FicWad

Chapter one: Train Ride Home

The bright scarlet locomotive that pulled the Hogwarts Express was pushing a bright white line of steam into the blue highland sky to mark its progress across the English countryside. The weather was delightfully warm for the early summer and there was not the least sign of rain in the sky. All this was lost on the occupants of the last compartment of the last car of that train; they sat in sullen silence as the car rocked along the steel rails.

Harry Potter sat next to the window facing backwards, as if looking at where he had been would delay him getting to where he was going. Usually calming, the motion of the train was causing the unease in his stomach to roil like an angry beast and he hoped he could keep the little breakfast that he had been able to eat from coming back up again. Next to him sat Ron, who was obviously uncomfortable with the silence that hung around them. Hermione sat across from Ron with her brow furrowed in that way she had when there was something she wanted to talk about that she thought was important but no one else wanted to discuss. The space opposite Harry was empty.

Clearing her throat to get Harry’s attention, Hermione opened the conversation. “You know, Harry, I’m rather surprised Ginny didn’t decide to join us. Where is she?”

Ron looked up at this and added, “Yeah, with you two dating and all, I’d’ve thought she’d want to be here with you and not with her other friends.”

“We’re not,” Harry answered quietly then lapsed back into silence.

“You’re not what?” Hermione said, prodding him on into the conversation she knew he didn’t want to have.

“We’re not dating anymore.”

“You’re not?” Ron asked, his eyes going wide with the revelation. “Why ever not? I thought the two of you were getting on grand, you seemed thick as thieves a couple of days ago.”

“A lot has happened in the last couple of days, Ron,” Harry answered without taking his face away from the window.

Hermione leaned across the aisle and put her hand on Harry’s knee. “What happened, Harry?”

Harry snapped his head around to stare at his friend. “Dumbledore died, remember?”

“Yes, Harry, I remember it quite clearly. We were there, if you’ll remember,” she snapped right back.

“Yeah, and you almost got killed as well. Ginny could have died too. If you hadn’t’ve had that Felix Felicitous then likely you all would have died.”

“But we didn’t, Harry. We lived. You lived,” Hermione said in a soothing voice, trying to avoid Harry’s rising temper.

“Yeah, but now we’re out of the potion. What’s to guarantee that the next time you won’t get killed... that she won’t get killed?”

Ron nodded his head. “So, you broke up with her to keep her safe?” Harry nodded back and turned to once again look out the window at the retreating mountains, considering the discussion closed.

Hermione however, was having none of it. “Don’t you think that is her decision to make?” she said sharply.

“No, it isn’t,” Harry answered and this was obviously not the answer Hermione expected as she seemed to have to choke back the response she was about to make. “Do you think I chose to be The-Boy-Who-Lived? Do you think I decided I wanted to be the only one who could stop Voldemort?” Harry glared at her but Hermione didn’t answer. Harry didn’t like her silence and practically shouted, “Well, DO YOU?”

“No,” Hermione answered meekly.

“That’s right, I didn’t, but I’m stuck with it. That damned Prophecy made sure that I had no choice in it. No choice at all.”

“And so, because Fate somehow forced you into this position of having to lead the fight against Voldemort, you think you have the right to force decisions on others?” Hermione had a satisfied look on her face that said that she thought this would be the final stroke of her argument.

“Do you want Ginny to die, Hermione?” Harry asked coldly. Hermione seemed shocked at this change in tack and Harry took advantage of her hesitation to continue. “Well, I don’t. I don’t want anyone else to die and, in case you haven’t noticed, the people around me tend to. The people who I let get close to me often wind up dead. Well, I’m not going to let that happen to Ginny.”

“That’s... that’s not true, Harry,” Hermione stammered

“Oh, isn’t it?” Harry responded. “My folks are dead. Sirius is dead. Now Dumbledore is dead too. Hell, even Cedric is dead and he just barely became a friend. How does that make things look for Ginny if she stays close? What’s her life expectancy? I won’t let her die. It’s bad enough that Tom got inside her head through that blasted diary. She’s already gone through enough. I won’t put her in even more danger!”

Ron was nodding his head again in agreement. Ginny was his little sister and it was his job, as her big brother, to look after her and keep her safe; that’s what Mum and Dad always told them when they went off to school. Hermione, however, still didn’t like it.

“Ginny can take care of herself,” she stated firmly. “She was with us at the Ministry last year, and she was there fighting the Death Eaters a couple of days ago. She’s just as good as any of us.”

