Where's the Potter boy, Mary wondered as she and Rion levitated poor Lars toward the main entrance of the castle. They met Regina and Reg returning with Neville Longbottom carrying a bottle of Dittany. He mumbled condolences as he and Rion took the body. Mary first confirmed her youngest was still safe as a lizard in his father's pocket, then she rested her head on Reg's chest, shaking with her weeping.

"All right, Mary?" he asked, tilting her chin up for them to be face to face. She answered with a tight nod. "Are you sure? You're not thinking about...Ellie, are you?"

The name stuttered her heart. "I'm always thinking about her, but I'm as all right as anyone here," she said, wiping her tears with the sleeve of her robe. She watched as Neville and many other wizards and witches carried bodies toward the courtyard. "There will be a lot of women joining me as grieving mothers after tonight. How are you, Regina?" she asked, holding out her hand to her daughter, who still didn't look like herself.

Regina shrugged. "I'm no worst than anyone else. Prepare yourself, Mum," she said as they passed through the great double doors. "It's bad in there."

The odor of potions and the sound of moans and cries led them to the Great Hall, the enchanted sky murky and atmosphere dark, despite candles burning from one end to the other. Mary stood at the threshold, wishing she could envelop everyone. The room looked like a unit at St Mungo's, with the wounded stretched out on the raised platform while the middle of the room held the dead and their mourners.

Oh, the dead, so many. She rushed over to the end of the long line of familiar corpses where Rion stood looking down on the body of his first love. She put an arm around his shoulders and rested her head on his arm. "Did he have other family, Rion?"

Her son shook his head and sighed before answering. "Katrin's an only child and grandparents died before he was born. He never met his father."

"He didn't know anything about him? Did she ever say if he was a wizard or Muggle?" asked Regina.

Rion produced a brush and began whisking the dust from Lars' blond hair. "Katrin told him he was a famous wizard, but he didn't believe it. You know her. She doesn't always tell the truth," he said with a sniffle.

The little lizard nuzzled its tiny green head on Mary's hand as she caressed it and contemplated silently. Very likely blond like Lars and Katrin. She said her manicure set was a gift from him. Maybe I can find a clue in it.

Wails began as another body was brought in. It bore the mark of fangs. Mary curled her lip at the idea of Greyback. One of the girl's transporters moved to her. "Mary, what are you doing here?" asked a much subdued Dean Thomas.

"Where else would we be when everyone was fighting?" asked Regina. "You look like hell, Dean. What happened to you?"

He looked into her face, squinting. "Regina?"

She rolled her unremarkable eyes. "Yeah, Mum changed my looks. Long story. Did you find your Grandfather Shacklebolt?"

In returning Marty to Reg's pocket and retrieving her wand from her robe, it was obvious that Mary only had the use of her left arm. Dean frowned. " I didn't find him then. He was on the run too, but we talked here...for a few minutes. What happened to your arm, Mary?"

She grinned sheepishly. "Another long story. Hopefully, we can catch up later."

Dean nodded and dropped his eyes to the body. "Sorry about Rigel. We had classes together when we first started here, made up stories about who our fathers might be, since neither of us knew them. At least Lars got gold from his."

"Gold?" Regina asked.

"Yeah," Dean snickered. "Lars said his mum complained about having to exchange it."

"Right," Rion said. "He told me they didn't get anymore after Second Year."

Second year for Lars was Rion's first, the year the Chamber of Secrets was opened, Mary remembered, and the Potter boy killed the Basilisk. The gold suggested a wizard payments, rather than a Muggle making electronic transfers, but why would they have stopped five years ago?

"Harry Potter is dead," the loud hiss announced from the grounds. "

"It's him again," Bill Weasley said with a clearly disgusted voice from the cluster of redheads surrounding the body of his brother, Fred.

"He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him," the hiss continued.

"He's lying," shouted Ron, his voice hoarse and face stained with smoke. "Harry would never—"

"—We know that, Ron," a pretty young woman with dark skin and hair said. "It's either a trick, or...Voldemort killed Harry."

"No!" Ginny Weasley screamed, brown eyes blazing and face flushed with emotion. "No, Angelina, you're wrong." Her father took her in his arms.

"Come out of the castle now, kneel before me, and you shall be spared."

"I'll be damned if I ever kneel to that slit-eyed bastard," growled Aberforth.

"No, none of us will," said Kingsley Shacklebolt, moving toward the front of the room. Tall and barrel-chested with a booming voice, he commanded attention."We're going to end this. We'll lure Voldemort and his crew inside and work in pairs on the Death Eaters first, then use as many of us as it takes to kill the 'slit-eyed bastard.' You younger ones, I want you to stay on the edges of the room and throw Shield charms. Clear to everyone?" He bent his head as someone whispered to him.

