As Aster stood at the Wellspring, he could hear the wails of his grandson.

Good, he thought. If Harry had already gone beyond the first gateway, then it would require more than an effort of will to revive him.

The current of the river was strong here and it pulled at Aster's calves relentlessly, but he knew this branch of the river well and deftly skirted past pools and eddies that were eager to pull him under. He could feel the water attempting to dilute his spirit, but his will was strong, so it took only the color and none of the substance.

He strained his ears, listening…. A wail resounded from just up ahead and Aster increased his pace as much as he dared. Then, he saw a flash of movement from just up a head, and knew he had found Harry's soul. Quick as a striking snake, Aster's hand lashed out, seizing the toddler by the ankle as he fished him up and out of the water.

Aster's relief for having caught up to his grandson's soul turned to horror when he caught sight of the damage Voldemort's horcrux had wrought upon it.

Harry's soul had been ravaged. His spirit-flesh was rent and torn with gagged chunks torn from it completely.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

The Killing Curse had thrown both Harry and the horcrux from his body, but it had failed to do anything about dislodging the fragment of Voldemort's soul.

The soul fragment looked more like the unholy union of a centipede and a lamprey than anything that had once belonged to a human being. Its ridged circular mouth was clamped upon Harry's forehead, burrowing into the spirit-flesh where the lightning bolt scar resided, while the rest of its long chitinous length was coiled around his grandson's throat like a noose. Its numerous legs – barbed like fishhooks – were sunk deep into the spirit-flesh of his shoulders; the ends disappearing seamlessly into his skin.

For a moment, all Aster could do was stare in horror. How arrogant had he been to assume he could unbind a horcrux from its vessel?

Harry gave a faint mewl of pain and the horcrux seemed to shiver in perverse pleasure, its coils tightening even further.

With revulsion churning in his gut, Aster reached forward with his free hand. New pages from The Book of the Dead had appeared within his mind and he knew the only way to separate the two would be to physically pry them apart.

He gave a gasp of pain the instant his hand made contact with the spirit-flesh of the horcrux, because the very feel of it was so cold and wrong it seared his soul. Moira be merciful, Aster couldn't imagine the sort of pain Harry must have been enduring since this thing had latched a hold of him.

"Harry – Baby, I need you to hold on a little longer," Aster forced between gritted teeth. "I'm going to make it stop hurting, but it's going to get worse before it gets better."

He had no way of knowing if his grandson even understood what he was saying to him, but he knew he could delay no longer when pain glazed green eyes stared up at him and Harry let out another breathless whimper of agony.

Aster decided to start with uncoiling the thing from around Harry's neck, so that it couldn't strangle him further. And so, steeling himself against what was to come, Aster reached down and slipped his fingers between the burning cold of the horcrux's slick flesh and his grandson's skin. He clenched his teeth, forcing his will and magic into the touch, and began to pull. Slowly at first, and then with more force as it became apparent it was necessary.

Even as the spirit-flesh of the horcrux burned into Aster, his fingers never went numb – they just burned with the cold more and more fiercely as though splinters ice were being forced into the very joints.

As Aster pulled upon it, the horcrux resisted being removed. Its barbed legs hooked desperately at Harry's skin as the poor child screamed in agony.

Aster felt tears burn his eyes. He didn't know if they were from the pain of the horcrux's touch or from Harry's shrieks, but all he could do was continue to draw the soul fragment up and away. Finally, its lower legs tore free of Harry's flesh. Aster redoubled his efforts. Barb by barb, inch by inch, he tore the abomination free. Sometimes he was forced to draw the thing up through Harry's spirit-flesh itself.

Harry screamed until he ran out of breath, but Aster knew he couldn't relent. He propelled forward the full strength of his will as he struggled against the soul fragment and finally – finally, its last segmented length came free from around Harry's neck.

Harry's eyes flew wide and he took a deep shuttering breath, but it was still not over.

The thrashed against Aster's hand as he tore its rasping mouth from Harry's forehead. Then, suddenly, it twisted and spun like a striking serpent, and tried to latch itself to Aster instead as it sought a new host.

