The Backstreet Boys, of Orlando, Florida, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because as a chart-topping, internationally famous boyband, they just didn’t have time for all that.

Kevin Richardson was the oldest member of the group, which made pop music. He was a tall, handsome man with just a small amount of facial hair, although he did have very thick eyebrows. Howie Dorough, the second oldest, was short and dark and not nearly as handsome, which he compensated for by gyrating bare-chested onstage, winking at the fans. The Backstreet Boys had three younger members called Brian, AJ, and Nick, and in the fans’ opinion, there were no finer Boys anywhere.

The Backstreet Boys had everything they wanted, but one of them also had a secret, and his greatest fear was that somebody would discover it.

When the Boys woke up on the bright, sunny Sunday our story starts, there was nothing about the blue sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the world. Howie hummed as he picked out his cheesiest tie for church, and Kevin paced around anxiously as he waited for his cousin Brian to finish packing his bags.

None of them noticed a large Great Horned owl flutter past the window.

At half past eight, Kevin picked up Brian’s suitcase, and Howie hugged Brian goodbye. “Good luck, man,” said Howie, as Brian and Kevin left the apartment. They got into Kevin’s car and pulled out of their building’s lot.

As they drove toward the airport, Brian thought of nothing except the major surgery he was going to have in five days. But on the edge of town, open-heart surgery was driven out of his mind by something else. As he and Kevin waited at a red light, he couldn’t help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Was there some kind of sci-fi convention going on, he wondered, or was this just some stupid new fashion? Brian didn’t care much about fashion - he wore a t-shirt and jeans when he wanted to be casual, a button-down shirt and tie when he needed to dress up, and whatever the stylists put him in when he was doing a photo shoot, performance, or press appearance. He and the fellas had been photographed in some pretty goofy getups over the years; he hoped cloaks weren’t next.

When he mentioned this out loud, Kevin said, “Cloaks?” Brian pointed his finger out the window, and Kevin’s eyes fell upon a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. “It’s probably just some silly stunt,” Kevin said with a shrug. These people were obviously seeking attention for some reason… yes, that would be it. The light changed, and a few minutes later, Kevin and Brian arrived in the airport parking lot, their minds back on Brian’s surgery.

They always waited in a private lounge at the airport, where they wouldn’t be approached by fans or paparazzi. If they hadn’t, they might have been able to forget about the operation for a time. They didn’t see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people sitting in the concourse did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped past the windows. Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime. Kentucky’s finest cousins, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free wait. They each ordered a latte. They pretended to watch CNN and made small talk to avoid talking about the reason Brian was flying home. Kevin kept it together until boarding time, when he was forced to hug his cousin goodbye and walk out of the airport alone. He blinked back tears on the way to his car and let them fall once he was inside it. He knew Brian would be fine; he just hated that he had to stay in Orlando and perform when he should have been with his family.

He’d forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them on his way home. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn’t know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too. It was while he was slowing down at a yellow stoplight, the car window cracked open to let in the warm spring air, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.

“The Dark Lord, that’s right, that’s what I heard-”

“-yes, the Chosen One, Harry-”

Kevin stopped dead, but only because the light had turned red. The words meant nothing to him. His only concern was for his cousin.

He found it a lot harder to concentrate in rehearsals that afternoon, and when he left the studio at five o’clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.

“Sorry,” he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Kevin realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn’t seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare, “Don’t be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!”

And the old man hugged Kevin around the middle and walked off.

Kevin stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger - a stranger who was as far from a screaming teenaged girl as one could get. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things.

Several miles away, the warm spring breeze that had wafted through Kevin’s window drifted over a long driveway that wound between landscaped flower beds. An immense house reared up, sunlit and inviting. There was no sound apart from the rustle of palm trees and no sign of life apart from a tiny lizard that had scurried into the landscaping to search hopefully for insects among the flowers.

But then, with a very faint pop, a slim, hooded figure appeared out of thin air on the edge of the driveway. The lizard froze, wary eyes fixed upon this strange new phenomenon. The figure seemed to take her bearings for a few moments, then set off with light, quick strides, her long cloak rustling over the grass. Her footsteps echoed on the cobbles as she followed a stone path, until she reached the front porch, where a light glimmered through the curtains in a downstairs room.

She knocked on the door and stood waiting, breathing in the smell of flowers that was carried to her on the spring breeze. After a few seconds, she heard movement behind the door, and it opened a crack. A sliver of a woman could be seen looking out at her, a woman with short red hair curled in waves around a plump face and blue eyes.

The figure threw back her hood. She was so pale that she seemed to shine in the sunlight; the long blonde hair streaming down her back gave her the look of a drowned person.

“Narcissa!” said the woman, opening the door a little wider. “What a pleasant surprise!”

But the woman named Narcissa barely smiled. “May I speak to you? It’s urgent.”

“Well, of course!”

The redhead stood back to allow Narcissa to pass into her house. They stepped directly into a large living room, where the hostess gestured Narcissa to the sofa. She threw off her cloak, cast it aside, and sat down, staring at her white and trembling hands clasped in her lap.

“So, what can I do for you?” the other woman asked, settling herself in the armchair opposite Narcissa.

“We… we are alone, aren’t we?” Narcissa asked quietly.

“Yes, of course. Well, the dogs are here, but we’re not counting animals, are we?”

“Not unless they’re really Animagi, like our disgraced cousin,” sniffed Narcissa.

“Ah, yes, dear Sirius. Burnt off the Black family tree, just as I was, I’m guessing?”

Narcissa averted her eyes, looking slightly embarrassed. “You were never included on the tree to begin with. Your branch ended with your grandmother, the Squib.”

“Of course it did.” The other woman rolled her eyes, allowing herself a wry chuckle. “So why are you here, of all places? I’d have thought you’d be mourning the loss of your precious Dark Lord. I suppose he really has gone?”

“Oh yes, he’s gone,” said Narcissa. “And so is Bella.”

“What?”

“She was killed in battle last night at Hogwarts.” Narcissa blinked back tears, struggling to maintain her composure.

“I… I’m so sorry to hear that.” The other woman shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “And what about the rest of your family?”

“Draco and Lucius are safe. We… fled… in the midst of the fray.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I just hope,” Narcissa continued, speaking over the other woman, “that since we defected, Lucius won’t be convicted as a Death Eater again. I just can’t bear the thought of him being sent back to Azkaban.”

“Surely not!”

“But that’s not why I’m here.” Narcissa leaned forward, for once appearing eager to turn the topic of conversation away from herself. “I came to warn you. The child. If any of the remaining Death Eaters were to discover his existence, they might come after him, try to convert him to their side. If they only knew what he was, who he was, I fear they would see him as the Dark Lord reincarnated.”

“And your concern is for the child?” The red-haired woman arched her eyebrows skeptically.

“My concern is for all our children,” Narcissa snapped. “I almost lost my son last night because of this war, and if there’s a way to prevent another one-”

“I understand,” said the other woman gently, reaching out to pat her knee. “I sure don’t want my son involved in any of this either.”

Narcissa bristled, either at her touch or her words. Standing suddenly, she said, “Yes, well… I just wanted to warn you, so you’d know to keep him out of harm’s way.”

“Thank you,” the other woman replied genuinely, rising to her feet as well. She leaned forward, as if to embrace Narcissa, but the haughty blonde abruptly turned on her heel and strode across the room. At the door, she stopped and tipped her head toward the other woman.

“Good luck to you both,” she murmured. Then, with a swish of her cloak, she was gone.

A breeze ruffled the neatly clipped grass in the backyard, which lay serene and tidy under the cerulean sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. The boy in question rolled over in his hammock without waking up. One hand rested on the Discman beside him, and he napped on, knowing he was special, knowing he was famous, knowing he would spend the next eight weeks relaxing in the sun while his bandmate recuperated from surgery and that, afterwards, he would go back on the road to perform for crowds of his adoring fans. But he couldn’t know that this road would lead him down the very dark and dangerous path his mother had tried to hide from him, nor that he was destined to face whatever awaited him at its end.

***

Across the Atlantic, another boy slept, one hand curled loosely around a narrow cylinder of wood. It had been over a year since Lord Voldemort’s defeat, yet Harry Potter had not yet lost the habit of sleeping with his wand. Even now, the slightest noise had him sitting bolt upright in bed, on high alert for the possibility of an attack.

It took him a few seconds to take in his surroundings - the ornately carved wooden furniture; the tall windows, letting in slivers of early morning sunlight between their long, velvet curtains; the posters of motorcycles and Muggle girls in bikinis, permanently fixed to the walls - and realize he was safe in his home at number twelve, Grimmauld Place. The faint rustling sound that had roused him from his sleep he now recognized as the scurrying of small feet on the floorboards below. Kreacher, his house elf, was moving about - preparing breakfast, by the smell of it. Harry closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of fried bacon and fresh blueberry muffins for a second, before he scrambled out of bed and down four flights of stairs to the cavernous kitchen in the basement of the old manor.

When Harry had first inherited number twelve, Grimmauld Place, the ancestral home of his godfather, Sirius Black, he’d had no intentions of actually living there one day. With Sirius gone, there was nothing left to brighten the gloomy mansion. But after hiding there for a month the previous year, while on the run with his friends Ron and Hermione, Harry had come to view the house as a safe haven, a sanctuary. He actually missed the place after they were forced to leave it, and once the danger had passed and the dust had settled, it had just made the most sense for him to return to Grimmauld Place and make it his home.

With Kreacher’s help, Harry had thoroughly cleaned the house, while his girlfriend, Ginny, provided the feminine eye needed to redecorate it. The set of shrunken house elf heads that had once lined the main staircase had been relocated to Kreacher’s new quarters on the third floor, along with the troll leg umbrella stand and the rest of the Black family belongings left behind in the house after Mundungus Fletcher had finished looting it. Only the two bedrooms on the topmost landing, once belonging to brothers Sirius and Regulus Black, were left unchanged. Harry slept in his godfather’s old room and kept Regulus’s as a shrine to the man whose sacrifice had helped him defeat Voldemort.

Kreacher still worshipped the ground on which “Master Regulus” once walked, but he had come to respect Harry as his rightful new owner. “Good morning, Master,” croaked Kreacher in his bullfrog’s voice, bowing Harry into the kitchen.