The assemblage assented. Mary tightened her grasp on her wand as she moved closer to her family. She noticed Ron Weasley and the Granger girl whispering.

"We need to move the bodies somewhere safe," Reg said.

"One more thing," said Shacklebolt. "Tell them, Neville."

All eyes were on the once-shy boy. Mary glanced over and saw Augusta Longbottom, the flinty former president of her magical garden club famous for her vulture hat, beaming with pride at her grandson.

Neville gulped and then said. "I saw Harry on the grounds earlier. He told me something that needed to be done, but if I'm not able to, someone else must. Kill the snake."

"Accio Basilisk fangs," Hermione said when the resistance army gathered at the front door to face the dark forces. "We should be prepared," she added, walking hand in hand with Ron.

"Good thinking," Ron said. "Kingsley, there's something you should know..."

Very curious, Mary said to herself from behind them. She watched in amazement as yellowed blocks tumbled down the marble staircase and lined up on their sharp points. But they seem to know what they're doing.

"No!"

"Harry!"

The Potter boy's friends shouted their anguish at the sight of his dead body cradled in Hagrid's massive arms. Mary joined the survivors in screaming invective at the line-up of evil. So many wizards and witches governed by hate who think they're superior to Muggles? How can our society ever recover?

"Silence" demanded Voldemort with a bang and flash of light that made everyone speechless. "Set him down, Hagrid, at my feet where he belongs."

Mary looked down at the boy on the ground, anger mounting as she imagined her own son there. Poor Lily. She gave her life to protect him, but that horrid man tied their fate together. Pathetic, cruel, irredeemable.

The crowd started shouting again and over the answering taunts of Voldemort's minions, Mary distinguished a cackle, a despicable laugh she'd only heard once in Knockturn Alley and would never forget. She scanned the hateful faces from one end to another but didn't spot a bent old witch and the cackle stopped.

Rage and frustration burned her insides. Her eyes skimmed Voldemort's concubine for the one who had said twelve years ago, ""Die, child, die," and cackled as Mary ran from her with pregnant awkwardness, protecting her heavy belly.

Laugh again, Bitch, she snarled under her breath, discounting Bellatrix LeStrange because she was in Azkaban then, and she wouldn't have disguised herself, but cursed Mary brazenly. Narcissa Malfoy was more deceitful, Mary knew. She was a possibility.

Her group of fighters on the porch jostled as someone ran from their midst and charged Voldemort. His sycophants laughed again. Mary swept their faces, searching for the one that matched that accursed cackle. Bellatrix, no; Narcissa, no; Malicia Snyde, no; Jo—She stopped.

Josephine Macnair, spinster sister of Walden Macnair, the Ministry executioner. She was a Seventh Year when Mary began at Hogwarts. Mary glared at the bony, greying woman with an extremely wide forehead and bulbous chin who continued the demonic laughter at Neville's tightened her grip on her wand. "We're going to kill her, Cherry."

The people around Mary screamed as Voldemort slapped the Sorting Hat on Neville's head and set it burning with magical flame. The sun rose, villagers from Hogsmeade stormed in from the exterior walls of the grounds with war-like yells, and giants that stood taller than the castle walls charged the comparably small giant who called in a gutteral voice, "Hagger?"

But it was all background to Mary in her concentration of the woman she blamed for the death of her newborn Ellie. Why the disguise? Josephine was never attractive, but why did she look like a stooped, toothless crone when she confronted me? I wouldn't have been in Knockturn Alley, except that I'd volunteered to pick up the slug repellent for the garden club demonstration. Had she already changed her looks when she spotted me, or did she change because she saw me? One suggested a curse of convenience, the other, something more deliberate and personal. Which one was it, you sinister hag?

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of something silver, as Neville ripped the hat from him and pulled out an ornamental sword from it. An ear-piercing, screech that bore just a hint of humanity followed, and the serpentine body of Nagini fell with a thud to the cobblestones.

"Nooo!" roared Voldemort, and Mary's side cheered. The break of dawn and fall of the Maledictus seemed to signal to the magical creatures, who came out in force. Thestrals swooped down on Voldemort and his vicious followers, Centaurs sent arrows zinging in the air, Achilles thundered out of the trees, impervious to the beams from wizards' wands as he prepared to bowl them over in his search for his friend Lars.

In their panic the Death Eaters forced their way into the castle, just as Shacklebolt had planned.

"Where are you going?" Rion asked, moving away from the crush to point his wand at boulders and fling them at the larger giants, like a wizard David felling his Goliaths. Mary was relieved to see Reg helping him so she wouldn't have to worry about Marty, in the pocket of his father's robe, possibly being struck by a spell. Now, if Regina would only stay on the outskirts with the other under-age wizards and witches as she'd been instructed, Mary could focus on Josephine.

