LUCY:

"Rennervate."

I jerked awake, bracing for what would come next. But when I opened my eyes, there was no wand pointed to my chest. I wasn't in a cave.

Mrs. Weasley was kneeling in front of me, brown eyes soft with concern.

"You're safe now," she said softly, pushing my tangled hair back from my face with a delicate touch. "You're safe. I'm just going to heal this cut on your cheek, alright?"

I nodded, glancing around to try to make sense of where I was. I was propped up on the couch in my living room, and the candles were too bright. Professor Lupin was walking to Mr. Weasley in a voice too low for me to hear across the room, and Percy was hovering nearby. When Percy saw me looking at him, he crossed the room in an instant and knelt beside me.

"You alright?" he asked. He immediately blinked and shook his head. "Don't answer that. I'm just glad you're alive."

"We all are," Mrs. Weasley added, placing a hand on my forehead. "Percy, get her another blanket, the one on that armchair will do."

He jumped up and grabbed it, draping it over my shoulders.

"Is there anything else I can do, dear?" Mrs. Weasley asked, tucking it around me.

"I think I'm okay, but thank you," I managed to say. I closed my eyes and swallowed. "I'm just trying to... to wrap my head around it all."

She made a small sound of sympathy and brushed my hair back again. "Professor Lupin wants to talk to you now, so we can try to find the people responsible as soon as possible."

I opened my eyes, looking over her shoulder at Professor Lupin. "I didn't see their faces. They were careful about that."

He conjured up a chair as he walked over. He leaned forward on his elbows and sighed. "That's okay. I'm sorry to make you relive it all so soon, but the sooner you talk about it all, the sooner we can try to find them. Before something else happens." He checked his watch. "Professor Moody will be here any minute. He wanted to be here when you talked about it."

"He knew my mum," I said, my voice cracking on the last word.

Mr. Weasley conjured up a chair, sitting next to Professor Lupin.

"Percy, if you wouldn't mind, go back to the Ministry and try to intercept her letter about the improper use of magic," Professor Lupin said. "I won't ask you to destroy it, but hold onto it for now. I don't want any Ministry officials tracing it and coming here to see for themselves what happened. The target on Lucy's back is too big."

Percy seemed reluctant to leave, but he nodded. "I will." He glanced down at me, his eyes distressed. "I'll be writing soon, alright?"

I managed a nod before he muttered a spell under his breath and disapparated. Once he was gone, Mr. Weasley muttered the same spell, and I glanced back down at the carpet.

"Protective enchantments," Professor Lupin explained. "Professor Moody knows how to-"

Professor Moody appeared as if on cue.

"-get past the protective enchantments," he finished with a resigned smile.

"But clearly someone else knew how to get past your mother's," Professor Moody said, sitting down heavily in a chair and fixing me with an intense gaze.

I nodded. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words would come.

Professor Lupin turned to Mrs. Weasley, who was still stroking my hair. "We can take it from here, Molly. You can go back and tell the others she's alright. They'll want to hear from you, since you've seen her. I'll talk to you and Sirius together once we return to Grimmauld."

Mrs. Weasley seemed as reluctant as Percy to leave, but she tightened the blankets around my shoulders, muttered the spell, and disapparated with a crack. Mr. Weasley put the protections back up, and Professor Lupin shut the doors around us with a flick of his wand.

"You're safe now, Lucy," he said quietly, leaning forward. "And you can tell us everything. We'll condense what you say into a report that will be transmitted to members of the Order of the Phoenix, assembled by Dumbledore himself, and you can read an even more condensed version of the report before we pass it along to the Ministry so you can make sure it doesn't say anything you wouldn't want mentioned, like the lycanthropy."

I looked at Mr. Weasley, who nodded slowly. "I know now about that. But it's alright, Lucy, honest it is."

I looked back at Professor Lupin, who also nodded. "Whenever you're ready, we'd like to try to get to the bottom of who did this and why. I'd rather just let you talk about it as you're ready to, but because you used magic — and it's brilliant that you did, truly, don't regret that for a second, Lucy — the Ministry is going to have questions that will require something of an explanation."

I sighed shakily, pulling the blankets tighter around myself. I wanted Harry holding my hand the way I had been holding his, when he was in my position, being asked to tell a story we'd have done anything to be allowed to forget. But that would have meant confessing my condition, and I still wasn't ready.

I took a deep breath and began to tell the story.

I talked about the knock at the door, about my mom's explanation, about Rose, about dropping the bracelet, about the Dark Mark, about the darkness that followed.

I stopped. "I-I know my parents are... are..." I swallowed hard. "What about Tuck? My dog?"

"He's alright," Professor Lupin said. "He was in your room when... well, when we realized what had happened and came here. Tonks is playing with him in the other room now. We were afraid he might hurt you in his excitement."

I nodded. "He does get excited."

I felt a tiny pinprick of hope. Tuck was one light I hadn't lost yet.

I swallowed hard before continuing.

I talked about waking up in the cave, about my wand being broken, about the offer.

About "Kill me, then."

About what they did instead.

