagrid helpfully. "And then – then it, the creature, just – appeared."

"You mean it Apparated?" asked Kingsley quickly.

"Seemed like it," said Hagrid, shaking his head. "Couldn’t have been though, could it? I mean, creatures like that can’t Apparate."

"No, of course not," said McGonagall reassuringly.

"So whatever this thing was, it just sort of appeared out thin air and fell on Moody as if he had been the intended target all along," said Lupin heavily. "We tried to get to him, but the thing – whatever it was - just kept brushing us aside like we were midges. Nothing seemed to affect it."

"I even tried to flatten the bloody thing," growled Hagrid, looking fierce. "I’m a head taller than it was at least, but it threw me, gave me this," he said, pointing to the gash on his cheek.

"Threw you?" asked Harry incredulously. He couldn’t imagine anything short of a giant being able to manhandle Hagrid, let alone throw him. "How big was this thing?"

"Man-sized," said Lupin tiredly. "Not much taller than me. A little heavier and definitely broader across the shoulders, but it shouldn’t have been powerful enough to throw Hagrid."

"It did look pretty fierce though," said Hagrid shakily. "I don’t think it was natural. It . . ." he paused and swallowed hard.

In the quiet Harry could hear Moody’s ragged breathing from behind the screens. The occasional rasps and gurgles sounded as if something very nasty were taking up residency in Moody’s chest.

"It stood upright, like a man," said Lupin, when it became clear that Hagrid wouldn’t be able to finish the description. "It had a head and two legs and two arms. It even had five fingers on each hand, but the fingers ended in talons, not finger nails, and I could swear that the damned thing was double-jointed – I bent it’s whole arm backwards, and it didn’t so much as blink."

"Skin didn’t look human," grunted Hagrid. "It didn’t smell human either."

"Its skin was mottled," explained Lupin rather shakily. "Part regular looking skin, part some sort of scaly substance – like Dragon hide. And it’s face . . ." his voice trailed away and he shivered.

"Hagrid told me that the face was contorted," said Mr. Weasley, taking his glasses off and rubbing them on his jumper. "Like a person partway through some sort of transfiguration to something lizard – or dragon like."

"Polyjuice Potion?" said Harry quickly, remembering the bubbling feeling as his skin had melted when he had taken the potion in his second year.

"We’re considering that possibility," said Kingsley gravely. "Polyjuice Potion, as I’m sure you’ve learned in class, is not for cross-species switches."

Harry and Ron both turned to look at Hermione who had turned very faintly pink.

"Why would anyone voluntarily take Polyjuice Potion that would turn them into a creature like that?" wondered Mrs. Weasley in a tear-filled voice. "Especially when they understood the risks involved?"

"We don’t know that it was Polyjuice Potion, Molly," said Lupin soothingly. Lupin glanced at Professor McGonagall, who nodded. "Minerva thinks that it may have been a human using some sort of Transfiguration spell."

"But you said it Apparated!" said Hermione abruptly. "No one can Apparate inside of the Hogwarts grounds! It says so in Hogwarts; A History."

"I said it seemed like it had Apparated," said Hagrid, shaking his great, shaggy head. "It could have been using something else. A cloak maybe, or an invisibility shield. But even it’s ability to appear and disappear doesn’t worry me as much as the teeth. Nastiest collection of teeth I’ve seen short of a Manticore and razor sharp too, bit clean through a sapling Remus was using to ward it off."

"Why – why didn’t you use magic against it?" said Hermione in a very small and tentative voice.

"Oh, we tried all right," said Lupin with a dry chuckle.

"Everything just bounced off," said Hagrid with a grimace.

"You mean like a dragon, or an acrumentula?" wondered Harry.

"No," said Lupin slowly. "It was more like it had some sort of defensive shield up."

"Which is another thing that makes us think that it is – or was at one time – human," said Tonks with a shudder. "Regardless of how magical the creature – if it was a creature, some of the spells that were used against it should have had some sort of effect on it."

"So you think it’s still in the forest?" asked Ron, looking nervous.

"Most likely," said Lupin with a shrug.

"What I’d like to know," said McGonagall darkly. "Is how this – this thing – got past the wards."

"That’s something we’d all like to know," said Kingsley in his deep, calming voice. "I’ve put together a group of Aurors and other experts who will be running a thorough search of the castle as soon as we’re finished here."

"That’s why we’ve collected everyone in the hospital wing," said Professor McGonagall, nodding. "Easier to keep track of everyone, besides keeping them out of the way while we conduct our search."

