They teleported right into the center of a stone room of a castle. At least, it resembled a castle from what little they saw of it. The window was in a Gothic style; it was pointed at the top. So was the doorway containing a smaller wooden door, also pointed. The room they teleported to looked like a picture-gallery, of would have been one if the paintings had been striped from the walls. Lighter spots marked where they had once rested against the walls, and more marks along the floor showed them where furniture was once placed. A random chair, table, and a bookshelf were the only furniture.

They teleported to the galley that overlooked the ground floor of the drawing room. Two people guarded the door of the main entrance. Two more stood guard at the galley entrance. All four wore long, concealing black robes with the hoods up. They seemed very surprised to see the four Darmians, which was good. Nola and Dante hastily knocked out the two standing on the balcony with them while Blake took out the other two with a pathic sleeping spell.

Dante mounted the railing and jumped over it, then ran across the carpeted floor. He dragged the two unconscious guards off to the side before taking a position in front of the door. Atalanta remained on the balcony while Nola and Blake jumped over the railing to have a look around. Blake went over to the bookshelf. A few books, mostly on paintings, graced the shelves, but none of them was Melanie's book.

/They're not in this room,/ Nola said with a frustrated sigh.

"Let me search again…" Atalanta said. A moment later, she announced, /They're not in the castle anymore./

/Damnit!/ Nola exclaimed, loudly. Blake flung a book down in frustration, which produced just as much noise.

/We'd better go after them,/ Dante told them. /Where are they, Lanta?/

There was a flash of light solidified into Marek Smith-Darmian. He held his wand right under Blake's chin and jabbed it there for emphasis. Blake stilled as much as he could and glared up at the other pathic wizard.

"Put your weapons down," Marek commanded. Reluctantly, slowly, Nola, Atalanta, and Dante set their guns on the floor. Marek didn't order them to remove their other weapons; he appeared to be unaware of them. He appeared satisfied and smiled. "Good. Let me introduce myself. I am Marek Smith-Darmian. I have met very few family members before today, so I doubt you have heard of me."

/Where are Melanie Mincent-Darmian and Harry Potter?/ Nola demanded. Apparently, no one wanted to hear about his personal history.

In answer, he pulled out a book and thrust it into Blake's hands. Melanie's full name was on the cover; it had to be the book that she was bound in. "You should be able to unbind her in time, Arien Hector," he told Blake.

Blake started in surprise; there were a few ways that Marek learned even that much of his name and Melanie would not have told him voluntarily. Marek grinned, apparently thinking the same thing. Blake wanted to throttle him. "We don’t need her anymore; she's told us everyone we need to know."

"And Harry Potter?" Atalanta asked. Her voice was as sharp as steel.

"He's with the Dark Lord, and no, you can't see him," Marek answered. "Now, before you go, I have a message from my master for Albus Dumbledore," he said. "Tell him that he won't be safe behind the walls of his beloved school for much longer. Now go back to Hogwarts, all of you, and don't forget to give Dumbledore the message."

/Blake, you first,/ Nola ordered him. Blake nodded and teleported away. Nola, Atalanta, and Dante followed him.

"We need to find them," Ron said. "Know any good locator spells?"

"I might know where to look," Hermione answered. "I'll need to check out a few books from the library. There's something not right about all of this."

"Well, of course there isn't something right! Harry's been kidnapped! That's never all right!"

"No! I meant the body-binds! Moody, Flitwick, and Dumbledore must have tried a hundred counter-curses on us to break us free from the body-binds, and none of them worked. Then suddenly the body binds wear off? There's just something odd about all of that."

"Yeah, I'd have to agree with you on that," Ron relented. "But what else could it be?"

"I don't know," Hermione answered, sounding frustrated.

The portrait door opened, but their fellow Gryffindors did not step inside. Professor Moody appeared first, and Professor McGonogall came behind him.

"Mr. Weasley, Ms. Granger," Moody growled in greeting.

McGonogall came over to them, looking concerned. "How are you two doing?"

"We're okay," Ron said.

"Do you know where Harry is?" Hermione queried.

McGonogall sighed. "I'm afraid not. Until You-Know-Who decides to tell us where he is hiding Mr. Potter and Ms. Mincent-Darmian, we don't have much to go on. Professor Moody wishes to test a device that he hopes will help us investigate where the attacker went off to."

Alastor Moody held a small flat device in his hand. He tapped his wand against it and the surface turned bright red. Hermione watched as he walked around the large room, his wooden leg tapping steadily against the floor. Occasionally, the red light turned green. In three places it even turned blue; in two others, yellow. Hermione couldn't help but wonder if the fact that it had turned house colors was relevant.

