Angela's Note: So begins Part Four of Blindness. Should I say I'm sorry for the long wait? I am. I can give you all a million reasons why it's taken so long, but anyone who reads my profile or follows my stories already knows. Part Four will be posted as its chapters are written, instead of all at once, because I would hate to make everyone wait that long. It will be a very, very long portion of this story, perhaps 150k words or more, with chapters of varying length. It will cover Harry and Hermione's life as they move into the future as they wish it to be. I hope you all find it as enjoyable to read as I find it to write.

We have also gone through the previous chapters to edit any mistakes found by readers, and to add in slightly more detail to certain scenes. Nothing that changes the plot; only a bit more flourish. This might be a good time to re-read previous chapters however, if you are so inclined.

GJMEGA's Note: Hello, all. Please don't blame Angela for the delay, I bear a large portion of blame as well. I have recently added college to my list of obligations, which include work and a rather sizable amount of family interaction/obligations. Unlike Angela, who is a workhorse, seriously, how she does it is beyond me, I am less than capable of balancing real life issues with writing. I'll do my best to get better at it though. Thanks for your patience.

Harry took them from the memory; he stepped away from Hermione, raising a hand to his forehead, as if he could feel the poison that must be there.

"We just take it out." Her voice was calm. "Right? Just like with the Locket."

He ran his hand over his head to his neck and back, feeling the hair, the skin, the hard bone underneath both.

And underneath that there would rest broken red taint. Another soul, another pattern, attached to his own like a tick, waiting to come alive.

"I have to see it to manipulate it." Harry said dully, one downside to his pattern transfiguration made horribly clear. "To remove it. Kill it. I've always had to see objects to change their pattern."

"B-but…" Hermione's stutter came back and was overcome with a harsh swallow. "But Dumbledore destroyed several, you told me so…"

"With fiendfyre." Harry knew his voice was harsh, but his thoughts were also harsh. "He thought they could only be destroyed with the destruction of the vessel they possessed."

"It hasn't hurt you yet." Her voice was desperate. "It hasn't affected you!"

"How would I know if I've had it for years?" He returned. "Since I was an infant?"

"You don't know how you got it." She was angry now. "We have time to figure this out. We'll remove it, Harry, and no nonsense about destroying vessels. There has to be a way to create a mirror you can actually see. Then we'll kill it. You can do anything if you only work out how."

Harry's head fell to his chest, eyes on the green floor under his feet. He twisted the ring on his finger, its metal warm from his skin.

There was some things even he couldn't do.

But that sure as hell didn't mean he wasn't going to try anyway.

He looked back up at her and lifted his chin.

"You're right. It hasn't caused me any harm at this point that I can tell. We can monitor any growth or abnormal activity through memories in the pensieve. This is just like any other impossibility magic has presented us with. Dumbledore called it a horcrux; we need to find all we can about them."

Hermione grasped his hand hard in hers, light jerking in a firm nod.

"Exactly. We have our problem, now we research, make hypotheses, and test them until we find what works. And we'll do it again and again until you're free."

"I know the scientific method by heart." Harry said softly, and let a small smile twist his mouth. "You don't have to remind me."

Hermione sniffed, but he could feel her relief at his subtle dig with the way she relaxed her rigid stance and leaned into him.

"Alright, then. Okay." Her voice was slightly lost. "I, um, really liked the dragon."

Harry pulled her warm light closer, breathing in her scent.

"Me too."

He couldn't let himself despair; he had Hermione, and they had broken the former rules of magic countless times. There would be more than one way to remove a horcrux; and he would find that way and do it. He was a scientist; he gathered information and used it to solve problems.

That's all this was, another problem.

Harry rested his head against Hermione's hair, looking out over the light of Grimmauld Place.

No matter how long it takes.

The rest of the day was spent going through Harry's memories, select scenes picked from his life, each one spent hand-in-hand as they observed Harry's light and the red stain upon it.

Hermione watched him grow; from a small toddling bundle of green light, hesitant in a Dursley house filled with shadows, to a young boy, more confident and sure, casting magic for the first time with purpose, changing blank darkness to streams of light.

She had never really understood before how many gaps there were in his vision. It had sounded clinical, to hear him talk of synthetic fibers as empty spaces, plastics and vinyl nothing but shadow. But she could finally see it for herself, as a young Harry Potter began to transform his guardian's house, green shining lines of still light where she had only before seen plain brown planks. Harry made the house shine; it looked like a palace of sparkling, colored crystal.

