It felt oddly lonely for Ginny as she opened her eyes back in Teregatt. It had only been a few days since Balthazar had formed the portal to Earth. The whole place was barren of magic, with only the tiniest scrap of magic floating in the air. Balthazar had been there when she entered Teregatt yesterday to tell her that everything was fine and that him and the other residents had worked things out with the Ministry and were building defenses in case Fate tried to get somebody to attack them.

But besides that, Balthazar had quickly left afterwards to continue his work on Earth while Ginny remained practicing her magic in Teregatt. In the normal telekinesis room with the metal balls, there was a central spell that kept the metal balls grouped in a cylinder that reached to the ceiling. Each of them bumped into each other and floated around inside the invisible spell. Usually Balthazar threw the metal balls at Ginny and tested her to help her improve.

She sat inside the spell and had the metal balls from all around drift down towards her as she worked to just barely push them away as they approached her sitting form. Despite Balthazar not talking much as they practiced during their lessons, Ginny missed having him there as she sat there and practiced. But he was busy, she shouldn’t bother him when he was doing important things on Earth.

Ginny continued practicing, focusing on the metal balls floating towards her from all sides as time passed in the strange way it did on Teregatt.

“Ginny?”

She opened her eyes and jolted in surprise at Balthazar’s voice only for a metal orb the size of her torso to fly into her chest at high speed. It sank into the dark mud of her body and sat there submerged. She glanced down and reached up and pulled it out of herself with a wet sucking sound and gently pushed it away. She stood and took a step out into the larger room and saw Balthazar standing by the doorway.

“Hi Balthazar. How are things going?”

“Good. In fact, I think things are going even better than expected. We must only wait now for Teregatt to recover its energy. You wished me to examine your friend, correct? I think in a week or so we will have settled in enough that I can take some time to see to her and her condition.”

“A week? Should I take her over there with Fawkes?”

“That would be advisable. We will not be able to create portals with Teregatt’s energies for some time yet. Even so, the creation of a portal to the mainland or one of us moving through it would be a large risk. It would increase the chances of Fate discovering us before we’ve fully prepared our defenses. We should only do so if absolutely necessary or if your life is in danger.”

“Okay. I’ll bring her in a week,” Ginny agreed, “Thanks for agreeing to look at her. I hope you can cure her.”

“I will do my best. That will be all, I think then. I must return to Earth in case Teregatt shifts to a fast cycle and precious time is wasted out on Earth without me there to assist.”

“Oh, that would be terrible,” Ginny agreed. She remembered times when hours had passed in only seconds in Teregatt during the school year. Her whole night in Teregatt only lasted a few seconds before being launched immediately back into her human body.

“Well, keep practicing,” Balthazar said, “I will see you in a week.”

He turned and quickly jogged away and disappeared around the corner. Ginny looked back behind her. After a few minutes she walked back inside the invisible cylinder and sat down again. Time to practice some more. She was sure that she was close to the invisible line that Balthazar wanted her to meet before he would start teaching her other magical things. Like what Eric had been able to do with summoning the ball of flames and manipulating them to kill Lupin while he was a werewolf. She shivered as she remembered how Eric had looked at her afterwards. If he tried to attack her with something like that, she wanted to be able to counter it.

Although Balthazar wouldn’t be coming into Teregatt soon so it would be a while before he would be able to teach Ginny those things. Balthazar didn’t want to risk Teregatt slipping into a ‘fast’ cycle and making him lose a large amount of time on earth. Once he had completed the defenses on Azkaban and fully settled in then he could return to Teregatt and start teaching her more complicated magic. Until then, she could only practice with her magic tendrils more and hope for the best.

— — —

Ginny opened her eyes back in her human body and sat up in bed. Alright. Now she just had to… tell Olivia… And… Wait. Okay, she could send a letter. She still had a week to see if they could have a meeting.

