Despite the fact that Harry had dropped the idea of forcing Ben to distance himself from him to protect him, he seemed to still be sure that everyone else was convinced he was a monster. And, apparently, nothing Ben said could change his mind.

The next morning, while Hermione had decided to try to get Harry to talk to her, Ginny, and Ron, Alycia and Ben were together at the kitchen with Mrs. Weasley. The woman was baking a special cake for Christmas, and they were both helping her.

Well, Alycia was helping her, as she had been doing all summer, after Mrs. Weasleydiscovered her enjoyment for cooking (especially baking). However, Ben was struggling at resisting the urge to eat the strawberries he had been told to cut.

"I usually use magic to do these tasks while I'm taking care of something else," she commented, starting to preheat the oven.

"It's much more fun to do it by hand!" thought Alycia. "That's what I always told Ebony back at home."

It seemed as though the ambience had shifted for an instant.

"Maybe you can be a baker when you get older," suggested Ben, trying to lift up the mood.

Alycia's eyes lit up. "Oh, yes, I can!"

"That would be awesome," smiled Mrs. Weasley.

"Alycia's Sugar Shack..."

The flutter of an owl's wings made the three of them turn around. Timothy came flying, and perched on the back of a chair, with a letter in his beak.

"Whose owl is this?" wondered Mrs. Weasley.

"Our sister Audrey's," replied Alycia, clasping her hands in her apron to avoid staining the letter (or Timothy) with flour. "Oh, look, it's for me!"

Ben breathed out, relieved. If it was carrying any sort of bad news, Audrey would've definitely written to Ben, not to Alycia. Perhaps she was just reaching out to see how she was. Alycia's eyes widened as she read the contents of it.

Her mouth was slightly open in surprise, and her eyebrows raised when she finished reading, and looked up to her brother. He frowned. "What is it?"

"Audrey's pregnant!"

Ben's heart literally missed a beat. "What?" he gasped out.

"Really?" exclaimed Mrs. Weasley, running over to them.

"Yes!" Alycia showed them the letter, pointing at the exact sentence with a finger with pink painted nails. She was right, Audrey was saying she was going to have a baby.

"You're going to be an aunt!"

"And you're going to be an uncle!"

"Does she have any idea of when she will be due?" interrogated Mrs. Weasley.

"Well, she said she just found out she's a month pregnant, so around August."

"Oh, we'll share birth months then!" beamed Ben. "Where is she now?"

"In Ireland, with Steve," read Alycia. "But they will be here for summer, so we can stay with her."

Happiness ran through Ben's veins at a speed it never had before. It all seemed to be coming together for him, finally. Well, not all of it, of course. There was a war coming, Arthur Weasley had been attacked, and Harry had seen it... in first person, which made it clear that there was something wrong going on with Harry as well. Those were obviously major problems.

But the point was that things were looking better for him, his future was starting to brighten. Firstly, there hadn't been any news from his parents, aside from what Malfoy had told him. Then, Audrey was coming back, and Alycia and him would be able to stay with her and Steve, and they could be like a family. A family which would soon have a new member. He couldn't wait to meet his niece, he wanted to be a cool uncle, unlike Uncle Jonathan or Uncle Harrison, his only two living uncles. And, aside from all that, another thing that had greatly lessened the weight on his shoulders was having made up with Harry. He didn't know if 'made up' was the right expression, since they technically weren't in a fight before their... Um, conversation, in the bathroom. But it was undeniable that they weren't okay with each other before, it had been a long time since they had been acting like normal friends towards the other.

Although he wasn't sure if their new way of being with each other was exactly acting like normal friends.

———————————————

That afternoon, the Weasleys decided that they could all pay Mr. Weasley a visit, so Mundungus took them to St. Mungos' by car, something rather shocking. There had been an Enlarging spell placed on it, so the twelve of them, and Mundungus driving, fit comfortably.

Ben wasn't sure if he had ever been driven somewhere by car. His parents didn't own one, they just apparated everywhere, since they didn't trust Muggle inventions. The trip by car wasn't as exciting as Ben had thought it would be, but he was amazed at the amount of traffic signals on the road. He was sure he would've crashed if he had to pay attention to all of them.

The hospital's reception had been decorated for Christmas. The crystal orbs that illuminated St. Mungo's had been turned to red and gold so that they became gigantic, glowing Christmas baubles; holly hung around every doorway, and shining white Christmas trees covered in magical snow and icicles glittered in every corner, each topped with a gleaming gold star.