And in every chronological scene, as Harry's own unique soul grew larger and older, the red taint upon his face remained, small and oblong, a slash across his face like the splatter of blood.

The memory changed again and again; Harry had placed inside the pensieve memories of himself in the Dursley house every January, keeping the variables to a minimum as they looked for any growth or change of the horcrux.

It didn't move from its placement, nor grow substantially in size, remaining across the face in every scene. She found herself only looking at it at the beginning of each change, before purposefully looking away, looking at anything but at the horrible stain, so vivid and horrendous, a pollution in her best friend and lover.

It didn't belong. It made her furious and scared at the same time. But logic told her it was not, yet, an immediate threat.

At the end of the last memory, taken only months before, Harry tugged her hand and pulled them free of the pensieve.

His face was blank and cold, green eyes staring straight ahead into nothing.

"No change. At this point, I theorize it is dormant, unable to think for itself. I can conclude that the sliver of a soul must have some form of ritual to activate it into either outright possession, or exorcism into a new body."

Hermione brightened a bit.

"Can we do that? Transfer it to a new body and then kill it?"

Harry's eyes did not move towards her voice, but his hand holding hers began to slowly squeeze, running an absent finger against her palm.

"Maybe. I haven't studied necromancy from that angle yet."

Yet. Hermione had no doubt it was on his mental list, though, and had been ever since he began to realize the scope of his own abilities regarding possible resurrection.

She leaned closer, moving around the swirling pensieve to press her head into his shoulder, mumbling her thoughts against his shirt.

"Dormant. Okay. We can w-work with that."

The stutter in her voice annoyed her, but she pushed the emotion away. She felt Harry raise his arms to hold her close, his chest lifting in a long sigh.

"Yes. I plan to start occlumency practice right away, to make sure any mental connections, if any, are also dormant. From what I have read, most mental attacks take place in dreams, and I don't dream. I might not have noticed an effect of the scar because of that."

Hermione's brows furrowed in thought, then she pulled away slightly, looking up into his face, eyes unwillingly roving over the twisted scar she barely noticed anymore.

Pale, jagged lines crossed from one side of his face to the other, across both eyes and the bridge of his nose. A horizontal slash that was all too recognizable now to the bulk of the wizarding world.

Who had first claimed it resembled a lightning bolt? Dumbledore? Maybe, if one turned their head to the side and envisioned the devastation of electric light in a night sky. It certainly tore across his face like a burn, splitting his eyebrows in three places, deeply indenting the skin above his nose and the sides of his face.

But all this time, she had only thought it a symbol, a scar, a battle wound; horrible, yes, but nothing more. Now it seemed far more sinister.

Her eyes moved to his, still staring straight forward, looking at something she now knew was a wall of purple and grey.

"If it has mental effects, it could be the reason you see the way you do." Hermione said softly, almost afraid to raise the possibility.

Harry dipped his head in a nod.

"I've considered the fact that removing it could leave me permanently blind in truth."

Hermione quickly refuted that. "Or, it could give you normal sight."

Harry shuddered around her, and the realization that he considered that worse than actual blindness brought a reluctant smile to her face.

"Nearly worth keeping the thing to prevent that." He grumbled. "Nearly."

Hermione rolled her eyes, despite knowing the gesture was lost on him. "It's not so bad, you know, being normal. We would be able to visit the Alley without starting a mob."

Harry smiled, his gaze dropping down to stare at her face, eyes moving across it with fond movements.

"Doubtful. You're far too beautiful to not start a riot."

At that idiocy, Hermione laughed, one fist raising to thump his shoulder.

"I think you're trying to get some with that comment."

He leaned closer, grinning.

"Is it working?"

She went for an insulted tone, loving that he was smiling again after hours of worry.

"Absolutely not!"

His hands ran down her side, one slipping under her shirt with quick movements.

"You sure?" He growled it in her ear, and Hermione squealed when he suddenly ducked and grabbed her behind the knees, lifting her up with a grunt.

"You're heavy!" He muttered, and Hermione smacked him again.

"Let me down, idiot!" She laughed it, unable to do more when he began to stumble towards the stairs. "You'll drop me on my head!"

"Never!" Harry declared, and she was forced to quickly lean in when the banister nearly struck her. "Well, most likely not!"

Hermione laughed again, her body shaking, as Harry's shoulder collided with the doorframe with a painful thump.

He groaned, but his arms didn't loosen until he tumbled her across his bed. He stood, Looking down at her, lips twisted into a triumphant grin.

Hermione raised a brow at him, shuddering at the energy that sparked as his magic moved across her skin.

