The sun was coming up: The pure, colorless vastness of the sky stretched over him, indifferent to him and his suffering. Johnny sat down in the tent entrance and took a deep breath of clean air. Simply to be alive to watch the sun rise over the sparkling snowy hillside ought to have been the greatest treasure on earth, yet he couldn't appreciate it: His senses had been spiked by the calamity of losing his wand. He looked out over a valley blanketed in snow, distant church bells chiming through the glittering silence.

Without realising it, he was digging his fingers into his arms as if he were trying to resist physical pain. He had spilled his own blood more times than he could count; this journey had already given him scars to his chest and forearm to join those everywhere else, but never, until this moment, had he felt himself to be fatally weakened, vulnerable, and naked, as though the best part of his magical power had been torn from him. He knew exactly what Hermione would say if he expressed any of this: The wand is only as good as the wizard. But she was wrong, his case was different. She hadn't felt the wand shoot golden flames at his enemy.

And his fury at Dumbledore broke over him now like lava, scorching him inside, wiping out every other feeling. Out of sheer desperation they had talked themselves into believing that Godric's Hollow held answers, convinced themselves that they were supposed to go back, that it was all part of some secret path laid out for them by Dumbledore: but there was no map, no plan. Dumbledore had left them to grope in the darkness, to wrestle with unknown and undreamed-of terrors, alone and unaided: Nothing was explained, nothing was given freely, they had no sword, and now, Johnny had no wand. And

"Johnny?"

Hermione looked frightened that Johnny might curse her with her own wand. Her face streaked with tears, she crouched down beside him, two cups of tea trembling in her hands and something bulky under her arm.

"Thanks," Johnny said, taking one of the cups.

"Do you mind if I talk to you?"

"You're my fiancé, of course I don't," Johnny smiled, watching Hermione take a seat next to them.

"Harry, you wanted to know who that man in the picture was. Well... I've got the book," timidly she pushed it onto his lap, a pristine copy of The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore.

"Where- how-?"

"It was in Bathilda's sitting room, just lying there.... This note was sticking out of the top of it."

Hermione read the few lines of spiky, acid-green writing aloud.

"'Dear Bally, Thanks for your help. Here's a copy of the book, hope you like it. You said everything, even if you don't remember it. Rita.' I think it must have arrived while the real Bathilda was alive, but perhaps she wasn't in any fit state to read it?"

"No, she probably wasn't."

Johnny looked down upon Dumbledore's face and experienced a surge of savage pleasure: Now he would know if all the things that Dumbledore had never thought it worth telling him and Harry, whether Dumbledore wanted them to or not.

"You're really angry at me, aren't you?" said Hermione; he looked up to see fresh tears leaking out of her eyes, and knew that his anger must have shown in his face.

"No," he said quietly. "No, baby, I know it was an accident. You were trying to get us out of there alive, and you were incredible. I'd be dead if you hadn't been there to help me."

Johnny managed to return the watery smile by giving her a sweet kiss, placing a hand on the four month old baby bump, then turned his attention to the book. Its spine was stiff; it had clearly never been opened before. He riffled through the pages, looking for photographs. He came across the one he sought almost at once, the young Dumbledore and his handsome companion, roaring with laughter at some long-forgotten joke. Johnny dropped his eyes to the caption.

Albus Dumbledore, shortly after his mother's death, With his friend Gellert Grindelwald.

Johnny gaped at the last name for several long moments. Gellert Grindelwald. His friend Gellert Grindelwald. He looked sideways at Hermione, who was still contemplating the name as though she could not believe her eyes. Slowly she looked up at Johnny.

"Your Grandfather!"

Ignoring the remainder of the photographs, Johnny searched the pages around them for a recurrence of that fatal name. He soon discovered it and read greedily, but became lost: It was necessary to go farther back to make sense of it all, and eventually he found himself at the start of a chapter entitled "The Greater Good."

"I swear the both of us have been to his house," Hermione giggled, their fight long forgotten.

"We have," said Johnny, kissing her forehead. "And that picture we just saw is in the living room."

"We're pretty stupid."

"Not us."

Together, he and Hermione started to read:

Now approaching his eighteenth birthday, Dumbledore left Hogwarts in a blaze of glory- Head Boy, Prefect, Winner of the Barnabus Finkley Prize for Exceptional Spell-Casting, British Youth Representative to the Wizengamot, Gold Medal-Winner for Ground-Breaking Contribution to the International Alchemical Conference in Cairo. Dumbledore intended, next, to take a Grand Tour with Elphias "Dogbreath" Doge, the dim-witted but devoted sidekick he had picked up at school.

The two young men were staying at the Leaky Cauldron in London, preparing to depart for Greece the following morning, when an owl arrived bearing news of Dumbledore's mother's death. "Dogbreath" Doge, who refused to be interviewed for this book, has given the public his own sentimental version of what happened next. He represents Kendra's death as a tragic blow, and Dumbledore's decision to give up his expedition as an act of noble self-sacrifice.

Certainly Dumbledore returned to Godric's Hollow at once, supposedly to "care" for his younger brother and sister. But how much care did he actually give them?

"He were a head case, that Aberforth," said Enid Smeek, whose family lived on the outskirts of Godric's Hollow at that time. "Ran wild. 'Course, with his mum and dad gone you'd have felt sorry for him, only he kept chucking goat dung at my head. I don't think Albus was fussed about him. I never saw them together, anyway."

So what was Albus doing, if not comforting his wild young brother? The answer, it seems, is ensuring the continued imprisonment of his sister. For though her first jailer had died, there was no change in the pitiful condition of Ariana Dumbledore. Her very existence continued to be known only to those few outsiders who, like "Dogbreath" Doge, could be counted upon to believe in the story of her "ill health."

Another such easily satisfied friend of the family was Bathilda Bagshot, the celebrated magical historian who has lived in Godric's Hollow for many years. Kendra, of course, had rebuffed Bathilda when she first attempted to welcome the family to the village. Several years later, however, the author sent an owl to Albus at Hogwarts, having been favorably impressed by his paper on trans-species transformation in Transfiguration Today. This initial contract led to acquaintance with the entire Dumbledore family. At the time of Kendra's death, Bathilda was the only person in Godric's Hollow who was on speaking terms with Dumbledore's mother.

Unfortunately, the brilliance that Bathilda exhibited earlier in her life has now dimmed. "The fire's lit, but the cauldron's empty," as Ivor Dillonsby put it to me, or, in Enid Smeek's slightly earthier phrase, "She's nutty as squirrel poo." Nevertheless, a combination of tried-and-tested reporting techniques enabled me to extract enough nuggets of hard fact to string together the whole scandalous story.

Like the rest of the Wizarding world, Bathilda puts Kendra's premature death down to a backfiring charm, a story repeated by Albus and Aberforth in later years. Bathilda also parrots the family line on Ariana, calling her "frail" and "delicate." On one subject, however, Bathilda is well worth the effort I put into procuring Veritaserum, for she, and she alone, knows the full story of the best-kept secret of Albus Dumbledore's life. Now revealed for the first time, it calls into question everything that his admirers believed of Dumbledore: his supposed hatred of the Dark Arts, his opposition into the oppression of Muggles, even his devotion to his own family.

The very same summer that Dumbledore went home to Godric's Hollow, now an orphan and head of the family, Bathilda Bagshot agreed to accept into her home her great-nephew, Gellert Grindelwald.

"Holy shit," said Johnny, reading that line over and over again.

"Bathilda is your great-great-great Aunt," said Hermione, her eyes wide as she stared up at Johnny.

"She'll be buried with the others," said Johnny, nodding firmly. "It's only right she's buried with her family."

The name of Grindelwald is justly famous: In a list of Most Dangerous Dark Wizards of All Time, he would miss out on the top spot only because You- Know-Who arrived, a generation later, to steal his crown. As Grindelwald never extended his campaign of terror to Britain, however, the details of his rise to power are not widely known here.

Educated at Durmstrang, a school famous even then for its unfortunate tolerance of the Dark Arts, Grindelwald showed himself quite as precociously brilliant as Dumbledore. Rather than channel his abilities into the attainment of awards and prizes, however, Gellert Grindelwald devoted himself to other pursuits. At sixteen years old, even Durmstrang felt it could no longer turn a blind eye to the twisted experiments of Gellert Grindelwald, and he was expelled.

Hitherto, all that has been known of Grindelwald's next movements is that he "traveled around for some months." It can now be revealed that Grindelwald chose to visit his great-aunt in Godric's Hollow, and that there, intensely shocking though it will be for many to hear it, he struck up a close friendship with none other than Albus Dumbledore.

"He seemed a charming boy to me," babbles Bathilda, "whatever he became later. Naturally I introduced him to poor Albus, who was missing the company of lads his own age. The boys took to each other at once."

They certainly did. Bathilda shows me a letter, kept by her that Albus Dumbledore sent Gellert Grindelwald in the dead of night.

"Yes, even after they'd spent all day in discussion- both such brilliant young boys, they got on like a cauldron on fire- I'd sometimes hear an owl tapping at Gellert's bedroom window, delivering a letter from Albus! An idea would have struck him and he had to let Gellert know immediately!"

And what ideas they were. Profoundly shocking though Albus Dumbledore's fans will find it, here are the thoughts of their seventeen-year-old hero, as relayed to his new best friend. (A copy of the original letter may be seen on page 463.)

Gellert-

Your point about Wizard dominance being FOR THE MUGGLES' OWN GOOD- this, I think, is the crucial point. Yes, we have been given power and yes, that power gives us the right to rule, but it also gives us responsibilities over the ruled. We must stress this point, it will be the foundation stone upon which we build. Where we are opposed, as we surely will be, this must be the basis of all our counterarguments. We seize control FOR THE GREATER GOOD. And from this it follows that where we meet resistance, we must use only the force that is necessary and no more. (This was your mistake at Durmstrang! But I do not complain, because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)

Albus

Astonished and appalled though his many admirers will be, this letter constitutes the Statute of Secrecy and establishing Wizard rule over Muggles. What a blow for those who have always portrayed Dumbledore as the Muggle-borns' greatest champion! How hollow those speeches promoting Muggle rights seem in the light of this damning new evidence! How despicable does Albus Dumbledore appear, busy plotting his rise to power when he should have been mourning his mother and caring for his sister!

No doubt those determined to keep Dumbledore on his crumbling pedestal will bleat that he did not, after all, put his plans into action, that he must have suffered a change of heart, that he came to his senses. However, the truth seems altogether more shocking.

Barely two months into their great new friendship, Dumbledore and Grindelwald parted, never to see each other again until they met for their legendary duel (for more, see chapter 22). What caused this abrupt rupture? Had Dumbledore come to his senses? Had he told Grindelwald he wanted no more part in his plans? Alas, no.