They found Mr. Weasley propped up in bed with the remains of his turkey dinner on a tray in his lap and a rather sheepish expression on his face.

"Everything all right, Arthur?" asked Mrs. Weasley, after they had all greeted Mr. Weasley and handed over their presents.

"Fine, fine," said Mr. Weasley, perhaps a bit too heartily. "You... Er, haven't seen Healer Smethwyck, have you?"

"No." Mrs. Weasley eyed him, full of suspicion. "Why?"

"Nothing, nothing," said Mr. Weasley airily, starting to unwrap his pile of gifts. "Well, everyone had a good day? What did you all get for Christmas? Oh, Harry- this is absolutely wonderful!"

However, Mrs. Weasley was still suspicious, and she took advantage of the moment in which his husband was shaking Harry's hand to peer at the bandage under his nightshirt. Her eyes widened. "Arthur!" she exclaimed. "You've had your bandages changed. Why have you had your bandages changed a day early, Arthur? They told me they wouldn't need to do it until tomorrow."

"What?" said Mr. Weasley, looking rather frightened and pulling the bed covers higher up his chest. "No, no... It's nothing- it's- I..."

He seemed to deflate under Mrs. Weasley's piercing gaze. "Well, now don't get upset, Molly, but Augustus Pye had an idea... He's the Trainee Healer, you know, lovely young chap and very interested in... um, complementary medicine... I mean, some of these old Muggle remedies... Well, they're called stitches, Molly, and they work very well on- on Muggle wounds."

Mrs. Weasley let out a sound which was hard to define. It was between a snarl and a shriek, and it made Bill mutter something about getting himself a cup of tea, with Fred and George leaping up to accompany him, grinning. Ginny exchanged awkward glances with Ben as Lupin stolled away from them and over to the other side of the room.

"Do you mean to tell me that you have been messing about with Muggle remedies?" interrogated Mrs. Weasley, the level of her voice increasing with every word.

"Not messing about, Molly, dear," said Mr. Weasley imploringly. "It was just- just something Pye and I thought we'd try. Only, most unfortunately... Well, with these particular kinds of wounds- it doesn't seem to work as well as we'd hoped."

"Meaning?"

"Well... I don't know whether you know what- what stitches are?"

"It sounds as though you've been trying to sew your skin back together. But even you, Arthur, wouldn't be that stupid-"

Harry jumped to his feet. "I think I fancy a cup of tea too."

His friends almost sprinted to the door with him. As it swung closed behind them, they heard Mrs. Weasley shriek, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THAT'S THE GENERAL IDEA?"

"Typical Dad." Ginny shook her head as they set off up the corridor. "Stitches... I ask you..."

"Well, you know, they do work well on non-magical wounds," commented Hermione fairly.

"Ah, yes, we've learned about them at Muggle Studies," added Ben.

"I suppose something in that snake's venom dissolves them or something," suggested Hermione. Then she pursed her lips. "I wonder where the tearoom is?"

"Fifth floor," said Harry at once.

"How'd you know that?" frowned Ben. Harry nodded towards a sign which was quite literally in front of them. "Oh."

Harry grinned at him.

They walked along the corridor through a set of double doors and found a rickety staircase lined with more portraits of brutal-looking Healers. As they climbed it, the various Healers called out to them, diagnosing odd complaints and suggesting horrible remedies. Ron was seriously affronted when a medieval wizard called out that he clearly had a bad case of spattergroit.

After Ron had been called gruesome by the Healer, who followed him across six portraits, and he had told him that the 'unsightly blemishes upon his visage' were simply freckles, they stopped.

"What floor is this?"

"I think it's the fifth," said Hermione.

"Nah, it's the fourth," denied Harry, "one more- Woah!"

"What is it?" wondered Alycia, spinning around and losing balance.

"Blimey!" gasped Ron.

"Oh my goodness!" added Hermione, looking as surprised as ever. "Professor Lockhart!"

There was a man peering out at them all with his nose pressed against the glass double doors that marked the start of a corridor signposted 'spell damage'. He had wavy blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a broad vacant smile that revealed dazzlingly white teeth.

Their ex-Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher pushed open the doors and moved toward them, wearing a long lilac dressing gown. "Well, hello there!" he greeted. "I expect you'd like my autograph, would you?"

Harry whispered something to Ginny, making her laugh.

Alycia looked up at Ben. "He looks better in pictures."

"I heard you!"

"Er... How are you, Professor?" asked Ron, smiling very awkwardly.