"Just because you somehow managed to carry me up the stairs does not mean…"

She was cut off when he leaped upon her, mouth moving unerringly over hers.

When he pulled away, their breath heavy, he was still smiling.

"Viola."

At his word for her, Hermione melted inside. She reached up and ran a hand through his long messy hair.

"I love you, too."

The vibrant green light still lit his gaze as he Looked at her, face sly.

Then she felt his fingers creeping back underneath her shirt.

With a grin of her own, she pulled his face back down to hers, and let her own hands roam as well.

"I'm still not sure about this."

The words were a muted grumble, as Ron Weasley scowled down at his scuffed shoes. Beside him, Neville glanced uncomfortably at the muggles streaming by around them.

"This is the right address?" Neville shifted closer to Ron, elbowing him sharply when the redhead did not answer.

"Dad said it was." Ron huffed, squinting at the engraved number twelve marked in a bold brass plate next to a simple wooden door. "This is Grimmauld place."

Neville lifted his chin, straightening with brave effort. He supposed it made sense that Potter chose to live in a muggle neighborhood, but it still struck him as odd.

"Ready?" He asked, and Ron's tall form let out another low growling grumble of reluctance.

It was close to the full moon, but Neville hadn't wanted to wait once he convinced Ron that they should return the Map. After he had told his friends about the true owner of the invisibility cloak, they had all been on edge, wondering if there would be any form of retribution. But when none came right away, the others had been even more reluctant to part with the Marauder's Map.

They had all been close to Professor Lupin, and all felt some responsibility for the death of Sirius Black. They hadn't been able to save either wizard, and the Map was all that remained of them both.

But in the end, Neville had got them to give it up out of fear, if not respect. The possibility that Lord Potter might come for his father's map was enough to make them give it a fond farewell.

Then Ron had informed his dad that he had come into possession of what he thought was a Potter Heirloom, and Arthur Weasley hadn't had much trouble digging through paperwork to find the address of the Wizengamot's newest member. Really, when he thought about it, it was far too easy to come about important information like that. The hard part had been convincing Mr. Weasley to let himself and Ron go alone to deliver it, instead of sending a polite owl, or better yet, letting a Ministry employee do the deed.

Ron hadn't told him his father's reaction outright, but it was obvious that the Ministry, like most of the public, found the Blind Sorcerer disconcerting at best, and terrifying at worst.

Neville himself wasn't certain how to feel. He only knew he wasn't keen on knocking on the door.

"You knock." He blurted the words, and Ron lifted his lips in a slight snarl, his teeth a bit sharper than was polite in human company.

"You knock. This was your bloody idea!"

Neville couldn't argue with that logic. And they were currently wasting time and managing to look quite odd. He saw a passing muggle give them a curious glance, and straightened his shoulders.

"Fine."

He stepped up to the wooden door, and without pausing to think through, again, the many reasons this might not be a good idea, rapped his knuckles harshly against the center panel.

Even as Ron stepped up beside him, the door began to open.

For a moment, he was confused; the hallway loomed beyond, empty, surprisingly well-lit and clean for a place he had, in his imagination, felt should be dark and gloomy. It was the lair of a very powerful blind wizard, after all. Shouldn't there be cobwebs and smoky torches or… something?

And it was empty. Neville frowned.

"What do you want?"

The raspy, confrontational tone made him jump in surprise. Ron, on the other hand, had seen what Neville hadn't. Or perhaps his heightened sense of smell had done the trick.

It was hard to surprise a werewolf.

A wizened house-elf glowered up at them, bulbous eyes narrowed with scorn. Neville saw its eyes flickering over their mismatched muggle clothes with distaste. This wasn't like the elves of Hogwarts, who were all smiles and helpful hands. Nor was it like the few personal house-elves he had met at the parties he was forced to attend at his Grandmother's side. Cowering, timid little things.

This elf looked like it might slam the door back in their face. And grin while it did so.

"We need to speak with Harry Potter, please." Ron broke the silence, a courteous smile attempting to form on his pale, freckled face.

Neville could tell that platitudes would not work on this creature. It only sniffed in disdain, as haughty as any pureblooded slytherin confronted with muggleborn riffraff.

"Is the Master expecting you?"

Neville hesitated slightly, exchanging a quick glance with Ron. This was not going as he planned.

Then again, he had been expecting what amounted to a dimly lit dungeon, with Lord Potter staring grimly out of it like he had stared out of the Daily Prophet's front page months ago. Not the bright hallway illuminated beyond, nor the extremely unhappy, but overall normal looking, house-elf.

