"Yeah," he said hoarsely.

"They made her torture and kill her pets. And they would lift the Curse right afterwards, so she'd suddenly find herself looking at—"

"Stop," Iset interrupted suddenly. She had both her arms over her head now. "Please, stop."

Harry found himself reaching forward, though he didn't know what he was reaching for. To comfort her? It would surely only make things worse. How could she ever accept comforting when her entire life had been built upon the utmost violation, the vilest betrayal of trust, from the very people who were supposed to take care of her always?

"They did those sorts of things until she learned how to make them stop," Rose completed. "And it never did what they'd hoped...it didn't break her and make her coldhearted or...whatever they were trying for. It made her kinder."

Iset made a short sound of disbelief. Rose ignored it.

"Her dad has been trying to get Death Eaters back together for ages, but it was pretty impossible, with the Aurors trailing after him. When they stopped recently, late this summer I think she said, it gave him the chance to keep going at it. He gathered old Death Eaters who also wanted a return to the way things used to be...many of which who have children or other family here at Hogwarts...and they tried to force Iset to get involved with their new plans."

Harry took a deep breath.

"Okay. Okay," he repeated. He inhaled again and tried to right his thoughts. "What did your parents want you to do here, Iset?"

It took her a moment, but she finally sat back up. She leaned weakly into Rose's side, though. Reliving the horror of her childhood had made her look absolutely ill, like she could've passed out or vomited at any moment. It was a feeling that was clearly shared by everybody in the room.

"I was supposed to corrupt your kids."

Harry stared. "What?"

"The plan for Hogwarts was to turn my peers against the Ministry and against you so that they could begin recruiting students as soon as they overtook the Ministry. They wanted me to do whatever I had to do to get your kids on our side...it was supposed to be the final step to swaying the public...we were going to have your kids saying horrible things about you...telling lies. People were supposed to think 'if his kids hate him this much, he must be horrible'. But when they told me this over the summer, I told them that I wouldn't do it. I told them that I wouldn't do anything to help them. And they didn't much like that."

Harry had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from asking question upon question. He sensed that he needed to be patient. That she would tell him all he needed to know if only he gave her time.

"And I didn't much care that they didn't like that. They'd been punishing me with the Cruciatus Curse ever since my first year. I definitely wasn't scared to die. There wasn't much left for them to do to me. I didn't even have my cat anymore because...when I was leaving for Hogwarts for my first year, I said I would tell a professor what they were doing, and he poisoned my cat and—" she sniffled against her running nose. Her eyes were still streaming. "They sent my—my nanny away, after eleven years, and things at home became so...horrific. And before I left for school this term they said...they said that if I didn't help...if I told an adult or in any way interfered with their plans...that one of the other students involved here would torture all of my friends. He said 'they'll torture them until they can't remember their own names'. And I...couldn't bear it—I can't bear it—please, can we be done?"

"Yes," Harry said quickly. "Yes, we can be done. Thank you."

Iset probably hadn't heard his closing words. She was too busy weeping into Rose's neck.

The horror of what he'd heard impacted him more than he'd expected. He didn't have much to say when he reentered McGonagall's office. His family and the Malfoys looked up from their tea. They stared at him. He stared back.

"Iset and Rose will be out in a bit," he said. He pretended his voice wasn't swaying on the brink of tears. "They're just—they need to—" his vision blurred. His eyes were on fire. A flowery smell seeped into his senses a second later. A warm hand sank into his.

"Come on," Ginny said softly. "Harry, come on. We'll be back."

She pulled him blindly along. They ended up tucked inside an archway in the Gargoyle Corridor, just a few steps away from the gargoyles guarding the Headmistress's Office. Harry could feel the pressure of intermingled guilt and horror suffocating him. He hardly felt Ginny's hands on his face.

"Harry, it's all right," she whispered.

"It's not!" he said. He realized he was shaking only when Ginny set hands on his shoulders to steady him. "This is my fault. This—I never cared. I never thought about what would become of them—the ex-Death Eaters. I said—to hell with them, and hell is exactly where they went, and it's where their children went—and nobody ever checked in on them, nobody cared, we just let these evil people have children, we let them hurt them and abuse them and violate them—all that good we did during the war, and for what? For what?! In the end, it didn't matter, because there are still children growing up like this!"