She got dressed and then went downstairs and started helping Molly with making breakfast. Fawkes was gone, probably off to hunt something on his own again. After hearing Amvatroz’s stories, Ginny had forced him to promise he wouldn’t steal any animals that belonged to any people. His reluctance to agree showed where he had planning on finding his meals…

But he had promised, and with his ability to apparate around, Ginny was sure he’d find something tasty that didn’t belong to any people.

The humans meanwhile had bacon and eggs alongside with some toast. Molly seemed to appreciate Ginny’s help in the kitchen even if Molly was still doing most of the work with all her household spells to help out with the work.

After a few minutes, the twins came down the stairs, Ron following a few minutes later.

“What’s gotten into you, Ginny?” Fred complained as he sat at the table with a plate filled with bacon and eggs after everyone settled in for breakfast. Dad had already eaten and gone off to work earlier.

“Waking up on the dot every day?” Fred continued, “You’re like a machine, how do you do it?”

Ginny shrugged. “I had to wake up for my runs with Alexa and Jack. Feels good. Actually, I’ve been running every day. I should try to get some swimming in too. Although I don’t really know where I would swim in the mornings…”

Molly looked at Ginny in confusion. “Swim?” She asked, “Whatever do you mean? How would you swim in robes?”

“Oh, Alexa gave me and Jack some swimsuits too along with the running clothes,” Ginny said, “We wore them under our Hogwarts robes in the mornings. By the way, did you see Errol around? I wanted to send a letter to my friend.”

“Errol?” Fred asked, “That old owl? Surprised that that old bird can fly straight, let alone deliver letters. Why don’t you have Fawkes do it?”

Ginny gave him a flat look, “Why don’t you ask Fawkes to carry a letter somewhere when there’s an owl around to do it for him? Good luck having him ever forgive you then.”

“I don’t know, Ginny,” Molly said, “Errol should be somewhere around this place. I’ll let you know when I see him. Who is it you’re sending a letter to?”

“Oh, you know,” Ginny said nervously, “Alexa, Jack.”

“But you haven’t even gotten your first round of replies yet!” George teased, “That eager to write to them again?”

“I can write them extra letters if I want to…” Ginny said indignantly before trailing off. Why was she getting offended again? She wasn’t actually writing more letters to them, she was sending something to Olivia.

Ginny went on a run in her work out clothes after going back upstairs to change into them. She had been too busy thinking about what she’d write to Olivia to remember to put on the right clothes.

Molly gave her a judging look as Ginny walked past her, but Ginny ignored her. It wasn’t like she was going to go running around in robes instead just because Molly thought she was showing too much skin or something. Or that’s what Ginny thought it was about based on the one or two times Molly had tried to change her mind about it so far.

Ginny ran around the house until she was exhausted. She stretched a little and went back inside, her legs screaming at her. She stumbled back up to her room and sipped on the recovery potion and instantly felt better. Her, Alexa, and Jack had spread them out evenly between them for the summer. Plenty of the potions were still left after months, so they should still last them for another whole year if they didn’t overuse them too much. They only needed to drink a little sip from the bottles twice a week for it to heal themselves up for those two days of workouts.

She sat down at her desk and took out some parchment to write her letter to Olivia asking to meet in person as soon as possible. She was sweaty and gross, but she could ask Molly to cast a cleaning charm on her in a few minutes.

Ginny started writing the letter and made it half way through before balling it up and shoving it to the side and starting it over.

She tried again, but when she was finished didn’t like how it sounded now either. It was frustrating having to be so vague on why Ginny wanted to meet Olivia so soon. No way she’s put anything important in a letter that anyone could see.

The third letter did it, and Ginny felt good about it. After letting the ink fully dry, she folded up the letter and put it in an envelope and addressed it.

“Olivia Roberts,” Ginny said to herself as she wrote the name on the front with a flourish of her quill. Errol should be able to find her with just the name, that’s all she had done for her friends letters a week ago and Errol had found them just fine.

She walked downstairs, slipping the letter into her summer robes as she went down. Molly cast the cleaning charm on her and she felt clean, far cleaner than even taking a shower would make her.

