A few minutes later the Potters, Sirius and Remus were in Dumbledore's office.

Then he came out of his own flew network.

"Albus, it's Henry's fifth year and Jade's sixth year, it's time for them to know. Especially Jade." Sirius said.

He sighed and realized they were right.

"Alright, sit down please." he said.

So they sat down and waited.

"It is time," he said, "for me to tell you what I should have told you four and five years ago, Jade, Henry. I am going to tell you everything. I ask only a little patience. You will have your chance to rage at me - to do whatever you like - when I have finished. I will not stop you."

They nodded and waited.

Dumbledore stared for a moment at the sunlit grounds outside the window, then looked back at Jade and Henry and said,

"Five years ago Henry arrived at Hogwart and Jade's second year. You wonder why I had you four go into hiding the first war."

He paused. Neither Jade or Henry said anything.

"My answer is that my priority was to keep you two alive. You were in more danger than perhaps anyone but I realized. Voldemort had been vanquished hours before, but his supporters - and many of them are almost as terrible as he - were still at large, angry, desperate and violent. Which is why I had you stay in hiding a bit longer. Did I believe that Voldemort was gone for ever? No. I knew not whether it would be ten, twenty or fifty years before he returned, but I was sure he would do so, and I was sure, too, knowing him as I have done, that he would not rest until he killed one of you.

"I knew that Voldemort's knowledge of magic is perhaps more extensive than any wizard alive. I knew that even my most complex and powerful protective spells and charms were unlikely to be invincible if he ever returned to full power.

"Five years ago, then," continued Dumbledore, as though he had not paused in his story, "Henry arrived at Hogwarts, as happy and as well-nourished as I would have liked. Jade wasn't the same her first year but she had Sirius and Remus. Henry was a pampered little prince, while Jade was as normal a girl as I could have hoped under the circumstances. Thus far, my plan wasn't working perfect but fair.

"And then… well, you two will remember the events of your first and second year at Hogwarts quite as clearly as I and your parents do. And probably Remus and Sirius. You two rose magnificently to the challenge that faced you and sooner - much sooner - than I had anticipated, you found yourselves face to face with Voldemort. You two survived again. You did more. You delayed his return to full power and strength. You fought a man's fight. I was… prouder of you two than I can say. I'm sure your parents and uncles are to."

They smiled and nodded. James and Lily still weren't happy about what they've been through but still proud.

"Yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine," said Dumbledore. "An obvious flaw that I knew, even then, might be the undoing of it all. And yet, knowing how important it was that my plan should succeed, I told myself that I would not permit this flaw to ruin it. I alone could prevent this, so I alone must be strong. And here was my first test, as you lay in the hospital wing, weak from your struggle with Voldemort. Henry was there to but not as long as you."

"I don't understand what you're saying," said Jade.

"Me neither." Henry said.

"Don't you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing, why Voldemort had tried to kill you two when you were one and two Jade?"

They nodded.

"Ought I to have told you then?"

They stared into the blue eyes and said nothing, but their hearts were racing again.

"You do not see the flaw in the plan yet? No… perhaps not. Well, as you know, I decided not to answer you. Eleven and twelve, I told myself, was much too young to know. I had never intended to tell you when you were eleven and twelve. The knowledge would be too much at such a young age.

"I should have recognized the danger signs then. I should have asked myself why I did not feel more disturbed that you had already asked me the question to which I knew, one day, I must give a terrible answer. I should have recognized that I was too happy to think that I did not have to do it on that particular day… You were too young, much too young. And so we entered your second and third year at Hogwarts.

"And once again you two met challenges even grown wizards have never faced: once again you acquitted yourselves beyond my wildest dreams. Neither of you did not ask me again, however, why Voldemort had your left that mark on you Jade. We discussed scar, oh yes… we came very, very close to the subject. But when I thought it was Henry. Why did I not tell you everything?

"Well, it seemed to me that twelve and thirteen was, after all, hardly better than eleven and twelve to receive such information. I allowed you two to leave my presence, bloodstained, exhausted but exhilarated, and if I felt a twinge of unease that I ought, perhaps, to have told you then, it was swiftly silenced. You were still so young, you see, and I could not find it in myself to spoil that night of triumph…

"Do you see, Henry, Jade? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid."

"We don't –" Henry started.

"I cared about you two too much," said Dumbledore simply.

"I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed.

In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act.

"Is there a Defense? I defy anyone who has watched you two as I have - and I have watched you two more closely than you can have imagined - not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were both alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands.