"We have something for him. It's his dad's. Or, well, we think it's his dad's." Neville began. Ron nodded emphatically and repeated their mission. "We're almost positive it's his dad's."

The elf, wearing a spotless length of satin cloth, held out one wrinkled hand, palm up.

"Hand it over then. Kreacher will see it gets to the Master."

Neville lifted his chin.

"We would rather give it to him in person."

The house-elf smiled. It was a savage smile, far too similar to that of a goblin. It made a shiver go down the back of his spine.

"No one sees the Master without prior notification. No solicitations, no interviews, and no speaking." Neville had never heard sarcasm from a house-elf. But he could swear the elf was taunting them as it continued. "Master is busy. Yous may leave names and letters by owl."

And damn if the elf didn't begin to close the door in their faces. Ron let out a growl and put one hand up flat against the door, halting its progress.

"Now you see here, you little beast, I won't…"

The house-elf's grin got wider. Neville took a step back, one hand going up to tug at his friends sleeve.

"Ron, come on, we can send a letter first…"

"The devil we will!" Ron's voice was rising in volume; Neville felt his face begin to flush. He knew how unstable Ron could be during the last few days before a Moon. Irrational barely began to cover it. "Just because this pompous thing refuses to…"

He saw the magic building the same time Ron did, the elf's hands beginning to glow with spell light. The werewolf jumped back in response as if scalded, shaking his hand furiously, his face reddening with rage.

"It attacked me!"

In response, the house-elf only slammed the door with a loud slap. Neville stared blankly ahead at where he had last seen its malevolent eyes, lit with evil delight.

"Okay. That was… not what I expected."

Harry frowned into the lit darkness of the Cloak, his meditation interrupted by the sound of the front door opening.

He had been trying to clear his mind. The first steps of Occlumency were frustrating at best, and Harry found that attempting to think of nothing was far harder than any other task he had yet attempted. He had too many thoughts; and when he wasn't thinking of his latest project, he was worrying over the horcrux; and when he wasn't doing that, he was thinking about Hermione. She had started her last year in London, and had already started an entire binder of notes on potential places to enroll in college and what she planned to study at each location.

He hated to limit her in any way, but the selfish part of him wanted her to stay nearby. Better yet, stay with him while she studied wherever she picked.

He lay still on the couch in the living room, jolted again from his continually roving thoughts by a raised shout.

He pulled the Cloak off himself, leaving it puddled on the cushions as he walked into the hallway, desperate for some distraction, and arriving just in time to see the yellow form of Kreacher slam green light right into the distinctive pattern of a werewolf with a loud crack.

He blinked, frowned.

Werewolf. A very familiar looking werewolf pattern, at that. But why…?

"Kreacher has taken care of it, Master." The house-elf sounded very pleased with himself.

"What did he want?"

Kreacher hesitated slightly, his yellow form bobbing.

"They says they have something of Master's. But Kreacher does not believe them. Little wizard boys lie, all the time. Especially Weasleys."

The surname was said with scorn. Harry sighed.

Kreacher might have accepted himself and Hermione, but some habits from his previous Family were ingrained deep, and snobbery was one of them.

"Let them in, please."

He heard his elf suck in a scandalized breath; but yellow light rotated and spun, reaching for the solid green door.

"As you wish, Master." The elf muttered, and by his tone Harry knew he was going to get his revenge.

There would no doubt be barely cooked beef for breakfast for at least a week.

It wasn't just Ron Weasley at his door. The rich green and deep brown tones of Neville Longbottom greeted him as well, and this time Harry knew the exact word for the shade of his pattern. Chrysochlorous.

Thanks to his and Hermione's pensieve expeditions, his vocabulary of colors had expanded from mere hundreds to thousands, and he was much more certain he was correct at labeling them. And while chrysochlorous might be a mouthful, it labeled Longbottom perfectly.

Green fading to an almost golden brown. Like living leaves touched by the first hint of decay.

"So, um. We have something that's yours. Or, we think you might want it."

Harry blinked, and realized that the color he was scrutinizing was shifting uncomfortably. He also realized he was probably looking straight at the man's chest.

Right.

"This way." Harry turned and moved back into the living room, gesturing to a seat as he absently gathered his Cloak and placed it aside.

He heard one of the boy's gasp; probably Weasley, from the tone and direction of it. Before he could question what might be wrong, Longbottom spoke again.

"It's a long story, but… we've had this map, of Hogwarts. But it wasn't ours at first… Ron?"

