“You look very nice,” Chris told his date as she met him on the stairs that led to the front of the great Hall. He had followed his father’s advice and had decided to invite someone he knew no one else would. He didn’t mind the odd looks he got as they walked towards the other champions that McGonagall was lining up. He had known how it felt to be the person no one wanted to befriend in Muggle School. And the few times he had seen her in the Magic School classes he noticed she was very much the same. So yes, she was a tad odd. But who wasn’t? Besides, they were just friends, and unlike the other Ravenclaws, she had talked to him even before they saw a dragon trying to kill him. When no one else in the school wanted to be caught dead talking to him. He stopped behind Krum and Olivia and gave Olivia a shy nod. Apparently the two champions had decided to be each other’s date. He saw Cho with Cedric, figures, and Fleur Delacour with the captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, who looked at his date disdainfully. Chris just stared back at him as if daring him to say anything rude. He didn’t.

As they watched the other students go into the Hall Chris spotted the twins and their dates, Angelina and Alicia, Ron with Parvati Patil going in with Seamus and Lavender Brown and saw Ron stealing glares to somewhere behind him. He looked backwards as he felt his brother approaching and let out a small chuckle when he saw Wyatt proudly leading a blushing Hermione. So that was his mysterious date!

Once everyone was settled professor McGonagall told them to go in. Chris extended his bended arm to the young lady and asked, “Shall we?”

“Of course,” she said nodding and they entered the Hall, both with their heads held high as they walked towards the main table and sat next to Percy Weasley, to Chris’s surprise. From then on the dinner was quite enjoyable, if you didn’t count Percy boring his mind out with details of his job. He actually had a very enjoyable dinner and he mostly enjoyed to watch how Luna made conversation with his mother ,who was seated next to her. His suspicions that Luna was a lot smarter than she led on where more than confirmed during the dinner. She did make some of her outrageous comments, but they were mostly directed to people like Percy or Fleur Delacour. While she was talking to Piper she had been very eloquently discussing the benefits of mixing potion ingredients without once adding a ludicrous remark.  She had also been the most gracious dancing partner when they opened the dance, helping him with his less than gracious feet.

All in all Chris had a wonderful time and had mostly forgotten that the girl he wanted to come with was dancing with Cedric. It was quite refreshing to be out with someone who didn’t care what other people thought of them while they danced. As he spotted his brother and Hermione once or twice he knew they were having a great time, at least they were both very happy.

The only one who didn’t seem to be enjoying himself was Ron, who had spent most of the night seated at a table glaring at Hermione and Wyatt.

“Why don’t you go to him?” Luna asked later.

“Ah, you-“

“Oh, don’t worry. Neville Longbottom is going to dance with me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ll tell him too,” she said simply with that faraway way of hers. And then she just walked away and went to Neville, who was seated next to Ron and pulled him to the middle of the dance floor without saying a word. Chris didn’t even think Neville knew who she was. He could only stare gobsmacked at the scene. He shook his head and went to join Ron who was exuding jealousy.

Chris sighed. Ron and Wyatt weren’t getting along very well. Wyatt still thought Chris had forgiven Ron too fast and Ron was felling his place on Chris’s life threatened by Wyatt. They both acted civilly towards each other but Chris could feel the tense atmosphere when they were together. Chris honestly didn’t know what to do. Sometimes being an Empath sucked. Ah well, he sat next to Ron.

“How is it going?”

“He’s too old for her,” Ron stated. Chris looked at Wyatt and Hermione.

“Actually the age difference between Hermione and Wyatt is more or less the same as Hermione and me, I think less.”

“Whose side are you on? He’s too old for her, and he is from another country. He’ll break her heart!”

“Ron, he can orb. Remember how just this morning we were in that other country? And he won’t break her heart. They are just having fun,” he looked at Ron seriously and decided to let Ron know he knew what he was feeling. “If you like her then you should have asked her out. Next time think of that. You still have time. Start treating her like a girl and not another one of the boys and you might luck out.” To be honest that enlightening thought hadn’t come from himself but from his cupid Uncle, who had asked about the gossip on Skeeters article, apparently the whole family had heard about that, Chris was truly amazed at how information ran rapidly throughout the Halliwell network, and then had pulled Chris aside during Christmas brunch and added that tidbit in case Chris ever had feelings other than friendship for Hermione. To Chris Hermione was like a sister, he just had a lot of bells screaming wrong in his head at the thought of them together. But he knew for a fact, and from Ron’s feelings, that that was not the case for Ron.