"It was poor little Ariana dying, I think, that did it," says Bathilda. "It came as an awful shock. Gellert was there in the house when it happened, and he came back to my house all of a dither, told me he wanted to go home the next day. Terribly distressed, you know. So I arranged a Portkey and that was the last I saw of him."

"Albus was beside himself at Ariana's death. It was so dreadful for those two brothers. They had lost everybody except for each other. No wonder tempers ran a little high. Aberforth blamed Albus, you know, as people will under these dreadful circumstances. But Aberforth always talked a little madly, poor boy. All the same, breaking Albus's nose at the funeral was not decent. It would have destroyed Kendra to see her sons fighting like that, across her daughter's body. A shame Gellert could not have stayed for the funeral.... He would have been a comfort to Albus, at least....

This dreadful coffin-side brawl, known only to those few who attended Ariana Dumbledore's funeral, raises several questions. Why exactly did Aberforth Dumbledore blame Albus for his sister's death? Was it, as "Batty" pretends, a mere effusion of grief? Or could there have been some more concrete reason for his fury? Grindelwald, expelled from Durmstrang for the near-fatal attacks upon fellow students, fled the country hours after the girl's death, and Albus (out of shame or fear?) never saw him again, not until forced to do so by the pleas of the Wizarding world.

Neither Dumbledore nor Grindelwald ever seems to have referred to this brief boyhood friendship in later life. However, there can be no doubt that Dumbledore delayed, for some five years of turmoil, fatalities, and disappearances, his attack upon Gellert Grindelwald. Was it lingering affection for the man or fear of exposure as his once best friend that caused Dumbledore to hesitate? Was it only reluctantly that Dumbledore set out to capture the man he was once so delighted he had met?

And how did the mysterious Ariana die? Was she the inadvertent victim of some Dark rite? Did she stumble across something she ought not to have done, as the two young men sat practicing for their attempt at glory and domination? Is it possible that Ariana Dumbledore was the first person to die "for the greater good"?

The chapter ended here and Johnny looked up. Hermione had reached the bottom of the page before him. She tugged the book out of Johnny's hands, looking a little alarmed by his expression, and closed it without looking at it, as though hiding something indecent.

"Johnny-"

But he shook his head.

"Johnny, listen to me. It- it doesn't make a very nice reading-"

"Yeah, you could say that-"

"-but don't forget, Johnny, this is Rita Skeeter writing."

"You did read that letter to my Grandfather, didn't you?"

"Yes, I- I did." She hesitated, looking upset, cradling her tea in her cold hands. "I think that's the worst bit. I know Bathilda thought it was all just talk, but 'For the Greater Good' became your Grandfather's slogan, his justification for all the atrocities he committed later. And... from that... it looks like Dumbledore gave him the idea. They say 'For the Greater Good' was even carved over the entrance to Nurmengard."

"He loved you," Hermione whispered after a moment of silence. "I know Dumbledore loved you and Harry like you were his own Grandsons."

"I don't know who he loved, Hermione, but it was never me. This isn't love, the mess he's left us in. He shared a damn sight more of what he was really thinking with my Grandfather than he ever shared with me or Harry."

Johnny picked up Hermione's wand, which he had dropped in the snow, and sat back down in the entrance of the tent.

"Thanks for the tea. I'll finish the watch. You get back in the warm," She hesitated. She picked up the book and then walked back past him into the tent, but as she did so, she brushed the top of his head lightly with her hand. He closed his eyes at her touch, and hated himself for wishing that what she said was true: that Dumbledore had really cared.

The next morning, Harry awoke and joined Johnny and Hermione, who were both cuddled up in the entrance to the tent reading A History of Magic by the light of her wand. The snow was falling thickly, and they were greeted with relief of Harry's suggestion of packing up early and moving on.

"We'll move somewhere more sheltered," Hermione agreed, shivering as she pulled on Johnny's sweatshirt over her pyjamas and ever growing stomach. "I kept thinking I could hear people moving outside. I even though I saw somebody one or twice."

Johnny paused in the act of pulling on a jumper and glanced at the silent, motionless Sneakoscope on the table.

"I'm sure I imagined it," said Hermione, looking nervous. "The snow, the dark, it plays tricks on your eyes.... But perhaps we ought to Disapparate under the Invisibility Cloak, just in case?"

Half an hour later, with the tent packed, Johnny wearing the Horcrux, and Hermione clutching the beaded bag, they Disapparated. The usual tightness engulfed them; Johnny's feet parted company with the snowy ground, then slammed hard onto what felt like frozen earth covered in leaves.

"Where are we?" Harry asked, peering around at the fresh mass of trees as Hermione opened the beaded bag and began handing out the tent poles to Johnny.

"The Forest of Dean," she said, "I came camping here once with my mum and dad."

Here too snow lay on the trees all around and it was bitterly cold, but they were at least protected from the wind. They spent most of the day inside the tent, huddled for warmth around the useful bright blue flames that Hermione was adept at producing, and which could be scooped up and carried in a jar. That afternoon fresh flakes drifted down upon them, so that even their sheltered clearing had a fresh dusting of powdery snow.

After two nights of little sleep, Johnny's senses seemed more alert than usual. Their escape from Godric's Hollow had been so narrow that Voldemort seemed somehow closer than before, more threatening. As darkness drove in again Johnny refused Hermione's and Harry's offer to keep watch and told them to go to bed.

Johnny moved an old cushion into the tent mouth and sat down, wearing almost all the sweaters he owned (he gave Hermione three to keep her and the baby warm) but even so, still shivery. The darkness deepened with the passing hours until it was virtually impenetrable.

Every tiny movement seemed magnified in the vastness of the forest. Johnny knew that it must be full of living creatures, but he wished they would all remain still and silent so that he could separate their innocent scurryings and prowlings from noises that might proclaim other, sinister movements. He remembered the sound of a cloak slithering over dead leaves many years ago, and at once thought he heard it again before mentally shaking himself. Their protective enchantments had worked for weeks; why should they break now? And yet he could not throw off the feeling that something was different tonight.

Several times he jerked upright, his neck aching because he had fallen asleep, slumped at an awkward angle against the side of the tent. The night reached such a depth of velvety blackness that he might have been suspended in limbo between Disapparation and Apparation. He had just held a hand in front of his face to see whether he could make out his fingers when it happened.

A bright silver light appeared right ahead of him, moving through the trees. Whatever the source, it was moving soundlessly. The light seemed simply to drift toward him.

He jumped to his feet, his voice frozen in his throat, and raised Hermione's wand. He screwed up his eyes as the light became blinding, the trees in front of it pitch black in silhouette, and still the thing came closer...

And then the source of the light stepped out from behind an oak. It was a silver white doe, moon-bright and dazzling, picking her way over the ground, still silent, and leaving no hoofprints in the fine powdering of snow. She stepped toward him, her beautiful head with its wide, long-lashed eyes held high.

Johnny stared at the creature, filled with wonder, not at her strangeness, but her inexplicable familiarity. He felt that he had been waiting for her to come, but that he had forgotten, until this moment. His impulse to shout for Hermione or Harry, which had been so strong a moment ago, had gone.

They gazed at each other for several long moments and then she turned and walked away.

"No," he said, and his voice was cracked with lack of use. "Come back!"

She continued to step deliberately through the trees, and soon he brightness was striped by their thick black trunks. For one trembling second he hesitated. Caution murmured it could be a trick, a lure, a trap. But instinct, overwhelming instinct, told him that this was not Dark Magic. He set off in pursuit.

Snow crunched beneath his feet, but the doe made no noise as she passed through the trees, for she was nothing but light. Deeper and deeper into the forest she led him, and Johnny walked quickly, sure that when she stopped, she would allow him to approach her properly. And then she would speak and the voice would tell him what he needed to know.

At last she came to a halt. She turned her beautiful head toward him once more, and he broke into a run, a question burning in him, but as he opened his lips to ask it, she vanished.

Though the darkness had swallowed her whole, her burnished image was still imprinted on his retinas; it obscured his vision, brightening when he lowered his eyelids, disorienting him. Now fear came: Her presence had meant safety.

"Lumos!" Johnny whispered, and the wand-tip ignited.

The imprint of the doe faded away with every blink of his eyes as he stood there, listening to the sounds of the forest, to distant crackles of twigs, soft swishes of snow. Was he about to be attacked? Had she enticed him into an ambush? Was he imagining that somebody stood beyond the reach of the wandlight, watching him?

He held the wand higher. Nobody ran out at him, no flash of green light burst from behind a tree. Why, then, had she led him to this spot?

Something gleamed in the light of the wand, and Johnny spun about, but all that was there was a small, frozen pool, its black, cracked surface glittering as he raised his wand higher to examine it.

He moved forward rather cautiously and looked down. The ice reflected his distorted shadow and the beam of wandlight, but deep below the thick, misty gray carapace, something else glinted. A great silver cross...

His heart skipped into his mouth: He dropped to his knees at the pool's edge and angled the wand so as to flood the bottom of the pool with as much light as possible. A glint of deep red... It was a sword with glittering rubies in its hilt.... The sword of Gryffindor was lying at the bottom of the forest pool.

Barely breathing, he stared down at it. How was this possible? How could it have come to be lying in a forest pool, this close to the place where they were camping? Had some unknown magic drawn Hermione to this spot, or was the doe, which he had been taken to be a Patronus, some kind of guardian of the pool? Or had the sword been put into the pool after they had arrived, precisely because they were here? In which case, where was the person who wanted to pass it to them? Again he directed the wand at the surrounding trees and bushes, searching for a human outline, for the glint of an eye, but he couldn't see anyone there. All the same, a little more fear leavened his exhilaration as he returned his attention to the sword reposing upon the bottom of the frozen pool.

He pointed the wand at the silvery shape and murmured, "Accio Sword."

It didn't stir. He hadn't expected it to. If it had been that easy the sword would have lain on the ground for him to pick up, not in the depths of a frozen pool. He set off around the circle of ice, thinking hard about the last time the sword had delivered itself to Harry. Harry had been in terrible danger then.

Johnny stopped walking and let out a long sigh, his smoky breath dispersing rapidly upon the frozen air. He knew what he had to do. If he was honest with himself, he had thought it might come to this from the moment he had spotted the sword through the ice.

He glanced around at the surrounding trees again, but was convinced now that nobody was going to attack him. They had had their chance as he walked alone through the forest, had had plenty of opportunity as he examined the pool. The only reason to delay at this point was because the immediate prospect was so deeply uninviting.

With fumbling fingers Johnny started to remove his many layers of clothing. Where "chivalry" entered into this, he thought ruefully, he wasn't entirely sure, unless it counted as chivalrous that he wasn't calling for Hermione to do it instead.

He was shivering now, his teeth chattering horribly, and yet he continued to strip off until at last he stood there in his underwear, barefooted in the snow. He then he pointed Hermione's wand at the ice.

