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𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐍 AURORA

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o sweet adventure

please last forever

and keep my heart wild too

·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .

to ask someone to describe Elara Lestrange, the word you would get would be "star-cross'd". A girl whom the Stars loved generously. One would maybe even say being so loved by the Stars was a cursed thing.

To be plagued by horrific dreams and visions of the inevitable war.

Death.

Elara Lestrange — while lying in the midst of a meadow, staring up at the star strewn sky — had finally realized what those wretched shadows meant.

Dumbledore had been touched by Death and she didn't realize in time.

How could I be so stupid?

Each day since Elara had returned from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, she'd played Dumbledore's words over and over again in her mind. You think you might have won, but I assure you, when Elara Tonks finds the answer, the moment Voldemort fears so greatly will be upon him.

What did it mean?

She hadn't had a peaceful moment since she arrived home. Her thoughts were plagued with worries, questions, anger, and worst of all, doubt.

Elara questioned her own strength, her own power, even her own ability to See. She wondered why her visions were constantly failing her, showing nothing of usefulness or importance.

Even her ever-burning fire seemed to flicker.

She spent hours upon hours meditating, trying desperately to get into the place of the past Anya had mentioned to her months ago. Each time she'd fail, coming up short. Her confidence ran dry, and desperation began to swell.

At least there was hope.

Nymphie and Remus had gotten married. Their wedding was small but beautiful. Elara, Nymphie's maid of honor, cried through the entire ceremony. Her heart swelled with the thought of them being together, and was happy that they would be able to enjoy marriage, even if she couldn't.

During the time Elara wasn't meditating, she was brewing countless potions. Poisons, Antidotes. . . . anything that would help in the quest to find the Horcruxes.

And now with only a week until Bill and Fleur's wedding, she felt a strange sense of calm, because she was finally going to see him again.

Her soul ached even after a week of being apart. Anya really wasn't kidding when she said their souls were bound by the cosmos. Neither Elara or Harry could ever fathom the depths of their love. They had been to hell and back for one another, and they would surely do it again.

Elara's hair had not been down since her arrival home. Her jaw was constantly clenched, her shoulders tense as she kept constant watch at night, daring Death Eaters to try her one last time. None ever came.

As Elara stood, staring at her bed — which was currently piled with clothing and materials — her gaze wandered over to her closet, where her Hogwarts uniform sat, hanging. She sighed. She knew she wouldn't be returning to Hogwarts anytime soon.

The last to be packed was the ornamental dagger Anya had gifted her during a training session.

The weapon sat delicately in Elara's hands. It was an elegant dagger, carefully crafted metal vines dancing over the handle, surrounding a milky white gemstone. Even though Elara wished to never use it, she slipped it into a holster hidden by her combat boots.

The pendant was tucked safely beneath her shirt, and the ring Harry had given her before all hell broke loose was sitting upon her finger.

Wordlessly, Elara pointed her wand at her bag, and it shrunk to the size of a backpack. She slung it over her shoulders as she hurried down the stairs. Andromeda and Ted were sitting on the living room couch, discussing something in hushed whispers.

They seemed to notice Elara's presence.

They took in her ensemble. The scar Snape had so gratefully gifted Elara ran vertically over her left eye. Her black boots, favorite jeans (now ripped from all the times she had fallen in them), a black top, and a flannel that could only be Harry's. A black bandana sat fitted around her head, protecting any fly-away's from falling. Two long braids cascaded down her shoulders.

Andromeda's eyes welled with tears.

"You look so grown up," she whispered.

"I'm seventeen, mum," said Elara, resting her shoulder against the doorframe, "and I'm headed off to war."

"Don't say that. . . ." said Ted, who had put a comforting arm around Andromeda's shoulder.

"You know it's true," said Elara, "I don't mean to be cliche, but this is literally my destiny."

Andromeda stood from her place on the couch and strode over to her daughter, wrapping her in a bone-crushing hug. Elara placed her arms around her mum, not willing to let go. She only thanked the Stars those foreboding shadows were not around her parents today.

Ted joined seconds later.

Elara's watch buzzed against her wrist. She sighed and pulled away from her parents.

"I have to go," she turned and slung her backpack over her shoulders and fixed her jeans.

"Please be careful," said Ted.

"I always am," smiled Elara, waving before she stepped out of the house.

The warm evening air kissed Elara's face as she followed the stone path out of the garden. She visualized Harry's house, Four Privet Drive, turned on the spot, and welcomed that awful compression.

Elara fell short of her mark by a couple hundred yards. She huffed and started towards Harry's home, a few houses away. Even the unsettlingly perfect neighborhood seemed afraid. Curtains were drawn, lights were out, and no one was on the street.

Elara barely reached the beginning of Harry's driveway when a mess of bushy hair came hurtling at her.

"LARA!" shrieked Hermione, before the two girls fell over from impact.

"Jesus, Hermione," said Elara, pushing herself to her feet, "You nearly killed me!"

Hermione sprung up.

"I missed you so much! Come in, though. You're the last to arrive."