The fawn colored pattern startled at the sound of his name, and Harry swore he saw the lupine overtone become more predominant for a second. He now could see why he had not been certain of it at first; the fur-like texture of werewolf was much stronger than he remembered it being three years ago. Was it the age of the disease? The proximity to the full moon?

"It was my brothers first. And they stole it from Filch, from the box of confiscated things in his office. And, well, it had these signatures on it. The Marauders, they called themselves. My brother's idolized them, but they gave us the map in third year, after this series of break-ins in Gryffindor tower, because mum wouldn't let me go to Hogsmeade and..."

"Marauders. My father." Harry broke in when he sensed the story was about to degenerate into a topic not relevant to the conversation.

He had heard that term before. He had paid attention when Hermione read to him the interviews given in the Prophet about his father and their friends, about the Marauder's Tragedy. The twisted tale of betrayal and lies that had surrounded them all, and how in the end Sirius Black and Remus Lupin had paid the greatest price for that deceit and the previous Minister's pride.

But they were all dead now. He himself had seen Peter Pettigrew killed by the Ministry when they finally got the right traitor.

"Yeah." Neville's voice was muted, emotion he could not discern coloring it. "Padfoot, Prongs, Moony, Wormtail. We figured, really, it should be yours. You're… the only family left to claim it."

Harry glanced between the two patterns, men now more than the boys they had been before.

"May I see it?"

Pale brown light flickered, moving aside green wrappings to pull free a gleaming cylinder, unraveling it slowly, smoothing out what must be crinkled edges based on the sound.

"You activate it by touching a wand to the surface and saying 'I solemnly swear I'm up to no good.' Then deactivate it with 'Mischief Managed'. That was my brother's favorite part. It's, ah, activated now."

His voice was both fond and sad. Harry stared down at the green parchment, uncertain how to feel himself.

His blood father had made it. James Potter, a man he did not remember and knew scarcely anything about. He had no stories about the man, other than the few mentions from his aunt. The sporadic letters she retained from his mother that spoke of an annoying boy growing to be a handsome man. A bully who became a defender. Their wedding invitation, which contained a single picture.

His aunt had described him as tall, wild black hair, brown eyes full of bad intentions. She said he resembled him, sometimes. Harry knew she really meant that he resembled him if he did not have the grotesque scars splitting his face in two.

He had his mother's eyes, only his own were at once both less useful and far better.

But if Harry had any father now it was Vernon Dursley, as gruff as the man could be, and the Map in front of him was nothing but sparkling verdant light, obviously enchanted but completely useless at fulfilling its purpose for him. The only fascinating thing about it was the odd spark of different hues scattered across it, hinting at the reflections of soul patterns.

"It shows all the secret corridors of Hogwarts, or at least the ones they discovered. And it shows where everyone is in the school. Great for avoiding teachers after curfew." The last was said as an aside, a flicker of light casually nudging the boy next to him in remembrance of some escapade. "It's a brilliant piece of spellwork. Professor Lupin said it took them years to perfect it, only it got taken by Filch in their last year. They didn't recreate it 'cause, well… it just wasn't that important anymore."

Weasley finished lamely, and Harry did not have to see him to know the man was choking on some emotion.

The Daily Prophet hadn't spoken much of the relationship Lupin and Black might have had with the Heroes of Hogwarts. But he had no doubt, as short as it had been, it had been important, for the boys to be willing to confront the Ministry so very publicly over the two wizards.

"What were they like? Lupin and Black."

He saw their lights flicker in surprise; and darken again with sorrow.

"Professor Lupin was brilliant. The best Defense professor we've ever had. And we've had plenty!" Neville laughed, softly, but it was the laughter of a man who had to chose between humor and anger. "He knew just what to say, just how to teach something. Snape hated him on sight, but Lupin said it was old history. He told us Snape made his Wolfsbane potion, and I found it hard he would be willing to drink it. Poison, and all that. We all hated Snape, though, so there's that."

"He makes my potion now." Ron murmured. "Couldn't afford it, otherwise. I still hate him though."

Neville picked up the story with the ease of friends well used to telling one. "Dumbledore said he feels guilty he didn't get there in time to stop Moony. The werewolf. He saw what was happening on the Map that night, it was on Professor Lupin's desk, when he went to deliver the potion… but it was chaos. There were four of us running around like rabbits. He saved three of us."

Ron laughed harshly. "Four. He saved me, too. I'm not dead."

"Sorry, mate." Neville muttered. "You know what I meant."