“I found Errol,” Molly said absently, “He’s out sleeping by the front gate. Make sure to bring him some food as you go, will you.”

“Sure thing, Mol- Mom.”

Ginny did so, and spotted the old owl sitting on a fencepost with his head tucked into his wing, eyes closed as he sat there.

She walked up and felt a little bad as she gently poked the sleeping bird. But she really wanted to deliver this letter, and she had brought food too…

Errol woke with a startled hoot and glared blearily at Ginny. His anger was appeased as she held up a few of the food pellets for him, which he dove into with relish. He woke up as he ate out of her hand for a few seconds while still eating from the post.

After he was done, Ginny took out her letter and handed it to the old owl who gripped it gently in the claws of one of his feet. Errol cooed in confusion as he inspected the letter for a moment before looking back at her.

“Olivia Roberts,” Ginny said, “She’s from a magical family. Just graduated from Hogwarts. Can you find her?”

Errol hooted one last time before flapping his wings and flying off into the sky. Ginny watched as magic twirled around the owl and allowed him to fly at massive speeds once he got high enough in the air. It was always so exciting watching the magic owls zoom off into the distance when they flew off to carry their letters away.

— — —

It had been four days and Ginny was starting to get worried. Errol had returned without her letter to Olivia, but there hadn’t been a reply yet. Alexa and Jack had sent her their own letters on what they’d been up to, which were nice to read. But what could be taking Olivia so long? Ginny wanted to make sure that Olivia was cured of being a werewolf as soon as possible. If anyone could do it then Balthazar could. But she couldn’t do that if she didn’t talk with Olivia directly and convince her to go along with it.

It was the weekend and Dad was in the garage with Sirius Black again. The two of them seemed to have become friends ever since Christmas it seems. Molly was always grumbling how Sirius Black was a bad influence on Dad as they played around in the garage working on Dad’s enchanted car together. And Sirius was making his own enchanted bike as well apparently after he’d lost his old one after he was arrested.

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Sirius… Could he help her? She knew he was still trying to convince Dad to take his money and wipe away the debt to Dumbledore. The man had apologized to Ginny several times about her dad being so stubborn about it. He felt bad that he couldn’t fulfill his promise to her to help with the debt after she’d told him about Pettigrew’s death.

After all of them including Sirius had dinner together, things were wrapping up. Sirius was saying goodbye to Dad and Molly and about to go home.

Sirius walked out the door into the night and everyone else ambled around. In the bustle around the place, Ginny slipped out the door and jogged after the man as he walked in the night towards the front gate.

“Sirius!” She whispered, “Hey, Sirius!”

He turned around, looking surprised as he saw her there. His face was lit up by the light spilling out of the windows of her house.

“Ginny? What’s the matter?”

“Er, sorry. I just wanted to ask you something.”

“What?”

“I have a friend from school. She was… turned into a werewolf. Olivia Roberts. I sent a letter but she hasn’t replied to me. Can you take me to go visit her? I need to talk to her about something important.”

“Yes, I heard about that,” Sirius said, “Such a shame, I never thought that Lupin would ever do something like that, attack you and your friend. Imperius the students to trap you knowing that he’d transform… I’m fine with taking you. But why not ask Arthur about this? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind going with you.”

Ginny shifted, “I don’t know. I just… I have to talk to Olivia alone. I don’t think that Dad would like that. And Molly doesn’t like werewolves very much, she might stop me from going if she thought it was dangerous.”

“Hm. Yes, I figured about Molly…” Sirius said, “How about you visit my place on Monday in two days. I’ll clear it with your father tomorrow. We can take a little detour and talk with your friend then.”

“Okay. That would be great. Thanks, Sirius.”

“Not at all. You managed to convince your father about the debt at all?”

“No, sorry. He’s being very stubborn whenever I even mention it,” Ginny replied.

“Same here. Don’t you worry about your friend. I’m sure she’s just having a hard time adjusting to her new situation. Not feeling up to writing letters and all.”

“Yeah,” Ginny said thoughtfully before relaxing slightly, “Yeah. That makes sense.”

