A/N: BEDS EMPTY! NO NOTE! CAR GONE! YOU COULD HAVE DIED! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SEEN!

Sorry everyone, but seriously, where HAVE I been? Whelp, to be honest with you? Your girl got the Corona Virus. And it SUCKED, and I was super exhausted for like a long time after, and kinda forgot about this. But I'm back and I'm sorry, and I have chapter 13 for you all, so I hope you like it. Yay. Here you go.

Sometimes the hardest thing about Dumbledore was not punching him right in his stupid, crooked nose.

Sirius sat fuming in the chair across from the headmaster, fists clenched in anger while Remus paced anxiously up and down the length of his office. Sirius gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to bolt down the staircase, grab Harry and run. His uncut fingernails bit painfully into the palms of his hands and he slowly unclenched, taking a long deep breath. Remus paused briefly in his pacing to shoot him a warning glance, which Sirius ignored. He glared up at the old man and tried again.

"Harry's troubled past aside, there's really no reason to subject him to such a thing. It's barbaric."

"As I have told you twice before, Mr. Black, this experiment is for Harry's own good. To right the wrongs that have been done to him, so to speak."

"IT DOESN'T RIGHT THE WRONGS!" Sirius exploded. Remus put a warning hand on his shoulder and he shook it off. "It turns you into the person that you don't want to be!"

"Sirius," Remus said quietly. "Hermione is not your parents."

"No, she's much worse!" Sirius snarled back. "She's supposed to be Harry's friend."
"And that is precisely why Ms. Granger has taken the steps she has taken." Dumbledore said sagely. "She feels that this may be one way to help Harry work through the trauma that has been done to him, and I have decided to let them try. If Harry shows no improvement at the end of the month, we shall of course lift the curse immediately."

"There must be something else we can do." Remus ran his hands through his greying hair tiredly. "A healer Harry can see in secret, something."

"There is not." Dumbledore said gravely, his half-moon glasses glinting. "Or I would have already done it."
"So you leave him alone." Sirius gritted his teeth. "And let him work through it in his own way."
"Ms. Granger was right about one thing- the ministry is looking for any reason to expel Harry. Something must be done, sooner rather than later. I would not have taken this step on my own, but seeing as the action has already been taken…"
"You've got no right to make any decision regarding Harry! I'm his godfather!"
"Not legally." Remus murmured softly. He sighed deeply, and then looked over at Dumbledore, avoiding Sirius's gaze. "Do you really feel that this is in Harry's best interested long term?"

"Remus!" Sirius shouted.

"I'm not sure." Dumbledore admitted. "But, as someone who has had a front row seat to much of the misfortune to befall Mr. Potter these last few years, I do believe that we owe it to him to try."

Remus considered that carefully for a moment, then turned and looked at Sirius.

"Sirius…"
"NO!" Remus flinched as Sirius jumped out of his seat. "You can't be serious Remus!"

"If Dumbledore feels that this may be best for Harry, maybe we owe it to him to try."
"It's never in anyone's best interest to take away their free will! Never!"

"That isn't what this is!" Remus snapped. "This isn't your parents trying to get you to swallow some pure blood manina, this is Harry working through trauma under the supervision of Dumbledore and half the Order. You heard him, if it isn't helping - they'll stop it immediately."

Sirius looked from one to the other incredulously.

"You've gone mad." He whispered. "You've both gone mad."

"Mr. Black," Dumbledore said reassuringly. "I can promise you, we have Harry's best interest at heart. Think of it this way, if you had had the pleasure of raising Harry - there would have been times where, as the parent, you would have had to do things that made your charge unhappy for their long term benefit. Anything less and you would have produced an undisciplined child unfit for society. This is no different."

Sirius stood there, dumbstruck but slowly realizing that there was nothing that he could do. I promise I'll get you out of this Harry. He swore, following Remus back toward the fireplace mutely. I promise.

"After all," Dumbledore ended knowingly. "It's for the greater good."

"It's not there."

One week later, Ron, Harry, and Ginny sat morosely in the library surrounded by large stacks of research. Harry and Ron had decided that for the time being they would continue to search for information about Facti Sunt Puer in other books, but it was becoming abundantly clear that either the spell was so obscure and dark that Hogwarts did not permit its student to study it, or Hermione had been very thorough in removing all information that could help them lift the curse. Harry moaned and leaned back in his chair gloomily, while Ron glared at his sister in annoyance.

"So keep looking."

"Ron, I can't just jump Hermione and go rifling through her things! It's not in her dormitory, I've checked three times."

"I told you it was a bad idea to get her involved Harry."

"It was your idea." Harry said absentmindedly, flipping through a book on animagus transformation. "Originally at least. You suggested it during our first study session, remember?"