His words boomed throughout the stone corridor, loudly enough that the gargoyles gave surprised yelps. His wife did not flinch.

"I—I let another generation get raised the way I was...worse than I was. More children went through that. I didn't...I was so wrapped up in me, in us,in our family, and all of this happened right underneath my nose, and I didn't care. Ginny," he sought her eyes in the dark. She was even blurrier now as hot tears overwhelmed his eyes. "Maybe they've been right all along-- the Death Eaters and their kids. I am selfish."

"I love you, but that's absolute rubbish."

Harry gestured furiously towards the entrance to McGonagall's office.

"Yeah? A good leader wouldn't have done what I did—a savior wouldn't have let that happen, he would've...he would've..."

"Would have what, exactly?" Ginny asked. Harry looked away. He reached up and wiped bitterly at his damp cheeks. "Harry, you're not a savior. You're Harry. You aren't responsible for every life in our world. You can't be expected to save everybody all the time. People are going to get hurt."

"But I was the one—Gin, I was the Head of Magical Law Enforcement! And before that, I was the Auror in charge of all of this—it was my job to keep an eye on scum like Goyle, my job to make sure he wasn't hurting anybody else, and I let him fall right through the cracks while he abused his daughter—his daughter, Ginny! The things he did to her, to his child, I can't—"

Harry broke off. For a moment, his entire chest was overwhelmed with emotion as he thought about the first time he'd held Lulu. Her wrinkled nose, the fragile yawn she'd given, her tiny fist closed around his thumb. He remembered shaking as he held her for the first time, as he had with all his children, because she felt so fragile and indestructible all at once—a soft, gentle sort of power, one that brought forth such protectiveness, such cherishment, that Harry would've died a million deaths just to keep her unharmed and happy. And to try and fathom how Goyle could have done what he'd done to his daughter...could have invaded her mind, made her murder her own pets (the only creatures she'd received any sort of affection from)....he thought he might be sick.

"I'm—I need the loo," Harry said, his vision tilting.

"Harry," Ginny said softly, alarmed. He felt her arm wrap tightly around his waist as he stumbled into the corridor. He doubled over, but thankfully, his nausea passed. For a few horrible moments, they just stood together in the middle of the corridor, Harry leaning over, Ginny with her arm loose around his waist.

"Whatever happened—whatever you found out—we'll make it right. We'll...find a way to handle it and we'll move forward and we'll learn from it."

It was a narrowing of all his heaviest fears: the fear that Rita Skeeter was right, that he was nothing more than another corrupt power abuser after all; the fear that he'd helped to craft a world that would harm his children; the fear that he couldn't really protect anyone after all, which meant he couldn't really protect his own children. Couldn't protect Jamie, couldn't protect Al, couldn't protect Lulu—

And here was a father who was entirely responsible for his child's sufferings. And Harry was a father who feared being that man more than anything else.

"We've got to get back," Harry said suddenly. He felt Ginny's arms wrap around him; he folded into her embrace at once, his face pressing into her shoulder, his legs a bit shaky. "We need to talk to Hermione. We have to fix this. We have to make all of this right."

"And we will," she promised. Her fingers stroked through his hair. Harry relaxed further into her embrace. "But, Merlin, Harry. Breathe for a moment, okay?"

And he did. In and out, over and over, until his mind was steeped in Ginny's flowery smell and his heart felt less raw.

Hermione arrived, yawning into a mug of coffee, her robes a bit twisted from being thrown quickly on top of her pajamas. She joined them at the conjured table. With Iset's permission, Harry immediately sank into a painful retelling of all he'd found out. Everybody was deathly quiet.

"Iset," Hermione said, once Harry finished. She reached out and took Iset's hands. "I am so, so sorry."

"It's not your fault," Iset said at once.

Hermione shook her head. "You don't have to worry anymore. You will never go back to your parents. Not ever again."