"Mr. Weasley, Ms. Granger?" she said, addressing Ron and Hermione who were sitting side by side on a low dresser. "I want you two to take a complete roll of the students – make certain everyone is accounted for. All visits to the restrooms – we’ll use the ones here in the hospital wing – will be done in groups of no less than three . . ."

"Do you think they’ll find it?" murmured Ginny, her hand slipping into his as they slipped out of Madam Pomfrey’s office and made their way toward the knot of students.

"Before it finds us you mean?" said Harry with a wry smile.

* * *

The search of the castle, which was completed by breakfast, had turned up nothing. It was a subdued group that sat down to breakfast in the Great Hall, for in spite of the Healer’s best efforts, Alastor Moody had died around three in the morning from severe internal injuries.

Instead of everyone going their own way at the end of the meal, Professor McGonagall stood up and made the following announcement.

"As most of you know, Alastor Moody died early this morning from injuries he received while investigating an intruder on the school grounds. We have conducted a thorough search of the castle and its immediate grounds and, while we have been able to conclude that the attacker is not within the castle, until we have made a thorough search of the grounds I am imposing the following regulations: All students will remain inside of the castle walls. Any air or exercise will be taken in the courtyards. No student, I repeat, no student will leave this castle by any means or for any reason, unless I have personally given them permission and detailed instructions."

"Those guests who are currently staying in the castle, you are free to come and go as you will, but due to the reinforced security on the wards, you will have to have either myself, Remus Lupin, or Mr. Kingsley Shaklebolt escort you off the premises and contact us by the usual means when you are ready to return."

* * *

"So what happens if I suddenly discover where another Horcrux is hidden?" Harry wondered to the others that evening by the common room fire.

"You’ll have to go to McGonagall," said Hermione, shrugging.

"But what if I just have an idea of where it is?" Harry insisted.

"Is there something you’re not telling us, mate?" asked Ron curiously.

"Nope," said Harry comfortably, propping his feet on the fender so that his socks (which had gotten wet through during an impromptu snowball fight he and Ron and Ginny had gotten into in the courtyard after supper) could dry out.

Hermione, who didn’t seem to think that snowball fights were appropriate so soon after the tragic events of the previous evening, had refused to participate, watching the three of them instead from the doorway with a severely disapproving expression on her face.

"It’s not that I’m glad Moody’s dead," Harry had explained to Ginny when they’d trooped back up to the common room, sopping wet and chilled through. "It’s just that – I can’t make myself think about it every minute or I’ll go crazy."

It was true, too. He found himself going for big chunks of time without thinking of Moody at all. Especially seeing as that Christmas was the very next day. Of course then all it would take was a word – someone mentioning his name – and the whole bucket of guilt would cascade over him in a chilly wash, claiming that it was all Harry’s fault, seeing as that he had been the one to point out the anomaly to Lupin in the first place.

Whether it was because he had never been as close to Alastor Moody (the real Alastor Moody) as he had been to Sirius, or Dumbledore, Harry couldn’t get overly worked up about it. Oddly enough in fact, Harry found that instead of feeling angry or frustrated over Moody’s death, he felt an odd sort of anticipation. A small, elated part of his brain was screaming that this was it! While another, more logical part of him warned him that he wasn’t ready – he didn’t have the last two Horcruxes – he didn’t even have a clue where they could possibly be.

Like now, sitting here by the fire, his damp socks steaming slightly in the heat from the fire, Harry found himself grinning for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Well, maybe not for no reason. Tomorrow was Christmas after all, and he was looking forward to Ginny’s reaction when she saw his present. Boxing Day now, the prospects for Boxing Day were looking pretty gloomy.

Professor McGonagall had announced at supper that there would be a memorial service for Moody at noon the day after Christmas. It was being held at the Ministry, in commemoration of Moody’s long tenure there as a highly-respected Auror and arrangements for transportation would be made for those guests and students who wished to attend.

Harry, who had felt his spirits pick up a bit at the thought of getting out and doing something different, even if it would be to go to the Ministry for Moody’s memorial, had his hopes dashed when Lupin had let him know that the Order thought it best that he not attend something so public.

Mrs. Weasley agreed wholeheartedly, and so Harry would be staying at Hogwarts with Ron, Hermione and Ginny and a skeleton guard to ensure that there were no surprise attacks on the school, although, as Lupin and Tonks both repeatedly reassured him, that with the reinforced wards that had been placed on the school, that even a mouse would have trouble sneaking into Hogwarts undetected.