Anger surged, hot and bright, as Aster hurled the soul fragment away from himself and Harry as hard as he could. It sailed through the grey light of Death and landed in the river with the plop of a heavy stone.

Aster was tempted to summon his wand to his hand and cast a spell that would burn the soul fragment to ash, because even fire burned could burn in the spirit relm. Instead, he pulled Harry tight against himself and took a step back from the writhing soul fragment.

As he moved, he drew Kibeth one-handed and swung it so that it sounded twice. It rang true and clear, the chime of its voice hanging in the air; biting and alive.

The serpentine fragment quivered at the sound and lost its fight with the current of the river. Aster watched as it was carried away from them and was sucked backwards into the darkness that was the first gate.

Aster stared at the gate for a moment, then sighed with relief when nothing fought its way back through. Then, after replacing the bell back in his bandoleer, he looked at his grandson appraisingly. Harry was staring back at him with green eyes that matched his own. They were blessedly lucid and free of pain. The river had drained the color from the toddler's skin, but none of the substance. The wounds he had received from the horcrux were still present, but they would heal with time. A soul was a highly resilient thing, especially in one so young.

Harry graced him with a crooked smile and Aster felt an answering one tug at the corner of his own mouth. Still smiling, he turned, and began the long wade back up the river, towards the Wellspring and the gate that would return them both to their living flesh.

In Life, Harry began to wail a second before Aster opened his eyes, so that Petunia was already halfway around the diamond ward, ready to pick him up. Frost crackled on the ground and icicles hung from Aster's rather patrician nose. He wiped them off with the edge of his sleeve, banished the barrier with a wave of his hand, and moved to lean over both his daughter and grandson anxiously.

"How is he?" he asked, even though he could feel previously tumultuous sea of Lily's power beginning to settled about Harry like a gentle embrace. Petunia, meanwhile, stared up at him half-wonderingly and half-furious, because the child he had just killed was miraculously alive again.

"I'm of half a mind to test the thickness of your skull with my frying pan," she croaked. "I knew you were taking him into Death with you. I just wasn't expecting – that…."

Aster shrugged at bit sheepishly.

"It was the only way I could think to remove his soul from his body without damaging either," he admitted, then added, "The real risk was the Killing Curse casting his soul beyond the first gate."

Petunia nodded absently, her knowledge of necromancy was academic at best, and instead focused her attention on keeping a hold of the now far more active toddler in her arms.

"Cold," Harry informed them with a shudder that was only half theatrical. "Too cold."

"Yes, I suppose it is," Aster agreed, he glanced at his daughter. "I don't suppose Vernon will mind if Harry and I stuck around long enough to knock the chill from our bones, would he?"

Petunia gave an indelicate snort.

"Vernon isn't going to be protesting much of anything for a while," she said, then pointed to her husband's prone form laying slumped by the kitchen door. Apparently bearing witness to such a large amount of magic had been too much for the man as he'd collapsed in a dead faint.

Aster gave a faint hum of bemusement as he eyed both Vernon and the large, feathery lump now perched imperiously on his head.

"What," Fea asked in mock innocence. "I'm just making sure he hasn't died on us."

"Uh-huh, and being able to plant your feathered backside on his face has nothing at all to do with it," he queried, quirking a single graying brow in disbelief. "Very mature, Fea."

If Fea had possessed lips at the moment she would have smirked. Instead she gave a crowing cackle of laughter and took wing back to her master.

"It was either use his fat head for a cushion or pluck out his eyes for brunch," she informed him as she settled herself. "I merely took my revenge in the manner I thought you least likely to disapprove of."

Aster gave her feathered head a scratch.

"Both Petunia and I appreciate your restraint, dear-heart," he informed her, then returned his attention to his daughter. "Would you like me to – erm – get him into the house for you," he asked, giving a small wave in the direction of both.

"You might as well," Petunia sighed, shifting Harry so that his weight was balanced on one bony hip. "I'll put the kettle on while you do."