"Professor Moody, I was wondering what that device is that you're using," Hermione asked.

"It's a scanner," Moody revealed. "It scans the air for signs of all kinds of magic. The red is for wand magic. Blue is dark magic. Yellow is primal magic. Green represents rare magic, and black represents unknown magic."

"Dark magic?" Ron repeated, surprised. "But that thing changed to blue three times!" He glanced at Hermione and swallowed.

"It was probably Harry and Melanie's kidnapper," Hermione said. "It wouldn't surprise me if he had used dark magic."

"It's possible," Moody agreed. He didn't add on, but they all knew the other possibility: a Gryffindor, past or present, had performed black magic in their common room. Hermione hoped it was Harry's kidnapper.

The portrait hole opened again and one of the house elves stepped inside. "Excuse me, Professor McGonogall, Professor Moody, Mr. Weasley, Ms. Granger, but Professor Dumbledore is wanting to see Professor McGonogall in his office. He is sending me to tell you that, ma'am."

"Thank you, Patty. Mr. Moody," Professor McGonogall followed Patty out of the room and Mad-Eye Moody went with them, leaving Ron and Hermione to themselves.

"I wonder why Dumbledore wanted to see McGonogall?" Hermione wondered.

Ron pulled the Marauder's Map out of a robe pocket. "Let's see who's here." He spread out the map on the table and they scanned it.

"Look, Dumbledore's office! Melanie's back!"

"With a bunch of other people, too," Ron remarked. "Where's Harry?"

"I don’t see him," Hermione said, worried.

"They didn't bring him back," Ron said.

Dumbledore sent word that he wished to speak with Methos immediately. Methos wrapped up his Muggle Studies class a little early before heading to his friend's office. If he hadn't known that the meeting would doubtless be to discuss the situation with Harry Potter and Melanie Mincent-Darmian, he would have been more annoyed. Most of his students knew next to nothing of the muggle world, but it had taken only two lectures for them to understand the workings of a telephone. Methos was not eager to end that class early.

When he stepped into the headmaster's office, he found a group of people already gathered there. Dumbledore sat behind his desk. Blake Mincent-Darmian stood on one side of the circular room with a group of three people Methos didn't know.

"Thank you for coming, Adam," Dumbledore told him. "We are still waiting for Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger."

Methos nodded and glanced back at the strangers, only to find a surprise. The four of them were giving each other wide-eyed looks, looks that they also directed at him. He had a feeling that, although they did not say a word, they were talking about him. What was that about?

The door opened and Ron and Hermione entered. Dumbledore stood. "Please close the door behind you, Mr. Weasley. Thank you both for coming."

"What's going on, Professor?" asked Hermione.

"We will get to that in a moment. First, let me introduce our guests. They are Melanie and Blake's cousins, Ms. Nola Darmian, her sister Mrs. Atalanta Darmian, and her husband Mr. Dante Mouton-Darmian. Their tale is quite an interesting and important one, one that I wish the three of you to here. They have agreed to share it with us in return for our silence."

Ron shrugged and Hermione nodded, but Methos did nothing. "Adam?" Dumbledore prompted.

The oldest Immortal's eyes narrowed as he studied the Darmians. He crossed his arms. "I can make no promises to do anything," he said at length. "I know nothing about you. If you still wish to tell me their tale, I will stay. Only then will I decided what to do with the information."

All four of them, including Blake, gave him annoyed glares. "Blake says you can be trusted," Atalanta Darmian said.

Methos blinked in surprise. Blake was eleven years old. The fact that his older adult cousin would place so much trust in someone so young made him curious.

Atalanta continued, "Professor Dumbledore has reassured us that you will not endanger us. However, there is more to you than meets the eye."

/What are you feeling, Lanta?/ Dante asked. Only Atalanta, Nola, and Blake heard him.

Nola asked, /Can you feel his mind? Can you explain why he feels so different?/

/His mind is unusual,/ she told them. /It's as if there is more than one mind in there, but it doesn’t feel like a split personality. It's something completely different./

/We felt it too,/ Blake told them. /When Melanie and I first arrived at Hogwarts. We knew there was something different about him. That's why we explored his office./

Methos said nothing. He simply waited. The Darmians exchanged a few more glances that seemed to say a thousand words before Dante said, "We'll have to tell you. It is imperative that you know."

Nola stepped forward. So far, she had stayed completely silent, and Methos soon discovered why. Her gaze went from Dumbledore, to Methos, to Hermione, and finally to Ron. /What we will tell you concerns us and the other members of our family./

Her voice seemed to echo within his mind. Her lips did not move. Methos gaped at her. Hermione and Ron were doing the same.