"We entered your third and fourth year. I watched from afar as you struggled to repel Dementors, as you found Peter, learned what he did to you four. Was I to tell you then, at the moment when you had triumphantly saved your godfather Jade?"

Sirius smiled proud of Jade.

"But now, at the age of thirteen and fourteen, my excuses were running out. Especially for Jade. Young you two might be, but you had proved you were exceptional. My conscience was uneasy, Henry, Jade. I knew the time must come soon…

"But Jade came out of the maze last year, having watched Cedric Diggory die, having escaped death so narrowly herself… and I did not tell them, though I knew, now Voldemort had returned, I must do it soon. And now, tonight, I know you two have long been ready for the knowledge I have kept from you for so long, because you have proved that I should have placed the burden upon you before this. My only Defense is this: I have watched you two struggling under more burdens than any student who as ever passed through this school and I could not bring myself to add another - the greatest one of all."

They waited, but Dumbledore did not speak.

"We still don't understand." Jade said.

"Voldemort tried to kill you two when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth Henry and when you were a year old Jade. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He set out to kill one of you when you were still as young as he could, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. And so, since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape from him last year, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. This is the weapon he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy one of you."

Lily and James were holding each other's hands tightly together.

Sirius and Remus were worried to. Sirius had a hand on Jade's shoulder and Remus did the same thing with Henry's.

The sun had risen fully now: Dumbledore's office was bathed in it. The glass case in which the sword of Godric Gryffindor resided gleamed white and opaque, the fragments of the instruments Jade had thrown to the floor glistened like raindrops, and behind her, the baby Fawkes made soft chirruping noises in his nest of ashes.

"The prophecy's smashed," Jade said blankly. "It slipped out of Lucius' hand when he fell."

"The thing that smashed was merely the record of the prophecy kept by the Department of Mysteries. But the prophecy was made to somebody, and that person has the means of recalling it perfectly."

"Who heard it?" asked Henry, though they thought they knew the answer already.

"I did," said Dumbledore. "On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog's Head inn. I had gone there to see an applicant for the post of Divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of Divination to continue at all. The applicant, however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted Seer and I thought it common politeness to meet her. I was disappointed. It seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. I told her, courteously I hope, that I did not think she would be suitable for the post. I turned to leave."

Dumbledore got to his feet and walked past them to the black cabinet that stood beside Fawkes's perch. He bent down, slid back a catch and took from inside it the shallow stone basin, carved with runes around the edges.

Dumbledore walked back to the desk, placed the Pensieve upon it, and raised his wand to his own temple.

From it, he withdrew silvery, gossamer-fine strands of thought clinging to the wand and deposited them into the basin. He sat back down behind his desk and watched his thoughts swirl and drift inside the Pensieve for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he raised his wand and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.

A figure rose out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolved slowly; her feet in the basin. But when Sibyll Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones Henry had heard her use once before:

"The one with the power to vanquish the - Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the Dark Lord will mark them as his equal, but they will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"

The slowly revolving Professor Trelawney sank back into the silver mass below and vanished.

The silence within the office was absolute. Neither Dumbledore, Henry nor Jade nor any of the portraits made a sound. Even Fawkes had fallen silent. Sirius, Remus, James and Lily looked Jade and Henry.

"Professor Dumbledore?" Jade said very quietly, for Dumbledore, still staring at the Pensieve, seemed completely lost in thought.

"It… did that mean… what did that mean?" Henry asked.

"It meant," said Dumbledore, "that the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly sixteen years ago. This child would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times."

"It means - me and Henry?" Jade asked.

Dumbledore surveyed her for a moment through his glasses.

"The odd thing, Jade," he said softly, "is that it may not have meant you two at all. Sibyll's prophecy could have applied to two wizard boys and one witch, all born at the end of July that year, all of whom had parents in the Order of the Phoenix, all sets of parents having narrowly escaped Voldemort three times. One, of course, was you and Henry. The other was Neville Longbottom."

"But then… but then, why was it my name on the prophecy and not Henry or Neville's?" Jade asked.

"The official record was re-labeled after Voldemort's attack on you two as a child," said Dumbledore.

"It seemed plain to the keeper of the Hall of Prophecy that Voldemort could only have tried to kill one of you because he knew you two to be the one to whom Sibyll was referring."

"Then - it might not be us?" said Henry.

"I am afraid," said Dumbledore slowly, looking as though every word cost him a great effort, "that after finding out the mistake I made last year there is no doubt that it is you Jade."

"But you said - Longbottom was born at the end of July, too - and his mum and dad –" Jade said.