And that, thought Harry, was the problem altogether, for even if the wards could detect a wayward mouse, it couldn’t catch it; and for that matter, what about the mice already in residence?

* * *

"Oy, George, do you think mum knows about these sleeping arrangements?"

Harry opened a bleary eye to find Fred’s face about six inches from his own. The effect was like having an ice-cold bucket of water splashed over one’s head, especially since Harry was suddenly and terribly aware of the fact that Fred’s baby sister was laying naked in the bed beside him, her arms and legs entwined with his beneath the comforter, her head pillowed on his chest.

"I doubt it," came George’s voice from the other side of the bed. "Seeing as that they both still appear to have all their appendages, and neither of them seems to be blithering."

"It’s not the appendages that worry me," said Fred reasonably, "it’s what they appear to have been doing with them."

"Fuck off, Fred," came Ginny’s voice, still fuzzy with sleep.

"I take back the blithering bit," said George brightly.

"And Merry Christmas to you too, little sis!" said Fred congenially. "I’d enjoy it if I were you, since it may be your last."

"Yeah, when mum finds out-" began George

"She’ll only find out if you’re stupid enough to tell her," muttered Ginny.

"Oh she’ll be upset all right," said Fred, beaming down at them.

"But not at us," added George.

"When the dust settles she’ll be on her knees, thanking us for alerting her to the fact that her daughter is a-"

"If you call me a scarlet woman Fred, it will be the last thing you ever say," said Ginny warningly.

"Is that supposed to scare me?" said Fred, his eyebrows arched skeptically.

"It should," said Ginny, burrowing back into the covers and nestling her head under Harry’s chin. "I’ve improved my Silencing Charm Fred-o."

"And that means what, exactly?"

"Think of her Bat Bogey Hex, only with your tongue so twisted and swollen that it hurts like hell to swallow," said Harry, speaking for the first time since he’d woken up to find the twins on either side of the bed.

"Really?" said George.

"You can ask Goyle if you want," said Ginny creamily. "He spent a week in the hospital wing the last time he called me a blood-traitor bitch."

"He was on a liquid diet for a week and a half," said Harry, grinning at the looks of admiration that both twins were casting at Ginny.

"Pea soup through a straw," said Ginny. She caught Harry’s eye and they both sniggered appreciatively.

"Serves the git right," said George approvingly. "But honestly, Harry, nothing like subtlety, what? I mean, the boys dorm? Couldn’t you think of anything more, uh, romantic at least?"

"What, like you and Gloria Dawson going at it in the Owlery?" said Ginny acidly.

"Damn, Gin! Did you have to remind me?"

"The Owlry?" hooted Harry in glee. "Who was Gloria – no!" said Harry in astonishment, turning to look at George. "You didn’t – not with her!"

"I’ve told him a hundred times that he’ll never live it down," said Fred, shoving Harry’s legs over so that he could sit down on the end of the bed. "I mean, she shagged nearly every bloke in our year."

"Look who’s talking," said Ginny pointedly.

"Apples and Oranges little sis. I don’t shag blokes."

"But you’ve had your share of girls," said Ginny with a delicate shrug.

"Lot you know about it," growled Fred.

"Well, I know about Angelina in the back room of the shop last summer," said Ginny conversationally.

Harry had to restrain himself from laughing outright at the way all the blood seemed to suddenly drain from Fred’s face.

"You told me you were doing an inventory!" said George accusingly.

"He was," sniggered Ginny. "Just not of the stock."

"How the hell did you find out about that?" said Fred in amazement.

"The same way I found out about you and Katie in the locker room at the end of last year said Ginny with a delicate shrug.

"You and Katie?" said George incredulously.

"In the locker room?" put in Harry.

"Nobody knew about that!" said Fred, his voice dangerously quiet.

"I knew," said Ginny with a wicked grin.

"How did you find out?" wondered Fred.

"I have my ways," said Ginny sweetly.

Harry bit his lip, suppressing the urge to laugh at Fred’s look of total disbelief. He had a sneaking suspicion as to Ginny’s ‘ways.’ And was, frankly, surprised that Fred and George hadn’t yet put together the fact of Ginny’s knowing things she shouldn’t and her presence when their notes for the cordless Extendables had gone missing.

"Don’t sweat it, brother mine. I won’t tell if you won’t."