He also didn’t know if Watt had noticed that and didn’t want to end up in the middle of a tug war, especially since he was quite sure that Wyatt only had a passing infatuation.

“I don’t like her like that!” Ron almost shrieked.

“Uh hu,” Chris rolled his eyes. “Just don’t do anything stupid that will get us all fighting again,” he begged. “Come on, let’s take a walk. Being here won’t help your brooding any.”

---

Leo opened his eyes blearily. The night had been long. As Headmaster he had to stay up until he knew his last student had left the Ball back to the dormitory. He had liked it though. He and Piper hadn’t had much chance in their life to attend such an extravagant event. They had danced all night long and it wasn’t until there were only a few straggler students that she had kissed him goodnight with an evil smirk that said “I can go to sleep even if you can’t” that they stopped.

He had woken with someone shaking him and stared directly into the blue eyes of his oldest son. He looked to the side.

“Where’s Piper?” he asked stifling a yawn.

“There’s a note saying she went for breakfast but left you to your beauty sleep.”

“Oh,” Leo sat up on the bed and rubbed his eyes to wake up. “Okay.”

“We need to talk,” Wyatt said seriously sitting next to Leo on the bed. Leo looked at him worriedly.

“Did something happen between you and Hermione? Son, you just met her-you’re both young- you should wait until you know each other be-“

“NO! OH GOD, NO!” Wyatt looked at his dad repulsed. “We already had that talk and I’m not repeating it! Go have it with Chris!”

Leo nodded and realized he had neglected his parental duty there. He had talked with Wyatt when he was thirteen and he absolutely forgot to talk to Chris. He would have to remedy that soon. “Then what?”

Wyatt looked at his father seriously, not a trace of humor in his face and said firmly, “He’s a Horcrux isn’t he?”

Leo bit his lips nervously and looked at his hands. He nodded silently. He wouldn’t lie to his sons; not burdening them was one thing, lying was another. He knew Piper might get angry at him but he had suspected for a while that Wyatt had started realizing it when they destroyed the locket.

“How did you figure it out?”

“When I first sensed Chris there was something off, something I didn’t feel was right. But I didn’t know what. It had been so long since I’d been in his presence; I couldn’t have said that it didn’t belong to him. I mean, I always felt Chris’s presence faintly through the bond, but I had never realized there was something that shouldn’t be there. The feeling of wrongness only came when we met him again. But I just figured it was because of the blood adoption, or maybe him practicing magic a different way. But when-when you explained- I started paying attention and I realized that what felt wrong didn’t come from Chris as a whole but just his scar. I was almost sure- but I didn’t want to believe-you said the only way to get rid of a Horcrux is to destroy the vessel- I didn’t want to-“

“We’ll find a way, we already have a theory and we’re trying to figure out if it will work,” Leo said squeezing Wyatt’s hand. Wyatt nodded.

“But yesterday, when mom and the aunts unbound his powers they took away whatever was blocking the bond. It always felt like something was there in the way. And suddenly I could feel Chris completely, like I never felt any of you. I knew where he was and how he felt. I know now, without having to sense for him. He’s in the Great Hall and he is quite content and happy that they have treacle tart. I mean. I was never able to pinpoint his emotions that way. Knowing exactly why he felt some way.”

Leo smiled, he had a feeling that Wyatt and Chris’s bond would only grow. Paige’s children had an uncanny ability of knowing exactly what each other was feeling and where they were, but with Chris and Wyatt being so much more powerful than them it would stand to reason their bond would be stronger. He remembered how after they knew who he was future Chris stopped holding back things that might give him up and he would just say things out of the blue like, “Wyatt’s up- Wyatt need’s a nappy change- Wyatt’s hungry- He really does hate those beans.” Even when he was nowhere near Wyatt.