“Just Harry, please, Kreacher,” said Harry, who was still uncomfortable with the idea of “owning” a house elf. He knew that Hermione, founder of the organization S.P.E.W., the Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare, did not approve. But Kreacher wasn’t like Dobby, whom Harry had freed from his enslavement as the Malfoy family’s house elf. Dobby had hated serving his former masters and delighted in his newfound freedom, but to most house elves, being let go was a disgraceful insult. Harry knew he would only be doing a disservice to Kreacher, who had lived his whole life in this house, if he were to give him clothes and make him leave. Besides, Kreacher was much more pleasant to be around these days, and his cooking was too good to give up.

“Yes, Master Harry,” Kreacher replied, placing a plate heaped high with eggs, hash browns, bacon, and a blueberry muffin in front of Harry as he sat down at the long, wooden table.

Harry didn’t bother to correct him again. His muffin had already been sliced and spread with melting better. Mouth watering, he picked up one half and took a big bite. “Mmm,” he said, through a mouthful of blueberries. “I think you’ve outdone yourself, Kreacher.”

“Master is too kind,” Kreacher said humbly, brushing aside the compliment. “What time will Master’s friends be arriving?”

Harry smiled; it was a nice change to hear Hermione and Ginny referred to as “friends,” rather than “the Mudblood” and “blood traitor brat.” “Not ‘til seven. I’ll probably head straight to King’s Cross after work.”

“Kreacher will have dinner on the table when Master and his friends return,” Kreacher replied, twisting his lips into what could almost pass for a smile in return. The expression looked strange on him, as Harry had grown so accustomed to seeing a scowl on his face.

“Thanks, Kreacher!” Harry bolted down the rest of his breakfast, then went back upstairs and dressed at top speed. “See you later!” he called to Kreacher, as he left for work. On his way to the nearest Underground station, he passed Muggles wearing business suits and the browbeaten expressions Tuesday mornings bring, but Harry couldn’t be bothered to feel down on a day like this. The sun was shining, the mid-June heat was rising, and his two favorite women in the world would soon be on their way to see him. He had every reason to smile this morning, as he did so often these days.

What a change Voldemort’s death had made in his life! No longer did Harry live in a constant state of paranoia, waiting to be attacked. No longer did he have to put up with the accusations that he was a liar, an attention-seeker, or a tragic hero driven mad by the trauma he’d suffered. His life had quieted down some in the months since his name had finally dropped out of the press, following extensive coverage of the Battle of Hogwarts by the Wizarding media.

To Harry, it was a welcomed relief from the chaos and uncertainty of the year he’d spent tracking down Horcruxes in his quest to defeat Voldemort. He didn’t miss being on the run, camping in a different patch of forest every night, scavenging for food and going hungry most of the time, fighting the elements and trying to avoid the Death Eaters and Snatchers. He still had enemies, both in and out of Azkaban, but it wasn’t like before. There was no longer a price on his head; he could come and go as he pleased. When he was recognized on the streets, it was by supporters and admirers, rather than Voldemort’s followers. He was still uncomfortable being the famous Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, The Chosen One, but at least he had finally proven himself by living up to those titles.

Harry descended the stairs that led into the Underground station, where he purchased a ticket and boarded the train that would get him closest to his destination, the Ministry of Magic. As he still hated the sensation of Apparition, distrusted the Floo network, and couldn’t very well fly through London on a broomstick, Harry relied on Muggle transportation to get to and from work each day. Most wizards would scoff at the idea of famous Harry Potter taking a Muggle train to work, but Harry found the train ride relaxing. It gave him a chance to simply sit and mull over the day’s events. After so much time spent running, acting on instinct to survive, Harry relished having time just to sit and think.

I’m starting to sound like Hermione, he thought to himself, as he reemerged into the sunlight on the street above. He walked a block to the employee entrance of the Ministry’s headquarters, which was disguised as a public toilet. After flushing himself down the toilet, he was deposited into one of the gilded fireplaces on the left side of the Atrium, the lobby of the Ministry of Magic. He stepped out of the grate onto the polished, dark wood floor, where his best friend, Ron, stood waiting for him.

“All right, Harry?” Ron greeted him.

Harry grinned at his lanky, red-haired friend. “Hey, Ron.”

When they’d received their career advice three years ago, during their fifth year at Hogwarts, Harry never expected to find himself and Ron actually working for the Ministry of Magic. Although he’d held on to his ambition to become an Auror, that was the year that the Minister of Magic himself, Cornelius Fudge, had accused him of being a deluded liar for announcing Voldemort’s return. The following year, Fudge’s successor, Rufus Scrimgeour, tried to make Harry the Ministry’s mascot, though Harry blatantly refused to support a government that convicted innocent people of supporting Voldemort. And the year after that, the Imperiused puppet-minister Pius Thicknesse forced Harry into hiding by deeming him “Undesirable Number One.” But the current Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, was a far better leader than his last three predecessors, and it was only on his invitation that Harry and Ron had joined the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to be trained as Aurors.

“Hope the day goes fast, eh?” said Ron, as the two of them stepped onto one of the lifts.

Harry suppressed a smirk, not fooled by Ron’s casual tone. He knew Ron couldn’t wait to see Hermione, just as he was dying to be with Ginny again. “Let’s hope,” he agreed.

While he and Ron had gone straight into the Ministry without completing their final year at Hogwarts, Hermione had chosen to go back to school to finish out her seventh year and sit for her N.E.W.T. exams alongside Ginny. It had been a long nine months, being apart from them both while Harry and Ron embarked on their first year of Auror training, but at last, the school term was over, and Hermione and Ginny would be coming home on the Hogwarts Express that very evening.

Harry couldn’t wait to hold Ginny again, to run his hands through her long, silky hair, to feel her lips, warm and soft against his. They had lost so much time together. He was determined to make up for all the missed opportunities.

It was hard to concentrate on his combat training exercises that day, with Ginny on his mind. His brain felt fuzzy, his reflexes slow. He was relieved when the work day finally came to an end. He and Ron changed out of their robes and into Muggle clothing before they left together through the fireplaces on the right side of the Atrium, flushing themselves back into Muggle London.

They rode the Underground to King’s Cross Station. To Harry’s relief, it was far less embarrassing to take Muggle transportation with Ron than it was his father; Mr. Weasley, a pureblood wizard who was fascinated by Muggles, always wanted to stop and point out perfectly ordinary things, which tended to attract the attention of Muggle passersby. Ron was just as clueless about Muggle technology, but didn’t care enough to ask a lot of questions. He just let Harry go first and simply followed his lead, as they navigated their way through the Underground system.

At King’s Cross, they headed straight for the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten, which served as the gateway to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, where the Hogwarts Express was due to arrive. Leaning casually against the barrier, appearing deep in conversation, they waited until no Muggles were around, then slipped on through what had appeared to be a solid wall. They emerged on the other side of the barrier, beneath a wrought-iron archway that spelled out the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. A few other people were already milling about under an Arrivals sign that said Hogwarts Express, seven o’clock, and the number of friends and family members waiting for their students to return only multiplied the closer it came to that time.

Promptly at seven, a train whistle sounded, and Harry’s heart leapt at the sight of the familiar scarlet steam engine chugging down the track. The Hogwarts Express pulled up alongside the platform and slowed to a stop. Inside the train, Harry could see compartment doors flying open, eager students filling the corridors. As he watched the flood of young witches and wizards pour out onto the platform, hauling their heavy trunks, Harry experienced a moment of regret, in which he wished he had gone back to Hogwarts for one final year. He thought of his four-poster bed in Gryffindor Tower, of having tea in Hagrid’s hut, of feasts in the Great Hall and DA meetings in the Room of Requirement, of Quidditch matches and House Cups and the Triwizard Tournament…

But then he spotted a familiar figure with long red hair dancing down her back. She turned, saw him, smiled, and suddenly, Harry could think of nothing else but Ginny Weasley. “Harry!” she cried, bounding toward him, her hair streaming behind her like flames. Her face was even more radiant, as, beaming, she threw herself into his arms. He caught her in a tight hug, his hands entangling themselves in her hair. “Harry, I missed you so much,” Ginny whispered into his ear, her lips caressing his cheek.

Harry thought of all the nights he’d lain awake with the Marauder’s Map spread out on his bed, searching it by wandlight until he found the tiny figure labeled Ginny, asleep in her dormitory at the top of Gryffindor Tower. “I missed you, too. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.” Ginny pulled back, grinning, her brown eyes bright.

“Ahem.” They both turned to find Ron watching them, his arm around Hermione and a smirk on his slightly pink face. “If you’re done snogging my sister, Harry, I thought I’d remind you that Hermione’s here, too.”

Judging by the color in his cheeks, Harry suspected Ron had just enjoyed a bit of snogging, too, but he decided not to mention it. Instead, he smiled, released Ginny, and strode over to hug Hermione. “Welcome home, Hermione.”

“Oh, it’s so good to see you, Harry!” she replied, hugging him back tightly. “It just hasn’t been the same at Hogwarts without you two.”

“Yeah, this year was actually peaceful! And quiet!” Ginny added, giving them all a good laugh. “And… well… completely boring.”

“We’re glad it’s over,” Hermione agreed, as Harry and Ron grinned at each other.

“Never thought you’d hear Hermione Granger actually say she was glad to be done with school, huh, Harry?” Ron joked.

Harry sniggered. “Yeah, Hermione, usually you’re crying over the thought of being off for a whole summer. Oh, the horror!”

“Yes, well, now that I’ve finished at Hogwarts, I’m quite looking forward to starting my career! I’m thinking of applying to the Ministry myself, possibly the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures; I really think I could make more headway in securing equal rights for house elves there, don’t you think?” Hermione said briskly, back to her old ambitious self.

“Not the Spew stuff again,” groaned Ron, rolling his eyes at Harry. “And to think, we almost made it a whole year without having to hear about the plight of poor ickle house elves!”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Ron, it’s the Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare, not Spew! Honestly!” huffed Hermione, tossing back her head of bushy brown hair. Harry didn’t miss the little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, though, despite her attempts to hide it. He’d known for a long time that this back-and-forth bickering between Ron and Hermione came out of love, rather than hate. Arguing was almost their way of showing affection for one another.

Harry didn’t quite understand it, but then, girls and relationships had always been something of an enigma to him. All he knew was that, with Ginny, it was easy. He didn’t have to think too much, didn’t have to question her every move or second-guess himself. Their relationship felt so comfortable, so natural. He knew even as he reached out to take her trunk that she would swat his hand away, insistent on dragging her own luggage, just as she knew he would still try. Harry had a savior complex, just as Ginny had a fiercely independent streak, but they understood that about each other.