I said all of this emotionlessly. Everything I might have been feeling — should have been feeling — was drained out of me, screamed out of me, bled out of me.

Mr. Weasley scribbled occasional notes.

Professor Moody interrupted from time to time with clarifying questions. No, Rose never gave her last name, yeah, I think I was moved between a couple of different caves, no, I didn't see any faces, yeah, I had more memories of my family in America when they used the Cruciatus Curse on me, no, they didn't hurt me any other way, yeah, there were a fair few Death Eaters around when I escaped.

Professor Lupin absorbed everything in silence. I didn't understand at the time why he looked so heartbroken.

Finally, I explained my escape. The stolen wand, the joke spells. Professor Moody actually smiled when I named the book Cedric had given me.

"It's so... ridiculous," I said, shaking my head. "I just knew that I would be able to pull those spells off. I had more practice with those than with anything else, and I thought they'd be able to block predictable spells too easily, and... I guess the fact that Cedric was the reason I knew the spells in the first place seemed... symbolic."

I hadn't mentioned the dream. I didn't want anyone thinking I was crazy. They hadn't actually been there anyway. It was just a dream. And the last thing I wanted to confess to three grown wizards was that Dream Cedric and Dream Harry had been the ones to convince me to wake up and come back. It was just a dream.

Professor Moody nodded thoughtfully. "You did a good job, kid. You went through hell, but you made it. And now it's over. You still need to be careful, but nobody will be letting you out of their sight any time soon. Anything else, Remus, Arthur?"

Mr. Weasley shook his head, folding up his piece of paper. "None here. I'll head to the Ministry and see what I can do about the improper use of magic business. Her situation should be easier to explain away than the other one." He sighed. "I should probably talk to Percy too. I'm guessing he'll want to hear more details." Mr. Weasley turned to me with a sympathetic look. "Merlin, Lucy, I'm so sorry you've had to go through this all."

He disapparated with a pop. A witch with bright pink hair and an even brighter smile poked her head in the door.

"Sorry to interrupt, Lucy, but there's a very excitable animal in here who I don't think can last a moment longer. Are you ready?"

I shoved the blankets off to the side and nodded just as a black-and-white flash of fur hurtled toward me. I held him tightly, burying my face in his warmth as he whimpered and barked and tried to lick my face. I couldn't help but smile at his enthusiasm, even if I wasn't quite ready for laughter yet.

"Something tells me he's only half as excited as the folks at Grimmauld will be," Professor Moody said with another rare smile. "I'm off to tell Dumbledore what you told us. See you around, kid."

He disapparated then, leaving me alone with Professor Lupin and Tonks. Tonks was laughing loudly at Tuck, who had now placed his paws on my shoulders and pushed me back against the couch, still trying to lick my face. I eventually stopped trying to hug him and let him have his way, running back and forth across the couch and licking my face every time he crossed me. Once he finally settled down and rested his head in my lap, I looked up at Professor Lupin.

"What do I do now, Professor?" I asked in a quiet voice, starting to realize the extent of the unknowns now stretching out before my feet.

What do I do now, indeed?

"Professor Moody mentioned Grimmauld Place," he replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. The Weasleys and Hermione and Harry are all there now, and he was right — they'll be absolutely beside themselves with relief." He paused for a moment to think. "Tonks can help you pack a bag while I apparate over there briefly. Then, whenever you're ready, I'll apparate with you, and that's where you'll stay until the first of September."

I nodded slowly. "Alright."

Tonks jumped to her feet and lifted Tuck off of my lap. She studied my face with pursed lips and swiped her thumb across my forehead. "As rugged and adventurous the streaks of dirt make you look, am I correct in guessing you'd like a shower?"

I nodded. "That would feel amazing, trust me."

I heard Professor Lupin disapparate as we headed up the stairs — me leaning more on the railing than I ever had before — and I slipped off to take a shower while Tonks tossed pajamas and a couple changes of clothes into a small backpack I quite frankly forgot I even had.

I managed to wrestle my muddied and torn robes over my head, throwing them into the corner of the bathroom, never wanting to see them again. I studied myself in the mirror as the water warmed — it had always taken a couple of minutes for the water to get as hot as I liked it. There was a fresh white scar where the cut Mrs. Weasley had healed once stretched. Tonks was right about the dirt, though, I looked as if I'd tried digging with a niffler.

Suddenly, I stumbled forward and found myself clutching the sink with both hands.

Thinking of the niffler made me think of Dad which made me think of the Dark Mark which made me think of the last time I had seen him which made me think about how that was the last time I'd ever see him and I hadn't even realized it.

Thinking of Dad made me think of Mum which made me think of the way she'd told me to bring my wand just in case which made me think of how she never would have dreamed her best friend would betray her which made me think of just how shocking betrayal always was.

Betrayal. Harry's parents had been betrayed, too.

Harry. I needed Harry.

I tore myself away from the sink and stepped into the shower, ignoring the way the water felt like a million tiny needles in my skin.

At least the million tiny needles was better than the million jagged knives of the Cruciatus Curse.