— — —

“Olivia Roberts, you said it was?” Sirius said as they stood at the front of his new house. It was a very fancy building with lots of warm woods and electric lights in the place. There was even a TV and other muggle items scattered around the place. Sirius had given her the whole tour, seeming to enjoy it since he lived in this massive place basically by himself.

Now that Sirius had shown her around, they were getting to the true purpose of their visit.

“Yes,” Ginny confirmed.

“I did my research, found their address. Sent my own letter too,” Sirius said, “No reply though. Suppose we’ll have to knock at the front door and see who answers.”

“Olivia didn’t talk about her family much,” Ginny said, “Is there anything I should know before we go? Pureblood customs or… something? They’re technically still nobles even if they’re not one of the ultra wealthy people like you or Malfoy.”

Sirius grimaced like he’d tasted something sour. “Ugh. Please never compare me to Malfoy again. I’m not one for formalities either. But if you’re not sure, I’ll handle that part. Just be as polite as you can and you’ll be fine. Are you ready?”

Sirius held out his hand and Ginny grabbed it. With a crack of displaced air, Sirius apparated them to somewhere new.

They stood in front of a large home. Not exactly a mansion, but it had greek pillars of white stone and fancy hedges on the lawn. It was much nicer than the Burrow was, looking like it had enough bedrooms for at least a dozen people inside.

The two of them went to the front gate and Sirius took out his wand and tapped the gate lightly a few times. Ginny saw a burst of magic leave the man’s wand and ripple through the bubble of wards surrounding the Roberts’ house on all sides.

They stood there for a minute and nothing happened.

“Did you do it right?” Ginny asked, “Shouldn’t they have come by now?”

“Yes, they should have,” Sirius said with a slight frown, “Perhaps they were busy and haven’t heard us?”

Sirius tapped his wand on the wards again and they waited some more.

Sirius tapped again and they waited. Ginny was about to speak again when the front door opened and a rotund man walked out the door. His wife behind him peered through the open door at them, appearing concerned.

The man hurried forward towards them and came to a stop just behind the closed gate.

“Ah, Lord Black! What brings you to see us today?” He said nervously.

“Phineas Roberts? Is that you?” Sirius asked the man with a deep frown on his face.

“Ah, yes. That’s me, Lord Black. Owner of this humble abode.”

“Did you receive my letter then? My niece here wanted to talk to her friend, and she’s concerned that she isn’t answering her letters. I don’t mean to intrude, but do you think you could call her out to speak with us?”

“Ah, Lord Black,” the man said, “I’m not sure she’ll want to see you… Do you want to come in? We can offer you some tea?”

“Of course, I’d be delighted,” Sirius said, while not sounding excited at all. Mr. Roberts opened the gate and a hole opened in the doors that they walked through into the main lawn of the estate.

“Oh Lord Black, we were delighted to hear of your rapid recovery from the horrors of Azkaban. It’s a great thing for this country that Fudge decided to close that horrid place down, I say…” Mr. Roberts began as he clearly tried to flatter and impress Sirius with his knowledge of current events.

Sirius seemed disinterested as he glanced around as they moved into the side and went to a sitting room. He only spoke in single syllables in reply to Mr. Roberts’ babbling speech.

They sat down and Mrs. Roberts placed down a tray with three teacups on it. Ginny noticed that there wasn’t one for her. She didn’t really care though.

“Excuse me, can I see Olivia?” Ginny asked to interrupt Mr. Roberts as there was a slight pause in whatever impressive story he was trying to tell Sirius about.

“I’m sure I can convince her to talk to me,” Ginny added. Mr. Roberts looked rather annoyed at the interruption, but at seeing Sirius’ expectant look at him smoothed his expression into something blank.

“She’s not feeling well. Got a bit of a cold,” Mrs. Roberts said as she sat next to her husband and took a cup of tea and blew on it to let it cool, “She’s asleep at the moment, we don’t want to wake her up.”