“Hey, speaking of house elves,” Harry said suddenly, to break up Ron and Hermione’s latest lover’s spat, “Kreacher said he’d have dinner ready when we get back to Grimmauld Place.”

“Ooh, I’m so hungry, I could eat a hippogriff! Shall we go, then?” asked Ginny pointedly, catching on to what Harry was trying to do.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Ron agreed, offering to haul Hermione’s trunk, a tip he had surely picked up from Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches, which he’d given Harry two birthdays ago, after his brothers Fred and George gave him a copy. Ron surely wouldn’t have thought to be so chivalrous on his own.

Unlike Ginny, Hermione had no qualms about letting her boyfriend help with her luggage, though as they walked back to the barrier, she remarked, “Oh Harry, I hope you’re not letting Kreacher work too hard.”

“He wants to, Hermione. He’s really come around, that Kreacher.”

And sure enough, when they arrived back at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, Kreacher had a steak-and-kidney pie and Harry’s favorite treacle tart waiting for them. As he sat down to dinner with Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, Harry felt, for the first time since leaving Hogwarts, that he was truly home.

***

Over a year had passed since Brian’s surgery, but the Backstreet Boys’ rigorous tour schedule had hardly changed at all. Night after night, they put on a two-hour show, dancing and sweating so much they actually lost weight on stage. They spent their days traveling from place to place, staying in a different hotel each night or simply sleeping on the tour bus. Life was almost exactly the same as it had been on the day when Kevin and Brian had seen the strange people in cloaks. Only the photographs on their official website really showed how much time had passed. A year ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large yellow penis wearing different-colored outfits - but Nick Carter had retooled his hairstyle, and now the photographs showed a large blonde boy performing on stage, on a rollercoaster at an amusement park, playing video games with AJ, making funny faces with Brian. People tended to forget that there were two other boys in the group, too.

Yet Kevin and Howie were still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. Nick was awake, and he was up to no good.

“C’mon, Nick, don’t do that,” AJ moaned, as Nick removed the bowl of warm water from the microwave and carried it carefully to the back of the tour bus, where Kevin and Howie were sleeping across the aisle from one another in the bottom bunks.

“But I swear, it works!” Nick hissed, his blue eyes alight with mischief. “I’ve done it to my sisters’ friends at their sleepovers. You put their hand in warm water while they’re asleep, and they pee their bed!”

“Yeah, but if you make Howie and Kevin pee their beds in here, then the whole goddamn tour bus is gonna smell like their piss!”

Nick’s expression changed, his brow furrowing. That thought hadn’t occurred to him. Maybe AJ was right; maybe it was a bad idea. “Good point. Damn,” Nick sighed. Disappointed, he turned and stomped off to dump the water. The noise was enough to wake both Howie and Kevin, who scolded him for being so annoying.

When a defeated Nick finally slumped down on one of the couches at the front of the bus, AJ sat down next to him, scooting right up close to Nick so he could whisper in his ear, “I’m warning you now, Carter… You ever try that shit on me, and you’ll be sleeping in the bus bathroom from now until the end of tour.”

“I’m not gonna do anything to you,” said Nick. “Honestly…”

But AJ didn’t believe him. No one ever did. Nick’s reputation as the biggest practical joker in the band was well-earned. The problem was, he never seemed to be able to pull one over on AJ, to the point where he’d about given up hope of ever successfully pranking him.

One night, Nick had shaved off AJ’s artfully-sculpted, painstakingly-trimmed goatee while he was asleep. The next morning, however, he had gotten up to find AJ’s facial hair exactly as it had been before he’d shaved it off. He couldn’t explain how it had grown back so quickly.

Another time, he’d found AJ on the roof of the tour bus. Some fans had been chasing them as usual when, much to Nick’s surprise as everyone else’s, there was AJ sitting on top of the bus. Their bodyguards were furious, lecturing AJ about climbing tall vehicles. But AJ insisted all he’d tried to do was jump into the bus and that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump. It sounded unbelievable to Nick, but he couldn’t explain how AJ had gotten on top of the bus so quickly either.

Then again, AJ had always been sort of mysterious, and Nick supposed that was part of his appeal. He definitely played up his eccentric side with his stage persona, donning weird outfits and outlandish hairdos. His hair was always dyed some crazy color these days, and he was never without his sunglasses - he must have owned hundreds of pairs. Usually, he was the life of the party, totally at ease being the center of attention, but sometimes, he seemed to retreat into himself and simply disappear. They all relished their solitude, especially now when it was so rare, but for someone who acted so outgoing in front of the public eye, AJ was really a pretty private person. There was a great degree of depth to him, a dark side Nick didn’t fully understand, but if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that AJ had his share of secrets.

With Nick, nothing was a secret. He said whatever was on his mind, often without thinking first, and made his feelings known. And on that particular day, Nick was feeling bored. Now that his plans to prank Howie and Kevin had been foiled, he had to find something else to do. He challenged Brian to a video game, but when Brian beat him in the first round, Nick quickly lost interest. He put in a movie next, but that didn’t hold his attention either; he’d already watched every video he’d packed and was sick of them all. He tried writing a song, but just ended up doodling in his notebook.

The Backstreet Boys had only been touring Europe for two weeks, but to Nick, it felt a lot longer. He loved performing, but hated traveling. He hated packing, hated flying, hated being trapped on the tour bus for hours at a time. Most of all, he hated being away from home. It was weird not having any of his family on tour with him, but at nineteen, Nick no longer needed a chaperone, and his mother, who used to travel with him, was busy managing his brother’s career now, while his father stayed at home with his younger sisters. Aaron had opened for the Boys on their last tour, but he was doing his own thing now, recording his next album, preparing for a tour of his own. Nick found that he missed his little brother, now more than ever. There was always something to do when Aaron was around.

Meanwhile, the other guys seemed content to relax and watch the English countryside fly by outside their windows, as the tour bus took them from Birmingham to London, where they’d be performing the next two nights. They hadn’t always been as popular in the United Kingdom as in other European countries, but their newly-released album, Millennium, had been a soaring success all around the world, pushing them to new heights of fame. It seemed everyone now knew Nick’s name; he couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized. These days, wherever the Backstreet Boys went, a swarm of fans followed. Chaos ensued, and crazy things happened. And today was no exception.

Only that day, the strangest thing of all happened even before the Boys left their bus - while it was still moving, in fact. Nick was sitting by the window, his notebook in his lap, when he heard a tap-tap-tapping sound on the glass beside him. He glanced up and got the shock of his life when he saw an owl fluttering outside the window, fighting to keep up with the bus as it sped down the motorway. “Whoa!” he exclaimed, pointing excitedly. “Look, it’s an owl!”

Kevin, Howie, and Brian all jumped up to look; AJ alone seemed unimpressed, as he sidled up slowly behind them. “It’s carrying something,” he observed, and for the first time, Nick noticed the envelope clutched in the owl’s talons. A gust of wind blew into the bus as Nick carefully cracked open the window, afraid of scaring the creature away. But it continued to hover by the window, undeterred.

Nick had never seen an owl in the wild before, but he knew about animals and thought it incredibly strange that any bird would stay so close to a speeding bus full of people, especially a bird that he thought only came out at night. He wondered if the owl was sick or something. Can owls get rabies? he wondered. But before he could ask the question out loud, AJ stunned him into silence by shoving Nick aside, sticking his hand through the gap in the window, and snatching the envelope right out from under the owl’s claws.

“What is it?” Nick demanded, once he’d recovered from his shock, but AJ had the envelope clutched to his chest and seemed unwilling to show anyone.

“It’s mine,” he said shortly.

“Huh? How do you know??”

“It’s addressed to me, see?” AJ shoved the envelope under Nick’s nose, just long enough for him to see the address, so plain there could be no mistake:

Mr. A.J. McLean
The Top Bunk on the Left
Backstreet Boys Tour Bus
M1 Motorway
Buckinghamshire

The envelope was made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp, no postmark, and no return address.

“Who’s it from??” Nick wanted to know, but AJ whipped the letter out of sight before he could make a grab for it.

“Probably just a fan,” AJ said over his shoulder, as he walked off with the letter.

“What, a fan with a trained owl??” Nick called after him. AJ just ignored him, disappearing into his bunk and drawing the privacy curtain. Nick turned to the other three in disbelief. “What the hell?”

Brian, Kevin, and Howie looked just as bewildered. In hushed voices, they talked about what they’d just witnessed, not only the strangeness of an owl delivering mail to their bus in the middle of the day, but AJ’s even stranger reaction to it. When AJ reemerged from his bunk ten minutes later, they all stared at him, waiting for an explanation. But AJ offered none. In fact, he acted like nothing unusual had happened at all.

“So what did the letter say?” Nick finally asked, when no one else did.

“It said how awesome I am,” AJ replied, without missing a beat. “Told you it was fan mail.”

“It was not! You’re lying!” Nick accused.

AJ just shrugged.

“Okay, let us see it then!” challenged Nick, folding his arms across his chest.

“Yeah, Bone, let’s see it,” echoed Kevin, and the others nodded.

AJ shrugged again. “Fine. It’s in my bunk.”

Nick bolted back to the bunk, and sure enough, there was a piece of parchment, unfolded on the bed. He snatched it up and stared at it, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. It took only a second to read the one-line letter.

Dear AJ,

You are awesome.

Love,
A fan

“AJ, you asshole! You wrote that yourself! Where’s the real letter?” demanded Nick.

“That is the real letter,” AJ insisted, smiling. And indeed, it was made of the same parchment as the envelope, written in the same hand. But Nick wasn’t buying it. There was something AJ wasn’t telling them, but he had no idea how to get it out of him.

Howie had an idea: get AJ drunk. So that night in London, they hit the pubs. It was times like this that Nick loved being overseas, where he was old enough to go out with the guys and drink legally. He kept buying AJ shots, but no amount of alcohol could get AJ to talk.

Drunk and defeated, they headed back to their hotel in the wee hours of the morning. Brian and Nick shared a room with two full-size beds and a balcony overlooking the city. Brian dropped right off to sleep, but Nick stayed awake, sitting on the balcony, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering…

***

Harry awoke early the next morning and went downstairs, eager to enjoy a leisurely breakfast with Ginny and Hermione before he and Ron headed off to work. He was the first one to enter the kitchen, where Kreacher had just started preparing another hearty breakfast.