"And it was a bad one. I don't know why you keep listening to me."

"Prat." Ginny glanced over their research and Ron covered his book protectively. "Why won't you just let me help you look?"

"None of your business. Now if you'll excuse me, if you're not going to be of use Harry and I actually have a lot of things to take care of."

"Have you considered that looking for a book in Hermione Granger's things is exactly like looking for a needle in a haystack? Especially if you won't give me more than a vague description of what to look for?"

Ron opened his mouth to snap back at her but Harry shook his head and sighed deeply. "Thanks Ginny, we appreciate it. We're going to keep searching by ourselves now if you don't mind."
Ginny scowled. "There's nothing weak about asking for help." She said quietly.
Harry's temper flared to the surface immediately. "Yes, thank you. I'll keep that in mind. We're good here." He spat.

Ginny scowled again and flounced away, leaving Harry with a small ounce of guilt that he quickly shook off. He redirected his attention back to Ron and their mountain of research. "Where are we at?"

"Nothing." Ron grumbled. "Not a thing."

"Great." Harry stretched out and closed the book in front of him. "You reckon we ought to take a look at that potions essay before we move on?"

Ron nodded reluctantly. "Let's head back to the Common Room first. I can't stand the way Pince watches us. Like she thinks we're about to start a bonfire or something."

"Under the cloak?"

"We'd better, yeah."
Over the last week as they desperately searched for a cure, Harry had done his best to live by McGonagall's advice - Hermione could not de-age him if they were surrounded by people she didn't want to know their secret. This had meant largely that he had taken to following a very confused Neville around to classes and meals, and only going to bed after Seamus and Dean had both made their way into their dormitory. When they couldn't travel in a pack, they'd been forced to use the invisibility cloak and found that the two of them fit much less comfortably under it than they had when they were twelve.

"Bloody Hell." Ron groaned. "I've just remembered. I've got Prefect duty with her tonight."

"Well, at least we'll know she's not up to something."

The two of them made their way out of the library and up to Gryffindor tower. Ron ducked out from under the invisibility cloak and poked his head through the portrait hole, then motioned to Harry that it was safe to follow.

Inside the Common Room the twins were busy trying to convince Neville to eat one of their sweets, while Colin Creevy and his brother Dennis were eagerly insisting that they would try it. Harry and Ron moved to their usual seats in front of the fire and worked listlessly at their potions essays.

"You'd think we'd get a bit of a break, all things considering. Merlin, OWLS aren't for months! The professors are acting like they're next week or something."

"Yeah," Harry agreed, flipping desperately through his notes for something to pad his intro with. "We don't really need all this revising."

Ron grunted in agreement but didn't voice what they were both thinking: they wouldn't be this far behind if they still had Hermione to look over their work for them.

Hermione. Another person who thinks she knows exactly what I need. Thought Harry snidely. Then all of a sudden he sat bolt upright in his chair.
"Ron! That's it! What we need! I know how to find the counter-curse!"
"What?!" Ron threw his essay carelessly back in his bag and leaned in closer. "How?"
"What we need Ron. Or should I say, what we require." Harry smiled a satisfied smile, shoved his homework to the side and raced down and out of the portrait hole. "The Room of Requirement! It gives you whatever you need - we can use it to find the counter-curse!"

"Brilliant"! Ron sprinted along beside him to the seventh floor corridor. They paused beside the painting of the troll, excited but out of breath. "But how do we get in?"

"Uh, I'm not sure." said Harry. Ron nudged at the stone wall with his foot, but nothing appeared. "Uh, Room? Can you… do the thing?"

"Room can you do the thing?" Harry echoed incredulously.

"Well I'm sorry, did you have a better idea?"

"How did we manage to get in before?" Harry muttered, half to himself. He tried to think back to that moment. Ron had been… looking around? It was hard to remember, he'd been too focused on how funny he thought it was to look like a talking head. He'd bobbed back and forth, giggling to himself as he pulled the invisibility cloak up over his body. Then the door had appeared and Hermione had pulled them through….

Harry hesitantly began to pace the length of the wall, quietly murmuring to himself. "We need to figure out how to break this curse, we need to find out how to stop Hermione, we need to figure out how to undo the spell…"

"Have you gone mad?" Ron asked pleasantly.

Harry shook his head and kept walking. On the third time, a door appeared out of nowhere on the wall in front of them.
"Bloody hell!"

"Get in!" Harry hissed, shoving Ron through the door and glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching them. Harry slammed the door behind them and pulled out the Marauder's map, looking frantically for the dot labeled "Hermione Granger." He noted with relief that she was safely in McGonagall's room, no doubt getting her Prefect instructions for the evening.