"Dad?" Albus called. Harry glanced over at him; he and Scorpius were sitting nearly on top of each other, their seats shoved together, their hands intertwined tightly. "I want to know what you found out. I want to know about the dementors. I want to know about all of it. We know what they're trying to do inside Hogwarts—but what are they doing outside of it?"

And so, for the second time, he began another lecture. He told his children, Scorpius, Nora, Iset, and Rose all about the things they'd found out. After Grey had sent new Aurors out to shadow Goyle, they'd realized that many past Death Eaters were Flooing in and out of the property often, enough that they had reason to believe that Goyle's property was the headquarters. The Auror who had been killed using the Carrow's curse was the Auror who'd shadowed the Selwyn family for the latter part of his career; Harry didn't think it was a coincidence that Nielson Selwyn was spotted three separate times at the Goyle residence. With the sheer number of ex-Death Eaters coming and going (Rookwood, Mulciber, Yaxley, Alecto Carrow—freshly released from prison, Avery, Theodore Nott, Zabini—all coming and going through the Floo quietly and at separate times, so as not to arouse suspicion) Harry thought it was certain that they were responsible for the muggle-born attacks in Diagon Alley a few weeks prior. And going by that logic, they would've also had to have been the ones who'd sent the dementors, but why? Harry felt that they were right when it came to who was doing all of this, but he wasn't convinced they knew the full story on why they were yet.

"So they're killing the Aurors that used to track them?" James asked.

"Perhaps," Harry said.

"But...you tracked all of them before," Lily pointed out. She actually sounded a bit frightened for once.

"Don't worry about me," Harry told her reassuringly. She didn't look reassured, though.

"But what about the dementors?" Nora asked. "I don't understand. So there are loads of ex-Death Eaters getting up to no good together outside of Hogwarts. They recruit their Hogwarts-aged kids to start a rebellion here—even going so far as to try and brainwash your kids, Harry—and then they...release thousands of dementors on their own kids before they can complete their own mission?"

"They don't care about their kids. Not really," Iset pointed out.

There was a pause. It was broken by Hermione as she suddenly smacked her own forehead.

"Oh! I'm so—how could I have—Harry, Ginny, the Editor stopped this from going through this morning—" she dug through her cloak pockets for a few moments but came up empty. "Oh, I must have left it in my office. It was another Skeeter article. They're still taking her letters against my repeated advice not to. Rita found out that you've been teaching the students Patronuses all year—even the first years—and she tried to spin it likeyou were responsible for the dementor attacks, as if you'd had it planned all term and that's why you'd spent so long teaching such young children the charm."

"But why would Harry—"

"Publicity stunt. Rita was claiming that you orchestrated it for the opportunity to 'play the hero' again, to try and distract the public from your 'recently publicized shortcomings'."

Ginny scowled. "I don't go to work for one day and that's what nearly happens? I'm going to have words for Grant tomorrow..."

"I get it," Albus said suddenly. He locked eyes with Harry. "Dad, the dementors were part of the Hogwarts plan. Skeeter is part of it! All these articles she's been writing...they're what have done the most damage. They want to assassinate your character...what better way than implying you're so unstable you'd order a dementor attack on children just to get some attention?"

"But would the public believe Dad had the power to single-handedly control thousands of dementors?" James asked.

"No," Albus said. "But the Ministry would have that power."

"Do Goyle and his friends even have the power to control that many dementors?" asked Nora skeptically.

"Ordinarily, no. But if the dementors were starving...I'd say it's highly likely," Harry admitted. "They've been running out of food for quite some time now. I'm sure they remember how much better things were beneath Voldemort. They're desperate." He was trying to make sense of all the new theories.

"Maybe they were trying to kill Uncle Harry with the dementors?" Rose suggested.

"No, everybody knows Harry can do a great Patronus; it's in every book about him," Scorpius said.

The group fell into silence again as everybody wracked their brains.

"Maybe it's simpler than all of this," Ginny suggested. "Maybe this was a 'show of force' move more than anything else. An intimidation tactic, even. If they show the public they're a strong enough group of Dark Witches and Wizards to control that many dementors, maybe they could win over reluctant ex-Death Eaters who aren't taking them seriously. Or perhaps this was an intimidation tactic for those students here who are refusing to join in—Caden Rowle, Iset, Scorpius?"