"Diffindo."

It cracked with a sound like a bullet in the silence. The surface of the pool broke and chunks of dark ice rocked on the ruffled water. As far as Johnny could judge, it wasn't deep, but to retrieve the sword he would have to submerge himself completely.

Contemplating the task ahead wouldn't make it easier or the water warmer. He stepped to the pool's edge and placed Hermione's wand on the ground still lit. Then, trying not to imagine how much colder he was about to become or how violently he would soon be shivering, he jumped.

Every pore of his body screamed in protest. The very air in his lungs seemed to freeze solid as he was submerged to his shoulders in the frozen water. He could hardly breathe: trembling so violently the water lapped over the edges of the pool, he felt for the blade with his numb feet. He only wanted to dive once.

Johnny put off the moment of total submersion from second to second, gasping and shaking, until he told himself that it must be done, gathered all his courage, and dived.

The cold was agony: It attacked him like fire. His brain itself seemed to have frozen as he pushed through the dark water to the bottom and reached out, groping for the sword. His fingers closed around the hilt; he pulled it upward.

Then something closed tight around his neck. He thought of water weeds, though nothing had brushed him as he dived, and raised his hand to free himself. It wasn't weed: The chain of the Horcrux had tightened and was slowly constricting his windpipe.

Johnny kicked out wildly, trying to push himself back to the surface, but merely propelled himself into the rocky side of the pool. Thrashing, suffocating, he scrabbled at the strangling chain, his frozen fingers unable to loosen it, and now little lights were popping inside his head, and he was going to drown, there was nothing left, nothing he could do, and the arms that closed around his chest were surely Death's....

Choking and retching, soaking and colder than he had ever been in his life, he came to facedown in the snow. Somewhere, close by, another person was panting and coughing and staggering around.

Johnny had no strength to lift his head and see his savior's identity. All he could do was raise a shaking hand to his throat and feel the place where the locket had cut tightly into his flesh. It was gone. Someone had cut him free. Then a panting voice spoke from over his head.

"Are- you- mental?"

Nothing but the shock of hearing that voice could have given Johnny the strength to get up. Shivering violently, he staggered to his feet. There before him stood Ron, fully dressed but drenched to the skin, his hair plastered to his face, the sword of Gryffindor in one hand and the Horcrux dangling from its broken chain in the other.

"Bastard," Johnny scoffed, swinging wildly at the redhead but missing by inches as he staggered past Ron.

"I deserve that, but why the hell," panted Ron, holding up the Horcrux, which swung backward and forward on its shortened chain in some parody of hypnosis, "didn't you take the thing off before you dived?"

Johnny couldn't answer. The silver doe was nothing, nothing compared with Ron's reappearance; he couldn't believe it. Shuddering with cold, he caught up the pile of clothes still lying at the water's edge and began to pull them on. As he dragged sweater after sweater over his head, Johnny stared at Ron, half expecting him to have disappeared every time he lost sight of him, and yet he had to be real: He had just dived into the pool, he had saved Johnny's life.

"It was y-you?" Johnny said at last, his teeth chattering, his voice weaker than usual due to his near-strangulation.

"Well, yeah," said Ron, looking slightly confused.

"Y-you cast that doe?"

"What? No, of course not! I thought it was you doing it!"

"My Patronus is a Raven."

"Oh yeah."

Johnny pulled on a final sweater, stooped to pick up Hermione's wand, and faced Ron again.

"How come you're here?" Johnny snarled.

Apparently Ron had hoped that this point would come up later, if at all.

"Well, I've- you know- I've come back. If-" He cleared his throat. "You know. You still want me."

There was a pause, in which the subject of Ron's departure seemed to rise like a wall between them. Yet he was here. He had returned. He had just saved J0hnny's life.

Ron looked down at his hands. He seemed momentarily surprised to see the things he was holding.

"Oh yeah, I got it out," he said, rather unnecessarily, holding up the sword for Johnny's inspection. "That's why you jumped in, right?"

"Yeah," said Johnny. "But I don't understand. How did you get here? How did you find us?"

"Long story," said Ron. "I've been looking for you for hours, it's a big forest, isn't it? And I was just thinking I'd have to go kip under a tree and wait for morning when I saw that dear coming and you following."

"You didn't see anyone else?"

"No," said Ron. "I-"

But he hesitated, glancing at two trees growing close together some yards away.

"I did think I saw something move over there, but I was running to the pool at the time, because you'd gone in and you hadn't come up, so I wasn't going to make a detour to- hey!"

Johnny was already hurrying to the place that Ron had indicated. The two oaks grew close together; there was a gap of only a few inches between the trunks at eye level, an ideal place to see but not be seen. The ground around the roots, however, was free of snow, and Johnny could see no sign of footprints. He walked back to where Ron stood waiting, still holding the sword and the Horcrux.

"Anything there?" Ron asked.

"No," said Johnny.

"So how did the sword get in that pool?"

"Whoever cast the Patronus must have put it there."

They both looked at the ornate silver sword, its rubied hilt glinting a little in the light from Hermione's wand.

"You reckon this is the real one?" asked Ron.

"One way to find out, isn't there?" said Johnny.

The Horcrux was still swinging from Ron's hand. The locket was twitching slightly. 9 knew that the thing inside it was agitated again. It had sensed the presence of the sword and had tried to kill Johnny rather than let him possess it. Now wasn't the time for long discussions; now was the moment to destroy once and for all. Johnny looked around, holding Hermione's wand high, and saw the place: a flattish rock lying in the shadow of a sycamore tree.

"Come here." he said and he led the way, brushed snow from the rock's surface, and held out his hand for the Horcrux. When Ron offered the sword, however, Johnny shook his head.

"No you should do it."

"Me?" said Ron, looking shocked. "Why?"

"Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you."

He wasn't being kind or generous.

"I'm going to open it," said Johnny, "and you will stab it. Straightaway okay? Because whatever's in there will put up a fight."

"How are you going to open it?" asked Ron. He looked terrified.

"I'm going to ask it to open, using Parseltongue," said Johnny. The answer came so readily to his lips that thought that he had always known it deep down. "I heard Harry speak it enough times to learn something."

"No!" said Ron. "Don't open it! I'm serious!"

"Why not?" asked Johnny. "Let's get rid of the damn thing, it's been months-"

"I can't, Johnny, I'm serious- you do it-"

"But why?"

"Because that thing's bad for me!" said Ron, backing away from the locket on the rock. "I can't handle it! I'm not making excuses, for what I was like, but it affects me worse than it affects you, Harry and Hermione, it made me think stuff- stuff that I was thinking anyway, but it made everything worse. I can't explain it, and then I'd take it off and I'd get my head straight again, and then I'd have to put the fucking thing back on- I can't do it Johnny!"

He had backed away, the sword dragging at his side, shaking his head.

"You can do it," said Johnny, "you can! You've just got the sword, I know it's supposed to be you who uses it. Please just get rid of it Ron."

The sound of his name seemed to act like a stimulant. Ron swallowed, then still breathing hard through his long nose, moved back toward the rock.

"Tell me when," he croaked.

"On three," said Johnny, looking back down at the locket and narrowing his eyes, concentrating on the letter S, imagining a serpent, while the contents of the locket rattled like a trapped cockroach. It would have been easy to pity it, except that the cut around Johnny's neck still burned.

"One... two... three... open."

The last word came as a hiss and a snarl and the golden doors of the locket swung wide open with a little click.

Behind both of the glass windows within blinked a living eye, dark and handsome as Tom Riddle's eyes had been before he turned them scarlet and slit-pupiled "Stab," said Johnny, holding the locket steady on the rock.

Ron raised the sword in his shaking hands: The point dangled over the frantically swiveling eyes, and Johnny gripped the locket tightly, bracing himself, already imagining blood pouring from the empty windows.

Then a voice hissed from out the Horcrux.

"I have seen your heart, and it is mine."

"Don't listen to it!" Johnny said harshly. "Stab it!"

"I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible...."

"Stab it!" shouted Johnny, his voice echoed off the surrounding trees, the sword point trembled, and Ron gazed down into Riddle's eyes.

"Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter... Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend... Second best, always, eternally overshadowed..."

"Ron, stab it now!" Johnny bellowed: He could feel the locket quivering in the grip and was scared of what was coming. Ron raised the sword still higher, and as he did so, Riddle's eyes gleamed scarlet.

Out of the locket's two windows, out of the eyes, there bloomed like two grotesque bubbles, the heads of Harry and Padma, weirdly distorted.

Ron yelled in shock and backed away as the figures blossomed out of the locket, first chests, then waists, then legs, until they stood in the locket, side by side like trees with a common root, swaying over Ron and Johnny, who had snatched his fingers away from the locket as it burned, suddenly, white-hot.

"Ron!" he shouted, but the Riddle-Padma was now speaking with Voldemort's voice and Ron was gazing, mesmerised, into its face.

Padma swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified, yet transfixed, the sword hanging pointlessly at his side. "Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter? What have you ever done, compared with the Chosen One? What are you, compared with the Boy Who Lived?"

"Ron, stab it, STAB IT!" Johnny yelled, but Ron didn't move. His eyes were wide, and the Riddle-Harry and the Riddle-Padma were reflected in them, their hair swirling like flames, their eyes shining red, their voices lifted in an evil duet.

"Your mother confessed," sneered Riddle-Harry, while Riddle-Padma jeered, "that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange..."

"Who wouldn't prefer him, what woman would take you, you are nothing, nothing, nothing to him," crooned Riddle-Padma, and she stretched like a snake and entwined herself around Riddle-Harry, wrapping him in a close embrace: Their lips met.

On the ground in front of them, Ron's face filled with anguish. he raised the sword high, his arms shaking.

"Do it, Ron!" Johnny yelled.

Ron looked toward him, and Johnny thought he saw a trace of scarlet in his eyes.

"Ron-?"

The sword flashed, plunged: Johnny threw himself out of the way, there as a clang of metal and a long, drawn-out scream. Johnny whirled around, slipping in the snow, wand held ready to defend himself, but there was nothing to fight.

The monstrous versions of Harry and Padma were gone: There was only Ron, standing there with the sword held slackly in his hand, looking down at the shattered remains of the locket on the flat rock.

Slowly, Johnny walked back to him, hardly knowing what to say or do. Ron was breathing heavily: His eyes were no longer red at all, but their normal blue: they were also wet.

"You alright?" Johnny asked, and Ron nodded, embracing Johnny like his brother. When they let go of each other, Johnny stooped, and picked up the broken Horcrux. Ron had pierced the glass in both windows: Riddle's eyes were gone, and the stained silk lining of the locket was smoking slightly. The thing that had lived in the Horcrux had vanished; torturing Ron had been its final act. The sword clanged as Ron dropped it. He had sunk to his knees, his head in his arms. He was shaking, but not, Johnny realised, from cold. Johnny crammed the broken locket into his pocket, knelt down beside Ron, and placed a hand cautiously on his shoulder.