After a few minutes, he was joined by Ginny, who managed to look pretty even in her nightgown and robe. “Good morning,” she greeted Harry through a yawn, still sleepy-eyed.

“Sleep alright?” asked Harry, hoping she’d been comfortable enough in the second floor bedroom he’d offered her.

Ginny nodded, stifling another yawn. “I slept fine.”

It wasn’t her first time staying at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, Harry reminded himself, recalling the summer they’d spent cohabitating Sirius’s house while it was being used as headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix. Still, he half-wished he’d just invited Ginny to sleep in his room. Out of respect for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, whom he regarded as sort of surrogate parents, he hadn’t. There was also the fact that Ron, who was both Harry’s best friend and Ginny’s brother, had decided to spend the night at Grimmauld Place as well, rather than apparate back to The Burrow. Ron had been surprisingly accepting of Harry’s relationship with his sister, but tolerance had its limits, and Harry knew better than to test them.

Yet when Ron and Hermione came into the kitchen together a few minutes later, Harry wondered if he’d been wrong to think Ron wouldn’t approve, when it was fairly obvious he had just spent the night with Hermione. For a moment, Harry wondered what had gone on between the two of them, then realized he really didn’t want to know. Maybe nothing, he thought. It wouldn’t have been the first time Ron and Hermione slept in the same room, after all those nights sharing a tent. Maybe they’d just fallen asleep holding hands, like that night they’d spent in the drawing room, the night after Bill and Fleur’s wedding. Harry wanted to believe that, but he didn’t really, and he wasn’t sure what bothered him more - the idea that Ron and Hermione might be sleeping together, or the realization that Ron, who had always seemed so clueless when it came to the opposite sex, might not only have caught up to Harry, but surpassed him.

“’Morning,” Ron said with a grin that Harry wanted to wipe right off his face. Hermione merely smiled and said nothing, slipping into a seat next to Ginny, as Ron sniffed the air like a dog. “Smells good! What’s cooking, Kreacher?”

“Kreacher has made eggs, sausage, and toast, sir, but if Mr. Weasley would prefer something else-”

“No way, Kreacher; this looks great!” Sitting down next to Harry, Ron loaded his plate with a generous serving of everything Kreacher offered him and started eating enthusiastically. He was on his second helpings when Hermione pushed away her plate and picked up The Daily Prophet.

“Anything interesting?” asked Harry, after she’d had a few minutes to peruse the front page. He missed having Hermione as a news source. He’d taken out his own subscription to the Prophet, but she’d always had a keener eye for spotting the small details he tended to overlook. What he didn’t miss was Ron asking, “Anyone we know dead?” every time Hermione opened the morning paper, like he had all through their sixth year. The mysterious deaths and disappearances had ended along with the Second Wizarding War, but that hadn’t stopped Harry from searching for signs that the Death Eaters were on the rise again. And signs did seem to pop up now and then. Small… insignificant, possibly… but signs, all the same.

“There’s been another case of Muggle-baiting,” Hermione noted, then began to read aloud from an article. “Magical Law Enforcement Patrol officers were dispatched to a Muggle residence in the small village of Puddington on Tuesday to investigate reports of a pool toy attacking two children.”

“We heard about that at work!” Ron exclaimed through a mouthful of food, spraying bits of egg across the table.

“Shut up, Ron, I haven’t heard about it,” said Ginny, wiping the flecks of egg off her face with a napkin. “And don’t talk with your mouth full; it’s disgusting.”

Hermione continued, “The Muggle children were enjoying a dip in their backyard swimming pool when the toy, a tube-shaped Muggle flotation device known as a 'Noodle,' suddenly transformed into a massive serpent that tried to strangle one of the children by wrapping itself around the child’s neck. A neighboring witch witnessed the incident and saved the child by using a Severing Charm on the snake. The Magical Law Enforcement Patrol arrived in time to modify the memories of all Muggles involved. They believe the pool toy was bewitched with a transfiguration spell that was activated when it touched water. The incident is still under investigation.” She looked up from the paper, frowning. “Don’t they have any idea who did it?”

Harry shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so. Not last I heard, anyway.”

“Well, I sure hope they catch whoever did!” cried Hermione, her nostrils flaring in the way they always did when she got all riled up about house elf rights. “That’s not just Muggle-baiting; it’s attempted murder! They should be sent to Azkaban for that; it’s deplorable!”

“No one’s arguing with you, Hermione,” Harry said patiently. Working for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, he was aware of the recent rise in anti-Muggle activity, and he was just as concerned as Hermione. In the days before his return, Harry had witnessed Voldemort’s old followers engaging in cruel Muggle-baiting at the Quidditch World Cup. It was the sort of thing the Death Eaters did when they were bored, and the presence of a snake suggested they were somehow involved. Was this just another prank, Harry wondered, or something more sinister?

His mind muddled over this question and more the whole way to work, where he was given even bigger things to think about. “I have a job for you, Potter,” said the Head of the Auror Office himself, a man by the name of Xander Turnbull.

“A job, sir?” asked Harry, unable to hide his surprise. As an Auror still in training, he wasn’t used to dealing directly with the head of the department, so it had come as a shock when Turnbull had pulled him out of his morning magical combat class for a private word.

“That’s right. Your first field assignment, I believe?” Turnbull raised an eyebrow, and when Harry nodded, he continued, “The department has received a tip from an anonymous informant, who claims to have knowledge of the latest plot to terrorize Muggles. I trust you’ve kept up on the recent string of anti-Muggle attacks?”

Harry nodded. “There was that one yesterday, with the pool toy.”

“Yes, yes… and many more incidences prior to that. The Misuse of Magical Artifacts Office has certainly had their hands full lately.”

Harry suppressed a smile as he thought of Ron’s father, who had once been head of that office. “Do you think they could all be connected, sir? Do you think the Death Eaters are involved?”

Turnbull eyed him sharply. “It seems beneath the Death Eaters to bewitch Muggle children’s toys for a laugh, but certainly, we’ve considered the possibility.”

Harry was so used to authority figures dismissing his theories that he was surprised when Turnbull didn’t. Encouraged, he added, “I mean, the fact that it turned into a snake… sort of suggests it’s the work of Voldemort’s old pals, doesn’t it?”

Even Turnbull, Head of the Auror Office, couldn’t help but cringe at the casual way in which Harry tossed the Dark Lord’s name around. Most wizards and witches still refused to use it, referring to Voldemort as “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” or simply “You-Know-Who.” Not even death could keep Voldemort from terrorizing the Wizarding community. In a way, Harry had to admit, he’d achieved his goal of immortality. Tom Riddle’s pseudonym - and the fear it evoked - would live on in infamy. Harry wished people would just get over it.

“If, indeed, You-Know-Who’s followers are behind these recent attacks, then I suspect they are only the warm-up acts leading into tonight’s main event,” Turnbull said grimly.

“What do you mean, sir?” asked Harry, his heart beginning to pound. “What’s happening tonight?”

“Muggle girls from all over Britain will be flocking to London for a large concert put on by a popular music group from the United States, the Backstreet Boys.”

“I’ve heard of them…” Harry said slowly. He had a vague recollection of hearing the name on the Muggle entertainment channel Aunt Petunia liked to watch on television, the last summer he’d spent at number four, Privet Drive.

“Have you? Excellent, Potter. I was told you’d make a good man for the job, seeing as how you’ve lived among Muggles; you’ll know how to blend in.”

“Blend in where, sir?” asked Harry, who was starting to suspect he wasn’t going to like this assignment. “What’s the job?”

“The information we’ve received suggests that anti-Muggle extremists may be targeting Muggles - perhaps even the band itself - at tonight’s show. You’re to go to the concert undercover, to keep an eye out for suspicious activity and intervene if anything should happen. More than likely, nothing will; it’s probably an empty threat, but even so, one can never be too careful. Are you up for the challenge, Potter?”

Turnbull’s encouraging tone made it sound like dangerous, important work, but Harry wasn’t fooled. He had a feeling all of the fully-qualified Aurors had already turned it down, leaving the demeaning mission of attending a Muggle boyband concert to one of the lowly trainees. “Can I take Ron with me?” Harry asked.

“Weasley? I don’t see why not. If you have a girlfriend, bring her too, to help you blend in. The audience will be mostly female.”

Harry nodded. “Okay, sir.” Ron and Ginny would probably roll their eyes when he told them, but how could he say no to his first field assignment? They would all just have to go along with it.

As he’d expected, Ron and Ginny’s reactions were less than enthusiastic when he told them where he was taking them that night. Hermione, on the other hand, actually seemed excited. “Oh, I love the Backstreet Boys!” she squealed, bouncing up and down a little, her brown eyes aglow. “My parents gave me one of their CDs as a birthday gift.”

“One of their what?” asked Ron, wrinkling his nose in confusion.

“CDs - compact discs. They’re these flat, shiny, round objects that hold songs, and you put them in Muggle music players, and - oh, honestly, Ron, I can’t believe you never took Muggle Studies! You work for the Ministry!”

“Not in the Muggle Liaison Department,” replied Ron with a grin that clearly said, Who cares?

“But still, you should know something about Muggle culture; it’s important!” Hermione insisted. She had lightened up a lot over the years, but she still took most things far more seriously than Ron.

“That’s right, Ron, and this concert will be the perfect opportunity for you to learn,” Harry chimed in. Ron returned his mischievous grin with a mutinous look, while Hermione beamed at Harry, thinking he was on her side. Really, he just wanted to stop them both from bickering.

“So where is this concert happening?” asked Ginny, effectively changing the subject.

“Earls Court.” Harry checked his watch, the one Mrs. Weasley had given him for his seventeenth birthday. “It starts in a couple of hours, so I guess we should eat dinner and get going.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I can eat a thing; I’m so excited!” gushed Hermione. Ron just stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. For his friend’s sake, Harry hoped none of the Backstreet Boys looked like Viktor Krum. He already had a feeling this was going to be a long night.

***

At quarter ‘til nine, a sold-out crowd of 19,000 filled the Earls Court Exhibition Centre. As the swell of their voices chanting, “Backstreet Boys! Backstreet Boys!” reached his ears, Howie couldn’t help but sneak a peek out around the dark curtain that concealed him. From his vantage point high over their heads, Howie looked down at the sea of fans in awe. It still amazed him that so many people would come out to see him perform each night.