“And when I felt him, completely I knew that whatever was in his scar wasn’t him- at all. It was nothing like him. It’s bad, it’s evil. It’s not tainting him or anything. It’s like if it were in a bubble or a safe, not touching anything else. But I knew it wasn’t him and-“ Wyatt bit his lip- “It felt a lot like what I felt from that locket.”

“We found out more or less like that, your Aunt felt it when she sensed Chris. You have to understand, you’re Aunt had put older Chris in her radar, so she knew how he felt. So when she sensed him it was easy for her to realize there was something more there,” Leo tried to explain to Wyatt that there was nothing wrong with him missing it.

Wyatt nodded silently looking at his hands, “I didn’t say anything yesterday because I didn’t want to ruin the Ball for any of us. I still had hope-had hope you’d tell me it was nothing and I was imagining things.”

Leo pulled Wyatt close to him with one of his arms and said, “I can’t do that but know that we will save him. We will find a way.”

Wyatt looked at his father with pained eyes, “How? I don’t want to lose him again dad.”

Leo took a deep breath and explained their theory, of how they wanted to do the same he had done for Piper all those years ago but they still didn’t know if they could because they didn’t have a Whitelighter with a deep bond with Chris.

“What about Lily Potter?” Wyatt asked.

“What about her?”

“Well, wasn’t she your charge because she was a potential Whitelighter? You said that’s the only exception for Wizarding folk to get a Whitelighter.”

Leo looked at Wyatt appraisingly “I don’t know if she became one. It’s a choice; there are people who chose to move on. And a Whitelighter isn’t allowed to keep in touch with their mortal loved ones, so she wouldn’t have been able to stay near Chris. But-you’re right- she might have become one- and she does have a bond with him. I‘ll talk to Paige, Coop and Sam. See if they can find out if she became one and can get in touch with her- that’s,” Leo smiled getting excited at the prospect. Their biggest issue was that they couldn’t have all in one, they either had spirits with a bond with Chris or a Whitelighter, Sam, who even though he was family, he had only met Chris for the first time the previous day, and didn’t share any blood with him. With the blood adoption, Lily did, and more so, she had a bond created by her sacrifice, by her protection. “a great idea son!”

Wyatt smiled at him and Leo said seriously, “Don’t tell your brother. He doesn’t need this on top of everything else.”

“He might figure it out through the bond. Why I’m feeling this way.”

“Chris has less experience than you with his active powers. He might not realize what he’s feeling. If he does, then we’ll deal with that, but your mother and I didn’t want to burden either of you with this knowledge.”

Wyatt nodded seriously. Sometimes he got annoyed at the fact that his parents kept things from him, saying he was too young. But right now, he’d give anything to go back to being carefree and not knowing the ticking bomb that was inside Chris.

---

“So you think Remus was right? That he is loyal to Dumbledore?” Paige asked as she sipped her tea. Even though all the kids where on break Phoebe had kept Chris’s training session and they had their usual dinner with the family. The boys had gone back to the tower and Piper and Leo were filling them in what had happened since Christmas. At first Piper hadn’t liked Wyatt knowing, but she agreed with Leo. One thing was withholding the information to protect them, the other was lying to them.

Then Piper had told all of them about a conversation she overhead between Dumbledore and Snape the night of the ball, where Snape told Dumbledore that Karkaroff was afraid and that their Dark Marks were getting darker. Snape had said Karkaroff would flee and when Dumbledore asked him what he would do he said he wouldn’t, that he was no coward.

“I don’t know,” Piper shrugged. “He might as well be thinking of rejoining Voldemort. Snape is a very shady character.”

“Could he be the one to put Chris’s name in the goblet?” Phoebe asked.

“I don’t think so,” Piper shook her head. “From everything I’ve heard about him I think Snape protects his own skin. And doing something to the Boy-Who-Lived for some half alive Dark Lord right under Dumbledore’s nose wouldn’t be in his best interest and I don’t think he’d risk it. But I don’t doubt that if Voldemort returns he’ll play a double game.”

“I could try to read him,” Phoebe mused stroking her chin.

“Wouldn’t help, Olivia has already said Snape is blocking her out,” Piper shrugged.

“The fact stands that if their Marks are getting darker this means Voldemort is getting stronger and that is bad for us,” Leo tried to focus the discussion.