"After you left," Johnny said in a low voice, grateful for the fact that Ron's face was hidden, "Hermione cried for a week. I reckon Harry cried a bit too, y'know."

"You're like my siblings," said Ron, clutching Johnny's wrist. "I love you all like siblings."

"I know," said Johnny, patting Ron's shoulder. Johnny got to his feet again and walked to where Ron's enormous rucksack lay yards away, discarded as Ron had run toward the pool to save Johnny from drowning. He hoisted it onto his own back and walked back to Ron, who clambered to his feet as Johnny approached, eyes bloodshot but otherwise composed.

"I'm sorry," he said in a thick voice. "I'm sorry I left. I know I was a- a-"

He looked around at the darkness, as if hoping a bad enough word would swoop down upon him and claim him.

"You've sort of made up for it tonight," said Johnny. "Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life."

"That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was," Ron mumbled.

"Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was" said Johnny. "I've been trying to tell you that for years."

Simultaneously they walked forward and hugged, Johnny gripping the still-sopping back of Ron's jacket.

"And now," said Johnny as they broke apart, "all we've got to do is find that tent again, and you've got to apologise for calling y, fiancé a one galleon whore."

"I will," Ron nodded at once. It wasn't difficult finding the tent. Though the walk through the dark forest with the doe had seemed lengthy, with Ron by his side, the journey back seemed to take a surprisingly short time. Johnny couldn't wait to wake Hermione and Harry, and it was with quickening excitement that he entered the tent, Ron lagging a little behind him.

It was gloriously warm after the pool and the forest, the only illumination the bluebell flames still shimmering in a bowl on the floor. Hermione and Harry were fast asleep,, and didn't move until Johnny had called them several times.

"Guys!"

"What's wrong? Babe? Are you all right?" Hermione asked, moving the hair out of her face.

"It's okay, everything's fine. More than fine, I'm great. There's someone here."

"What do you mean? Who-?" Harry stopped talking, his eyes landing on Ron. Harry was the first to move, embracing Ron like Johnny had.

Johnny and Harry backed into a shadowy corner once Hermione saw Ron, and Johnny slipped off Ron's rucksack, and attempted to blend in with the canvas.

Hermione slid out of her bunk and moved like a sleepwalker toward Ron, her eyes upon his pale face. She stopped right in front of him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. Ron gave a weak hopeful smile and half raised his arms.

Hermione launched herself forward and started punching every inch of him that she could reach.

"Ouch- ow- gerroff! What the-? Hermione- OW!"

"You- complete- arse- Ronald- Weasley!"

She punctuated every word with a blow: Ron backed away, shielding his head as Hermione advanced.

"You- crawl- back- here- after- weeks- and- weeks- oh, where's my wand?"

She looked as though ready to wrestle it out of Johnny's hands and he reacted instinctively.

"Protego!"

The invisible shield erupted between Ron and Hermione. The force of it knocked her backward. Spitting hair out of her mouth, she lept towards again.

"Darling!" said Johnny. "Calm-"

"I will not calm down!" she screamed. Never before had Johnny seen her lose control like this; she looked quite demented. "Give me back my wand! Give it back to me!"

"Hermione, will you please-"

"Don't you tell me what do, Johnathan Grindelwald!" she screeched. "Don't you dare! Give it back now! And YOU!"

She was pointing at Harry in dire accusation: It was like a malediction, and Johnny couldn't blame Harry for retreating several steps.

"How could you just accept him back like that?!" Hermione yelled, snapping her fingers for extra emphasis. She then turned back to Ron, and threw her pillow at him. "I came running after you! I called you! I begged you to come back"

"I know," Ron said, "Hermione, I'm sorry, I'm really-"

"Oh, you're sorry!"

She laughed a high-pitched, out-of-control sound; Ron looked at Harry and Johnny for help, but they merely grimaced his helplessness.

"You came back after weeks- weeks- and you think it's all going to be all right if you just say sorry?"

"Well, what else can I say?" Ron shouted back.

"Oh, I don't know!" yelled Hermione with awful sarcasm. "Rack your brains, Ron, that should only take a couple of seconds-"

"Hermione, darling," interjected Johnny, who considered this a low blow, "he just saved my-"

"I don't care!" she screamed. "I don't care what he's done! Weeks and weeks, we could have been dead for all he knew-"

"I knew you weren't dead!" bellowed Ron, drowning her voice for the first time, and approaching as close as he could. "Harry and Johnny are all over the Prophet, all over the radio, they're looking for you everywhere, all these rumors and mental stories, I knew I'd hear straight off if you were dead, you don't know what it's been like-"

"What it's been like for you?"

Her voice was not so shrill only bats would be able to hear it soon, but she had reached a level of indignation that rendered her temporarily speechless, and Ron seized his opportunity.

"I wanted to come back the minute I'd Disapparated, but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn't go anywhere!"

"A gang of what?" asked Harry, as Hermione threw herself down into a chair with her arms and legs crossed so tightly it seemed unlikely that she would unravel them for several years.

"Snatchers," said Ron. "They're everywhere- gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, there's a reward from the Ministry for everyone captured. I was on my own and I look like I might be school age; they got really excited, thought I was a Muggle-born in hiding. I had to talk fast to get out of being dragged to the Ministry."

"What did you say to them?"

"Told them I was Stan Shunpike. First person I could think of."

"And they believed that?"

"They weren't the brightest. One of them was definitely part troll, the smell of him...."

Ron glanced at Hermione, clearly hopeful she might soften at this small instance of humor, but her expression remained stony above her tightly knotted limbs.

"Anyway, they had a row about whether I was Stan or not. It was a bit pathetic to be honest, but there were still five of them and only one of me, and they'd taken my wand. Then two of them got into a fight and while the others were distracted I managed to hit the one holding me in the stomach, grabbed his wand, Disarmed the bloke holding mine, and Disapparated. I didn't do it so well. Splinched myself again-" Ron held up his right hand to show two missing fingernails: Hermione raised her eyebrows coldly, "-and I came out miles from where you were. By the time I got back to that bit of riverbank where we'd been... you were gone."

"Gosh, what a gripping story," Hermione said in the lofty voice she adopted when wishing to wound. "You must have been simply terrified. Meanwhile we went to Godric's Hollow and, let's think, what happened there, boys? Oh yes, You-Know-Who's snake turned up, it nearly killed all of us, and then You-Know-Who himself arrived and missed us by about a second."

"What?" Ron said, gaping from her to Harry, to Johnny, but Hermione ignored him.

"Imagine losing fingernails, boys! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn't it?"

"Hermione," said Johnny quietly, "Ron just saved my life."

She appeared not to have heard him.

"One thing I would like to know, though," she said, fixing her eyes on a spot a foot over Ron's head. "How exactly did you find us tonight? That's important. Once we know, we'll be able to make sure we're not visited by anyone else we don't want to see."

Ron glared at her, then pulled a small silver object from his jeans pocket.

"This."

She had to look at Ron to see what he was showing them.

"The Deluminator?" she asked, so surprised she forgot to look cold and fierce.

"It doesn't just turn the lights on and off," said Ron. "I don't know how it works or why it happened then and not any other time, because I've been wanting to come back ever since I left. But I was listening to the radio really early on Christmas morning and I heard... I heard you."

He was looking at Hermione.

"You heard me on the radio?" she asked incredulously.

"No, I heard you coming out of my pocket. Your voice," he held up the Deluminator again, "came out of this."

"And what exactly did I say?" asked Hermione, her tone somewhere between skepticism and curiosity.

"My name. 'Ron.' And you said... something about a wand..."

"So I took it out," Ron went on, looking at the Deluminator, "and it didn't seem different or anything, but I was sure I'd heard you. So I clicked it. And the light went out in my room, but another light appeared right outside the window."

Ron raised his empty hand and pointed in front of him, his eyes focused on something neither Johnny, Harry nor Hermione could see.

"It was a ball of light, kind of pulsing, and bluish, like that light you get around a Portkey, you know?"

"Yeah," said Johnny, Harry and Hermione together automatically.

"I knew this was it," said Ron. "I grabbed my stuff and packed it, then I put on my rucksack and went out into the garden."

"The little ball of light was hovering there, waiting for me, and when I came out it bobbed along a bit and I followed it behind the shed and then it... well, it went inside me."

"Sorry?" said Harry.

"It sort of floated toward me," said Ron, illustrating the movement with his free index finger, "right to my chest, and then- it just went straight through. It was here," he touched a point close to his heard, "I could feel it, it was hot. And once it was inside me, I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew it would take me where I needed to go. So I Disapparated and came out on the side of a hill. There was snow everywhere...."

"We were there," said Harry. "We spent two nights there, and the second night I kept thinking I could hear someone moving around in the dark and calling out!"

"Yeah, well, that would've been me," said Ron. "Your protective spells work, anyway, because I couldn't see you and I couldn't hear you. I was sure you were around, though, so in the end I got in my sleeping bag and waited for one of you to appear. I thought you'd have to show yourselves when you packed up the tent."

"No, actually," said Hermione. "We've been Disapparating under the Invisibility Cloak as an extra precaution. And we left really early, because as Harry says, we'd heard somebody blundering around."

"Well, I stayed on that hill all day," said Ron. "I kept hoping you'd appear. But when it started to get dark I knew I must have missed you, so I clicked the Deluminator again, the blue light came out and went inside me, and I Disapparated and arrived here in these woods. I still couldn't see you, so I just had to hope one of you would show yourselves in the end- and Johnny did. Well, I saw the doe first, obviously."

"You saw the what?" said Hermione sharply.

Ron and Johnny explained what had happened and as the story of the silver doe and the sword in the pool unfolded, Hermione frowned form one to the other of them, concentrating so hard she forgot to keep her limbs locked together.

"But it must have been a Patronus!" she said. "Couldn't you see who was casting it? Didn't you see anyone? And it led you to the sword! I can't believe this! Then what happened?"

Ron explained how he had watched Johnny jump into the pool, and had waited for him to resurface; how he had realised that something was wrong, dived in, and saved Johnny, then returned for the sword. He got as far as the opening of the locket, then hesitated, and Johnny cut in.

"-and Ron stabbed it with the sword."

"And...  and it went? Just like that?" Harry whispered.

"Well, it- it screamed," said Johnny with half a glance at Ron. "Here."

He threw the locket onto the table; gingerly Hermione picked it up and examined its punctured windows.

"Did you just say now that you got away from the snatchers with a spare wand?"

"What?" said Ron, who had been watching Hermione examining the locket. "Oh- oh yeah."

He tugged open a buckle on his rucksack and pulled a short dark wand out of his pocket. "Here, I figured it's always handy to have a backup."