“Anything going on down there?” Howie heard AJ’s voice ask in his ear.

Howie shrugged. “Just the usual.”

The crowd below was getting restless, as evidenced by the impatient chanting and the bobbing heads and the flailing arms as “the wave” went around and around the arena. But it wouldn’t be long now; Howie, AJ, and the others were secured in their harnesses and just waiting for their cue to descend to the stage. How strange it seemed that such a spectacle had become “the usual.”

“I can’t wait to get this show on the road,” said AJ, making the wires hooked to his harness jiggle as he bounced up and down. He was always wound up before a show, but he had seemed especially edgy all day. In fact, AJ had been acting strange - stranger than usual, anyway - for the past two days, ever since the odd encounter with the owl outside their tour bus. He still wouldn’t say what was really in the envelope the owl had been carrying, would barely acknowledge that the letter-carrying owl even existed, and that was what had Howie and the others so puzzled. They knew they hadn’t just imagined the owl. They also knew AJ could be secretive, but it wasn’t like him not to confide in them about something they’d all witnessed, something he seemed to know more about than the rest of them.

Whatever it was - and no amount of alcohol seemed to be enough to get AJ to spill - the incident had rattled the characteristically cool AJ. He’d been acting increasingly paranoid, always looking over his shoulder and checking his pockets, fidgeting with his wallet or whatever else he was carrying around. He hadn’t left the guys’ sight since they’d arrived in London, but to Howie, it seemed like AJ hadn’t really “been there” at all. He always looked like he was miles away, lost in his own thoughts. The old AJ loved to be the center of attention, but this latest version kept to himself in a corner of the room. He had come alive right before the show, volunteering to lead the prayer that was part of their pre-show ritual, but even that was unlike AJ. Usually Brian or Kevin led the prayer, while the others just joined hands and said “Amen” at the end. AJ had done a good job, praying for another safe, successful show, but Howie couldn’t help but question his motive for volunteering, when he never had before.

There was no time to wonder now, though. A collective scream rose to the rafters, as the house lights dimmed. Howie still got goosebumps just from hearing the fans’ reaction, and his heart raced with the rush of adrenaline he always got before he went on stage. “Here we go,” he told AJ, anticipating the moment when the curtain would drop and so would they.

***

Down below, Harry looked around in utter bewilderment. He was surrounded by girls, his age or younger, who were screaming, “Backstreet Boys! Backstreet Boys!” at the top of their lungs. Some of them held handmade signs, proclaiming their love for the boyband’s members; others had written the Boys’ names across their cheeks and foreheads. Many of them were wearing t-shirts featuring the Boys’ faces. Harry was glad the level of fanaticism with which Muggles regarded their celebrities hadn’t carried over to the Wizarding world; he shuddered to imagine his own face plastered across a set of wizard’s robes.

Sitting beside him, Ginny looked just as bewildered. “Are they going to act like this all night?” she asked him at one point. She had to lean over and speak directly into his ear to be heard over the incessant screaming.

Harry shrugged. “I dunno, you tell me.” When Ginny frowned, clearly not following, he added, “You’re a teenage girl, aren’t you? You should know better than I do how they operate.”

Ginny looked offended. “Excuse me? Have you ever seen me behave this way around anyone? Did I scream my head off for the Weird Sisters when they played the Yule Ball? Did I chase Viktor Krum around, begging for his autograph? No, that was my brother.”

Harry was glad that Ron was sitting two seats away, too far to hear Ginny’s last comment or to see Harry’s smirk. “True,” he admitted, chuckling. “And I’m glad. But maybe you should act a little more enthused to be here - I mean, we’re supposed to be Muggle fans, right? You don’t want to blow our cover.”

Ginny rolled her eyes at him. “I don’t see you painting ‘Nick’ all over your face.”

“But I’m a bloke. I’m posing as the dutiful boyfriend who agreed to go with girlfriend to the concert, see?” Harry grinned. “You’re the one who’s got to pretend to be a fan if we’re to convince anyone.”

“Oh, I think Hermione’s doing a convincing enough job for the both of us,” Ginny said loftily.

Looking past her, Harry had to agree. Hermione was bouncing on the balls of her feet, one arm in the air, pumping her fist as she shouted, “Backstreet Boys! Backstreet Boys!” along with the crowd. Harry had a feeling she wasn’t just acting. He’d seen Hermione act before; her impersonation of Bellatrix Lestrange was far less believable than this. She had transformed into a full-fledged Backstreet Boys fanatic.

Harry craned his neck further, curious to see Ron’s reaction. He was standing on Hermione’s other side, and the look on his slightly pink face was priceless. Harry had seen a similar look on his friend’s face before - when Hermione turned out to be Krum’s date to the Yule Ball… when Hermione invited Cormac McLaggen to Slughorn’s Christmas party… and when Lavender Brown gave him the large gold necklace that said My Sweetheart that same Christmas - but this look surpassed them all, as if all the previous looks had been superimposed over the top of each other and pasted onto his face. It was the look of sheer disgust warring with total disbelief. Harry couldn’t resist the urge to call down to them, “Enjoying yourselves?”

“Oh, yes! I just can’t wait for the Boys to come out!” gushed Hermione. Behind her back, Ron made a rude gesture that answered the question quite adequately. Harry offered him an apologetic shrug, as if to say, Sorry, mate, duty calls.

Then, suddenly, the arena went dark. The screams rose to a decibel that made Harry want to cover his ears. He looked over the edge of the second-level balcony in which they were sitting and saw nothing but camera flashes, creating a strobe light effect as they went off every fraction of a second in all directions. He wasn’t sure what they were taking pictures of, for the stage was still empty, but soon, a single-file line of figures strode up one of the aisles, marching toward the stage. There were ten in all, and they each carried a tall torch of light. Music accompanied their procession; Harry recognized it from Star Wars - Dudley had been a fan.

Although some of the torch-bearers were women, Harry assumed the others were the Backstreet Boys. But he was evidently wrong, because once they’d put the torches in place around the perimeter of the pentagonal stage, the music changed, and the audience started screaming even louder and pointing over their heads. Harry looked up and was surprised to see the five Backstreet Boys suspended from the ceiling, riding on what appeared to be flying surfboards.

“What are they using, a Hover Charm?” asked Ginny in Harry’s ear.

“No, just cables,” Harry replied, pointing them out to her. Magic or not, he had to admit, the effect was still impressive. The fans certainly thought so. They never stopped screaming as the Boys were lowered down to the stage.

The whole time, Harry’s eyes darted around the arena, searching for signs of trouble. But with tens of thousands of people packed into three levels of seating on all sides, he knew it was going to be difficult to spot anything in time to stop it.

For the first few numbers, there was nothing. Then, during a song that was, ironically, called “Quit Playing Games,” the games began.

As part of the performance, the five Backstreet Boys were clipped to another set of cables, which lifted them up and over the audience again. “They sure do like to fly, these Muggle boys,” Ginny commented sarcastically. Harry didn’t reply; he was too busy watching… and waiting. Because although the cables kept the Boys out of their fans’ reach, they’d also put them right in range of a wizard’s wand. If anyone magical wanted to harm them, now was the time to strike. Harry slipped his hand into his pocket, his fingers tightening around his wand. He never took his eyes off the Boys.

A couple of them seemed content to merely dangle from their cables, but the others were having fun with it, hanging upside down, turning flips, acting like they were flying through the air. Then one of them - the wiry one with the wispy curls - started to spin. His cables crossed over each other and twisted together. The fans around Harry laughed and cheered, but Harry wasn’t convinced he was doing it on purpose. He watched through narrowed eyes as the cables corkscrewed as far up as he could see, then rapidly began to unwind. The boy hanging from their twisted ends began to turn like a top in the other direction, faster and faster and faster, until he was almost a blur. Harry could see his head lolling around, his arms and legs flailing about, and knew he was not in control of his own body.

Ginny knew it, too. “Is something making him do that?” she asked in a low voice, leaning into Harry.

“Not something. Someone,” said Harry. As he looked around for the source, he saw a Muggle girl shoot out of the crowd and soar high up into the air, somersaulting wildly. It was then that the audience seemed to realize this wasn’t just a part of the show. Harry felt sickeningly helpless as he listened to their shrieks of delight turn into screams of terror.

***

Howie was hanging in midair when it happened. One moment, he was flying over the fans, teasing them with the bouquet of flowers he held over their heads, and the next, he was aware of them pointing, open-mouthed, not paying attention to him at all.

He looked to his left and saw Brian spinning like a top. Well, that was weird; it wasn’t like Brian, who was afraid of heights, to mess around on his wires. While some of the guys liked to flip and hang upside down, Brian usually stayed right side up. Howie had never seen him spin like that, and they’d been specifically told not to, as it tangled the wires. Brian joked around a lot, but he wasn’t one to disregard safety rules.

Just when Howie was starting to worry something was wrong, he heard a sudden upsurge in the screams. He looked to his right and got a horrible shock when he realized there was a girl, a fan, turning head over heels in midair. For a split second, he thought she must have fallen over one of the balconies, but before she could plummet to the ground, she appeared to bounce right back up into the air. Some invisible force seemed to be jerking her up and down, like she was a rag doll being repeatedly tossed about.

Howie had no idea what to make of it, let alone what to do. He saw Kevin, who was closest, try to reach for the girl, swinging on his wire to bring himself closer to her, but even at the peak of his swing, he was still several feet short. Howie turned helplessly back to Brian, who was still spinning. What was happening?

It was then that he saw AJ, who was on Brian’s other side, do something equally unexplainable. Reaching down into his black, leather pants, AJ withdrew a long, narrow, wooden stick. He waved it around in the air and shouted something. The screams stifled his words, but amplified through his microphone, they sounded something like, “Ackeyo surfboard!” And to Howie’s surprise, one of the surfboards upon which they’d ridden to the stage came hurtling toward AJ. He made a slashing motion with the wooden stick in his hand, somehow severing the wires that suspended him in midair, and dropped onto the surfboard. Straddling it, he rode the floating surfboard over to Brian, cut his wires as well, and pulled Brian onto the board behind him.