“Yeah, she is,” Harry conceded. “She did great at the Ministry when Sirius died, and she did as well as anyone fighting the Death Eaters in school when Dumbledore got killed. But can she fight as well as either of them could? I certainly can’t. Yeah, she can fight as well as any of us but that’s just not enough. Sirius and Dumbledore were great fighters and they still wound up dead. When will she draw the short straw and wind up getting killed as well?” Hermione had no answer and Harry knew that there was no answer to be had. “Sooner or later it would happen. Sooner or later, she’d be the one who gets killed and then we’ll be going to her funeral. Well, I have no intention of letting that happen and that means that I can’t let her get close again.”

“Well then what about us, Harry?” Ron asked. “Are you saying that you don’t care if Hermione or I get killed?”

Harry looked at them with sorrow clearly written across his face. “It’s not that, Ron, it’s not that at all. You two are my best friends, you were my first friends, and you mean almost as much to me as Ginny does.” With this statement there was a soft, muffled gasp and Harry turned to see Hermione sitting there with wide eyes and her hand over her mouth. “I don’t want to put you in danger either, but I reckon there’s no way for me to stop you.”

“Too right there, mate,” Ron said fiercely. Hermione began to reach out her hand to Harry but stopped halfway then withdrew it.

Harry continued, “I don’t want either of you to get hurt or killed either; you’ve already been hurt enough because of me. Ron’s still got the marks from those brain things at the Ministry. And you, Hermione, you almost got killed by that curse from Dolohov.” Hermione flushed, her hand raised to rub against a spot on her ribs just below her breasts. “I don’t want you to get hurt again but... but I need you. I need your help. Back in first year, it was Ron who got us passed that giant chess set of McGonagall’s. And it was you, Hermione, who got us passed the Devil’s Snare and solved Snape’s logic puzzle so I could get through to Quirrel. I couldn’t have done that alone. I need you two if I’m to have any chance of finding those Horcruxes.”

“But you don’t need Ginny?” Hermione asked.

Harry hung his head as if in defeat. “I need her too, maybe most of all. But I need her to live. I don’t think I could live if I knew that she got killed because she was with me. If she died, I don’t think I would want to live anymore.”

Hermione slid forward to the edge of her seat and down closer to Harry but not quite across from him. She reached out her hands and grasped his. Softly she said, “Does that mean that you... How do you feel about Ginny, Harry? Deep down inside, how do you really feel about her?”

Harry just shrugged and shook his head, not knowing how to answer. Hermione, however, wouldn’t let it go.

“Well, Harry? How do you feel about her? How does she make you feel, really?”

Harry looked back at her, his eyes filled with sorrow and a depth of longing that made Hermione gasp. “Ginny’s... What do you want me to say? That she’s brilliant? She is. That she makes me feel like I’ve never felt before? Like I’m important for more than just what the world expects of me? That I matter just for the simple reason that I’m me? Well, she does. You want me to say that I don’t think I could live without her, or that I wouldn’t want to? Do you want me to say that she’s the first person I look for when I walk into a room and the last thing I think about when I go to sleep? Is that what you want from me?”

“Do you love her, Harry?” Hermione asked softly.

Harry shrugged again, as if the very last question he wanted to answer was also the most important question in the world. Then, all at once, his eyes grew hard and his face became a mask. “It doesn’t change anything. The only important thing is that she stay safe. She can’t be with me when I face Tom the next time... for the last time. Maybe after that. Maybe then.”

Hermione suddenly grew angry at him for his stubbornness. “And you expect her to just sit around waiting for you to decide it’s safe for her to be around you? You think she will just wait for you to have time to have a relationship? Did you ask her if she would wait for you, huh?”

“No,” Harry said quietly, “I didn’t ask her to wait.”

“But you expect her to.”

“No, not really. Ginny’s too wonderful to just sit there. There’s a whole line of fellows waiting for the chance to be with her. I expect they’ll beat a path to the front door of the Burrow once they realize that she’s available. A guy would have to be stupid or something not to.”

“And you expect her to just turn them all away?”

Harry shook his head and answered, “No, not really. I’d like to think... I hope that... All that matters is that she’s alive and happy. If it’s some other guy that makes her happy well...” Harry took a deep breath as if committing himself to some painful fate. “As long as she’s happy that’s all I can ask for.”

“But Harry, if you really...”