"Looks like you’ve got yourself a deal sis," said George with an evil grin at his twin.

"You bet your arse we’ve got a deal," said Ginny comfortably.

"Good," said George, tossing Ginny’s robe to her. "Now get dressed, there’s presents waiting here," he added, motioning to the two piles of presents at the bottom of Harry’s bed. "And if you don’t open them muy pronto, I may just have to open them myself."

"Looks like someone knows where to send your presents anyway," said Fred with a scowl. "How long have you been shagging The Boy Who Lived?" he asked Ginny.

"Well," said Ginny, sashing her robe and sitting down cross-legged on the end of the bed to peruse her presents. "He is the Chosen One after all."

"That much," said Fred as George sniggered into the bed hangings, "is obvious."

* * *

Christmas dinner was a sumptuous, if rather subdued affair. Two of the house tables had been left set up and were heaped with good things to eat, but the diners were anything but festive. Most were quite solemn and serious; several were crying a few, most of them younger students, kept looking over their shoulders as if they expected to be attacked at any moment.

Harry, Hermione and the nine Weasleys took up nearly one whole end of one of the tables all by themselves. Harry kept finding his eyes drawn back to Bill, who was sitting between Fleur and his father. He remembered first being introduced to Bill in the Weasley’s kitchen the summer before his fourth year, remembered wishing that he had Bill’s rugged good looks and casual way of carrying himself. If he hadn’t known that the man sitting beside Fleur was Bill Weasley, he never would have recognized him as the same man.

Except for the casual attitude, which he still wore with as much aplomb as his dragon-skin boots, Bill was a changed man; his hair, which he had worn long and in a pony tail, had been shaved to allow some of the deeper cuts on his scalp to heal properly. It was growing back now, but was still much shorter than Harry was used to seeing, and though the Healers had done a fantastic job reconstructing his face, the scars were deep and, according to the Healers, permanent. The way the thick white scars divided his face into unequal segments reminded Harry of a painting he’d seen once in a book. The artist had divided the subject’s face into different sized squares or cubes and then had rearranged them in odd configurations.

The overall effect (of the painting and of Bill’s face) was at once utterly fascinating and oddly disturbing. It was all Harry could do not to stare. But it was still Bill beneath the scars and the change in his features had done absolutely nothing to the way Fleur looked at him; with obvious adoration and pride.

Charlie, who was sitting on the other side of his mother, looked tanned and fit. There were a few new burns on his muscular arms and a scar on his left cheek that hadn’t been there before, but otherwise, he hadn’t seemed to have changed at all.

When Fred and George (who were resplendent in jackets made from the skin of the Chinese Fireball dragon) weren’t teasing Ron and Hermione about playing footsie under the table, they were regaling the rest of the table with stories about the rebuilding of Diagon Alley and the latest merchandise that the Ministry had commissioned from them.

Some of these inventions were truly amazing bits of magic, and Harry found himself wondering – and not for the first time – why Fred and George had only managed to land themselves three O.W.L.’s apiece. Their Freezing Fog for instance, could be dispensed at the touch of a button and would Stupefy anything it touched, giving the user the chance to either disarm their opponent or get away before they could be hurt. According to George, the Ministry had ordered cases of the Freezing Fog, which along with the shield cloaks, hats and gloves, had become standard Ministry issue.

Lupin, who was sitting with Tonks just on the other side of Harry and Ginny, seemed particularly interested in hearing more about the twins products and was plying them with questions while Tonks, who looked very happy, was chatting animatedly with Mrs. Weasley about their plans to rebuild the Burrow.

Neither Harry nor Ginny were talking much. They were listening instead to the conversations around them and holding hands under the table. He was glad to see that she was wearing his Christmas present.

He’d had the unique piece made especially by a jeweler in Diagon Alley that George had recommended. The bracelet consisted of three strands of metal (one each of gold, silver and bronze) that had been woven together to form a series of intricate Celtic-style knots. At the center of each of the seven knots was a small crystal that caught and refracted the light.

As unusual as the bracelet was, the real gift was in the intricate protection charms that Harry had (with the help of Professor Flitwick) woven into the bracelet and concentrated in the crystals. It was the least he could do – after what she’d done in binding herself to him. He wasn’t sure if it would have any impact on an unforgivable curse, but perhaps if she were wearing it and a spell aimed at him rebounded on her, she might at least have a fighting chance.