"I feel like we're missing something huge," Hermione said, frustrated. "I just can't figure out what it could be."

"The timing is weird," Albus piped up. All the adults turned to look at him. "I mean, think about it. He waited this long to do anything at all. Why? Iset said he didn't start this until late this summer. Why? What happened this summer?"

Harry glanced towards Iset. She gnawed on her lower lip as she thought.

"The Auror stopped following my dad at the end of the summer," she began.

Harry nodded. "Right when Grey took over. What else?"

"People started coming over more often in the Floo...their Death Eater friends."

"Were these friends you'd seen before? Or were there new ones?"

"Most of them I recognized, either from previous visits or photos..." Iset trailed off, her brow furrowed. "There was one new one, though. The Carrow woman...Alecto Carrow. I'd never seen her before this summer."

"Because she was in Azkaban," Harry explained at once. "She was let out in late August. Against my wishes."

Iset nodded. "She started visiting, and then others started visiting, and around the same time the Auror stopped following my dad."

"In that order?" Ginny asked curiously. "That specific order—first Alecto Carrow and then the others?"

Iset pursed her brow as she thought. "Yes...I think so."

Harry frowned.

"Perhaps she was seeking revenge for her brother's death in Azkaban?" Draco suggested.

"Possibly. But this is quite an organized effort for that," Harry said.

"She had quite an unusual bond with her brother," Ginny shot back.

"What's her end game, in that case?" James wondered. "Because this seems like a bit much if she's just trying to off you, Dad."

"Yeah..." Harry agreed. His head was beginning to ache. He wished Ron was with them; Ron always had a way of rewording the things they already knew in a way that triggered new thoughts. "Unless she's trying to make me suffer by getting at my family. Maybe that's why she wanted Iset to get to my children. Maybe that's why everything the students here have done has centered around you lot—Scorpius getting Imperiused, Caden Rowle getting Imperiused, Nora getting cornered by the dementors..."

"I think most of those efforts were an attempt to get all the Death Eaters' kids on the same side," Rose pointed out. "And Nora was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Harry shook his head, frustrated. "We're still missing something—a massive piece."

"We should find it," Lily said.

Harry glanced at Iset. "You're sure you can't remember anything else?"

She frowned. "No, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Ginny told her softly. "You've done great, Iset."

"Really, Dad," Lily persisted. "We should find what we're missing."

"Yeah, we'll get right on that, Lulu," Harry said distractedly. He wished he had a blackboard. He felt that writing down all of these events would help to find a pattern between them.

"You're not listening to me, Dad," Lily complained.

Harry glanced back at her. "What, Lily?"

"I know how we can find the missing piece."

She had everybody's attention now. She seemed to sit taller because of it.

"...How?" Harry asked.

"They wanted Iset to corrupt us, right? Get us on their side?" she began.

He felt uneasy, though he wasn't sure why. "Right..."

"And they've Imperiused Caden and Scorpius and Iset trying to get to us, which proves they really want us involved in all of this."

"Possibly," he agreed.

"So," Lily continued. She drained the last of her mug and set it down hard on the table top. "We need to infiltrate."

Harry stared. Rose sighed, exasperated. Scorpius gave a nervous chuckle.

"What?" Harry said flatly.

"I'm a great liar, Dad," Lily said.

He realized what she was getting at. He recoiled, horrified.

"Absolutely not!" he yelled.

"Lily," Ginny admonished. "Not a chance."

"But it could work, Mum! Listen. Please, just listen, Dad, okay?!" Lily pleaded.

Harry had to force himself to nod. His hands were clenched into tight fists.

"They want all the Death Eater relatives and they want the Potters. We need somebody to go into their group and figure out what we're missing. We can't send Iset because she's made it crystal clear where she stands, and it'd be too suspicious; plus, she just threw off their Imperius Curse. We can't send Scorpius because his dad's the new Conflict Counselor, he