Harry cut her off. “Listen, Hermione, those few weeks I got to spend with her were wonderful, likely the best time of my life. It was like something out of someone else’s life, someone who was allowed to be happy.”

“You’re allowed to be happy, Harry.”

“No, I’m not. Maybe I can squeeze in a bit here and there. Maybe I can steal a couple of weeks with the most wonderful girl in the world. But not for long, and there is always a price to be paid for it. I don’t have a life, I have a destiny.”

Hermione replied in frustration, “Harry, that’s just...”

“That’s just the way it is, Hermione,” Harry said, cutting her off once again. “The Prophecy sealed it. My parents died to give me the power to destroy him once. Sirius died to give me the chance to learn what it is I’m facing. Dumbledore died after teaching me what I had to do to finish him once and for all. I have to face my destiny and until I do I can’t have anything resembling a life of my own.”

“For neither can live while the other survives,” Ron spoke, quoting the Prophecy. “That’s what it means. As long as V... Vo...” Ron cleared his throat loudly. “Voldemort still lives you won’t be allowed to live a life, you have to suffer as long as he breathes. Your life won’t really begin until you face him.”

“Assuming I survive, that is.”

Suddenly the door to the compartment was thrown open and a haughty voice spoke out, “It would be far wiser to assume you won’t.” The group turned to see Pansy Parkinson standing in the doorway, Crabbe and Goyle standing behind her. “In fact, why don’t you do us all a favor and just jump off a bridge or something. It would save us all a lot of time and not change the final outcome at all.” She took in the three of them with a sneer. “You probably think that you’re all so clever, forcing Draco out like that? Well, you’re not! Draco will be back. It’s you lot of worthless blood traitors, half-bloods and mudbloods who won’t be back. The Dark Lord will make sure of that. Then Draco and I will be together again and you all will be dead.”

Ron already had his hand on his wand when Harry spoke with a surprisingly light-hearted tone. “And speaking of Draco, how long do you think Voldemort will keep him under the Cruciatus for failing in his very first mission as a Death Eater? Think he’ll manage to keep what little sanity he has, hmm?”

“What are you talking about, Potter? That old fool Dumbledore is dead.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t Draco who did it, was it? It was Snape who finally had to finish the dear little ferret’s mission for him. Draco didn’t have the nerve. Spent too much time crying in the loo with Moaning Myrtle, I expect.”

“You’re lying!” Pansy spat. “You’re nothing but a bunch of worthless traitors and when the Dark Lord finishes with you there will be nothing to stand between Draco and I.”

“Assuming, that is, Moaning Myrtle will let him go. They seemed rather close the last time I saw them together.”

Pansy snarled but before she could say anything Hermione interrupted. “Harry, she overheard.”

“Yeah, I know,” Harry responded. “We can’t let her leave now.”

Pansy’s eyes went wide in shock; she grabbed for her wand when suddenly both Crabbe and Goyle went stiff, the victims of a pair of Full Body Binds. Startled by the two falling over in the hall, she didn’t see Harry point his wand at her. “Obliviate,” he whispered, focusing on removing the last few minutes from her memory. As Pansy’s eyes swam back into focus, Harry began to shout, “Now get out of here you worthless bint before we send you back to your lunatic half-blood master in a cigar box!”

With this Ron slammed the door closed again and the Gryffindors listened as Pansy cast the counter-jinx to her two newly acquired body guards and herded them back up the corridor.

“Whew, that was close,” Ron sighed as the sounds from the Slytherins faded.

Hermione looked to Harry in a cross between dismay and relief. “Harry, when did you learn to cast a memory charm?”

Harry returned her gaze with a decided twinkle in his eye. “For everything, Miss Granger,” he said in a remarkable imitation of Professor Dumbledore, “there must be a first time.”

“But what if it didn’t work? Or what if it did some permanent damage to her?”

“So much the better,” Ron quipped.

“What would you have me do, Hermione? Track her down and then quiz her on how much of the Prophecy she knows? Then obliviate her again. Then of course I’d have to test her again to make sure that that memory charm took as well...”

“OK, OK, Harry, I get it. But what if she remembers some of it?”

“What other options do we have?” Harry answered. “The only way to make certain they can’t tell anyone anything we don’t want them to is to kill all three of them. Is that what you want me to do?”

Hermione shook her head, shocked at the very idea.

“Well then we just have to hope that the charm worked at least as well as we need and that Crabbe and Goyle are too dim to think they heard anything of value.”