Nola smiled thinly. /Yes, I am projectin' this to your minds./

"Er, could you stop, please?" Ron asked. "It's creepy."

/I can't,/ she said. /If I tried to speak to you out loud, all you'd hear is a series of jumbled sounds./

"Er, why would that be, Ms. Darmian?" Hermione asked.

was coping with this unexpected twist better than the others; of course, Nola was not the first person to enter his head.

Nola sighed, aloud. /Five years ago, my family was at civil war. My brother, and one of my uncles, led the other side. Both of them are dead now, but during the war my brother had captured me. He removed my tongue during torture./

Hermione gasped and Ron looked a little sick while Dumbledore looked uneasy. Nola's relatives didn't even flinch; they were, apparently, used to that. Methos' expression betrayed nothing, but inwardly he felt repulsed. Who cut out tongues nowadays? Nola Darmian was fortunate to have an…ability that would allow her to keep her speech.

"Can you…show us?" Hermione asked, sounding hesitant. Methos knew that, although the question make her queasy, she wouldn't accept any statement like that without any proof.

Methos turned back to Nola again. He was curious himself. If what these people were saying was true…it wouldn't be that big of a shock. Too many strange things had happened to him in the recent past. It would take a while to adjust, however.

Nola opened her mouth. Everyone interested crowded in and quickly moved away again.

Nola waited a moment. /The Darmians are not a wizarding family,/ she said. /There are a few exceptions, but most of us cannot do magic. We're muggles in that way, but we aren’t ordinary. I'm not the only one of my family with a telepathic ability. Every Darmian has psychic powers of some sort-telepathy and teleportation are two powers we all have. There are other powers that are common but not shared by everyone, like telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and the ability to have Visions./

"Telekinesis? Pyrokinesis?" Ron repeated. He sounded very confused.

"Telekinesis is the ability to move things with one's mind. Pyrokinesis is the ability to heat or melt things with one's mind," Hermione answered promptly.

/Exactly,/ Nola said. There was respect in her voice. /Blake is pyrokinetic. Both he and I have Visions. Visions aren't like divining powers; we can't read tea leaves or do palm readings. We just get Visions, or premonitions, from time to time, usually to warn us if we're in danger. One of Blake's Visions is what told us that all of you could be trusted./ She met Methos' eyes. /Includin' you, Professor Pierson./

/We've had these abilities for thousands of years,/ Nola continued. /Usually, we either inter-marry or we mix with norms. That's what we call other muggles. Only rarely do we marry wizards or witches. When we do, however, the children are born with special powers. They can do magic no other witch of wizard can: pathic magic./

Methos knew he was staring, but he couldn't help it. He'd spent he didn't know how many hours trying to find out as much as he could about pathic magic, and this woman who could only communicate through telepathy was telling him that the answer had been in front of him all this time?

Bloody hell.

Nola finished her explanation, then Blake told them what had really taken place in the common room and about the Vision that told him where to go. After being released from the hospital wing, he'd contacted his relatives immediately. Atalanta had discerned Melanie's location through telepathy, then the four of them had teleported to Romania. Once there, they met Marek, who handed over Melanie without any fuss but wouldn't tell them where to find Harry. The catch was that Melanie was bound into a book.

They spent some time proving that they had said abilities before Blake showed them the book that held Melanie. So far, Dumbledore's and the Darmians' efforts to release her from it hadn't worked. They'd managed to talk to her by writing in the pages of the book, but to Blake's horror, Voldemort had placed a forgetful spell on her; her last memory was of the attack in the common room.

An hour came and went before Dante voiced something that had been on his mind. "I'd like to know more about those break-ins at the Gringotts banks," he said. "If we knew what the Dark Lord was after, we might be able to stop him, rescue Harry, and figure out how to unbind both Melanie and Harry."

Dumbledore answered, "At the Egyptian bank, the attackers broke into two vaults; in Bulgaria, they managed to break into one before several Aurors arrived, forcing the attackers to Apparate away. Where they went is uncertain; how they got into the vaults is even more so. Not even the Gringotts employees could open these vaults; they had no locks, and their doors were sealed tight with coranthimine, the strongest metal in the wizarding world. There were also wards placed around the vaults using a very rare magic that was later discerned to be pathic magic. If, as you say, a pathic wizard is in Voldemort's service, then at least that part of the mystery is solved. Another matter of concern is how they avoided the monsters that guarded the vaults. Although they forced some of the Gringotts goblins to accompany them to the vaults, the monsters are of a breed that can sense malevolent intentions from several miles away. They can travel that distance in the course of only a few seconds."