Hermione pulled her into a hug while walking towards the front door. Again, however, a streak of dark brown hair.

"Corrine?" said Elara, in shock.

"It's been so long!" Corrine practically screamed into Elara's ear.

"Let's save the warm welcomes for later — "

Moody's scolding was interrupted by another person pulling Elara out of the crushing hugs of Hermione and Corrine and into another one. Elara didn't even have to look to know it was Harry. She could feel energy returning to her body as she stayed comfortingly in his arms.

'All right, all right, we'll have time for a cosy catch-up later!' roared Moody over the hubbub, and silence fell in the kitchen.

Elara turned and Harry draped his arms over her shoulders from behind. She finally got a look at everyone in the kitchen. Nymphie, Remus, Bill, Fleur, Fred, George, Aurora, Corrine, Oliver, Kingsley, Ron, Hermione, Moody, Mundungus, and Hagrid.

Elara's gaze zeroed in on Moody. The shadows were swirling around him swiftly, hungrily, ready to claim Moody's soul for their never-ending hunger.

"What's wrong?" whispered Harry in Elara's ear.

"I'm — I'm fine," Elara forced herself to lie.

Moody didn't notice and dropped some sacks at his feet and turned to Harry.

'As Dedalus probably told you, we had to abandon Plan A. Pius Thicknesse has gone over, which gives us a big problem. He's made it an imprisonable offence to connect this house to the Floo Network, place a Portkey here or Apparate in or out. All done in the name of your protection, to prevent You-Know-Who getting in at you. Absolutely pointless, seeing as your mother's charm does that already. What he's really done is to stop you getting out of here safely.

'Second problem: you're under-age, which means you've still got the Trace on you.'

'I don't –'

'The Trace, the Trace!' said Mad-Eye impatiently. 'The charm that detects magical activity around under-seventeens, the way the Ministry finds out about under-age magic! If you, or anyone around you, casts a spell to get you out of here, Thicknesse is going to know about it, and so will the Death Eaters.

'We can't wait for the Trace to break, because the moment you turn seventeen you'll lose all the protection your mother gave you. In short: Pius Thicknesse thinks he's got you cornered good and proper.'

Elara could not help but agree with the unknown Thicknesse.

'So what are we going to do?'

'We're going to use the only means of transport left to us, the only ones the Trace can't detect, because we don't need to cast spells to use them: brooms, Thestrals and Hagrid's motorbike.

'Now, your mother's charm will only break under two conditions: when you come of age, or –' Moody gestured around the pristine kitchen '– you no longer call this place home. You and your aunt and uncle are going your separate ways tonight, in the full understanding that you're never going to live together again, correct?'

Harry nodded.

'So this time, when you leave, there'll be no going back, and the charm will break the moment you get outside its range. We're choosing to break it early, because the alternative is waiting for You-Know-Who to come and seize you the moment you turn seventeen.

'The one thing we've got on our side is that You-Know-Who doesn't know we're moving you tonight. We've leaked a fake trail to the Ministry: they think you're not leaving until the thirtieth. However, this is You-Know-Who we're dealing with, so we can't just rely on him getting the date wrong; he's bound to have a couple of Death Eaters patrolling the skies in this general area, just in case. So, we've given a dozen different houses every protection we can throw at them. They all look like they could be the place we're going to hide you, they've all got some connection with the Order: my house, Kingsley's place, Molly's Auntie Muriel's – you get the idea.'

'Yeah,' said Harry.

'You'll be going to Elara's and Tonks' parents'. Once you're within the boundaries of the protective enchantments we've put on their house, you'll be able to use a Portkey to The Burrow. Any questions?'

'Er – yes,' said Harry. 'Maybe they won't know which of the twelve secure houses I'm heading for at first, but won't it be sort of obvious once seventeen of us fly off towards Tonks's parents'?'

'Ah,' said Moody, 'I forgot to mention the key point. Seventeen of us won't be flying to Tonks's parents'. There will be nine Harry Potters moving through the skies tonight, each of them with a companion, each pair heading for a different safe house.'

From inside his cloak Moody now withdrew a flask of what looked like mud. There was no need for him to say another word; Harry seemed understood the rest of the plan immediately.

'No!' he said loudly, his voice ringing through the kitchen, moving away from Elara. 'No way!'

'I told them you'd take it like this,' said Hermione, with a hint of complacency.

'If you think I'm going to let eight people risk their lives –!'

'– because it's the first time for all of us,' said Ron.

'This is different, pretending to be me –'

'Well, none of us really fancy it, Harry,' said Fred earnestly. 'Imagine if something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, scrawny gits forever.'

Harry did not smile.

'You can't do it if I don't cooperate, you need me to give you some hair.'

'Well, that's that plan scuppered,' said George. 'Obviously there's no chance at all of us getting a bit of your hair unless you cooperate.'

'Yeah, seventeen of us against one bloke who's not allowed to use magic; we've got no chance,' said Aurora. "Besides, Elara's got you wrapped around her finger. She could get you to do it without magic."