“As if anyone would be stupid enough to ask them any questions that didn’t have something to do with what they ate for lunch,” Ron put in with a snort.

“At the least, you should make sure they actually left and aren’t hanging about waiting to cause more problems,” she said at last.

“Yeah, you’re likely right,” Harry said. “Com’on Ron, let’s play Saint Patrick and drive the snakes away.”

The two boys got up and, after carefully checking the corridor for an ambush, left to make sure the Slytherins had moved on. When the door had closed after them, Hermione cast a locking charm on it then sat down in the seat Harry had just vacated. With a sigh she reached out and grabbed hold of the empty air across from her. With a tug she pulled an invisibility cloak off the tear streaked face of Ginny Weasley.

“So, now you know,” Hermione said quietly. Ginny just nodded. “He didn’t break up with you because he didn’t want to be with you, just the opposite, in fact.” Again, Ginny just nodded. “So what are you going to do? Are you going to wait for him?”

Ginny thought for a moment then answered with conviction, “No.” Hermione sat back, shocked at the implications of Ginny’s answer. “I’m not going to wait for him because I have absolutely no intention of letting him get away. He might not want to date me but if he thinks he can just shut me out of all of this... well, he has another think coming.” Hermione was smiling now. “He thinks he’s stubborn, well he hasn’t seen stubborn yet. I have just as much right to fight Voldemort as anyone. More than most since I still owe that bastard for what his diary did to me. I’m not about to sit back at the Burrow and take up knitting while he and you lot go traipsing about the country looking for those Horcruxes. I’m coming with you whether Mr. Harry Potter likes it or not!” She finished by giving her head a sharp nod, which Hermione mirrored to seal the deal.

“But right now we have to get you out of here before Harry gets back,” Hermione said while folding up the cloak. “Give me a hand with his trunk so we can put this back before he misses it. By the way, nice silent casting there. When did you learn to do it?”

Ginny smiled. “When I saw what a problem Ron and Harry were having with it I figured the sooner I got started practicing it the better.”

Harry’s cloak once again in his trunk, Hermione let Ginny out to find a seat elsewhere then sat back down to await the return of the two men in her life and plan out what to do next. It took a few minutes but they returned. They must have run into the snack cart along the way because their arms were loaded down with what looked to Hermione to be the entire contents of the trolley. She looked at Ron in distaste as he first bit the head off of a squirming Chocolate Frog then stuffed the whole thing into his mouth.

“Gotta get it while we can,” he said after swallowing the sweet in one gulping go, “‘cause we’ve no idea what kind of food we’re going to get with those Muggles.”

“Oh please, Ron,” Hermione answered. “Muggles eat the same kinds of food that we do, they just cook it without magic.”

Harry put down the Pumpkin Pastie that he was eating and put in, “Yeah but will we get any at all? Aunt Petunia hates to feed me anything and when she sees the two of you along with me…” Harry let the sentence hang for a moment. “We might want to get some pounds so we can eat out instead.”

“Do you really think it will be that bad, Harry?” Hermione asked. After another shrug from the Boy-Who-Lived, she added, “Well, at least it will only be for a couple of days.”

“Yeah,” Harry responded, “I promised Dumbledore I’d go back and I will but I’ll be dammed if I spend one more second with the Dursleys than I absolutely have too.”

The remainder of the train ride passed quickly with Harry staring out the window again and Ron speculating at what Vernon and Petunia’s reaction to the three of them going back to Privet Drive would be.

The train came to a stop in King’s Cross with a shuddering clatter and Hermione dragged a reluctant Ron from the compartment to do his Prefect duties and make sure that all the younger students got off the train with no problems. After they left, Harry waited a few minutes to let the crush in the corridor die down then began to wrestle the trunks down from the racks. His own came down with no difficulty but when he tried to slide Hermione’s off the rack it slipped from his hands and fell with a mighty clunk onto his right foot. The string of words that erupted from Harry’s mouth would have had Mrs. Weasley casting a scourgify in his mouth in a heartbeat, to be followed by an entire week of degnoming the Burrow's garden. Harry didn’t care as he hopped about on his left foot trying to determine how many toes of his right had been crushed beyond repair.

“Gor! What did she do, pack the entire Hogwarts library in here?” Harry asked to the empty compartment as he gingerly set his foot back onto the floor. Staring at the trunk that now sat catty-corner across the aisle and then looking at Ron’s trunk that he still had to take down, Harry decided fighting the Ministry was the easier task and took out his wand.