"You were right," said Johnny, holding out his hand. "Mine's broken."

"You're kidding?" Ron said, but at that moment Hermione got to her feet, and he looked apprehensive again.

Hermione put the vanquished Horcrux into the beaded bag, then climbed back into her and Johnny's bed and settled down without another word.

Ron passed Johnny the new wand. Johnny thanked Ron with a pat on the shoulder and laid down behind Hermione. Hermione pushed herself closer into Johnny, and he wrapped her arm around her, his hand running across her ever growing stomach.

"About the best you could hope for, I think," murmured Harry.

"Yeah," said Ron. "Could've been worse. Remember those birds Padma set on me?"

"I know how to do it, and I still haven't ruled it out," came Hermione's muffled voice from beneath her blankets. Johnny heard Harry and Ron exit the tent to go on watch, and he kissed Hermione softly.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you," Hermione whispered, cupping Johnny's cheek. "It's just the baby kept me up most of the night, she's a kicker."

Hermione winced and Johnny looked at her concerned.

"Just the baby," said Hermione, taking Johnny's hand and placing it against the spot on her stomach. Johnny felt three identical kicks and smiled. "She's like her father."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Johnny asked in mock offence, causing Hermione to giggle.

"That you're both a pain in my arse."

Johnny chuckled, shuffling himself down the bed so he was eye level with Hermione's stomach.

"Now you listen here, Principessa (Princess)," said Johnny, poking Hermione's stomach lightly. "Your mother and I love you so much already, but if you keep waking her up, your gonna get me killed."

Hermione burst into fits of laughter, running her hand through Johnny's hair.

"We love you too, darling," said Hermione, causing Johnny to smile as he pulled himself up so he was eye level with her.

"Let's get some sleep," said Johnny, causing Hermione to nod and yawn.

Harry and Johnny hadn't expected Hermione's anger with Ron to go over night and was therefore unsurprised that she communicated mainly by dirty looks and pointed silences the next morning. Ron responded by maintaining an unnaturally somber demeanor in her presence as an outward sign of continuing remorse. Ron, however, became shamelessly cheery.

"Someone helped us," he kept saying, "Someone sent that doe, Someone's on our side, One Horcrux down, lads!"

Bolstered by the destruction of the locket they set to debating the possible locations of the other Horcruxes and even though they had discussed the matter so often before. Johnny felt optimistic, certain that more breakthroughs would succeed the first.

"You just need to practice, darling," said Hermione, who had approached the three boys noiselessly from behind and had stood watching anxiously as Johnny tried to enlarge and reduce the spider. "It's all a matter of confidence."

All four of them returned to the tent when darkness fell, and Johnny took first watch. Sitting in the entrance, he tried to make the blackthorn wand levitate small stones at his feet; but his magic still seemed clumsier and less powerful than it had done before. Hermione was lying on her bunk reading, Harry was at the table inspecting Gryffindor's sword, while Ron, after many nervous glances up at her, had taken a small wooden wireless out of his rucksack and started to try to tune it.

"There's this one program," he told Johnny in a low voice, "that tells the news like it really is. All the others are on You-Know-Who's side and are following the Ministry line, but this one... you wait till you hear it, it's great. Only they can't do it every night, they have to keep changing locations in case they're raided and you need a password to tune in... Trouble is, I missed the last one..."

He drummed lightly on the top of the radio with his wand muttering random words under his breath. He threw Hermione many covert glances, plainly fearing an angry outburst, but for all the notice she took of him he mightn't have been there. For ten minutes or so Ron tapped and muttered, Hermione turned the pages of her book, and Johnny continued to practice with the blackthorn wand.

Finally Hermione climbed down from her bunk. Ron ceased his tapping at once.

"If it's annoying you, I'll stop!" he told Hermione nervously.

Hermione didn't deign to respond, but approached Johnny and motioned for Harry to follow.

"We need to talk," she said.

Johnny looked at the book still clutched in her hand. It was The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore.

"What?" Johnny said apprehensively. It flew through his mind that there was a chapter on him and Harry in there; he wasn't sure he felt up to hearing Rita's version of his relationship with Dumbledore. Hermione's answer however, was completely unexpected.

"I want to go and see Xenophilius Lovegood."

Harry, Ron and Johnny stared at her.

"Sorry?" said Harry.

"Xenophilius Lovegood, Luna's father. I want to go and talk to him!"

"Er- why?"

She took a deep breath, as though bracing herself, and said, "It's Gellert's mark, the mark in the Beedle and the Bard. Look at this!"

She thrust The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore under their eyes and saw a photograph of the original letter that Dumbledore had written to Johnny's Grandfather, with Dumbledore's familiar thin, slanting handwriting.

"The signature," said Hermione. "Look at the signature, guys!"

They obeyed. For a moment they had no idea what she was talking about, but, looking more closely with the aid of his lit wand, Johnny saw that Dumbledore had replaced the A of Albus with a tiny version of the same triangular mark inscribed upon The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

"Er- what are you-?" said Ron tentatively, but Hermione quelled him with a look and turned back to them.

"It keeps cropping up, doesn't it?" she said. "I know Viktor said it was your Grandfather's mark, but it was definitely on that old grave in Godric's Hollow, and the dates on the headstone were long before Grindelwald came along! And now this! Well, we can't ask Dumbledore or Gellert what it means- but we can ask Mr. Lovegood. He was wearing the symbol at the wedding. I'm sure this is important!"

"We could ask my Grandfather," Johnny pointed out. "He's living in London, working for the Ministry. They think he's on their side."

"It's to risky," Hermione shook her head. "Xenophillius is our best bet.

"Hermione, we don't need another Godric's Hollow. We talked ourselves into going there, and-" Harry began.

"But it keeps appearing! Dumbledore left me The Tales of Beedle the Bard, how do you know we're not supposed to find out about the sign?"

"Here we go again!" Harry felt slightly exasperated. "We keep trying to convince ourselves Dumbledore left us secret signs and clues-"

"The Deluminator turned out to be pretty useful," Johnny said, pointing at Ron who glanced up from the radio. "I think Hermione's right, I think we ought to go and see Lovegood."

"It won't be like Godric's Hollow," Ron added on, "Lovegood's on our side, guys, The Quibbler's been for Johnny and Harry all along, it keeps telling everyone they've got to help them!"

"I'm sure this is important!" said Hermione earnestly.

"But don't you think if it was, Dumbledore would have told us about it before he died?" said Harry, letting out an exasperated sigh.

"Maybe... maybe it's something we need to find out for ourselves," said Hermione with a faint air of clutching at straws.

"Yeah," said Ron sycophantically, "that makes sense."

"No, it doesn't," said Johnny, shaking his head, "but I still think we ought to talk to Mr. Lovegood. A symbol that links Dumbledore, my Grandfather, and Godric's Hollow?"

"I think we should vote on it," said Ron. "Those in favor of going to see Lovegood-"

His hand flew into the air along with Hermione's and Johnny's.

"Outvoted, Harry, sorry," said Johnny, clapping him on the back.

"Fine," said Harry, half amused, half irritated. "Only, once we've seen Lovegood, let's try and look for some more Horcruxes, shall we? Where do the Lovegood's live, anyway? Do any of you know?"

"Yeah, they're not far from my place," said Ron. "I dunno exactly where, but Mum and Dad always point toward the hills whenever they mention them. Shouldn't be hard to find."

They had an excellent view of the village of Ottery St. Catchopole from the breezy hillside to which they Disapparated next morning. From their high vantage point the village looked like a collection of toy houses in the great slanting shafts of sunlight stretching to earth in the breaks between clouds. They stood for a minute or two looking toward the Burrow, their hands shadowing their eyes, but all they could make out were the high hedges and trees of the orchard, which afforded the crooked little house protection from Muggle eyes.

"It's weird, being this near, but not going to visit," said Ron.

"Well, it's not like you haven't just seen them. You were there for Christmas," said Hermione coldly.

"I wasn't at the Burrow!" said Ron with an incredulous laugh. "Do you think I was going to go back there and tell them all I'd walked out on you guys? Yeah, Fred and George would've been great about it. And Ginny, she'd have been really understanding."

"But where have you been, then?" asked Hermione, surprised.

"Bill and Fleur's new place. Shell Cottage, in Pembrokeshire . Bill's always been decent to me. He- he wasn't impressed when he heard what I'd done, but he didn't go on about it. He knew I was really sorry. None of the rest of the family know I was there. Bill told Mum he and Fleur weren't going home for Christmas because they wanted to spend it alone. You know, first holiday after they were married. I don't think Fleur minded. You know how much she hates Celestina Warbeck."

Ron turned his back on the Burrow.

"Let's try up here," he said, leading the way over the top of the hill.

They walked for a few hours, Harry, at their insistence, hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak, and Hermione, on Johnny's insistence, getting a piggy back from Johnny. The cluster of low hills appeared to be uninhabited apart from one small cottage, which seemed deserted.

"Do you think it's theirs, and they've gone away for Christmas?" said Hermione, peering through the window at a neat little kitchen with geraniums on the windowsill. Ron snorted.

"Listen, I've got a feeling you'd be able to tell who lived there if you looked through the Lovegoods' window. Let's try the next lot of hills."

So they Disapparated a few miles farther north.

"Aha!" shouted Ron, as the wind whipped their hair and clothes. Ron was pointing upward, toward the top of the hill on which they had appeared, where a most strange-looking house rose vertically against the sky, a great black cylinder with a ghostly moon hanging behind it in the afternoon sky. "That's got to be Luna's house, who else would live in a place like that? It looks like a giant rook!"

"It's nothing like a bird," said Hermione, frowning at the tower.

"He was talking about a chess rook. Y'know, a castle?" Johnny laughed heartily.

Ron's legs were the longest and he reached the top of the hill first. When Johnny, Harry and Hermione caught up with him, panting and clutching stitches in their sides, they found him grinning broadly.

"It's theirs," said Ron. "Look."

Three hand-painted signs had been tacked to a broke-down gate. The first read,

THE QUIBBLER. EDITOR, X. LOVEGOOD

the second,

PICK YOUR OWN MISTLETOE

the third,

KEEP OFF THE DIRIGIBLE PLUMS

"The fucking what?" Johnny asked, a revolted look on his face, making his three friends shrug. The gate creaked as they opened it. The zigzagging path leading to the front door was overgrown with a variety of odd plants, including a bush covered in orange radishlike fruit Luna sometimes wore as earrings. Johnny thought he recognised a Snargaluff and gave the wizened stump a wide berth. Two aged crab apple trees, bent with the wind, stripped of leaves but still heavy with berry-sized red fruits and bushy crowns of white beaded mistletoe, stood sentinel on either side of the front door. A little owl with a slightly flattened hawklike head peered down at them from one of the branches.

"You'd better take off the Invisibility Cloak, Harry," said Hermione. "It's you and Johnny Mr. Lovegood wants to help, not us."