"I'm very well indeed, thank you!" said Lockhart exuberantly, pulling a rather battered peacock-feather quill from his pocket. "Now, how many autographs would you like? I can do joined-up writing now, you know!"

"Er- We don't want any at the moment, thanks," said Ron, raising his eyebrows at Harry.

"Professor, should you be wandering around the corridors? Shouldn't you be in a ward?"

The smile faded slowly from Lockhart's face. Ben felt dreadfully bad, all of a sudden. It hadn't been their intention (well, Ron's wand) to cause him such mental damage, but he couldn't help feeling guilty. "I'd like an autograph," he blurted out.

Ron and Harry gaped at him. Ben shrugged. Lockhart beamed, looking at him. "Fantastic! Excellent! Sensational!"

"Superlative!" he added, since his exclamations sounded like an unfinished list.

Lockhart burst into laughter, looking gleeful. "Well, for whom would you like me to sign it? Is it for you? What's your name?"

"Ben," he said. "And not, it's... Er, for my aunt. Her name's Lydia Walker.

"Ah, there's no need to fight over it, my dear boy, I'll sign you two autographs, so you have one for each," he turned to Harry and the others. "And, don't worry, I'll give some of them to you as well... Shall we say a round dozen, you can give them to all your little friends then and nobody will be left out!"

Ben had to remind himself what Lockhart had tried to do to him and his friends, and what he had been doing to others for years, in order to not let emotions get hold of him.

But just then a head poked out of a door at the far end of the corridor and a voice said, "Gilderoy, you naughty boy, where have you wandered off to?"

A motherly looking Healer wearing a tinsel wreath in her hair came bustling up the corridor, smiling warmly at them. "Oh Gilderoy, you've got visitors! How lovely, and on Christmas Day too! Do you know, he never gets visitors, poor lamb, and I can't think why, he's such a sweetie, aren't you?"

"We're doing autographs!" Gilderoy told the Healer with a glittering smile. "They want loads of them, won't take no for an answer! I just hope we've got enough photographs!"

"Listen to him." The Healer took Lockhart's arm and smiled fondly at him. "He was rather well known a few years ago; we very much hope that this liking for giving autographs is a sign that his memory might be starting to come back. Will you step this way? He's in a closed ward, you know, he must have slipped out while I was bringing in the Christmas presents, the door's usually kept locked... Not that he's dangerous, of course! But... He's a bit of a danger to himself, bless him... Doesn't know who he is, you see, wanders off and can't remember how to get back... It is nice of you to have come to see him."

"Of course," smiled Ben, following them along the corridor. A curiosity to know more about the woman's job, and the process in which Healers tried to restore people's memories, arose within him. How had he never thought of that? How had he never wondered how it was done?

"What do you know Gilderoy from, if you don't mind me asking?" the Healer told Ben. "Are you relatives?"

Ben shook his head. "No, we're old students of his. He used to be our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts three years ago."

"Was I?" asked Lockhart, his face furrowed in confusion. Ben nodded, and then the smile reappeared upon his face so suddenly it was rather alarming. "Taught you everything you know, I expect, did I?"

The Healer chuckled kindly, leading to Ben allowing himself to laugh as well. "Oh, Gilderoy!"

"Well, you taught me the difference between lilac and purple," he remembered. "You made us take an exam about you, and there was a question about your favourite color."

Lockhart smiled widely. "Lilac is my favourite colour."

The Healer pointed her wand at the door of the Janus Thickey Ward and muttered, "Alohomora." The door swung open and she led the way inside, keeping a firm grasp on Gilderoy's arm until she had settled him into an armchair beside his bed.

"This is our long-term residents' ward," she told them, in a hushed tone. "For permanent spell damage, you know. Of course, with intensive remedial potions and charms and a bit of luck, we can produce some improvement. Gilderoy does seem to be getting back some sense of himself; and we've seen a real improvement in Mr Bode, he seems to be regaining the power of speech very well, though he isn't speaking any language we recognise yet. Well, I must finish giving out the Christmas presents, I'll leave you all to chat."

As soon as the Healer had left, and Lockhart set off to sign one of his pictures, Ron turned to Ben. "How come you suddenly want an autograph?"

"I don't know, he seemed excited about it."

"You used to call him Professor Cockfart," reminded Harry amusedly.

Alycia giggled. Ben pursed his lips. "I don't think that man is Professor Cockfart anymore."

The Healer's voice, speaking from the end of the ward, surprised them. "Oh, Mrs Longbottom, are you leaving already?"