Aster flicked his wand at Vernon with a murmur of, "mobilicorpus," under his breath.

The effect was instant, Vernon rose into the air like a living marionette with his head lolling drunkenly at the end of his short fat neck. Next, while holding his wand like a conductor's baton, Aster directed the levitating Vernon in through the kitchen, down the hall, and into the sitting room.

Aster had just finished lowering his son-in-law onto the sofa, when Petunia gave a holler from the kitchen.

"Dad, once you've got Vernon settled, bring Dudley with you into the kitchen, alright? It's time for his morning snack."

"Of course, Petunia," he called back, skirting around the coffee table to where Dudley was sitting in his playpen. "Well, you're a sturdy looking little fellow, aren't you?" he remarked, lifting the rotund little boy up and into his arms. Dudley's small face twisting into a scowl, as he was not quite sure of what to make of some stranger picking him up. "Now, let's get you to your mummy before you try and deafen me."

A short while later found everyone, minus Vernon, was gathered around the kitchen table of number four; a merry, blue flamed fire crackling in the kitchen fireplace.

Aster, who had removed both sword belt and bandoleer and hung them from the back of his chair, was seated nearest to the fire with Harry resting against his chest. The heat of the bluebell flames knocking the chill of Death from their bones.

While Dudley was happily demolishing a bowl of dry Weetos, Petunia was pouring tea into a trio of cups. The first she added a heaping spoon of sugar to and passed to her father, the second she added a splash of milk to and set before Fea and the third she kept for herself unaltered.

"I know you take Mum's blend without anything, but trust me when I say you look like you could use the sugar," Petunia informed her father.

"Ta, Petunia," he replied mildly, just enjoying the fragrant steam rising from his cup.

Neither of them paid any mind to Fea, who, now in the form of a long-haired black cat with tufted ears, was now daintily lapping up her milky tea.

They sat in silence for a while, sipping at their drinks until all that was left were the dredges in the bottoms of their cups. It was then that Petunia pulled Dumbledore's letter from her dressing gown pocket and set it in the middle of the table.

"I don't know what we're going to do, Dad," she admitted while Aster scanned the letter for himself. "According to this we'll only be safe from You-Know-Who's followers if Harry is here, but you know as well as I do that Vernon won't stand for a wizard in the house."

Frowning thoughtfully, Aster set the letter aside.

"That's not completely true," he said, then held up his hand to forestall his daughter's protests. "I'm not disagreeing with you about Vernon…. Just about Dumbledore's protective measures … if – and bear with me on this Petunia – if these wards take effect the moment Harry was carried over the threshold and then will dissipate when Harry reaches his majority, then they can't rely on Harry being here all the time, probably not even most of the time…."

"What do you mean," Petunia asked hopefully.

"In the wizarding world, you come of age at seventeen," Aster began. "However, as you know, they begin schooling at eleven… And, unless I'm completely reading this wrong, Dumbledore wants Harry to rejoin their world and that means going off to school for ten months of the year…."

"So, Harry only needs to spend a couple of months a year here to maintain the protection?"

"Probably even less," Aster agreed.

Petunia looked thoughtful as she fiddled with her teacup.

"Vernon – Vernon still won't be happy about it," she admitted. "Magic of any sort scares him."

Aster reached across the table, took Petunia hand into his own, and gave it a fortifying squeeze.

"He doesn't have to be happy about it, Petunia," he said. "He just has to accept it … for your sake, and for Dudley's if no one else's….

"And," he quirked a wiry smile. "If he so worried about what the neighbors will say – just remind him that most normal people have a few weird relatives that pop in around the holidays, yeah?"

Author's Note: Hopefully this wasn't too shabby for an un-betaed first time I've ever got the nerve to actually post it fan fiction.

Part-two is currently a WIP/outline at the moment and I'll begin posting it once I've got a few chapters hammered out and polished up.

Finally I would like to thank everyone who has left kudos, subscribed, or bookmarked this fic. Your support has meant the world to me.