Harry did as she suggested, handing her the Cloak to stow in the beaded bag. She then rapped three times on the thick black door, which was studded with iron nails and bore a knocker shaped like an eagle.

Barely ten seconds passed, then the door was flung open and there stood Xenophilius Lovegood, barefoot and wearing what appeared to be a stained nightshirt. His long white candyfloss hair was dirty and unkempt. Xenophilius had been positively dapper at Bill and Fleur's wedding by comparison.

"What? What is it? Who are you? What do you want?" he cried in a high-pitched, querulous voice, looking first at Hermione, then at Ron, and finally at and Johnny Harry, upon which his mouth fell open in a perfect, comical O.

"Hello, Mr. Lovegood," said Johnny, holding out his hand, "I'm Johnathan, Johnathan Grindelwald, and this is Harry Potter."

Xenophilius didn't take Johnny's hand, although the eye that wasn't pointing inward at his nose slid straight to the scar on Harry's forehead.

"Would it be okay if we came in?" asked Harry. "There's something we'd like to ask you."

"I... I'm not sure that's advisable," whispered Xenophilius, He swallowed and cast a quick look around the garden. "Rather a shock... My word... I... I'm afraid I don't really think I ought to-"

"It wont take long" said Johnny, slightly disappointed by this less-than-warm welcome.

"I- oh, all right then. Come in, quickly, Quickly!"

They were barely over the threshold when Xenophilius slammed the door shut behind them, They were standing in the most peculiar kitchen Johnny had ever seen. The room was perfectly circular, so that he felt like being inside a giant pepper pot. Everything was curved to fit the walls- the stove, the sink, and the cupboards- and all of it had been painted with flowers, insects, and birds in bright primary colors. Johnny thought he recognised Luna's styles. The effect in such and enclosed space, was slightly overwhelming.

In the middle of the floor, a wrought-iron spiral staircase led to the upper levels. There was a great deal of clattering and banging coming from overhead: Johnny wondered what Luna could be doing.

"You'd better come up." said Xenophilius, still looking extremely uncomfortable, and he led the way.

The room above seemed to be a combination of living room and workplace, and as such, was even more cluttered than the kitchen. Though much smaller and entirely round, the room somewhat resembled the Room of Requirement on the unforgettable occasion that it had transformed itself into a gigantic labyrinth comprised of centuries of hidden objects. There were piles upon piles of books and papers on every surface. Delicately made models of creatures Johnny didn't recognise, all flapping wings or snapping jaws, hung from the ceiling.

Luna wasn't there: The thing that was making such a racket was a wooden object covered in magically turning cogs and wheels, It looked like the bizarre offspring of a workbench and a set of shelves, but after a moment Johnny deduced that it was an old-fashioned printing press, due to the fact that it was churning out Quibblers.

"Excuse me," said Xenophilius, and he strode over to the machine, seized grubbily tablecloth from beneath an immense number of books and papers, which all tumbled onto the floor, and threw it over the press, somewhat muffling the loud bangs and clatters. He then faced Harry and Johnny.

"Why have you come here?" Before either of them could speak, however, Hermione let out a small cry of shock.

"Mr. Lovegood- what's that?"

See was pointing at an enormous, gray spiral horn, not unlike that of a unicorn, which had been mounted on the wall, protruding several feet into the room.

"It is the horn of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack," said Xenophilius.

"No it isn't!" said Hermione.

"Hermione," muttered Johnny, embarrassed, "now's not the moment-"

"But Johnny, it's an Erumpent horn! It's a Class B Tradeable Material and it's an extraordinary dangerous thing to have in a house!"

"How'd you know it's an Erumpent horn?" asked Ron, edging away from the horn as fast as he could, given the extreme clutter of the room.

"There's a description in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them! Mr. Lovegood, you need to get rid of it straightaway, don't you know it can explode at the slightest touch?"

"The Crumple Horned Snorkack" said Xenophilius very clearly, a mulish look upon his face, "is a shy and highly magical creature, and it's horn-"

"Mr. Lovegood. I recognise the grooved markings around the base, that's an Erumpent horn and it's incredibly dangerous- I don't know where you got it-"

"I bought it," said Xenophilius dogmatically. "Two weeks ago, from a delightful young wizard who knew my interest in the exquisite Snorkack. A Christmas surprise for my Luna. Now," he said, turning to back to Harry and Johnny, "why exactly have you come here, Mr. Potter and Mr. Grindelwald?"

"We need some help," said Harry, before Hermione could start again.

"Ah," said Xenophilius, "Help, Hmm."

His good eye moved again to Harry's scar. He seemed simultaneously terrified and mesmerised.

"Yes. The thing is... helping Harry Potter and Johnathan Grindelwald... rather dangerous..."

"Aren't you the one who keeps telling everyone it's their first duty to help them?" said Ron. "In that magazine of yours?"

Xenophilius glanced behind him at the concealed printing press, still banging and clattering beneath the tablecloth.

"Er- yes, I have expressed that view. however-"

"That's for everyone else to do, not you personally?" said Ron.

Xenophilius didn't answer. He kept swallowing, his eyes darting between the four of them. Johnny had the impression that he was undergoing some painful internal struggle.

"Where's Luna?" asked Hermione. "Let's see what she thinks."

Xenophilius gulped. He seemed to be steeling himself. Finally he said in a shaky voice difficult to hear over the noise of the printing press, "Luna is down at the stream, fishing for Freshwater Plimpies. She... she will like to see you. I'll go and call her and then- yes, very well. I shall try to help you."

He disappeared down the spiral staircase and they heard the front open and close. They looked at each other.

"Cowardly old wart," said Ron. "Luna's got ten times his guts."

"He's probably worried about what'll happen to them if the Death Eaters find out we were here" said Johnny.

"Well, I agree with Ron," said Hermione, "Awful old hypocrite, telling everyone else to help you guys and trying to worm our of it himself. And for heaven's sake keep away from that horn."

Johnny crossed to the window on the far side of the room. He could see a stream, a thin, glittering ribbon lying far below them at the base of the hill. They were very high up; a bird fluttered past the window as he stared in the direction of the Burrow, now invisible beyond another line of hills. He turned away from the windows and his gaze fell upon another peculiar object standing upon the cluttered, curved slide board; a stone but of a beautiful but austere-looking witch wearing a most bizarre-looking headdress. Two objects that resembled golden ear trumpets curved out from the sides. A tiny pair of glittering blue wing was stuck to a leather strap that ran over the top of her head, while one of the orange radishes had been stuck to a second strap around her forehead.

"Look at this," said Johnny.

"Fetching," said Ron. "Surprised he didn't wear that to the wedding."

They heard the front door close, and a moment later Xenophilius climbed back up the spiral staircase into the room, his thin legs now encase in Wellington boots, bearing a tray of ill-assorted teacups and a steaming teapot.

"Ah, you have spotted my pet invention," he said, shoving the tray into Hermione's arms and joining Johnny at the statue's side.

"Modeled, fittingly enough, upon the head of the beautiful Rowena Ravenclaw, 'Wit beyond measure is a man's greatest treasure!'"

He indicated the objects like ear trumpets.

"These are the Wrackpurt siphons- to remove all sources of distraction from the thinker's immediate area. Here," he pointed out the tiny wings, "a billywig propeller, to induce an elevated frame of mind. Finally," he pointed to the orange radish, "the dirigible Plum, so as to enhance the ability to accept the extraordinary."

Xenophilius strode back to the tea tray, which Hermione had managed to balance precariously on one of the cluttered side tables.

"May I offer you all an infusion of Gurdyroots?" said Xenophilius. "We make it ourselves." As he started to pour out the drink, which was as deeply purple as beetroot juice, he added, "Luna is down beyond Bottom Bridge, she is most excited that you are here. She ought not to be too long, she has caught nearly enough Plumpies to make soup for all of us. Do sit down and help yourselves to sugar."

"Now," he remove a tottering pile of papers from an armchair and sat down, his Wellingtoned legs crossed, "how may I help you, Mr. Potter, Mr. Grindelwald?"

"Well," said Johnny, glancing at Hermione, who nodded encouragingly, "it's about that symbol you were wearing around your neck at Bill and Fleur's wedding, Mr. Lovegood. We wondered what it meant."

Xenophilius raised his eyebrows.

"Are you referring to the sign of the Deathly Hallows?"

Johnny turned to look at Harry, Ron and Hermione. Neither of them seemed to have understood what Xenophilius had said either.

"The Deathly Hallows?"

"That's right," said Xenophilius. "You haven't heard of them? I'm not surprised. Well yes I am, considering who your Grandfather is. But very, very few wizards believe. Witness that knuckle-headed young man at your brother's wedding," he nodded at Ron, "who attacked me for sporting the symbol of a well-known Dark wizard! Such ignorance. There is nothing Dark about the Hallows- at least not in that crude sense. One simply uses the symbol to reveal oneself to other believers, in the hope that they might help one with the Quest."

He stirred several lumps of sugar into his Gurdyroot infusion and drank some.

"I'm sorry," said Harry, "I still don't really understand."

To be polite, Johnny took a sip from his cup too, and almost gagged: The stuff was quite disgusting, as though someone had liquidised bogey-flavored Every Flavor Beans.

"Well, you see, believers seek the Deathly Hallows," said Xenophilius, smacking his lips in apparent appreciation of the Gurdyroot infusion.

"But what are the Deathly Hallows?" asked Hermione.

Xenophilius set aside his empty teacup.

"I assume that you are familiar with 'The Tale of the Three Brothers'?"

Harry and Johnny said, "No," but Ron and Hermione both said, "Yes." Xenophilius nodded gravely.

"Well, well, Mr. Potter, Mr. Grindelwald, the whole thing starts with 'The Tale of the Three Brothers'... I have a copy somewhere..."

He glanced vaguely around the room, at the piles of parchment and books, but Hermione said, "I've got a copy, Mr. Lovegood, I've got it right here."

And she pulled out The Tales of Beedle the Bard from the small, beaded bag.

"The original?" inquired Xenophilius sharply, and when she nodded, he said, "Well then, why don't you read it out aloud? Much the best way to make sure we all understand."

"Er... all right," said Hermione nervously. She opened the book, and Johnny saw that the symbol they were investigating headed the top of the page as she gave a little cough, and began to read.

"'There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight-'"

"Midnight, our mum always told us," said Ron, who had stretched out, arms behind his head, to listen. Johnny shot him a look of annoyance.

"Sorry, I just think it's a bit spookier if it's midnight!" said Ron.

"Yeah, because we really need a bit more fear in our lives," said Harry before he could stop himself. Xenophilius didn't seem to be paying much attention, but was staring out of the window at the sky. "Go on, Hermione."