"What if they didn't break in?" Ron wondered.

Everyone turned to him. "What?" Atlanta asked him, surprised.

Methos was nodding; so were Hermione and Nola. /They had a key or some way of getting inside./

"Or they had rights to whatever was inside," Methos added, "and the wards and other protections didn't hold against them."

"If pathic magic was used to construct the wards around the vaults," Dumbledore said, "and if what you say is true, then the person who opened those vaults could very well have been a Darmian."

"Marek," Blake said with certainty.

"So why make a big scene over it?" Ron asked. He thought of Bill and felt his anger rising. "If they could just walk in at any time, why not just go in, make their withdrawal or whatever without drawing attention to themselves, and get out? Why make it look like two robberies?"

"It was a message," Hermione decided. "To the wizarding world. Voldemort was telling everyone that what was considered to be one of the safest places in the wizarding world wasn't safe any longer."

"Except it is," Ron argued. "It's still safe but no one knows that."

"It's the perfect strategy," Methos said. "Make your enemies afraid of you by following the simplest option available. Then once the rumors start up that no one is safe and that their governments won't protect them, then you do something a little bigger and cause mass hysteria and panic."

"We need to find out what was in those vaults," Dante reminded them. "If it belonged to the Darmian family, and our ancestors thought it needed to be kept behind both coranthimine and pathic wards and still kept it a secret, then we can't let Voldemort keep it. What I can't understand is why someone in our family would go to such lengths. Sure, if we are discovered by the public, it could put us all in jeopardy, but as far as I knew, we have nothing that would warrant so much caution. I might know how to find out for sure. We have a few records; it wouldn't hurt to look through them."

"Can I come?" Hermione asked. "I might be able to help you search faster."

"Okay," Dante said. "I don't see why not."

"Hermione," Ron began, warningly.

"I'll be all right, Ron. Promise."

"In the meantime, we will work on a way to release Melanie," Dumbledore promised.

Dante nodded. He held out his hand, and Hermione took it tentatively. "We'll be back in a few hours," he told the others.

They teleported away in a flash of light.

"I have to pick up my son from school," Atalanta announced. "If you need me, ask Nola or Blake to contact me. I'll try to get back here as soon as possible."

There was a fire down on E. Washington Street. Duncan MacLeod had planned to send off a few orders for his antiques store at the post office, but when he'd drove onto the Seacouver street, he'd discovered that the building adjacent to the post office was aflame. Firemen and fire trucks surrounded it on all sides, pouring gallons of water onto the flames.

MacLeod parked his car down the block and jogged over to the join the crowd of onlookers gathered on the edge of the destruction. He watched in confusion as some firefighters carried cages holding owls while other firefighters led people out of the building. They wore the strangest clothing he'd ever seen: some wore ordinary clothes, but the others wore cloaks and pointed hats. Come to think of it, as he glanced at the onlooking crowd, many of them wore the same kind of clothing. And when was there a four-story building next to the post office? MacLeod couldn't remember ever seeing it before.

The four hundred-year-old Immortal didn't know that the building had been an owlry, and that the fire wasn't an accident. Suspended in the air above the burning owlry was the image of a neon green skull with a snake crawling out of its mouth. Neither MacLeod nor any of the other muggles in the city could see it, but the wizards and witches could see it easily, and they all trembled in fear. Although Voldemort, during his initial rise in power, had left the United States alone for the most part, the magic community still knew about him, and they could recognize the Dark Mark when they saw it.

The Seacouver owlry wasn't the only owlry to be attacked. Several other key owlries throughout the United States were burned down to the ground. Many Canadian, African, Asian, and European owlries weren't spared. Death Eaters attacked some and dementors and dragons attacked others. More and more witches and wizards died with each attack.

As the news spread, terror was reawakened everywhere. The wizarding world couldn't deny it any longer.

Voldemort had returned, and he was more powerful than ever before.

In Paris, Amanda heard about the attacks with increasing anxiety. Something was happening. Everyone knew that, and now that many primary owl posts were being destroyed and lost, communication was harder than ever in the wizard world. Every witch and witch she knew that didn't already own an owl had scrambled to the closest wizard pet shop, but their birds were quickly being sold and it would take months to train new owls.

Amanda wanted to know what was going on, and she had a suspicion that her dear old friends at Hogwarts, Albus and Methos both, could answer all her questions. Since she couldn't owl them, she would have to travel to Hogwarts personally.