Hey everyone!

So yeah, I've repeatedly stated that I wasn't abandoning this fic, that I was working on it ...bla bla bla...until its been a full 2 years since I've updated.

I HAVE in fact been working on it though not at the speed I would have wished, but when you chose demanding studies, you have less time for other things. Because of the timelapse however, some of the things I've written bother me, and a few detailsI've put in that seem inconsequential, but that will have important impact later on meant I decided to rewrite. I've got a slight headstart in my rewrite, but to ensure regular if not speedy updates, i'll limit myself to once (or maybe twice)a month updates .

Thank you for all readers who have stuck by despite my absence, and I hope you won't be dissapointed.

Welcome to new readers.

Reviews and constructive criticism are always welcome, please note that flames are not.

Until next time,

ano

Prologue (rewrite)

The first thing that registered on Caspian's consciousness when he came to was the pain in his body. His limbs seemed as if on fire, a merciless pounding had taken up in his skull, and the slightest shift of position tore at his aching muscles, demanding reprieve.

Opening his eyes revealed a bleary gray morning, the tumultuous clouds fogging up the sky above as pervading as the weariness clogging up his brain.

Pulling himself up to a sitting position, he bit back a cry as another torturous throb tore through him, the effort required leaving him both out of breath and trembling. Looking down at himself, Caspian was hardly surprised to find his traveling cloak ruffled and torn; mud and an alarming amount of red staining large portions of it through. Most of the blood, as far as he could see, was not his.

It had probably come from his skirmish with Selwyn and Merks, when his last minute ducking had seen the latter's ferocious Sectumsempra slash his fellow Discipulus open from top to bottom, spraying everything nearby with a shower of crimson.

After that, Caspian did not remember much. He knew Sampson and Cregg had fallen to his wand, and that his attempts to corner the last had been interrupted by… his throat constricted painfully. Finch was dead. A solitary tear made its descent from dulled globes of his usually sparkling eyes, tracing a wet track through the mixed grime, sweat and blood marring his face.

There had been a time- how far it seemed now- when Caspian (he hadn't even been Caspian then) had believed he was done watching people die (how naïve he had been), that he had made it to the other side. He had sworn it to himself, quite seriously, and for a while, had even believed it. But then, with Ginny-she had been the first, he remembered- and Arthur, and Luna and Ron…..all of them. It has started all over again.

He'd joked bitterly; he could not quite recall to whom, that he was cursed, that surviving death twice doomed him to watch others fall. He had started seeing the truth in it. Death, it seemed, would circle him forever more, sparing him but taking his loved ones. Even running from his own life had not changed anything. They'd gotten Lysander. And then Severus,… Severus, the stubborn bastard, had taken off to avenge him, and they'd gotten him too. And now they'd gotten Finch as well, and left him alone, again, the Boy-Who-Bloody-Lived- to- see- everyone- else- Die.

Alone.

Caspian's eyes, which had shut as memories swarmed his brain, snapped open again, looking around wildly. Alone.

It didn't make sense.

He hadn't noticed, hadn't paid attention really, despite knowing better. He should have been alert, should have become aware of his surroundings before anything else, as he had trained to do, instead of reminiscing pathetically like some snotty simpleminded dullard.

Quelling the reprimanding voice in his mind that sounded like Severus had done during his apprenticeship, Caspian brought himself shakily to a crouching position, looking round for signs of the ambushers. There were none.

Homenem revelio! The spell was silent, so as not to alert anyone to his presence, but it was for nothing.

No one other than him was there.

Finches' body, as well as the other corpses, were gone too. It would not have surprised him, with what he knew of the ex-Death Eaters-turned Dark Vigilante group, that they would have taken Finch (and the others) back with them and had their fun desecrating his corpse, but they would hardly have left him here, and certainly not alive. And it wasn't just the Discipuli that were missing. There was no sign of the ambush anywhere.

At first glance, the scenery seemed as he remembered it. The grass long and wild, the small cluster of scraggly trees providing minimal cover, and the ring of stones Finch had pronounced to be an old well. That, however, was the end of it. Save the blood and filth on his robes, no sign of the struggle, or of his and Finches' camping ground, remained. Even the campfire was gone. It had been a wreck when he last laid eyes on it, wood and ashes scattered in the fight, but the charcoal-stained stones used to cook their evening meal had still been there, albeit smashed to pieces by some stray spell. They weren't there now, full green grass growing proudly in their place.

As for the trees, even they were not right. The clumsy attempts at the kustiri "concealment" and havenos "shelter" wards he'd painstakingly carved out in their bark on Finches' instructions were nowhere to be seen, the bark blank of anything but moss. Having had particular trouble with them, his uneven scratches still unequal ,after several hours' practice, to the precision and mastery required for magic to infuse them, he could hardly have imagined them.

What the hell was going on?

He waved his wand gently in the air, silvery blue letter forming in answer to his silent Locator.

Achlyst Forest, Devon, England

The confirmation he hadn't moved did nothing to quell Caspian's puzzlement.

As he cat his Tempus, a second line of smoky lettering settled underneath the first.

August 1st 1985, 11:35

Despite the excruciating pain, Caspian felt himself go entirely numb.