"In time, the brothers reached a river too deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across. However, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water. They were halfway across it when they found their path blocked by a hooded figure."

"'And Death spoke to them-'"

"Sorry," interjected Harry, "but Death spoke to them?"

"It's a fairy tale, Harry!" Said Johnny, exasperated. "Let her read!"

"Right, sorry. Go on."

"'And Death spoke to them. He was angry that he had been cheated out of the three new victims, for travelers usually drowned in the river. But Death was cunning. He pretended to congratulate the three brothers upon their magic, and said that each had earned a prize for having been clever enough to evade him."

"'So the oldest brother, who was a combative man, asked for a wand more powerful than any in existence: a wand that must always win duels for its owner, a wand worthy of a wizard who had conquered Death! So Death crossed to an elder tree on the banks of the river, fashioned a wand from a branch that hung there, and gave it to the oldest brother."

"'Then the second brother, who was an arrogant man, decided that he wanted to humiliate Death still further, and asked for the power to recall others from Death. So Death picked up a stone from the riverbank and gave it to the second brother, and told him that the stone would have the power to bring back the dead."

"'And then Death asked the third and youngest brother what he would like. The youngest brother was the humblest and also the wisest of the brothers, and he did not trust Death. So he asked for something that would enable him to go forth from that place without being followed by Death. And Death, most unwillingly, handed over his own Cloak of Invisibility.'"

"Death's got an Invisibility Cloak?" Harry interrupted again.

"So he can sneak up on people," said Ron. "Sometimes he gets bored of running at them, flapping his arms and shrieking... sorry, Hermione."

"'Then Death stood aside and allowed the three brothers to continue on their way, and they did so talking with wonder of the adventure they had had and admiring Death's gifts."

"'In due course the brothers separated, each for his own destination."

"'The first brother traveled on for a week more, and reaching a distant village, sought out a fellow wizard with whom he had a quarrel. Naturally, with the Elder Wand as his weapon, he could not fail to win the duel that followed. Leaving his enemy dead upon the floor the oldest brother proceeded to an inn, where he boasted loudly of the powerful wand he had snatched from Death himself, and of how it made him invincible."

"'That very night, another wizard crept upon the oldest brother as he lay, wine-sodden upon his bed. The thief took the wand and for good measure, slit the oldest brother's throat."

"'And so Death took the first brother for his own."

"'Meanwhile, the second brother journeyed to his own home, where he lived alone. Here he took out the stone that had the power to recall the dead, and turned it thrice in his hand. To his amazement and his delight, the figure of the girl he had once hoped to marry, before her untimely death, appeared at once before him."

"'Yet she was sad and cold, separated from him as by a veil. Though she had returned to the mortal world, she did not truly belong there and suffered. Finally the second brother, driven mad with hopeless longing, killed himself so as to truly join her."

"'And so Death took the second brother from his own."

"'But though Death searched for the third brother for many years, he was never able to find him. It was only when he had attained a great age that the youngest brother finally took off the Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son. And the he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life.'"

Hermione closed the book. It was a moment or two before Xenophilius seemed to realise that she had stopped reading; then he withdrew his gaze from the window and said: "Well, there you are."

"Sorry?" said Hermione, sounding confused.

"Those are the Deathly Hallows," said Xenophilius.

He picked up a quill from a packed table at his elbow, and pulled a torn piece of parchment from between more books.

"The Elder Wand," he said, and drew a straight vertical line upon the parchment. "The Resurrection Stone," he said, and added a circle on top of the line. "The Cloak of Invisibility," he finished, enclosing both line and circle in a triangle, to make the symbols. "Together," he said, "the Deathly Hallows."

"But there's no mention of the words 'Deathly Hallows' in the story," said Hermione.

"Well, of course not," said Xenophilius, maddeningly smug. "That is a children's tale, told to amuse rather than to instruct. Those of us who understand these matters, however, recognise that the ancient story refers to three objects, or Hallows, which, if united, will make the possessor Master of Death."

There was a short silence in which Xenophilius glanced out of the window. Already the sun was low in the sky.

"Luna ought to have enough Plimpies soon," he said quietly.

"When you say 'Master of Death'-"said Johnny.

"Master," said Xenophilius, waving an airy hand. "Conqueror. Vanquisher. Whichever term you prefer."

"But then... do you mean..." said Hermione slowly, and Johnny could tell that she was trying to keep any trace of skepticism out of her voice, "that you believe these objects- these Hallows- really exist?"

Xenophilius raised his eyebrows again.

"Well, of course."

"But," said Hermione, and Johnny could hear her restraint starting to crack, "Mr. Lovegood, how can you possibly believe-?"

"Luna has told me all about you, young lady," said Xenophilius. "You are, I gather, not unintelligent, but painfully limited. Narrow. Close-minded."

"Excuse me-" Johnny went to snap, but Hermione silenced him.

"Mr. Lovegood," Hermione began again, "We all know that there are such things as Invisibility Cloaks. They are rare, but they exist. But-"

"Ah, but the Third Hallow is a true Cloak of Invisibility, Miss Granger! I mean to say, it is not a traveling cloak imbued with a Disillusionment Charm, or carrying a Bedazzling Hex, or else woven from Demiguise hair, which will hide one initially but fade with the years until it turns opaque. We are talking about a cloak that really and truly renders the wearer completely invisible, and endures eternally, giving constant and impenetrable concealment, no matter what spells are cast at it. How many cloaks have you ever seen like that, Miss Granger?"

Hermione opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again, looking more confused than ever. She, Johnny, Harry and Ron glanced at one another, and Johnny knew that they were all thinking the same thing. It so happened that a cloak exactly like the one Xenophilius had just described was in the room with them at that very moment.

"Exactly," said Xenophilius, as if he had defeated them all in reasoned argument. "None of you have ever seen such a thing. The possessor would be immeasurably rich, would he not?"

He glanced out of the window again. The sky was now tinged with the faintest trace of pink.

"All right," said Hermione, disconcerted. "Say the Cloak existed... what about that stone, Mr. Lovegood? The thing you call the Resurrection Stone?"

"What of it?"

"Well, how can that be real?"

"Prove that is not," said Xenophilius.

Hermione looked outraged.

"But that's- I'm sorry, but that's completely ridiculous! How can I possibly prove it doesn't exist? Do you expect me to get hold of- of all the pebbles in the world and test them? I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist!"

"Yes, you could," said Xenophilius. "I am glad to see that you are opening your mind a little."

"So the Elder Wand," said Johnny quickly, before Hermione could retort, "you think that exists too?"

"Oh, well, in that case there is endless evidence," said Xenophilius. "The Elder Wand is the Hallow that is most easily traced, because of the way in which it passes from hand to hand."

"Which is what?" asked Johnny.

"Which is that the possessor of the wand must capture it from its previous owner, if he is to be truly master of it," said Xenophilius. "Surely you have heard of the way the wand came to Egbert the Egregious, after his slaughter of Emeric the Evil? Of how Godelot died in his own cellar after his son, Hereward, took the wand from him? Of the dreadful Loxias, who took the wand from Baraabas Deverill, whom he had killed? The bloody trail of the Elder Wand is splattered across the pages of Wizarding history."

Johnny glanced at Hermione. She was frowning at Xenophilius, but she didn't contradict him.

"So where do you think the Elder Wand is now?" asked Ron.

"Alas, who knows?" said Xenophilius, as he gazed out of the window. "Who knows where the Elder Wand lies hidden? The trail goes cold with Arcus and Livius. Who can say which of them really defeated Loxias, and which took the wand? And who can say who may have defeated them? History, alas, does not tell us."

There was a pause. Finally Hermione asked stiffly, "Mr. Lovegood, does the Peverell family have anything to do with the Deathly Hallows?"

Xenophilius looked taken aback as something shifted in Johnny's memory, but he couldn't locate it. Peverell... he had heard that name before...

"But you have been misleading me, young woman!" said Xenophilius, now sitting up much straighter in his chair and goggling at Hermione. "I thought you were new to the Hallows Quest! Many of us Questers believe that the Peverells have everything- everything!- to do with the Hallows!"

"Who are the Peverells?" asked Ron.

"That was the name on the grave with the mark on it, in Godric's Hollow," said Hermione, still watching Xenophilius. "Ignotus Peverell."

"Exactly!" said Xenophilius, his forefinger raised pedantically. "The sign of the Death Hallows on Ignotus's grave is conclusive proof!"

"Of what?" asked Ron.

"Why, that the three brothers in the story were actually the three Peverell brothers, Antioch, Cadmus and Ignotus! That they were the original owners of the Hallows!"

With another glance at the window he got to his feet, picked up the tray, and headed for the spiral staircase.

"You will stay for dinner?" he called, as he vanished downstairs again. "Everybody always requests our recipe for Freshwater Plimply soup."

"Probably to show the Poisoning Department at St. Mungo's," said Johnny under his breath.

"What do you think?" Harry asked Hermione in a hushed whisper.

"Oh, Harry," she said wearily, "it's a pile of utter rubbish. This can't be what the sign really means. This must just be his weird take on it. What a waste of time."

"I s'pose this is the man who brought us Crumple-Horned Snorkacks," said Ron.

"You didn't believe it either?" Johnny asked him.

"Nah, that story's just one of those things you tell kids to teach them lessons, isn't it? 'Don't go looking for trouble, don't go pick fights, don't go messing around with stuff that's best left alone! Just keep your head down, mind your own business, and you'll be okay. Come to think of it," Ron added, "maybe that story's why elder wands are supposed to be unlucky."

"What are you talking about?"

"One of those superstitions, isn't it? 'May-born witches will marry Muggles.' 'Jinx by twilight, undone by midnight.' 'Wand of cider, never prosper.' You must have heard them. My mum's full of them."

"Harry, Johnny and I were raised by Muggles," Hermione reminded him. "We were taught different superstitions." She sighed deeply as a rather pungent smell drifted up from the kitchen. The one good thing about her exasperation with Xenophilius was that it seemed to have made her forget that she was annoyed at Ron. "I think you're right," she told him. "It's just a morality tale, it's obvious which gift is best, which one you'd choose-"

The four of them spoke at the same time: Hermione said, "the Cloak," Ron said, "the wand," Harry said, "the stone," and Johnny said "all three."

They looked at each other, half surprised, half amused.

"You're supposed to say the Cloak," Ron told Johnny. "You can't pick all three!"

"We've already got an Invisibility Cloak, but we could use a spare," said Johnny, "And I'm in need of a new wand, and if we had the stone maybe we'd be able to get help from Dumbledore."

"The wands dangerous though," said Hermione.

"Only if you shouted about it," argued Ron. "Only if you were prat enough to go dancing around waving it over your head, and singing, 'I've got an unbeatable want, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough.' As long as you kept your trap shut-"

"Yes, but could you or Johnny keep your trap shut?" said Hermione, looking skeptical, but grinning at Johnny. "You know the only true thing he said to us was that there have been stories about extra-powerful wands for hundreds of years."