“Yeah, but we already knew that,” Phoebe drawled.

“Which means,” Leo pressed on. “That we need to speed up finding those Horcruxes, besides the locket we’ve had no luck at all.”

“Actually,” Paige started. “I was talking about the subject with my dad and he pointed out that we’ve been quite stupid.”

“Excuse-me!” the other three cried offended.

Paige just shrugged, “We found one by a lucky chance, the locket. But honestly, we could have just sensed for the others.”

“What?” Piper spluttered but Leo slapped his head.

“Of course! Paige knows how Voldemort’s soul feels like because of the one in Chris, she can sense for the others.”

Piper and Phoebe’s head snapped towards Paige who was sporting a satisfied smirk, “Already have.” She said pulling out a map from her handbag. “Now earlier I orbed Remus and Sirius to this location. Don’t worry, they glamoured themselves ,” she pointed to a town named Little Hangleton.

“Wait a minute!” Piper snapped. “You knew this all along and are telling us just now?”

“Well, I was waiting for the right moment, the boys were here, then you started on about Snape…”

Seeing that Piper and Phoebe were about to throttle Paige Leo tried to act as the pacifier, a role he had pegged down very well after the years of experience. Deep down he never stopped being their guide, even if he didn’t have his powers any more.

“Okay, okay, settle down girls and let Paige talk.”

“As I was saying; Remus and Sirius are here. It’s a rundown shack. There were some wards and Remus and Sirius were going to work on them and then bring the Horcrux here so we can destroy it with the other in the Room of Requirement. There is one here at Hogwarts, and if Remus was right it is in the Room of Requirement.”

“How, the room turns into whatever you want?” Phoebe asked.

“Remus says that one of the versions of the Room is a room where many generations of students and faculty have hidden or stored things. It would be the perfect place to hide something. Apparently the Marauders were very familiar with that room to store their ‘incriminating evidence’, as Sirius put it. As soon as they come back Remus will open the Room. The other one, as we suspected is at Gringotts. So it must be in Bellatrix’s vault as they thought. That one will be tricky unless we can prove Sirius’s innocence. And the last one, yes, there is one more. He managed all the ones he planned for,” she sighed hoping they wouldn’t kill her. “We can’t get to it. It’s right next to Voldemort.”

“So you know where Voldemort is?” Phoebe asked.

“No,” Paige shook her head. “I was able to sense the part of soul that is him and the Horcrux. They feel similar but the one that is Voldemort is distinguishable because it’s stronger than the others, way stronger. I know they are together, and I know they are close to where Remus and Sirius are now but I can’t pinpoint where he is. There is something blocking me. That’s why I asked them to go. Since they would be more familiar with whatever wards Voldemort could put around and because if we went in a large group I was afraid we’d call Voldemort’s attention. I’m sorry I didn’t consult you before, but when I realized they had to be close I was afraid he’d hide that Horcrux too and acted fast.”

“You did right,” Piper nodded realizing why Paige hadn’t said anything. She must have been worried about the duo and had been trying to distract herself with the family. Telling them would just make them all sit and worry together.

“At least we have a general location for Voldemort. Do you know how close he is to that shack?” Leo asked and Paige shook her head sadly.

They all bit their lips nervously thinking the same. Paige had been with them for hours. Which meant Remus and Sirius where gone for even longer. Where they okay?

The fire suddenly roared green and the four of them jumped as a tired looking Remus and Sirius stumbled out. Leo couldn’t help but smile relieved and chuckle at the bewildered expressions of the two men as they were assaulted by the three women hugging them. When they were released Sirius dropped a ring on the coffee table.

“That one was tricky. He had all sorts of nasty wards we had to dismantle till we found it. And don’t put it on. The ring itself has a withering curse if anyone puts it on.”

“Good thing you know about those,” Phoebe smiled.

Sirius shrugged, “Growing up in my house there was no way not to. That withering one was one of my dad’s favorite.”

“We left a replica there. If Voldemort tests it won’t fool him but if he doesn’t it may,” Remus said.

“So, shall we get the next one and proceed in destroying them both?” Phoebe asked happily and the others nodded smiling tiredly.