They all spun around. The last two beds of the ward, which had previously been covered by curtains, were now revealing two visitors walking back down the aisle between the beds: a formidable-looking old witch wearing a long green dress, a moth-eaten fox fur and a pointed hat decorated with what was unmistakeably a stuffed vulture and, trailing behind her looking thoroughly depressed... Neville.

"What?" asked Ben under his breath.

Harry looked at him as though he was about to explain something, but suddenly Ron called out, "Neville!", and Harry went even more pale than usual. Neville jumped and cowered as though a bullet had narrowly missed him as they approached.

"It's us, Neville!" said Ron brightly. "Have you seen? Lockhart's here! Who've you been visiting?"

"Friends of yours, Neville, dear?" asked Neville's grandmother graciously, bearing down upon them all.

Neville looked as though he would rather be anywhere in the world but here. A dull purple flush was creeping up his face and he was not meeting any of their eyes.

"Ah, yes," said his grandmother, glaring at Harry and sticking out a shrivelled, clawlike hand for him to shake. "Yes, yes, I know who you are, of course. Neville speaks most highly of you."

"Er- Thanks," he said, smiling at Neville, although he didn't meet his eyes, so he didn't notice.

"And you two are clearly Weasleys," Mrs. Longbottom continued, proffering her hand regally to Ron and Ginny in turn. "Yes, I know your parents... Not well, of course- but fine people, fine people..." he turned to Ben and Alycia, and her eyebrows twitched for an instant. "Walkers."

"Hi," smiled Alycia, shaking her hand. "I'm Alycia."

"And you must be Benjamin," the woman asked Ben. He nodded and, a bit hesitantly, held out his hand for her to shake as well. "I've heard wonders about you," she said, the glow on the eyes of everyone who found out they were Walkers fading away from her own.

"Really?" He raised his eyebrows.

"Of course!" she exclaimed. "I've heard that you've helped him out of a few sticky spots, and so has Hermione Granger, who, I assume, is you?"

Hermione nodded, looking surprised that Mrs. Longbottom knew her name, but shook hands all the same. "He's a good boy. But he hasn't got his father's talent, I'm afraid to say." And she jerked her head in the direction of the two beds at the end of the ward, so that the stuffed vulture on her hat trembled alarmingly.

"What?" gasped Ron. "Is that your dad down the end, Neville?"

Mrs. Longbottom cast a look at Neville that reminded Ben of his own mother. "What's this?" she inquired sharply. "Haven't you told your friends about your parents, Neville?"

Neville took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. Ben glanced over at Harry, who was the only one of them who didn't look completely lost at what was happening, and seemed to want to say something to help Neville out.

"Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of!" Mrs. Longbottom reprended angrily. "You should be proud, Neville, proud! They didn't give their health and their sanity so their only son would be ashamed of them, you know!"

"I'm not ashamed."

"Well, you've got a funny way of showing it!"

"He's told us stories about when they were younger," said Alycia, all of a sudden. Neville finally looked at them, confusion written all over his face. "Don't you remember? About their times at Hogwarts, when they were friends with our uncle Christophe."

"I do remember your uncle," sighed Mrs. Longbottom. "Neville's father used to call him his best friend, he was almost his younger brother. He completely changed our views about your family, even stayed with us after he was disinherited..."

"I know," nodded Alycia. "My grandmother once showed me a lot of pictures of them together."

Mrs. Longbottom looked delighted as she listened to Alycia talk about things Ben had never heard about. He doubted she was lying; perhaps she would've aventured to make up an occasion in which Neville could have talked to her about his parents, but telling an old woman fictional stories about her seemingly long gone son and the dead man who used to be his friend seemed too cruel for someone like Alycia.

How come he had never heard of his uncle and Neville's father's friendship, then? He was aware of his grandmother's preference towards the youngest of her grandchildren, but he never would've expected her to exclude him from knowing more about his uncle's life. Especially since history seemed to have repeated itself through Ben's.

Mrs. Longbottom's voice brought him back to reality. "They were tortured into insanity by You-Know-Who's followers," Ginny and Hermione clapped their hands over their mouths. Alycia pursed her lips. "They were Aurors, you know, and very well respected within the Wizarding community. Highly gifted, the pair of them. I- yes, Alice dear, what is it?"

Neville's mother was approaching them, wearing a nightdress. Her eyes were identical to Neville's, with the difference that the woman's were sunken, empty-looking, and seemed oddly big, in comparison to her thin, hollow face. She slowly held a pale, skinny hand towards her son.