The brown light flickered again in what might have been a dismissive gesture. "I know. Professor Lupin, though, he was great. Really calm all the time, so calm I can't imagine how he held the wolf at bay. You could tell he was poor, and no wonder with how hard it is to get a job with our disease. Dressed shabby. And pale, sickly. It's really surprising that we didn't put together his monthly sick leaves, but no one did. Or at least, no one said anything about it."

"He tried to teach us the Patronus charm." Neville's tone was forced cheerfulness. "The dementors were around that year, and I had a… bad reaction to them. We were able to make a silvery mist, before… before christmas."

"And Black?" Harry asked, when the silence grew between them. He ran one hand absently across the soft cloak in his lap, dark light flickering from another thing that had once been his father's.

Gold and green lengthened, shifted, sighed as Neville spoke.

"We didn't get to meet him, not really, not for more than a few minutes. It all happened so fast, too fast. I guess you read about it in the papers." When Harry nodded, he continued. "We told them everything, even what Dumbledore wanted to keep quiet, all except Snape's involvement. We felt they were owed that, after Sirius had been incarcerated so long. Sirius broke into the tower, and when he took Ron we all followed him out. Dean and Seamus got stunned, but I revived them. I had been hiding under the… ah, this cloak. Just in case. Then the professor arrived, and Sirius told us the entire story, about Ron's rat, the truth. We believed him when we saw Peter. And in the thick of it, they forgot about the Moon. Sirius yelled at us to run, then Snape was there, and the two of them got into a duel."

"I remember when he began to transform. It was like watching a human body explode, fur sprouting every which way, and the screams…" Ron's voice faded, and it was sympathy and not horror in his voice. The man was very familiar now with the reason for those screams.

"Lupin went for us. Padfoot, Sirius's animagus form, blocked him at first. But a dog ain't anything for a werewolf. It did give Snape enough time to send us all scampering back to the castle wards. We had been in the Shrieking Shack, you see, outside the main body of the wards. There was a passageway there through the Whomping Willow, but we couldn't get back into the passage. We had to run across the hill or to the forest."

"My leg was broken, though." Ron's voice was calm, rote. He had told this story many times before. "I couldn't run. Snape had me on a stretcher, but the locomotor spell is slow. Moony got to me and… it wasn't pretty. Snape didn't let him kill me, but it was damn close anyway. When I woke up in the hospital wing, they told me Sirius and the professor were dead. Kissed by the dementors. The only news worse than that was that I was a werewolf, and even that just felt like… one more bad thing. Just one more horrible, bad thing, on top of all the other horrible things."

"Like a nightmare." Neville agreed, then sighed. "And the reporters kept coming, sniffing for a story, and misprinting half of everything we said. The Ministry was there, trying to shut us up at the same time. Fudge himself gave us a 'talk' which included a few illegal spells, and Dumbledore banned him from school grounds. Finally we called a press conference and that was that. Everyone knew the truth."

The silence grew again, and Harry couldn't help but think that if karma was a true magical force, it had well and truly punished the boys for laughing Hermione into the doomed bathroom during her first year.

"We should have given you the Map then." His voice hesitant, Ron made a slow gesture with his hands that Harry could follow. "But we didn't know where you where. Back then, some people were skeptical you even existed. The professor was sad about that, you know. He missed your father, and he always talked about all the stories he would have liked to share with you. They were all Gryffindors, and he rather thought you would have been too."

Neville spoke when Ron wound to a stop. "Then, in fourth year, we thought it would be useful for the Tournament, and Hermione was so angry… and I guess we were too, at ourselves as much as her. Too little, too late, all around. And when it was over, there were the executions, and you disappeared again. I guess we just let it slide."

"But here it is." Ron's voice was abruptly harsh as he shoved the Map toward Harry, interrupting his friend. "It's yours."

Harry looked at the Map again. A part of him would have liked to study just how his father long ago had managed to copy soul patterns onto a map. And no doubt Hermione would be thrilled as well, no matter how much she disliked Hogwarts itself.

But he wasn't callous, and though James Potter was his father, he wasn't his dad. He could tell by the way the boys spoke that they felt far more attachment for the piece of parchment than he himself ever could. He couldn't even use it, after all.

"You have one more year of school left, correct? Your seventh term."

"Yes?" Neville spoke the answer like it was a question. Harry gestured down to the map.

"Keep it for your last term. I can't use it here anyway. I would like to study it, eventually, but I have other projects currently taking up my time."

Ron didn't hesitate to begin rolling the Map back up, stuffing it back into one large green pocket. Neville wasn't so certain.