"There have?" asked Harry.

Hermione looked exasperated: The expression was so endearingly familiar that Johnny, Harry and Ron grinned at each other.

"The Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny, they crop up under different names through the centuries, usually in the possession of some Dark wizard who's boasting about them. Professor Binns mentioned some of them, but- oh it's all nonsense. Wands are only as powerful as the wizards who use them. Some wizards just like to boast that theirs are bigger and better than other people's"

"That's what she said," said Johnny, causing all three boys to chuckle and high five.

"But how do you know," said Harry once the laughter died down, "that those who want- the Deathstick, and the Wand of Destiny- aren't the same want, surfacing over the centuries under different names?"

"What if they're all really the Elder Wand, made by Death?" said Ron. "So why would you take the stone?" Asked Ron, looking to Harry.

"Well, if you could bring people back, we could have Sirius... Mad-Eye... Dumbledore... my parents..." Neither Johnny, Ron nor Hermione smiled.

"But according to Beedle the Bard, they wouldn't want to come back, would they?" said Johnny, thinking about the tail they had just heard. "I don't suppose there have been loads of other stories about a stone that can raise the dead, have there?" he asked Hermione.

"No," she replied sadly. "I don't think anyone except Mr. Lovegood could kid themselves that's possible. Beedle probably took the idea from the Philosophers Stone; you know, instead of a stone to make you immortal, a stone to reverse death."

The smell from the kitchen was getting stronger. It was something like burning underpants.

"What about the Cloak, though?" said Ron slowly. "Don't you realise, he's right? I've got so used to Harry's Cloak and how good it is, I never stopped to think. I've never heard of one like Harry's. It's infallible. We've never been spotted under it-"

"Of course not- we're invisible when we're under it, Ron!"

"But all the stuff he said about other cloaks, and they're not exactly ten a Kanut, you know, is true! It's never occurred to me before but I've heard stuff about charms wearing off cloaks when they get old, or them being ripped apart by spells so they've got holes, Harry's was owned by his dad, so it's not exactly new, is it, but it's just... perfect!"

"Yes, all right, but Ron, the stone..."

As they argued in whispers, Johnny moved around the room, only half listening. Reaching the spiral stair, he raised his eyes absently to the next level and was distracted at once. His own face was looking back at him from the ceiling of the room above. After a moment's bewilderment, he realised that it wasn't a mirror, but a painting. Curious, he began to climb the stairs.

"Johnny, what are you doing? I don't think you should look around when he's not here!" But Johnny had already reached the next level. Luna had decorated her bedroom ceiling with six beautifully painted faces: Johnny, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville. They weren't moving as the portraits at Hogwarts moved, but there was a certain magic about them all the same. Johnny thought they breathed. What appeared to be a fine golden chains wove around the pictures linking them together, but after examining them for a minute or so, Johnny realised that the chains were actually one work repeated a thousand times in golden ink: friends... friends... friends...

Johnny felt a great rush of affection for Luna. He looked around the room. There was a large photograph beside the bed, of a young Luna and a woman who looked very like her. They were hugging. Luna looked rather better-groomed in this picture than Johnny had ever seen her in life. The picture was dusty. This struck Johnny as slightly odd. He stared around. Something was wrong. The pale blue carpet was also thick with dust. There were no clothes in the wardrobe, whose doors stood ajar. The bed had a cold, unfriendly look, as though it hadn't been slept in for weeks. A single cobweb stretched over the nearest window across the blood red sky.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked as Johnny descended the staircase, but before he could respond, Xenophilius reached the top of the stairs from the kitchen, now holding a tray laden with bowls.

"Mr. Lovegood," said Johnny. "Where's Luna?"

"Excuse me?"

"Where's Luna?"

Xenophilius halted on the top step.

"I- I've already told you. She is down at the Botions Bridge fishing for Plimpies."

"So why have you only laid that tray for five?"

Xenophilius tried to speak, but no sound came out. The only noise was the continued chugging of the printing press, and a slight rattle from the tray as Xenophilius's hands shook.

"I don't think Luna's been here for weeks," said Johnny. "Her clothes are gone, her bed hasn't been slept in. Where is she? and why do you keep looking out of the window?"

Xenophilius dropped the tray. The bowls bounced and smashed. Johnny, Harry, Ron, and Hermione drew their wands. Xenophilius froze his hand about to enter his pocket. At that moment the printing press have a huge bank and numerous Quibblers came streaming across the floor from underneath the tablecloth, the press fell silent at last. Hermione stooped down and picked up one of the magazines, her wand still pointing at Mr. Lovegood.

"Guys, look at this" Harry, Ron and Johnny strode over to her as quickly as he could through all the clutter.

The front of the Quibbler carried a picture of Johnny and Harry, emblazoned with the words "Undesirable Number One and Two" and captioned with the reward money.

"The Quibbler's going for a new angle, then?" Johnny asked coldly, his mind working very fast. "Is that what you were doing when you went into the garden, Mr. Lovegood? Sending an owl to the Ministry?"

Xenophilius licked his lips "They took my Luna," he whispered, "Because of what I've been writing. They took my Luna and I don't know where she is, what they've done to her. But they might give her back to me if I- If I-"

"Hand over Harry and Johnny?" Hermione finished for him, her left hand resting on her swelling belly.

"No deal," said Ron flatly. "Get out of the way, we're leaving."

Xenophilius looked ghastly, a century old, his lips drawn back into a dreadful leer.

"They will be here any moment. I must save Luna. I cannot lose Luna. You must not leave."

He spread his arms in front of the staircase, and Johnny had a sudden vision of his Aunt doing the same thing in front of Harry's crib.

"Don't make us hurt you," Harry said. "Get out of the way, Mr. Lovegood."

"HARRY!" Hermione screamed.

Figures on broomsticks were flying past the windows. As the four of them looked away from him. Xenophilius drew his wand. Johnny realised their mistake just in time. He launched himself sideways, shoving Ron and Hermione out of harm's way as Xenophilius's Stunning Spell soared across the room and hit the Erumpent horn.

There was a colossal explosion. The sound of it seemed to blow the room apart.

Fragments of wood and paper and rubble flew in all directions, along with an impenetrable cloud of thick white dust. J0hnny flew through the air, then crashed to the floor, unable to see as debris rained upon him, his arms over his head. He heard Hermione's scream, Ron's and Harry's yells, and a series of sickening metallic thuds which told him that Xenophilius had been blasted off his feet and fallen backward down the spiral stairs.

Half buried in rubble, Johnny tried to raise himself. He could barely breathe or see for dust.

Half of the ceiling had fall in and the end of Luna's bead was hanging through the hole.

The bust of Rowena Ravenclaw lay beside him with half its face missing fragments of torn parchment were floating through the air, and most of the printing press lay on its side, blocking the top of the staircase to the kitchen. Then another white shape moved close by, and Hermione, coated in dust like a second statue, pressed his finger to her lips.

"Are you and the baby okay?" Johnny mouthed. Hermione nodded, and motioned towards the small shield charm she casted around the belly.

The door downstairs crashed open.

"Didn't I tell you there was no need to hurry, Travers?" said a rough voice. "Didn't I tell you this nutter was just raving as usual?" There was a bang and a scream of pain from Xenophilius.

"No... no... upstairs... Potter! Grindelwald!"

"I told you last week Lovegood, we weren't coming back for anything less than some solid information! Remember last week? When you wanted to swap your daughter for that stupid bleeding headdress? And the week before-" Another bang, another squeal, "-When you thought we'd give her back if you offered us proof there are Cumple-" Bang, "-Headed Snorkacks?"

"No- no- I beg of you!" sobbed Xenophilius. "It really is them, Really!"

"And now it turns out you only called us here to try and blow us up!" roared the Death Eater, and there was a volley of bangs interspersed with squeals of agony from Xenophilius.

"The place looks like it's about to fall in, Selwyn," said a cool second voice, echoing up the mangled staircase. "The stairs are completely blocked. Could try clearing it? Might bring the place down."

"You lying piece of filth," shouted the wizard named Selwyn.

"You have never seen Potter and Grindelwald in your life, have you? Thought you'd lure us here to kill us, did you? And you think you'll get your girl back like this?"

"I swear...I swear... they're upstairs!"

"Homenum revelio," said the voice at the foot of the stairs. Johnny heard Hermione gasp, and he had the odd sensation something was swooping low over him, immersing his body in its shadow.

"There's someone up there all right, Selwyn," said the second man sharply.

"It's them, I tell you, it's Potter and Grindelwald!" sobbed Xenophilius. "Please... please...give me Luna, just let me have Luna..."

"You can have your little girl, Lovegood," said Selwyn, "if you get up those stairs and bring me down Harry Potter and Johnathan Grindelwald. But if this is a plot, if it's a trick, if you've got an accomplice waiting up there to ambush us, we'll see if we can spare a bit of your daughter for you to bury. Or, maybe we send Jakob Grindelwald here to kill you too."

Xenophilius gave a wail of fear and despair. There were scurryings and scrapings.

Xenophilius was trying to get through the debris on the stairs.

"Come on," Harry whispered, "we've got to get out of here."

Johnny started to dig himself out under cover of all the noise Xenophilius was making on the staircase. Ron was buried the deepest. Johnny, Harry and Hermione climbed, as quietly as they could, over all the wreckage to where he lay, trying to prise a heavy chest of drawers off his legs. While Xenophilius banging and scraping drew nearer and nearer, Hermione managed to free Ron with the use of a Hover Charm.

"All right," breathed Hermione, as the broken printing press blocking the top of the stairs begin to tremble. Xenophilius was feet away from them. She was still white with dust.

"Do you trust me, guys?"

Harry and Johnny nodded.

"Okay then," Hermione whispered. "Give me the Invisibility Cloak. Ron, you're going to put it on."

"Me? But Harry-"

"Please, Ron! Harry, hold on tight to my hand, Johnny grab Harry, Ron grab my shoulder."

Johnny grabbed Harry's forearm. Ron vanished beneath the Cloak. The printing press blocking the stairs was vibrating. Xenophilius was trying to shift it using a Hover Charm. Johnny didn't know what Hermione was waiting for.

"Hold tight" she whispered. "Hold tight... any second..."

Xenophilius's paper-white face appeared over the top of the sideboard.

"Obliviate!" cried Hermione, pointing her want first into his face then at the floor beneath them. "Deprimo!"

She had blasted a hole in the sitting room floor. They fell like boulders. Johnny still holding onto Harry for dear life, there was a scream from below, and he glimpsed two men trying to get out of the way as vast quantities of rubble and broken furniture rained all around them from the shattered ceiling. Hermione twisted in midair and thundering of the collapsing house rang in Johnny's ears as she dragged them once more into darkness.