How is he doing this? Howie wondered, staring in disbelief at what he was seeing. He watched the surfboard soar past him, rocketing over to the girl who was still somersaulting through the air. Somehow, AJ and Brian managed to grab hold of her and sandwich her safely between the two of them on the surfboard. How, Howie still didn’t understand. There was nothing to support any of them, nor the surfboard - no wires, no harnesses, no moving platforms. How were they all afloat in midair?

Frightened, he squirmed frantically in his harness, wanting to feel solid ground beneath his feet again. In response, he felt the wires pulling him back down toward the stage. The screaming had died down, and only then did Howie realize that the band had stopped playing. Everyone seemed stunned; no one knew how to react. Most of the fans below him were frozen with fear, but some had started to flee, pushing and shoving as they squeezed through the rows in a panic, trampling each other as they flooded the aisles.

Then the screaming started again, as flashes of light flickered in Howie’s peripherals. Turning his head, he saw a black-haired boy in the first row of the balcony, pointing a stick in the air and using it to shoot a red streak of light across the arena. Howie followed the arc of light to the floor, where several hooded figures towered over the fans who were cowering around them. They, too, wielded sticks, which were firing bolts of thunder and lightning into the air.

Howie screamed as someone grabbed him from behind, but it was only his bodyguard, pulling him onto the stage. He was quickly unhooked from his wire and dragged to the central platform, where he was joined by Nick and Kevin. “Wait!” he shouted, as he felt the platform start to move, lowering them to the dressing area underneath the stage. “What about AJ and Brian?”

But this question, like so many that night, went unanswered.

***

“Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus!” Harry shouted over and over again, trying to disarm the Death Eaters without harming any of the Muggles in their midst. It hadn’t taken him long to spot them, standing among the fans on the floor, their black hoods making them two heads taller than the little girls who surrounded them.

It didn’t take the Death Eaters much longer to spot Harry, once he started shooting spells their way. Harry was actually relieved when they turned their attention onto him; he would rather be their target than watch them continue to torture innocent Muggles. It was like the Quidditch World Cup all over again. He, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny simply dodged their curses and fired back hexes of their own, but it was difficult to aim accurately from so far away, especially with the swarms of fans forming an inadvertent human shield. More than ever, Harry wished he had his Firebolt so he could fly down to the floor and duel the Death Eaters at closer range.

No sooner had this thought occurred to him than he heard a magnified voice boom, “Accio surfboard!” Remembering that he was at a Muggle concert, Harry’s head shot up in surprise. He watched, astonished, as one of the surfboards from the start of the show sailed toward the Backstreet Boy with the tattooed arms and crazy hair, who was still hanging from his cables and holding a wand in his hand. A wand! “He’s a wizard?!” Harry cried out loud, looking to Ginny, Hermione, and Ron. They seemed just as stunned.

They and all the Muggles watched, though the Muggles surely couldn’t believe what they were seeing, as the Backstreet Boy used a Severing Charm to cut his cables and let himself fall onto the surfboard. “Now he must be using a Hover Charm,” Harry told Ginny. It was a good idea. He was just about to summon the other four surfboards, when he saw one of the Death Eaters raise his wand and point it directly at the wand-wielding Backstreet Boy. “Expelliarmus!” Harry bellowed, successfully disarming the Death Eater.

Another round of spells were volleyed back and forth, during which the Backstreet Boy had time to pull both his bandmate and the Muggle girl to safety on his floating surfboard. The other boys were being lowered to the stage, and the fans had started screaming again and running in a panic, clearing a path to the Death Eaters. Just when Harry thought he’d get his chance to take them out, once and for all, he heard a high voice echo through the concert hall:

“MORSMORDRE!”

Then there was an earthshaking blast, like an explosion, and the heavy metal rafters clanged together as they tumbled from the barrel-shaped roof. And Harry knew, even before he looked up, what he would see through the hole in the ceiling: a glittering green skull in the sky, spewing a serpent from its mouth.

The Dark Mark.

“Just like the World Cup,” Harry whispered. His eyes dropped back down to the Death Eaters, wondering which one of them had cast it, but in the split second he’d looked away, the hooded figures had disappeared.

***

BOOM.

The whole stage shook. Fearing it would cave in on top of them, Kevin threw himself to the floor and covered his head with his hands. “Get down!” he ordered the others, and they fell to the ground beside him, but as soon as the shaking stopped, Kevin was up on his feet again, looking around in a panic. “Brian and AJ are still out there!” he told whoever would listen. “Someone needs to go get them!”

But before any of their bodyguards could climb back up onto the stage, AJ and Brian jumped down through the hole in its center to the platform below.

“Oh, thank God!” was Kevin’s first reaction, as he rushed over to pull his cousin into a hug. Holding Brian by the shoulders, he looked him up and down. “Are you alright?”

“Just a little shaky,” said Brian, with a nervous laugh. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I think I mighta got some whiplash from all that spinnin’ around.”

“So you weren’t doing it on purpose?” asked Nick. Howie was already shaking his head before Brian could. They all knew Brian hadn’t made himself spin that way, just as they knew that fan hadn’t sprouted wings and taken flight. As for AJ and the flying surfboard…

Kevin rounded on AJ. “You wanna explain what the hell happened out there?”

AJ shook his head. “I have no idea what that was. Someone was messing with us, man.”

Kevin narrowed his eyes at AJ, fixing him with a piercing stare. If there was one thing he hated, it was when people played dumb. “Someone? You mean someone who can make people fly? Someone who can make things fly? Someone like… you?”

He never took his eyes off AJ, but he could sense the others staring, too, waiting to see how AJ would respond. When AJ offered no explanation, Kevin was outraged. “Who the hell are you?!” he shouted, sending flecks of spit flying into AJ’s face. “What are you?”

AJ fidgeted with his hands, refusing to look him in the eye. “I… I’m…” he stammered.

“SPIT IT OUT, AJ!”

“I’m…”

“He’s a wizard.”

There was silence beneath the stage. In shock, everyone looked around for the source of the unfamiliar voice. Standing in the center of the lowered platform was a skinny boy, no older than Nick, with untidy black hair and brilliant green eyes that were magnified by round glasses.

“He’s a what?” gasped Kevin.

“A wizard, dawg,” said AJ, finding his voice at last. “And a fuckin’ good one, too… though maybe not as good as him.” He jerked a thumb casually toward the black-haired boy.

Kevin’s eyes darted between them. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and all he said instead was, “Who is he?”

AJ chuckled. “He’s Harry Potter… aren’t you?”

The boy smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, I am.”

“I knew it!” shouted AJ triumphantly. “I saw your scar.”

Kevin noticed the boy raise his hand self-consciously to a spot on his forehead. When he lowered it again, Kevin could just make out a thin, jagged scar that was shaped like a lightning bolt. It was definitely a remarkable feature. But what it meant, what any of this meant, Kevin had no idea. He was still trying to wrap his head around what AJ had said. A wizard?! Surely, such a thing didn’t exist in the real world. But then, what else could explain what he’d witnessed in the arena that night?

More questions exploded inside Kevin’s head like fireworks, and he couldn’t decide which to ask first. Howie saved him the trouble by asking, “What happened to the girl? The one in the air?”

“She’s fine. She’s having her memory modified as we speak,” said the boy called Harry Potter. “Don’t worry, she won’t remember a thing.” Turning to speak directly to AJ, he added in a low voice, “I sent a Patronus to my supervisor at the Ministry. He’s ordered a team of Aurors to try and track down the Death Eaters who did this, but I doubt they’ll have much luck, since they Disapparated as soon as the Dark Mark was cast.”

“So it really was You-Know-Who’s old buddies behind this?” asked AJ. “What, they don’t have anything better to do now that their leader’s gone?”

“Exactly,” said Harry at once. Kevin was having a much harder time following the conversation, and Brian, Howie, and Nick looked just as confused. “Muggle-baiting was their favorite hobby before Voldemort came back, so now that he’s gone for good, it makes sense that they’ve taken it up again. There’ve been several other incidents in Britain recently, and the Ministry heard a rumor that they might turn up here tonight. That’s why we came.”

“And here I thought you were just a closet BSB fan all along,” laughed AJ. “Just kidding. Yeah, I heard about the threat; someone sent me an owl to warn me.”

“So that’s what was in that letter!” Nick exploded, thrusting his finger at AJ. “An owl delivers a warning that someone might try to attack us and our fans at our own show, and you don’t think you should tell us?! Not cool, dude. Not cool.”

AJ snorted. “Like you would have believed me. You would have thought I was trying to one-up your little hand-in-warm-water trick - which, by the way, there’s a spell for. Urina relashio!” He waved what Kevin realized was a magic wand around in the air and pointed it at Nick. Almost immediately, a wet spot saturated the crotch of Nick’s pants.

Clenching his thighs together, Nick looked down at himself in horror, then back up at AJ. “What the fuck, dude?!”

“Heh, sorry, bro, couldn’t help messin’ with you a little.” AJ snickered. “Here, I’ll take care of it.” He flicked his wand casually at Nick a second time and muttered, “Scourgify!” Kevin watched in amazement as soap bubbles foamed up out of the wet stain on Nick’s pants, which quickly began to dry. In a matter of seconds, it was impossible to tell Nick had ever wet himself.

“Whoa!” shouted Brian, pointing at Nick’s crotch in disbelief. “So you can just go around making folks pee their pants with that thing?”

AJ laughed, spinning the wand between his fingers like a baton. “Oh, I can do a hell of a lot more than that, my friend.”

He started to raise the wand again, but Harry stepped into his path. “Hey, watch it with the showing off,” Kevin heard Harry warn him in an undertone. “Statute of Secrecy, remember? It’s bad enough they had to see you do magic, but we don’t want them blowing our cover before the Obliviators come to modify their memories.”

Kevin felt himself frowning deeply, as the meaning of this warning slowly sunk in. Before he could stop himself, he asked in a loud voice, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘MODIFY OUR MEMORIES’?”

His words seemed to echo through the cavernous underbelly of the stage. A stunned silence followed, as everyone turned to stare.

***

Oh, lovely, thought Harry, realizing his mistake in allowing himself to be overheard. In a matter of minutes, all of the Muggles would forget what he’d said, as well as what they’d seen, but until then, it made for a rather awkward situation.

The wizard popstar, AJ, turned to his bushy-browed bandmate, his expression apologetic. “Kevin…”

“You mean make us forget what really happened here tonight, don’t you?” Kevin accused, glaring at AJ. “Whatever this was, whatever you are, you want to keep it a secret, like you’ve always kept it from us!”