“Locomotor trunks!” he stated and then directed the now floating luggage into a neat stack and into the corridor.

Guiding them down from the train onto the platform Harry looked around quickly spotting the sea of Redheads that marked the Weasleys. Heading towards them he also made out the figures of Hermione’s parents. They seemed to be engaged in a rather heated discussion and as Harry approached he began to overhear.

“You should be spending your time with family, Ronald! That’s what is important. And you as well, Hermione,” he heard Mrs. Weasley’s distinctive voice stating.

“But Mum, we promised Harry we’d go with him.”

“Well, Harry can just come with us as well. He should be with people who care about him in times like these anyway.”

“And Hermione,” came a distinctively cultured voice that Harry had to assume belonged to Mr. Granger, “I don’t approve of you going to a boy’s home unchaperoned.”

“But Dad..,”

“Don’t talk back, Hermione. It isn’t proper. Besides, if this Harry is going with Ronald then there is no reason for you not to return home with us. We haven’t seen you in quite some time and I think we ought to be spending some time together now that you are home for the summer holiday.”

By this time Harry had reached the group and decided to join in the conversation. “Ron, Hermione,” he said evenly, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice, “your families make good points. It will only be for a day or two so just go with them now.”

“But Harry, we promised that we would go with you… that we would stick together,” Hermione said. Beside her Ron nodded his agreement.

“And we will be, Hermione. I promise that I won’t do anything until I go to the Burrow and we can all be together.”

Mrs. Weasley smiled happily at him. “Indeed, and since you’ll be coming back with us there’s no reason to discuss things further.”

“Well, I appreciate the invitation, Mrs. Weasley, and I would love to come to the Burrow in a day or so…” Harry said.

“What are you talking about, Harry?” Molly asked. “Of course you’re coming with us.”

Harry shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Weasley, but no, at least not now. I promised the Headmaster that I would go back to my Muggle relatives one more time to help renew the blood protections. I promised and I intend to keep it.”

Harry suddenly noticed the concerned expression on Ginny’s face and turned away from it to hide how it affected him. “But those people are horrible, you can’t go back there,” she almost pleaded.

Harry turned back, his face set in stone. “I have to. I promised Dumbledore. But I’m only going to be staying there one night. Then I’m shut of them.”

“No, don’t do it,” Ginny asked again, shaking her head as if trying to rid herself of some sort of premonition.

“I have to. I promised Dumbledore.”

“No.”

“I have to.”

Ginny spun away from him and buried her face in her mother’s busom. Molly wrapped her arms around her youngest and tried to comfort her. “It will only be for a day or two, sweetie. Then Harry will hop onto the Knight Bus and come right home to us.” Ginny shook her head again.

Not knowing what else to do Harry turned away from the group and passed through the barrier into the Muggle section of the station to look for the Dursleys. He quickly spotted Uncle Vernon standing impatiently by a pillar. A pillock by a pillar, Harry thought with a chuckle as he approached the red-faced man.

“Here I am, Uncle,” he said calmly.

“I have eyes you stupid boy,” Vernon snapped. “Now let’s get going. I have better things to do than stand around a train station waiting for you, you know.”

Harry nodded mutely and followed his uncle out to the parking area. Vernon opened the boot with a pushbutton on his key fob and told Harry to stow his rubbish and get in. Harry opened the door to Hedwig’s cage before putting it in the boot.

“There you go, girl,” he said quietly. “I don’t think you’d like to ride in the boot and you might as well stretch your wings while you can.”

Harry closed the boot and got into the backseat across from Vernon. He was mildly surprised that neither Aunt Petunia nor Dudley was with them. He was about to comment when Vernon cut him off.

“We got a letter from that freak school of yours, boy,” he said gruffly. “At least they had the decency to send it via normal post and by some mangy bird.” Harry didn’t make a comment on the Dursley’s view of what normal meant to him. “So, is it true?’

“Is what true, Uncle Vernon?” Harry answered, trying to figure out what Vernon was talking about.

“The letter said that your Headmaster got himself killed.”

The idea that Dumbledore’s death could be taken so lightly by anyone, even his uncle, curdled the food in Harry’s stomach. He didn’t want to have this discussion, not now, not ever. He just nodded.

“Well, answer me, boy!” Vernon shouted. “Did that old fool get himself killed, or what?”