"You are forgetting the next part of the prophecy, the final identifying feature of the child who could vanquish Voldemort… Voldemort himself would mark them as his equal. And so he did, Jade. He chose you, not Neville or Henry. He gave you the scar that has proved both blessing and curse."

"But he might have chosen wrong!" said Jade. "He might have marked the wrong person!"

"He chose the child he thought most likely to be a danger to him," said Dumbledore. "And notice this, Jade, Henry: he chose, not the pureblood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing) but the half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you two before he had ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar Jade, he did not kill you, as he intended, but gave you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him not once, but four times so far - something that neither your parents, nor Neville's parents, ever achieved."

"Why did he do it, then?" said Jade, who felt numb and cold.

"Why did he try and kill us as kids? He should have waited to see whether Neville, Jade or I looked more dangerous when we were older and tried to kill whoever it was then –" Henry started.

"That might, indeed, have been the more practical course," said Dumbledore,

"except that Voldemort's information about the prophecy was incomplete. The Hog's Head inn, which Sibyll chose for its cheapness, has long attracted, shall we say, a more interesting clientele than the Three Broomsticks. As you two and your friends found out to your cost, and I to mine that night, it is a place where it is never safe to assume you are not being overheard. Of course, I had not dreamed, when I set out to meet Sibyll Trelawney, that I would hear anything worth overhearing. My - our - one stroke of good fortune was that the eavesdropper was detected only a short way into the prophecy and thrown from the building."

"So he only heard -?" Jade started.

"He heard only the beginning, the part foretelling the birth of a child in July to parents who had thrice defied Voldemort. Consequently, he could not warn his master that to attack you would be to risk transferring power to you, and marking you as his equal. So Voldemort never knew that there might be danger in attacking you, that it might be wise to wait, to learn more. He did not know that you would have power the Dark Lord knows not–"

"But I/she don't/doesn't!" said Jade and Henry said together, in a strangled voice. "I haven't any powers he hasn't got, I couldn't fight the way he did tonight, I can't possess people or - or kill them -"

"There is a room in the Department of Mysteries," interrupted Dumbledore, "that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it was your heart that saved you. I know you have trouble fighting the vision which is why I had Severus teach you occlumency."

Jade asked curious about the answer, "The end of the prophecy... it was something about neither... can live..."

"…while the other survives," said Dumbledore.

"So," said Jade, dredging up the words from what felt like a deep well of despair inside him, "so does that mean that… that one of us has got to kill the other one… in the end?"

"Yes," said Dumbledore.

For a long time, none of them spoke. Somewhere far beyond the office walls, they could hear the sound of voices, students heading down to the Great Hall for an early breakfast, perhaps.

Chapter 18

It was the last day of school and Dumbledore had asked Jade, Henry, James and Lily come to his office.

"Lily, James, Jade, Henry if Jade were to stay with you I think it's time for you to go into hiding again now that Voldemort is officially back. But they can still get to school and visit their friends." Dumbledore said.

They nodded.

"You should stay somewhere else and use the Fidelius Charm again. People know you went back to Potter Manor a week after that Halloween."

"But Professor, what if it happens again?" Henry said.

"Don't worry Henry, it won't happen again. We'll be extra careful now." Lily said.

"Yes." James said.

"Alright, let me know when you know who your secret keeper is." Dumbledore said.

"Alright Albus. We'll talk to Sirius and Remus when we get home and let you know. And talk to Jade to make sure she wants to stay with us or Sirius and Remus." Lily said.

"Come and tell me when you decide who it is and what she wants to do. And I once again am willing for me to be your secret keeper this time." he said.

"We'll think about it." James said.

"Alright, now, why don't you two get packed up and ready to go. The train starts at eleven as usual." Dumbledore said.

"Alright. See you later mum, dad." Henry said.

"You said we're staying with uncle Moony and uncle Padfoot for now right?" Jade asked.

"Yes, Tweeky is with Kreacher right now getting your rooms ready." Lily said.

They nodded and left.

Two hours later they were on their way to the train. Jade and Henry med up with Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Daphne, Blaise, Draco, Theo, Pansy, Aden and Astoria.

"We've been thinking about something Dumbledore gave us last night." Jade said.

"Yeah?" Ron said.

"That even though there's a fight coming up in front of us we have something that he doesn't." Henry said.

"Which is what?" Astoria asked.

"Something worth fighting for." Jade said.

Then they headed to the train and headed home. It was going to be a hard and probably a worse war, but with Jade and Henry knowing what he was doing last time and them turning sixteen and seventeen, it will make it easier and quicker. They know it.

As long as they have eople they care about it will go fine.