"Harry! Come and take a look at this!"
Harry spun around and let out a gasp.

The room was full of cauldrons, each simmering quietly over a small fire as though waiting to be of use. On the far side of the room was a small apothecary full of potion ingredients which appeared to be better stocked than even Snape's personal supply. Harry bent down and picked up a book off the table near the closest cauldron.

"Potions of the Darkest Arts." Harry murmured excitedly. He flipped to the table of contents and broke into a wide grin. "Found it! Facti Sunt Puer!"

"What does it say?"

Harry sat down on a stool in front of one of the cauldrons and skimmed the potion instructions. "Counter-curse, counter-curse, COME ON. Where is it- Here it is! In order to lift Facti Sunt Puer, we have to brew the potion and cast the spell again on the affected person. Set the spell to their original age, and it should counteract the first spell."

"We need to brew the potion again? Blimey, Harry." Ron frowned, looking over the instructions with a furrowed brow. "This is NEWT level stuff."

"And it takes about a month to brew, Hermione must have started it right as we arrived back at school - knew she was mad. Anyway, we brew the potion, set it to fifteen, and then you cast it on me."

"And if we screw it up?"

"Uhhh…" Harry looked at the potential trouble spots listed under the potion and swallowed hard. "Let's not screw it up."

"Brilliant. Let's get started right away." Ron eagerly grabbed for the potions book but Harry closed it sharply and shook his head.

"No. You've got to get to Prefect duty before Hermione realizes that something's wrong."

Ron scowled and looked at his watch. "I'm late already. Who cares? McGonagall's not going to take points from us now, not since you- well uh. You know."
"Had a breakdown in her office, yeah. Thanks. I remember." Harry felt his face grow hot again and cleared his throat. "It's not McGonagall, if Hermione realizes what's going on she might go to Dumbledore, then we're REALLY screwed."

"Fine." Ron rolled his eyes and stood up from his stool. "Tomorrow night then? After Quidditch dinner?"
"Perfect." Harry slammed the book shut and picked up the invisibility cloak, feeling hopeful for the first time in weeks. "Ron, if all this goes well, I should be back to normal in a month."

"Bite your tongue, mate. When does it ever go well for us?"
Harry laughed and threw open the door, stepping out into the hallway and draping the invisibility cloak over himself. "Don't be such a-"

"THESTRAL!"

Harry let out a gasp as the tingling sensation overtook him. His lungs were screaming for air as his skin and skull felt like they were stretched in two. He let out a cry of pain as the tingling turn to burning, turned to shivering, and then -

He collapsed onto the floor, shuddering as the invisibility cloak slipped off of him. His glasses bit uncomfortably into the bridge of his nose as he lay on his side on the cold stone ground. He blinked up wearily into the merciless face of Hermione Granger, and noted with despair that he was once again, five years old.

"Hermione!" Harry squeaked out, trying and failing to sound menacing. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for Ron, and it's a good thing I did." Ron thought quickly and slammed the door to the Room of Requirement shut, vanishing the potion equipment behind them. Hermione glared at him and put her hands on her hips.

"So, this is where you've been hiding? Very clever."
She doesn't know about the spell! Harry realized suddenly. He scowled and climbed clumsily to his feet. "Well, you wouldn't leave us the hell alone anywhere else we went."
"Language, Harry."

"Screw you." Snapped Ron.

Hermione threw her hands up in the air as though exasperated, but couldn't quite hide her self-satisfied smile. "Well, you might as well turn right back around and go back in. I'll be along after Prefect duties, but until then - Ron, can you babysit?"
Ron grabbed Harry by the collar as he lunged for Hermione and dragged him back into the Room. Harry was horrified to see that it had returned to being the little boys room that Hermione had put together. He continued cussing and thrashing against Ron's arms as Hermione let out a dignified sniff and shut the door behind them. Ron sighed and unceremoniously dumped Harry onto the floor.

"Ouch! Git, what was that for?"

"You're not really a kid again for another couple hours, suck it up. Honestly Harry, what exactly did you think you were going to be able to do to her like you are now? You're three feet tall."
Ron looked down and was shocked to see Harry smiling, broadly.

"Do you think she bought it?" Harry asked mischievously.

"Bought what?"

"This room," Harry started, pacing over to the fireplace. "This room gives you whatever you want, right?"
"Yeah…"
Harry noticed there was a small pot sitting on the mantle, where previously there had been none. His grin widened as he summoned the pot into his hand and took a handful of the powder within, then held the pot out to Ron.

"Brilliant. Bloody brilliant." Ron said, taking it from him. "Where are we going?"

By way of answer, Harry threw his powder into the fire and stepped into it. "GRIMMAULD PLACE!"