“YES!” Harry screamed back, “Yes! He was murdered! Does that make you happy?”

Vernon said nothing; he didn’t even glance into the mirror. The rest of the trip was spent in an uneasy silence as Harry fumed in the backseat and Vernon sat tightlipped behind the wheel.

“Don’t bother taking your things out of the car now,” Uncle Vernon instructed as he turned off the motor and got out. Harry hurried after; making sure his wand was securely tucked into his back pocket. “Hurry up, boy, we have a few things to discuss before our summer begins. Harry didn’t know what was going on but he had a bad feeling about the way his uncle was behaving.

He followed his uncle into Number 4 and saw his aunt standing in the lounge. She had a tense, nervous look on her face and, at a sharp nod from Vernon, she turned the volume of the telly up loud before scurrying into the kitchen. Harry looked around and noticed that all the furniture had been moved away from the center of the room, the sofa pushed up under the window. They were all covered with drop cloths as well. Harry glanced over his shoulder and noticed that even the wall behind him was covered. “If they expect me to be painting the entire house this summer,” Harry thought ruefully, “then they are going to be sorely disa…”

“Here! Catch this, Boy.”

Out of reflex, Harry caught the thing as it bounced into his midsection. It was a small throw pillow, Harry noticed oddly, the feeling of unease growing stronger inside him. Vernon had stepped behind the loveseat and was now crouching behind it as if to pick something up.

“What the hell?” Harry began to say.

Suddenly Vernon stood up, holding some sort of long object. Before Harry could do anything more than recognize it as some sort of gun, Vernon thrust the barrel into the pillow and against his stomach. Harry’s eyes flew wide but before his mind could begin to react there was a muffled Boom and Harry was thrown back against the wall.

Harry hung there in a daze for what seemed like hours before he looked down. There was a huge blackened hole in the pillow he still held against his middle and blood began to flow out of it and down his torso. ‘I wonder why this doesn’t hurt?’ Harry thought to himself. ‘It must be shock or something.’ Then, as his eyes glazed over, Harry Potter realized that the reason it didn’t hurt was because he was already dead.

“Petunia!” Vernon hollered as he pulled the boy’s body on the center of one of the cloths on the floor. “It’s done! Come out here and help me.” Petunia came out of the kitchen, her hands still pressed over her ears. She looked at the wall and the large smear of blood on the cloth they had hung on the wall and hoped none of it had leaked through to her nice clean walls.. Kneeling on the floor, Vernon was pulling one of the cloths over the body and trying to roll it up.

“Hurry up, Pet. We need to get this done quickly.” He huffed as he worked. “Who would have thought that the scrawny waste would weigh so much? Even dead he can’t manage to cooperate.”

Petunia pulled the cloth off of the sofa and began to help her husband. There was a lot that needed to be done. She could see that the walls would need to be scrubbed, and the carpets. She didn’t see any blood but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. If one stain got on her clean carpets she would kill that nephew of hers. Then she realized that she already had. Unbidden, the image of another pair of emerald green eyes swam before her vision but Petunia shook them off and got back to work. Neither person noticed, perched on the sill outside the window, sat a snowy white owl with what looked like crystal tears shining in her amber eyes.

They had gotten all of the cloths wrapped around the body and Petunia had gone into the kitchen to get a bucket and scrub brush when a set of headlights ran unnoticed as a car pulled into the drive. Petunia was on her knees, scrubbing at the white carpet when the rattle of a key in the door brought both their heads up. They exchanged a look of fear as the door banged open.

“I can’t believe you bloody forgot me!” Dudley screamed as he came into the house. “I was standing in the station for an hour waiting! I finally had to borrow some money from the school vicar, of all people, to pay for the cab to come home!” He turned to see his parents, kneeling by some huge bundle of rags on the floor.

A/N: This story is a collaborative effort between me, BJH, and the wonderful woman who is my usual Beta, Dexi. We were just discussing my tendency to get distracted by plot bunnies when we got onto this idea and jointly we blew it up into a story. I hope you enjoy it. BJH

For those that have been following BJH, I am doing my best to get him to finish "Like Some Song". This was a bunny that got me and I shared it with BJH, since he is an excellent writer, he decided to join with me in writing it. We will try to give you something form each story everyother month. But you know how finicky a writer can be and BJH is REALLY finicky. LOL. Hope you enjoy this story, Dexi.