“It’s not like that, bro,” AJ pleaded. “If I could’ve told you, I would have, but…” Then he paused, trailing off, and turned to look at Harry. “But… the families of Muggle-borns are exempt from the Statute, aren’t they? I mean, those Muggles who raised you… they knew you were a wizard, didn’t they?”

Harry raised his eyebrows, remembering how hard the Dursleys had tried to deny it, how they’d sworn to put a stop to it, to “stamp it out of him,” as Uncle Vernon once put it. “Yes, but-”

“But what? These guys-” AJ made a sweeping gesture that included all four Backstreet Boys. “-are my family. My brothers. Maybe not by blood, but what does that matter?”

What does blood matter? Harry had posed this same question in response to the Wizarding obsession with “pure” blood. He had witnessed his friends being persecuted for not being pure: Hermione, for being Muggle-born; Hagrid, for being half-giant; Lupin, for being a werewolf. Harry, who’d grown up hating the Muggle relatives who had raised him, understood how very little blood mattered. Aunt Petunia and Dudley may have been his blood, but they weren’t his family. He’d found his true family at Hogwarts.

With that in mind, it didn’t take Harry long to consider AJ’s question. “You’re right,” he admitted. “It doesn’t.”

“They have a right to know,” AJ added.

“Of course,” said Harry, “if that’s what you want.”

AJ nodded. “I think it’s time.”

“What about the others?” Harry gestured to the crowd of people who had gathered around them - security guards and back-up dancers, stylists and stagehands. Did he mean to break the Statute for all of them?

AJ shook his head just a fraction of a centimeter, enough for Harry to get the message even without Legilimency. No, the message said. Not all of them.

Harry understood. “I’ll let the Obliviators know,” he replied, and went back up top, where Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were helping the Ministry officials round up all the panicked Muggles to have their memories modified. “Someone needs to go and fetch all of the crew from underneath the stage,” Harry told Hermione. “They’re all to have their memories wiped… except for the Backstreet Boys.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. “You mean they knew all along? They knew he was one of us?”

Harry’s only reply was, “They know now.”

***

It was eerily quiet in the Backstreet Boys’ dressing room. All of their roadies, their dancers, and their bodyguards had been escorted to another part of the venue, so the authorities could “take their statements.” Kevin now understood this to mean “erase their memories.” The idea sickened him, but he knew better than to say so out loud. His own memory had been spared, and for that, he was grateful.

He didn’t want to push his luck, but there was so much more on his mind, so many things he wanted to say, so many questions to which he wanted answers. He thought he might burst if he didn’t break the silence soon. Finally, he said, “So what’s the deal, AJ? You decided to let us keep our memories of tonight - thanks, by the way - but would you mind filling us in on what the hell happened here?”

From the way Nick, Brian, and Howie all nodded, he could tell they’d been wanting to ask the same thing.

AJ surveyed them through his half-lowered sunglasses. “Yeah, I guess it’s time,” he said, “for me to tell you what I should have told you guys six years ago. Sit down, alright? I’m gonna tell you everything.”

***

 

AJ looked into the faces of his four bandmates, his four brothers, and found himself at a loss for words. It was surreal; he had imagined this moment and how it might unfold so many times over the past six years, but now that it had finally arrived, he realized he didn’t have the slightest idea where to begin. Might as well start at the beginning, he decided, and so he did.

“Nine years ago…” His raspy voice faltered, as if the words themselves were unwilling to be let out, wanting to remain a secret locked away inside of him forever. He paused to clear his throat, then started again. “Nine years ago, when I was twelve, I got a letter. It was like the one I got yesterday on the bus, delivered by an owl, only this letter came from a school. It was a school of magic, a place for young witches and wizards to be educated.”

“Witches and wizards,” Brian repeated, staring at him incredulously. AJ could tell he was having a hard time believing it, despite what he’d witnessed that very night.

“You saw what I can do,” said AJ. “I didn’t understand it then, but I always knew I was different. When my powers first manifested themselves, I felt like a freak; I tried to hide them, not knowing what I was. My mom didn’t think I had a magical bone in my body, before I got my letter.”

“Your mom?” asked Howie, raising his eyebrows. “You mean Denise-?”

“Yeah, she’s a witch. But she married a Muggle - a non-magical person - and her grandmother was a Squib, meaning someone born to magical parents who doesn’t have any magical ability themselves, so she just figured I got stuck at the shallow end of the gene pool. She was used to living around Muggles, so she just raised me as one, up until the day the owl came.”

“So… magic - it’s inherited?” Deep furrows appeared in Kevin’s forehead as he frowned with the effort of trying to process something that was far beyond his practical way of thinking. AJ doubted Kevin had ever even pretended to have magical powers as a kid, let alone believed magic was real.

“Yeah, it’s passed down just like any other trait.” AJ shrugged. “It’s kind of a big deal to some in the Wizarding world - the purists, who think wizards and witches should only marry their own kind to keep their bloodlines pure. But that’s bullshit - if we didn’t intermarry with Muggles, we’d have died out a long time ago. That said, you’ll find a lot of inbreeding among old Wizarding families, who still insist on marrying their second cousins and stuff.”

“Hey, just like in Kentucky!” quipped Nick, smirking at Kevin and Brian.

AJ laughed at the look on Kevin’s face after that comment. “Yeah, so anyway, you know how I told you my mom and I moved to Kissimmee so I could pursue more acting opportunities? Well, the truth is, we moved so I could go to this Wizarding school in Orlando. The Apollo Academy of Magical Arts, it’s called.”

“There are schools for wizards?” Poor Kevin’s bushy brows were knitted so closely together, he looked like he had a unibrow.

“Yep. I studied there for three years, until the group got going, and then, you know, I got tutored.”

“You mean to tell me our homeschool teacher was a witch?!” cried Nick. “I mean, I know I probably called her that from time to time, but I never really thought it was true. Like, literally true.”

AJ chuckled. “Yeah, she was a witch. Muggle-born, though, so I guess it wasn’t hard for her to tutor little Muggle brats like you.” He paused to grin at Nick. “Now you know why we had some of our lessons separate.”

“I just thought it was because you were older than me…” mused Nick, a light of comprehension dawning on his face. “So the whole time, you were learning how to do magic?”

AJ nodded.

“Damn… wish I could’ve seen. How come you never told us??”

“We’re not supposed to reveal ourselves to Muggles. Like Harry said, there’s actually an International Statute of Secrecy that was established in the late 1600s, around the same time as the Salem Witch Trials. We were facing so much persecution by Muggles back then, the whole Wizarding community was forced into hiding. We’ve kept ourselves hidden ever since.”

“So the Salem Witch Trials… those people were really witches, then?” asked Howie, his eyes wide.

AJ shrugged. “Maybe some of them, but it’s doubtful. No real witch would allow herself to be burned alive by a Muggle. On the rare occasion they did get caught, all they had to do was cast a Flame Freezing Charm and fake like they were in pain… or just disapparate - disappear into thin air.”

Brian’s eyes were just as huge as Howie’s. “Can you do that? Disappear into thin air?”

“Sure,” said AJ casually. Before they could ask, he focused on a floor tile just behind them, then turned on the spot. He heard a loud crack and felt a crushing pressure closing in on him from all sides, as his body was squeezed through the blackness of space.

Less than second later, he was spat out onto the floor with a pop! The four guys spun around, startled, and leapt back in surprise. “Holy shit!” cried Nick, pointing. The others stared at him, their mouths gaping wide open. AJ offered another shrug, feeling rather like a sideshow freak.

He supposed he couldn’t blame the guys for being shocked. His father’s reaction had been much worse, when he found out his wife was really a witch. It was the reason he had left AJ’s mother, and AJ had never forgiven him for it, though, in his defense, his mother probably should have been a bit more upfront with him before they got married. It was a fine line witches and wizards walked, knowing when to tell and when to keep their secret.

But now that the guys knew the truth, AJ felt like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. For the first time in six years, he could finally be himself around them, and to AJ, that was the most magical thing that had happened all night.

***

Harry and his friends had moved to the lobby of the exhibition centre, where Obliviators from the Ministry of Magic were stationed at every exit, modifying the memories of Muggle fans on their way out the doors. “Glad to see this is going faster than the security check on the way in,” Harry commented, remembering how they’d each been probed by a sort of Muggle wand meant to detect weapons - but only Muggle weapons, of course.

“It would have gone faster if Hermione here hadn’t brought along that damn beaded bag of hers,” grumbled Ron, rolling his eyes at Hermione.

Hermione held up her small, purple purse, allowing it to dangle on the end of its thin strap. “Might I remind you that this ‘damn beaded bag’ of mine saved our lives, on several occasions?” The handbag had been invaluable when they were on the run, due to the Undetectable Extension Charm Hermione had placed on it in order to conceal all of their supplies inside. Evidently, the charm was still in place, because the Muggle security man who had checked her bag was bewildered when his probe couldn’t find the bottom.

It was a good thing the charm was undetectable, but even if the Muggles’ metal-detecting wands had also been able to detect magic, Harry knew that no Muggle security measure would have been capable of keeping the Death Eaters out. Not even Hogwarts, with its many protective enchantments, had been able to withstand an attack by Voldemort’s army when it was at full force. Harry was just relieved there had only been a few Death Eaters present at the concert, and that they hadn’t done any lasting harm.

As for Ron and Hermione…

“Yeah, well, might I remind you that you tried to castrate me, on several occasions, with those jeans you packed that were too tight?”

“Like it’s my fault your jeans no longer fit! Maybe if you’d stop eating for once…”

“Oh, enough already!” With a loud huff, Ginny stepped in between Ron and Hermione before they could cause each other any lasting harm. “Do you two ever stop bickering?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Harry couldn’t resist the opportunity to remark, “Barely! That’s one thing I didn’t miss about Hogwarts this-”

“Harry Potter?”

Harry turned, surprised at having been recognized in the midst of so many Muggles, and saw a familiar pair of protuberant gray eyes light up.

“I thought that was you!” their owner cried as she trotted over to him, her tangle of waist-length, dirty blonde hair billowing behind her.

“Luna! What are you doing here?” Harry asked curiously, looking her up and down.

Luna Lovegood looked as dotty as ever, wearing her Butterbeer cork necklace over a Backstreet Boys t-shirt and a bright pair of flowered bellbottoms. Harry was relieved to see she’d left her roaring Gryffindor lion hat at home.