She weaved through the crowd of joined duels and trinals, holding Cherry before her like a divining rod, eyes sharp and blood heated, a tigress on the hunt. Where are you? You can't hide from me, and you will pay for what you did.

The colors of spells and charms whizzed around the entry hall like a deadly kaleidoscope. As before, Us and Them shouted words that could end lives but, unlike before when she felt detached from the lethality, having only tried to defend, this time she she too wanted to kill.

She crossed the threshold into the Great Hall, formerly the site of congenial meals and and breath-taking ball with an undertone of rivalries, now filled with open hate and blood lust. It might have been a dance floor with partner groups moving back and forth, side to sid, even spinning in small skirmishes.

And then, Mary heard the cackle. Her head jerked to her left side where a boy no more than fifteen writhed in agony and a bony, greying witch stood over him. Mary sprinted to her.

"You," she snarled.

Josephine opened her mouth in a grey smile. "Well, Little Mary Mudblood, I hoped to see you."

Mary pointed her wand at the older woman. "Release that boy or do you only harm teenagers and babies?"

The cackle erupted as Macnair waved her wand at the boy and glanced at Mary's limply hanging arm. "As if your Mudblood magic wasn't weak already, now you're injured? I'll kill you without mussing my hair."

She raised her wand in a silent attack, and Mary lifted hers in a mirror response to counter it.

"Why?" Mary asked as she flourished her wand in a disarming charm. "Why did you curse my baby?"

Josephine caught her wand in her left hand when it shot out of her right. Mary realized that's something she couldn't do. She must not be disarmed. Don't leave me, Cherry. Her wand pulsed in her hand as if reassuring her of its loyalty.

"You shouldn't have given birth to Cattermoles," Josephine said as she and Mary circled each other, jabbing wands to test strengths and weaknesses. "You diluted some of the purest blood in all of Europe."

"It was none of your affair," Mary said in a loud voice, aiming at Josephine's legs. She bounced away from a stunning spell and panted with the effort.

Josephine yelped as a flash from Mary's wand singed her cheek. "It's the affair of everyone superior to you," she shouted in maniacal passion. I saw you and another of your Half-blood vermin growing inside you, and I knew what I had to do. How long did it live?" she cackled. "Was it painful for you both? I wanted it to be."

Mary's head echoed the vitriol, the cruelty. "You..you..."

"Not my daughter, you bitch," came a shout from the other side of the room that seemed to capture everyone's attention, but Mary had her own monster to defeat.

She rushed Josephine, seeing wide-eyed fear for the first time. Mary slashed and stabbed her wand as she had her sword when she'd sparred with Regina. She was matriarchal fury, Aethelflaed against a dastardly queen, the tigress avenging a dead cub, exultant in the look of fear, aching for the cries of despair. "Crucio!"

Josephine collapsed to her knees with the scream of pain Mary wanted. She pointed her wand down, ready to give the final blow, when Josephine raised a feeble arm and moved her mouth in a nameless curse.

Mary's hand went to her burning eyes, her wand falling at her feet. She dropped to the floor, groping for it as Josephine rose, cackling and coming for her.

"Help me, Cherry," Mary whispered. Her wand jumped to her hand and pulled her arm up, warming as it banged twice, silencing the dastardly laugh. The force knocked Mary back and she landed hard on her rear. She shuttered her eyes, her vision clearing, and crawled forward to confirm death to a woman who lived to hurt.

She held her wand to her heart. "Well done."

She found her family and stood together for the strange showdown of Voldemort and Harry Potter, the final confrontation of good and dark magic. It always demands a price, Mary knew. They all saw the price Voldemort paid. What would it be for the rest of them?

Marty complained about being confined in a pocket for so long, but seemed mollified by food. Rion joined them after going to see Lars one last time. "I want to tell him we got those damn giants and Achilles is fine."

Mary scanned the room for Regina.

"She was brilliant," Marty reported. "She made herself a smoky cloud again and swallowed huge rocks then flew over the giants and spit the boulders out on them. We killed one and the other ran away."

Mary smiled, proud of her family, but where was Regina now?

She entered with red hair and blue eyes restored, carrying a wand with a distinctive handle reminiscent of a line of berries. Smiling she ran it down her mother's damaged arm. "Reparo."

Mary gasped as feeling returned and she could move her arm for the first time in months. "How..."

"I got my wand from Harry," Regina said. I followed him and when he was alone, I explained it was destined for me. He didn't believe me and said it was too dangerous for me, until I told it to come to me and it did. He couldn't argue with that, even after all that silly, sexist talk between him and Voldemort about wands knowing when wizards overpower each other." She grinned mischievously.

Her mother smiled. No, I suppose not."