"Are you sure? It was your dad's…"

"I don't remember him, and I have many things of his from the Potter Vault. I won't miss this one."

He had the Cloak, too, and it was more than enough. It was more than the total sum of everything else his father had owned. He pressed a hand into its surface and smiled slightly.

Neville's pattern twisted, and it took Harry a moment to realize he was bowing.

Pureblood wizards were odd like that, even the Light affiliated ones.

"Thank you. This means a lot to us. All of us, Dean and Seamus too. They, ah, thought you would be angry."

Harry stood, shrugged. He was not sure how to explain the way he felt. His father was dead. Harry did not miss him, not even the way Neville and Ron obviously mourned Lupin's passing.

He had a family, he was loved. He had his aunt and uncle, Dudley and Hermione, the Grangers.

He didn't need the Marauders Map to feel a connection with a father he had never known.

"What was he like?" Dean asked, lounging back lazily into the large sofa that graced the Weasley home. Seamus, on the other hand, sat forward, eyes riveted on Ron.

Ron looked at Neville, and saw the same conflict in his friend's eyes.

"Rational. Very, very rational." Neville finally said.

"Calm." Ron clarified quietly. It was the day after the Moon, and he was exhausted. And as was their habit during the summer, his friends had come to distract him. "Like a kneazle. A very large, intimidating kneazle."

And he hated kneazles. Mostly because they hated him on sight. He had yet to find one that didn't arch its spine and glare at him when he got close.

"He was quiet. He just listened to us, mostly. Asked some questions. He looked really normal, except, well, his face."

"Those scars are as bad up close as the ones across my chest where the wolf got me." Ron added.

Neville frowned."I was thinking more of his eyes. They didn't glow like the papers claimed, but they never looked right at me. Just stared."

Dean rolled his eyes. "He's blind, dolt. Of course he didn't look at you."

Seamus shook his head. "But he can see. Everyone says so!"

Dean looked at Seamus like he was a pitiful crup. "If someone is blind, they can't see. That's what blind means."

"I'm not an idiot! I know what blind means!"

Seamus lunged for him, and the two boys fell to the floor in a heap, Dean taunting the smaller freckled teen.

Ron sighed, unable to raise the energy to join in. Neville moved closer, voice raised to be heard over their friends.

"It bothered me that he didn't want the Map. I would kill to have something like that of my fathers. I do have some stuff, of course, but… I wouldn't give up anything. Not a single piece of what I have."

Ron knew Neville's father wasn't dead. Neither was his mother. But they might as well be.

"I wasn't going to argue with him. I like keeping it a little longer. Wish we hadn't lost the cloak. But he seemed attached to it, at least. Did you see how he held it? I swear he ran his hands across it at least five times while we were talking."

"Like he was petting a kneazle." Neville agreed, with a smirk. Ron managed a smile.

"Yeah. Just like that."

And what Ron didn't say was that he could have sworn he'd seen the silver invisibility cloak move from beside the blind man into his lap, just like an idle kneazle.

And just like a kneazle, he could have sworn he'd seen it arch into the hand that caressed it.

Harry had to find quiet to meditate, and darkness. He sought both underneath the Cloak on the days Hermione did not come over.

Occlumency. From the latin occludere, to shut up, and mens, the mind.

It took an incredible amount of willpower to shut up one's mind. There was simply too many things to think about.

He started by focusing on one single thing. Technically, advanced Occlumency was just that; not thinking about things one wanted hidden, so that an invading mind could not find them. Therefore, one thought only about the things one did not want hidden.

He thought about the Cloak. He focused every iota of his mind on it, on deciphering light from darkness when there was no true barrier between them. On counting the stars that were at times pinpricks of light, at other times pools of darkness. Moving, alive, and at times he swore there was sentience in its pattern.

When a thought from outside began to intrude, he forced it out. When he thought of the horcrux, he made himself focus only harder on the cones and prisms of the pattern around him. When he thought of Hermione's skin under his fingers, he instead ran his hand across the silk of darkness made into light.

He made his mind retain and reflect the impossible invisibility cloak, the unchangeable pattern, the unmakeable one. He fell asleep to it's light and woke to it's darkness.

And after a month of nightly practice, he sat in the middle of the living room of Grimmauld Place, the Cloak spread on the floor in front of him, thoughts and colors and sounds and smells pressing onto him from all angles, and without the soft silk around him brought its pattern up in his mind and made himself look inside.

And he thought of absolutely nothing until Hermione's heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway to interrupt his silence.

With a smile, he jumped to his feet to celebrate his success in the best way he knew how.