'Funny,' said Harry. 'Really amusing.'

'If it has to come to force, then it will,' growled Moody, his magical eye now quivering a little in its socket as he glared at Harry. 'Everyone here's over-age, Potter, and they're all prepared to take the risk.'

Mundungus shrugged and grimaced; the magical eye swerved sideways to glare at him out of the side of Moody's head.

'Let's have no more arguments. Time's wearing on. I want a few of your hairs, boy, now.'

'But this is mad, there's no need –'

'No need!' snarled Moody. 'With You-Know-Who out there and half the Ministry on his side? Potter, if we're lucky, he'll have swallowed the fake bait and he'll be planning to ambush you on the thirtieth, but he'd be mad not to have a Death Eater or two keeping an eye out, it's what I'd do. They might not be able to get at you or this house while your mother's charm holds, but it's about to break and they know the rough position of the place. Our only chance is to use decoys. Even You-Know-Who can't split himself into nine.'

Elara caught Harry's eye and he looked away at once.

'So, Potter – some of your hair, if you please.'

Harry paused.

'Now!' barked Moody.

With everyone's eyes upon Harry, he reached up to the top of his head, grabbed a hank of hair and pulled.

'Good,' said Moody, limping forwards as he pulled the stopper out of the flask of Potion. 'Straight inhere, if you please.'

Harry dropped the hair into the mud-like liquid. The moment it made contact with its surface the Potion began to froth and smoke then, all at once, it turned a clear, bright gold.

'Ooh, you look much tastier than Crabbe and Goyle, Harry,' said Hermione, before catching sight of Ron's raised eyebrows, blushing slightly and saying, 'oh, you know what I mean – Goyle's Potion looked like bogies.'

'Right then, fake Potters line up over here, please,' said Moody.

Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Corrine, and Fleur lined up in front of Aunt Petunia's gleaming sink.

'We're one short,' said Lupin.

'Here,' said Hagrid gruffly, and he lifted Mundungus by the scruff of the neck and dropped him down beside Fleur, who wrinkled her nose pointedly and moved along to stand between Fred and George instead.

'I've told jer, I'd sooner be a protector,' said Mundungus.

'Shut it,' growled Moody. 'As I've already told you, you spineless worm, any Death Eaters we run into will be aiming to capture Potter, not kill him. Dumbledore always said You-Know-Who would want to finish Potter in person. It'll be the protectors who have got the most to worry about, the Death Eaters'll want to kill them.'

Mundungus did not look particularly reassured, but Moody was already pulling half a dozen egg-cup sized glasses from inside his cloak, which he handed out, before pouring a little Polyjuice Potion into each one.

'Altogether, then ...'

Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Corrine, Fleur and Mundungus drank.

All of them gasped and grimaced as the Potion hit their throats: at once, their features began to bubble and distort like hot wax. Hermione, Corrine, and Mundungus were shooting upwards; Ron, Fred and George were shrinking; their hair was darkening, Hermione's, Corrine's, and Fleur's appearing to shoot backwards into their skulls.

Harry looked at Elara curiously.

"Oh," said Elara, remembering suddenly what she was supposed to be doing.

She closed her eyes tightly and willed herself to transform into Harry. When she opened her eyes, his horrified look told her she had succeeded.

Moody, quite unconcerned, was now loosening the ties of the large sacks he had brought with him: when he straightened up again, there were eight (minus Elara, who hadn't gone through any pain) Harry Potters gasping and panting in front of him.

Fred and George turned to each other and said together, 'Wow – we're identical!'

'I dunno, though, I think I'm still better-looking,' said Fred, examining her reflection in the kettle.

'Bah,' said Fleur, checking herself in the microwave door, 'Bill, don't look at me – I'm 'ideous.'

Elara tried not to laugh.

'Those whose clothes are a bit roomy, I've got smaller here,' said Moody, indicating the first sack, 'and vice versa. Don't forget the glasses, there's six pairs in the side pocket. And when you're dressed, there's luggage in the other sack.'

The eight doppelgängers rummaged in the sacks, pulling out sets of clothes, putting on glasses, stuffing their own things away. They all began stripping off with impunity, clearly much more a tease with displaying his body than they would have been with their own. Harry tried to cover Elara's eyes, but she moved out of his grasp.

"Nothing I haven't seen, Potter," whispered Elara, and Harry sputtered and turned a brilliant scarlet and turned away.

"This must be what heaven would look like for Lara," said Corrine smugly.

"Oh, shut up," said Elara, although she was smiling, "Mrs. Wood."

Corrine turned red and flipped the bird. Oliver whistled, pretending not to notice.

'I knew Lara was lying about that tattoo,' said Ron, looking down at his bare chest.

'Harry, your eyesight really is awful,' said Hermione, as she put on glasses.

Once dressed, the fake Harrys took rucksacks and owl cages, each containing a stuffed snowy owl, from the second sack.

'Good,' said Moody, as at last seven dressed, bespectacled and luggage-laden Harrys faced him. 'The pairs will be as follows: Mundungus will be travelling with me, by broom –'