Harry touched the bracelet on his own wrist. Odd that she would have chosen the same format for her gift that he had for his – or perhaps it wasn’t so odd. But while he had designed the bracelet he had given her as a last line of defense, she had designed hers to be a tool to fight with.

The bracelet, which she told him she had been working on ever since Halloween, consisted of several dozen small, knut-sized, multi-colored discs which were suspended from a sliver-link chain. At least his first impression had been that it was silver. On second thought he knew that it couldn’t be, for the links seemed to have an almost liquid look to them.

"It’s a suspension charm," Ginny had told him when he’d commented on the way the links seemed to shift and melt into each other as if the metal were more fluid than solid. "It holds the whole thing together and keeps the individual charms from going off before they’re needed."

She said that it was in case he found himself in a situation where he needed help and he didn’t have his wand. She’d then explained that each tiny disc represented a different spell – indicated by the color – and that the spells could be activated by removing the disc. The defensive spells, like the black ones, which contained enough Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder to provide a temporary shield, and the gold shield charms, would activate immediately when they were removed. The offensive spells, such as the blue, which were silencing spells, and the green, which were full body binds, would only activate when they touched someone other than the one who was wearing the bracelet.

There were all sorts; Confunding charms, Binding charms, Severing charms, several Healing charms, a couple of trip jinxes, several Impediment charms and a number of red Flagrate, or burning spells.

Harry was more than a little impressed by the gift. Not only had she put an incredible amount of time and energy into making it, but it was an incredibly ingenious idea and one that he was certain Fred and George would make good use of if they ever found out about it, the Ministry too if it came to that.

Best of all though, was the note she had sent and which was, even now, burning a hole in his pocket. Hedwig had brought it to him at breakfast, landing on the table instead of Harry’s shoulder, she’d seemed rather reluctant to give it up but, with coaxing and the offer of Harry’s bacon rinds, she had given in.

The note, which had been printed in neat block letters had been a stylized invitation that read:

Ginevra Molly Weasley

Cordially Invites Mr. Harry James Potter,

To an afternoon of Sweet Temptations

When: 12 Noon December 26th

Where: Room of Requirement – 7th Floor.

Dress: Optional

Underneath, in Ginny’s flowing script was the following message:

* * *

As people finished eating they drifted off in groups of two and three, some to sleep off the huge dinner, others grouping together to chat, play chess or cards or play music. There was an impromptu jazz band assembled in McGonagall’s Transfiguration room, several Order members had brought their instruments with them and even Harry, who knew next to nothing about music, had to admit that they were really quite good.

Harry and Ginny found themselves sharing a poof in the makeshift living area in the Great Hall. Here the rest of the Weasleys, Lupin, Tonks and Hermione were lounged about chatting animatedly or (in the case of Fred and George) shooting random fireworks into the enchanted rafters of the Great Hall.

Harry watched lazily as the snow falling from the ceiling turned iridescent in the light of Fred and George’s handiwork. It was all so comfortable; the fire crackling merrily in the huge fireplace around which they sat; the suit of armor beside the mantle that was singing snatches of Christmas carols and humming through the parts it didn’t know. He especially liked the warmth that was Ginny snuggled against him and the tingle of anticipation that flowed through him every time he thought of

It was all so very comfortable that he wasn’t entirely surprised to find that he had fallen asleep. He must have been asleep, for he as talented as Fred and George were, he had never before heard them give their fireworks a human voice, but he’d be damned if they weren’t speaking now, in a high, cold voice that Harry found disturbingly familiar . . .

"Kill the boy," said a high, cold voice that Harry recognized instantly as belonging to Voldemort. "You will find that there is nothing and no one who can now stand in your way."

Harry woke with a start. The voices were gone, replaced instead by the incessant buzz of the Weasley’s chatter and the fizzling sounds of Fred and George’s fireworks twinkling above them.

Harry took a deep breath, trying to purge himself from the overwhelming feeling of helplessness that had seemed to paralyze him as the voices spoke. He was all right. Everything was all right. He’d been dreaming. He squeezed Ginny’s hand reassuringly, but when she spoke her words chilled him to the very bone.

"Hey, Harry, look at that," she said, pointing up to where the fireworks were winking above them. "Those two red sparks, no there, up near the ceiling, don’t they look like eyes?"

Harry found himself shivering uncontrollably. They certainly did resemble eyes . . . and suddenly he had a terrible urge to wonder if the last thing Moody had seen had been a pair of vertically slit, blood red eyes . . .