"Can you really see inside your own mind?" Hermione asked softly, as they lay together in front of the fire, the smell of wood smoke lingering in the air.

The rug was scratchy under his bare skin, but Harry didn't feel like moving yet. It was too nice to have Hermione against him, warm and sated, her hands idly running down his side.

"It's not like seeing as you or I know it." He murmured thoughtfully. "It's like feeling. Like knowing where I begin and end inside myself. Like exploring the edges with my fingers to find the true shape of a thing. It's like learning the pattern of a soul by touch alone."

"Your soul, then." Her breath was against his neck, and for a moment he was distracted. "Do you know where yours ends and the horcrux begins?"

Harry looked into the fire, a scarlet monster devouring its defenseless prey one centimeter at a time.

"I know that it is only me inside of me. Occlumency protects the mind from exterior influences, it would not be useful against something that was inside that sphere. But there is a… convergence. It lies against one side, like one river running into another. Something of what is in it has tainted some part of me."

"Possession?" The word was whispered, hardly more than a breath, but Harry sensed the fear more in her bodies stillness than in her voice.

"No. It's like a scar, a mental one as deep as the physical one I bear. It probably happened when the horcrux first attached itself to me. I believe, based on my own research into souls, that that scar will remain even once the soul is removed. If anything, it will be more noticeable once it is gone."

"Underneath the red."

He nodded at her statement, gently running his fingers through her hair.

"I suppose that makes my soul more fragile. I've seen cracks, scars, on other souls. I've seen some so close to shattering that recovery seems impossible." He thought of Hermione's cousin, her beautiful pattern once nearly broken over a year before. He thought of the last time he had seen her weeks ago, how those cracks had closed and melded together, leaving nothing but the faintest spiderweb of scars across its surface.

Would it be easier for such a soul to break, if put under stress? Or did those scars make one stronger?

Hermione spoke, and the parallel of her thoughts and his own dazzled him. "I don't think so. I think it makes you stronger, not more fragile. Scars are a sign of strength. That you've overcome something horrible."

Harry's hand moved through her hair again, his fingers finding the scars that lay on her own skin, hidden but present. Six years ago something terrible had happened to her, too.

"I love you." A simple statement, but meaning so many things. It frustrated him, sometimes, just how little the three words could portray what he felt. But he had no better words.

He felt her smile, saw her blue-violet light shine brilliantly.

Sometimes, the words were enough.

"Then removing it won't hurt you. What damage is done won't change or become worse."

Harry smiled, and this time his fingers flickered down her spine.

"Yes. If only I could remove the blasted thing."

She nodded in agreement. Harry saw yellow light flicker into the room, and just as quickly flicker out, leaving behind only the increased warmth of a freshly stoked fire.

Kreacher wouldn't let them freeze, even when they were foolish enough to lay naked in the large living room in the beginning of winter, a room heated only by a single wide fireplace.

Hermione sighed, lax and warm. Harry glanced towards the Cloak, spread out where he had left it hours before. With hardly a thought about what he wanted to do he called to it, opening himself just as he had when he looked inside his soul, mirroring a pattern, one brother to another.

The stone on his middle finger heated comfortably, just enough to make its presence known. It, too, was darkness and light.

Then the Cloak settled over them both, and Hermione relaxed even further. She wouldn't like that Kreacher had seen her naked. And he rather liked to keep the sight to himself, as well.

"Your blasted invisibility cloak. I suppose we now look like two heads rolled off a wall onto the floor." Her voice was low, drowsy, amused.

If she didn't leave soon, she would be late getting home again. And even though she apparated now and no longer relied on public transportation, her parents would worry. He couldn't let her fall asleep, though he desperately wanted to. Wanted to lay beside her every night and wake up to her every morning.

"Probably."

When she began to doze, he Looked at her, running his magic across her face to see her closed eyes, their lashes long and delicate. Her nose, her mouth, her chin.

At the touch of his energy, her eyes blinked open. He felt the shiver run through her, from her head down to her toes, her feet flexing against his own.

"I have to go." She yawned it, and he reluctantly let her loose as she rose to gather her scattered clothes. "Classes come early tomorrow morning."

When she left, taking her beautiful light with her, Harry gathered the Cloak around himself and stood, walking slowly up to his bedroom to fall onto his cold bed, and considered what age would be appropriate to ask a girl to move in with him.

Or at least, what age would make a father like John Granger not try to wring his neck.

~*~To Be Continued in: A Plum Robe~*~

Was this a trick, or a treat? :P HAPPY HALLOWEEN!