Neville stretched out his hand, into which his mother dropped an empty Droobles Blowing Gum wrapper.

"Very nice, dear!" exclaimed Neville's grandmother in a falsely joyfull tone as she patted the woman's shoulder.

Neville looked up to his mother, his eyes calm yet full of desolation. "Thanks, mum," he said softly.

"Well, we'd better get back," sighed Mrs. Longbottom, drawing on long green gloves. "Very nice to have met you all. Neville, put that wrapper in the bin, she must have given you enough of them to paper your bedroom by now."

But as they left, Neville carefully slipped the wrapper into his pocket.

———————————————

The return to school after Christmas was rather dreadful for Harry. They had all been hit with both positive and negative news the day prior to having to go back to Hogwarts; Firstly, Mr. Weasley had totally recovered, and had left the hospital; and, secondly, Snape had been asked by Dumbledore to give Harry occlumency classes.

The first lesson would be the evening of their first day. And, throughout the morning, Harry was approached by pretty much every single Dumbledore's Army member, wondering if the next meeting would be that night.

"I'll let you know when the next one is," Harry said over and over again, "but I can't do it tonight, I've got to go to- er- Remedial Potions..."

"You take Remedial Potions?" asked Zacharias Smith superciliously, in the entrance hall after dinner. "Good Lord, you must be terrible, Snape doesn't usually give extra lessons, does he?"

As Smith strode away in an annoyingly buoyant fashion, Ron and Ben glared after him.

"Shall I jinx him? I can still get him from here," suggested Ron, as he raised his wand.

"Forget it," sighed Harry dismally. "It's what everyone's going to think, isn't it? That I'm really stup-"

"Hi, Harry!" greeted a voice from behind them. They turned around to find Mei-Xing standing happily.

"Oh," said Harry, and inmediately took a step closer to Ben, making their shoulders brush against each other. "Hi."

"Had a good Christmas?" the girl asked.

"Er- Yeah, not bad."

"Mine was pretty quiet," commented Mei-Xing. Harry nodded. "Erm... There's another Hogsmeade trip next month, did you see the notice?"

"What? Oh no, I haven't checked the notice board since I got back."

"Ah, yes, on Valentine's Day," Ron piped in. "I can't believe it's nearly been a year since... Erm, last year's Valentine's Day!"

Harry coughed awkwardly. "Right. So, I suppose you want to-"

"Only if you do!" beamed Mei-Xing, looking eager.

Harry stared at her. "I- Erm-"

Ben side eyed Ron, who had put on the weirdest face which resembled Snape's to stop himself from laughing. "Oh, it's okay if you don't," she said, looking mortified. "Don't worry. I-I'll see you around."

And she walked away. Harry turned to his friends. "I'm confused."

"She wanted you to ask her out," clarified Hermione. "Obviously."

"Even I caught on that one, Harry," laughed Ben.

"It's clear that she wants to date you," added Ron.

Harry's face was full of embarrassment. "How was I supposed to know?"

"Well you kind of kissed," Ron reminded him.

"I- Well, yes, I know, but it's not like I..."

"Am single, yes, we know," concluded Hermione with a smirk, leading them down the hallway.

"Wait, is that so?" asked Ron, eyes wide open as he looked at both Harry and Ben. "Are you dat-"

Harry blushed furiously.

"Can you not speak so loudly?" begged Ben, looking around to make sure nobody had heard him.

"Sorry," whispered Ron. "But, really, you haven't told me?"

"Ron, I was just kidding," said Hermione, letting out a deep sigh of exasperation.

There was a second of awkward silence, broken by Harry. "I really don't wanna go to Snape's stupid classes."

"If Dumbledore asked him to teach you, it's because he thinks you ought to know Occlumency, Harry," said Hermione.

"But he certainly could've chosen someone else to teach him how to do it," commented Ben. "I doubt Snape's the only good Occlumens at school."

If his younger self had somehow managed to close his own mind several times to stop his parents from finding out certain things, there was definitely at least another teacher who could've done it.

"If Dumbledore asked Snape to do it, there's got to be a reasonable explanation as to why," insisted Hermione.

"Well I'd really like to know it," grumbled Harry through gritted teeth. r

A/N: let's act as though it didn't take me exactly two months and fifteen days to post this!! school is finally over so i'll be able to update a lot more now.

i'm really excited for what's coming, and i hope you don't get too mad at me!