Madame Pomfrey appeared next to Regina and laid a hand on her sleeve as Reg joined them. "Regina told me about her condition. I'd like for her to stay here for observation and treatment. Your family is welcome to stay as well. I suspect Hagrid could use a hand with that Graphorn." She looked over to Marty, who was sneakily tossing food out the window to Achilles.

Reg snickered. "Thanks. We appreciate the offer." He turned to Mary as Regina and the school healer walked away. "Kingsley wants me back at the Ministry. He said he'd like me to help him in reorganizing, with a big promotion, of course."

"That's wonderful," Mary said. "I'll go back to our campsite and retrieve everything, take Regina her Pygmy Puff, then go see Katrin."

*"Let me know when you're going to the Hog's Head," Reg said. "I'll go with you to talk to her."

She nodded. As sad as she was about Lars and his mother, she was so relieved, after nearly a year, to be free from Snatchers, Death Eaters and the chase and able to think about the normal and expected tragedies and traumas of motherhood and the magical world.

"You've got that old look," Reg said, smiling down on her, "like you're expecting something great to happen."

Mary's eyes sparkled as she raised both arms and wrapped them around her husband. "I don't need to expect anything. What we have is already great."

He leaned down to whisper in her ear.

"I love you a bit more," she answered.

EPILOGUE

She fluffed her short, grey hair after running through the wall at Nine and three-quarters in King's Cross. She tightened her hold on the three-year-old hand she held, and they walked toward the Hogwarts Express, the rackety, wheezing old train that never improved, but never worsened. The platform teemed with young boys and girls and anxious parents, pets and trunks.

"*Are Uncle Rion and Tanner here with Remus?" the little boy asked, turning up his face with freckles and grass-green eyes.

She looked down with fondness on her youngest grandchild. "Yes, and El too."

Matt wrinkled his nose. "She treats me like a baby; I'm a big boy. Can I have your wand, Gran?"

Mary looked around her to see if anyone had heard. Cherry would sing to the boy or allow him to make puffs of smoke, but wouldn't answer his commands. Still, she couldn't give it to him in public. The magical community would be scandalized. "When I take you back home," she promised.

"Gran! Gran, here we are," called a young girl, waving wildly.

"El, my favorite witch, do you have everything you need?" Mary asked. She never referred to her granddaughter as her princess and limited herself in calling her pretty, but it was obvious. Marty's daughter had inherited the dark red hair and sapphire eyes of her Aunt Regina.

"We went through her list five times," said her Muggle mother Lana, her hand on her pregnant belly, "but we'll probably have to send an owl with something in a few days."

"It would be easier if Dad would bring her what she needs," Marty said. As a Legilimens and head of the Department of Mysteries, he'd met his wife when he was assigned to attend a speech by England's prime minister where a dark wizard was expected to be. Lana was an aide whom he'd impressed by knowing it was her birthday.

"You know your father tries not to show favoritism," she said. After years at the Ministry, Reg had retired to do what he'd always wanted—teach Transfiguration. "I'll take anything to her she's forgotten after I return Matt to the beach house."

"Another late-night raid, eh?" said Marty with an eyeroll. "Aurors."

El bent down to her young cousin. "You like running errands with Gran, don't you," she asked in a condescending sing-song.

Mary smiled as a young man knelt to address her in the same tone. "We all like errands with Gran, don't we, Ellie?"

"Remus!" said Matt with delight, and the Seventh Year son of Rion and Tanner picked up his cousin.

"Hey, Matt, have you seen anyone looking at Gran or asking for her autograph?"

"You know that doesn't happen when the Golden Trio are around, Son," said Rion, paunchy and greying at the temples. Tanner, the man next to him, was shorter and muscled with blond hair. It made Mary's heart ache that he was so similar to Lars Rigel, but Rion didn't seem to see it. They'd been together and happy for years though, and their son was the nicest Slytherin denizen since his grandfather. "Your Gran is a minor celebrity even though she wrote 'the essential book about a family in hiding, their great trials and small joys during the tumultuous year of You-Know-Who-Was' " he intoned, using his hands to emphasize the words, as if reading from a screen.

Marty chuckled. "And the second one, 'a heart-wrenching and uplifting tale of a daughter's successful search for her Muggle father in the days of recovery and reconciliation'."

Mary flapped her hand at her sons. "Oh, You. All right, you two, time to board. Give me hugs. Now, I want you to spend some time together at least once a week, learn loads, and..."

She stopped, looking at her grandchildren, then everyone around them. Many wore bracelets curving their wrists like a snake with a G for Grindelwald. There were people who spoke about the order they imagined there had been during that dark wizard's time and maybe it was time to restore that. Regina had said the increase in raids was because of a group known as G. What if it began again? What was most important for children to know to resist?

She smiled and opened her arms for all of them. "You're Cattermoles. Remember you're loved. And spread it around."

The End