“Sleeping? At this hour?” Sirius said skeptically, “It’s nearly two O’clock in the afternoon.”

“Y-Yes,” Mrs. Roberts said, “The dear’s having some trouble sleeping for the last few days with her sickness. We’re sure that she’ll recover in the next few days. She’s getting better even now.”

Ginny felt something odd in Mrs. Roberts' tone. Why were her hands trembling slightly as she held the teacup?

Ginny let out a pulse of her magic sense to the maximum extent. Her senses billowed out and covered the whole area under the wards circling the house. She had almost forgotten how far she could sense when her magic sense wasn’t being gummed up by the massive amounts of enchantments at Hogwarts blocking her view.

Ginny’s senses swept the whole house. One, twice, three times. Nothing. What?

“Where’s Olivia?” She blurted out, “There’s no one else but us here.”

Both of the Robert’s froze and Mrs. Roberts dropped her teacup, causing it to smash on the floor.

“Oops, I’ll fix that,” She quickly said as she pulled her wand and pointed it at the smashed cup.

“Reparo!” She chanted firmly and the shattered fragments of the cup sprung up and reformed a perfectly undamaged teacup, even though all the tea remained spilled all over the wooden floors.

“Sorry, you surprised her, haha,” Mr. Roberts laughed nervously, “Olivia’s just resting. Of course she’s here, where else would she be? We told you she was sick with a cold.”

“She’s not here,” Ginny said firmly, “Where is she?”

Mr. Roberts turned to Sirius with an exasperated gaze, “Lord Black, surely…”

“It’s a good question,” Sirius said, “Where is Olivia Roberts? You think that I’d forget because you complimented me a bit and served some tea? She’s the whole reason we’re here. So if she’s not here, then where is she?”

“Fine,” Mrs. Roberts said, “She’s not here. I don’t see how it's any of your business either way.”

“Where is she?” Ginny demanded.

“She graduated from Hogwarts, she’s making her own way in the world,” Mr. Roberts said condescendingly, “She doesn’t live with us anymore. She’s out there in the world living her own life.”

“B… But she’s a werewolf,” Ginny said in disbelief, “She can’t hold a job, no one will take her. How’s she going to survive out there on her own?”

“Maybe she can join those werewolf packs with the rest of her kind,” Mrs. Roberts said primly, “It’s far too dangerous for people like her to stay with wizards and witches like us.”

“But she’s your daughter!” Ginny said, growing upset as the picture of what happened became frustratingly clear, “You just kicked her out to fend for herself because of something that wasn’t even her fault?!”

“It’s Dumbledore's fault!” Mr. Roberts suddenly shouted, his face growing red before settling down slightly with a glance at Sirius.

“He’s the one that hired that animal as a teacher,” He continued, “The one that turned our daughter into a monster. She’s no daughter of mine anymore. She left this house with her things as soon as she returned from Hogwarts. She can live with the rest of the animals where she can’t hurt anyone else.”

Ginny felt her heart pounding in her ears as she felt her face flush and clenched her fist. She just barely kept herself from lashing out at these two with her magic. She felt Sirius’ hand on her shoulder, and realized that she was standing and glaring at the two adults across from her.

“C’mon, Ginny,” Sirius said gently, “Let’s go. We’ll find her ourselves. She’ll be okay.”

Ginny took a shuddering breath and controlled herself. She turned and started to stomp away, with Sirius following after her at a fast walk.

“Lord Black!” Mr. Roberts said, suddenly sounding regretful, “We can explain, Olivia agreed to leave, it was a mutual decision…”

Sirius stopped moving and turned around. Ginny stopped and looked back and saw that Sirius’ eyes were burning with anger just as much or more than hers were as he stared at Mr. Roberts.

Sirius glanced at Mrs. Roberts and his lips curled into an uncharacteristic sneer, “You two are scum,” Sirius spat out, “I’ve only restrained myself because of my niece here. Now, I’d suggest you both shut up before either of us do something drastic.”

Mr. Roberts looked stunned at Sirius’ vitriol, but Sirius just turned back around and kept ushering Ginny off of the property. As soon as they were beyond the wards, Sirius grabbed Ginny’s shoulder and they apparated back to his house.

“We’ll find her,” Sirius promised, “Today even. I know some people that can help. Next stop is Gringotts.”

Ginny felt some of her anger fade away at Sirius’ confidence.

“Really?” She asked, “Today? But Olivia was kicked out of their place weeks ago. She could be anywhere by now.”

“Yes, I’ve got some coins burning a hole in my pocket,” Sirius said, “Time to put them to some use. The Goblins have some of the best trackers in the world. Have to find people who owe them money, you know. For a little extra fee, they’ll use their teams to help track people down for you.”

“Is it legal?” Ginny asked worriedly. She didn’t want Sirius to get in trouble if things went bad, even if she wanted to find Olivia as soon as possible.

“I’ll be fine,” Sirius said without answering the question, “Don’t you worry about it. Now C’mon. No time like the present.”

He held out his hand and after a second’s hesitation, Ginny grabbed it. They apparated together to Diagon Alley and then continued to enter Gringotts bank. Many people stared at the two of them, especially Sirius who ignored them all as he walked with purpose.

“Lord Black,” the goblin at the front desk said immediately as Sirius approached his desk, “Wand please?”

Sirius handed over his wand and after a moment’s inspection, the goblin nodded and handed it back. Sirius spoke with the goblin for a moment

“Garnak, escort Lord Black to Ragnok please,” the goblin called out after Sirius was done speaking.

Ginny and Sirius followed after the goblin as he led them deeper into the bank into a section almost entirely filled with goblins with not a single human in sight in the hallways.

“Who’s Ragnok?” Ginny whispered to Sirius.

“My account manager,” Sirius answered, “Goblin culture is heavily clan based and they respect wealth above all else. Ragnok is one of the more influential goblins because he’s managing so much of my money. Only the goblins managing the Potter or Dumbledore vaults are even comparable to how influential Ragnok is.”

The two of them were led into a lavishly furnished room where a goblin sat behind a massive desk, in a fashionable muggle black suit in his size.

“Lord Black,” the goblin Ragnok, said as soon as they sat down, “What brings you to the bank today?”

“I’d like for one of your teams to find somebody for me,” Sirius said bluntly, “I’m worried about her safety, so speed is crucial. She’s a werewolf, so contacting the Aurors would be no help.”

“A werewolf, you say?” Ragnok said with a raised eyebrow as he looked between Sirius and Ginny who sat there silently so far.

“Is that Ginny Weasley I see?” Ragnok continued, “Is this werewolf Olivia Roberts perhaps? The one that the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher infected?”

“Yes, that’s her,” Sirius said, drawing Ragnok’s attention back to him, “We’ve just visited the Roberts to see her. Imagine our unpleasant surprise when we discovered that they kicked her to the curb as soon as she returned from school.”

“Hmm.” Ragnok said with a calculating glint in his eye, “Do I detect anger at them perhaps, Lord Black? Perhaps you’d consider us for any legal or…” Ragnok glanced at Ginny before returning to look at Sirius, “...personal forms of retribution for them? Our fees are high, but there is no one better at what we do.”

Sirius paused and then nodded, “Perhaps I’ll take you up on that later. But first the trackers. We’d like to take care of this as soon as possible.”

“Certainly. For a client as big as you, I’ll even give you their services for free,” Ragnok said, “A… free sample if you will. I’m sure there’s plenty of people you may want to find in the future as Lord Black. I’ll make the arrangements. Would you like to wait in the bank for word on the case, or a letter summarizing our findings at a later time?”

“We’d like to wait,” Sirius said firmly, “I’m sure with teams as skilled as yours are, it will take no time at all.”

“Of course not,” Ragnok agreed, “Very well. Garnak will show you to our VIP lounge for our wealthier clients. Garnak will inform you as soon as there’s news from the team.”

They left the office and were led to a very plush and fancy room where they waited for news.