“I’m on assignment for Daddy’s magazine,” answered Luna, whose father published a wizarding tabloid called The Quibbler. “It was rumored Stubby Boardman would make an appearance here tonight, as one of the Backstreet Boys’ opening acts.”

“You mean Sirius?” blurted Ron, ripping open the old, familiar hole in Harry’s stomach. “’Cause there’s no way he could be here tonight; Sirius is dead, remember?”

“Yes, and thank you, Ron, for kindly reminding us all,” snapped Hermione, shooting Harry a sympathetic glance.

Harry just shrugged, as if to say, It’s okay; I’m used to it. After three years, it shouldn’t have hurt so much just to hear his godfather’s name spoken, but when it happened without warning like that, it still felt like a blow straight to the gut, like the wind had been knocked out of him.

“Sorry, mate,” Ron apologized, his ears reddening.

“That’s alright,” said Luna, oblivious. “Stubby didn’t make it either. Do you think those Death Eaters had something to do with it? I don’t think they were Backstreet Boys fans.”

Harry chortled. “Probably not. Looks like you’re fan, though.” He pointed to Luna’s t-shirt.

She looked down at it and smiled. “Well, I do find them rather attractive…”

Ron stuck his finger in his mouth and made a retching noise, as Hermione gushed, “Oh, me too, Luna! Which one’s your favorite?”

“This one, I suppose,” said Luna, pointing out AJ on her t-shirt. “He was interesting.”

“Especially when he whipped out his wand, right?” added Harry with a grin. Ginny elbowed him in the ribs.

“Yes, I didn’t realize he was magical. I thought they were all Muggles.”

“They thought they were all Muggles, too,” said Harry. “Speaking of which, I should probably go make sure they’re still alright. Anyone care to join me?”

Luna and Hermione both nodded, and grudgingly, Ron and Ginny trudged along after them as Harry led them back to the stage. On the way, he asked Luna, “So, how was your last term at Hogwarts? I haven’t seen you in awhile.”

“Quite ordinary, thanks,” Luna replied. “I saw you at King’s Cross the other day. I wanted to say hello, but you seemed a bit preoccupied.”

Harry felt his face heat up as he remembered his reunion with Ginny. “Sorry, Luna, I didn’t even notice you there,” he said truthfully.

“Yes, I seem to have a knack for going unnoticed, don’t I?” Luna replied cheerfully. “It only took you four years to notice me at Hogwarts.”

Luna also had a knack for saying uncomfortably honest things. Outside the stage door, Harry shifted his weight awkwardly. “Er… yeah. Sorry about that, too.”

“That’s alright.” Luna smiled and pointed to the door. “So is this where we go to see the Backstreet Boys?”

“Yeah… through here.” Harry ushered the others into the Boys’ dressing room beneath the stage. “I’m back, and I’ve brought a few friends!” he called out to announce his arrival. “Hope you don’t mind - a couple of them are fans.”

The five Backstreet Boys looked up as they walked in. Harry could tell they had been deep in conversation. “Oh good, you’re back,” said AJ. “I was just telling them about You-Know-Who, but I’m sure you tell it a lot better.” He looked at Harry expectantly. His four bandmates just looked bewildered.

Harry sighed. He really didn’t want to relive what he’d spent the better part of the past year trying to put behind him, but he supposed after what they had witnessed that night, they deserved to know. “Alright,” he agreed, “but just so you know, I don’t buy into all that ‘You-Know-Who’ and ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’ rubbish. If I’m going to tell the story, I’m going to call him by his proper name: Voldemort.”

***

“So let me get this straight,” said Kevin, once Harry had finished talking. “This guy, Voldemort-” He was interrupted by a squeak from Harry’s friend Ron. “Sorry… I mean, You-Know-Who?”

“Voldemort,” Harry repeated firmly, glaring at his friend. “There’s no reason to fear him or his name anymore. Voldemort’s dead.”

“Yeah, so, anyway… this Voldemort guy, he tried to kill you as a baby? Because of some prophecy?” Watching his cousin’s caterpillar eyebrows wriggle on his forehead, Brian suppressed a smirk. It was so like Kevin to want to go over every detail of the story Harry had just told, just to make sure he’d understood it correctly.

Harry nodded.

“And his curse backfired, so he disappeared… but then he came back?”

“People thought he had died, but he was never really gone. See, he was afraid of death, so he split his soul into seven pieces and hid them inside different objects, called Horcruxes. As long as part of his soul was alive inside a Horcrux, he couldn’t be killed. The curse that rebounded only killed his body, not his soul, so for thirteen years, he existed as a bodiless soul. He could possess other creatures, temporarily, and try to get them to do his bidding, but he couldn’t be restored to full power without his body.”

“So that’s where his servant comes in? The one who used to be a rat?”

Harry nodded again. “Wormtail. He nursed Voldemort back to health and performed the spell that restored his body.”

“Using your blood.”

Another nod. “My blood, which contained the magical protection my mother’s sacrifice gave me.”

“So when Voldemort tried to kill you again, it still didn’t work.”

“Right. All he ended up doing was killing another bit of his own soul, which had existed inside me ever since the night he killed my parents. Turns out, I was one of the Horcruxes all along.”

“Seriously freaky,” said Nick.

“So then,” Kevin continued, “after you destroyed all of the Horcruxes, you were able to kill Voldemort.”

“Killed the same way he lost his body the first time,” Ron interjected with a gleeful grin. “His own Killing Curse rebounded when he tried to take out Harry.”

“And this all happened a year ago?”

“Last May.”

Last May… Brian had undergone heart surgery last May. And, all of a sudden, the memory came back to him. The strangely-dressed people he’d seen on the streets of Orlando. The news reports of rampant owl sightings he’d watched from his hospital room in Rochester. Suddenly, it all seemed to make sense. “Kevin!” he cried. “Those people we saw, the day you drove me to the airport before my surgery… those people in cloaks!”

Kevin’s brow furrowed again, casting shadows over his eyes. Then Brian saw his eyes light up. “Oh yeah!” he said, pointing at Brian and nodding vigorously. “I remember… one of them even hugged me!”

“Sounds like wizards,” agreed Ron.

“Sounds like Dedalus Diggle,” muttered Harry under his breath. Brian supposed this was an inside joke, since the name meant nothing to him.

“He even said something about ‘You-Know-Who’ being gone at last,” Kevin went on. “It meant nothing to me at the time, but now I understand what he was celebrating.”

“Our whole world was celebrating that day,” said the bushy brown-haired girl. “Imagine how the Muggles felt at the end of World War II, after Hitler fell. Voldemort was our Hitler.”

“Who’s Hitler?” asked Ron, his long nose crinkling in confusion.

“Who’s Hitler?” Nick repeated incredulously, his blue eyes widening. “Even I know that!”

“Forgive Ron; he’s a pureblood who refused to take Muggle Studies. He doesn’t know anything about Muggle culture or history,” said the girl snippily, rolling her eyes. “I, on the other hand, am Muggle-born and attended the finest Muggle schools until I was eleven, at which point I started my wizarding education at Hogwarts… but I still took Muggle Studies! Hermione Granger,” she added as an afterthought, extending her hand to Nick.

She spoke so fast that it was difficult for Brian to catch everything she’d said, but when he saw Nick shaking her hand, he took the last part to be her name. A full round of introductions followed, and Brian learned that the other two girls were named Ginny and Luna.

“I quite enjoyed your show,” said the blonde, Luna, looking around at each of the five Backstreet Boys before her big, blue eyes locked on AJ. “I’ve never been to a real concert before. Being a part of that big crowd made me feel almost cool.”

Brian couldn’t help but notice the way AJ was looking back at her, his eyes moving up and down her body. Uh-oh, he thought.

“Well, thanks,” said AJ, smiling at her, “but what on earth would make you think you aren’t cool to begin with? Only a cool chick would wear a necklace like that. Did you make it yourself?”

“Why, yes, I did,” replied Luna, fingering her long chain of what appeared to be wine corks, which bounced against the Backstreet Boys’ faces on her oversized t-shirt. She beamed at AJ. “I could make you one, too, if you’d like.”

“I’d love that,” he said, nodding.

Kevin cleared his throat loudly. “Excuse me. Not to interrupt this little love fest, but can we get back to business here? I still want to know who did this and why.”

“Yeah, me too,” Brian agreed, massaging his neck, which was still sore. He felt sick just thinking about what it had been like to lose control of his own body, to feel himself spinning on his wire without making it happen, as if he were a puppet, being manipulated by invisible hands. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Although he’d always had a fear of heights, he had never been more terrified, not even before his heart surgery. He wanted to make sure it would never happen again.

“I can tell you who did it. Those people in cloaks and hoods who were out there casting curses… they were Death Eaters. Followers of Voldemort,” Harry explained.

“Think of them like Hitler’s Nazis,” interjected AJ, borrowing Hermione’s analogy.

“As far as why they did it,” Harry continued, “I don’t know. Boredom, maybe. They used to bait Muggles like this back in the days before Voldemort regained his body and rose back to power. A similar incident took place at the Quidditch World Cup in ’94.”

“Quidditch World Cup?” asked Brian, struggling to keep up with the conversation. “What’s that, some kind of sporting event?”

“Exactly,” said Harry. “The Death Eaters tortured a Muggle family there, just for the fun of it. But less than a year later, Voldemort was back.”

“But he couldn’t come back this time,” Nick argued. “I mean, you said he’s dead, right?”

“Right,” Harry agreed, but the troubled expression on his face told Brian he wasn’t taking this lightly. He, too, wanted answers. Looking at AJ, Harry suddenly asked, “You said you got a letter? A warning?”

AJ nodded.

“What exactly did it say? Do you still have it?”

He nodded again. “It’s on our tour bus.”

“Mind if I take a look?” Harry asked.

“No problem. Follow me.”

Kevin cleared his throat. “Um, AJ?” he said, as AJ started to lead Harry and the others backstage. “We were just attacked out there. Shouldn’t we wait for security to take us to the bus?”

AJ looked around at Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna. “We’ve got five full-grown wizards and witches with us - six, if you count me. Don’t worry, bro. We’re good.”

Kevin didn’t argue, but Brian could tell by the look on his face that he still felt uneasy. Privately, he agreed with his cousin, but he felt he had no choice but to follow the others as they walked through the backstage area and went out a side exit to the parking bay where their tour bus sat, seemingly untouched. Brian massaged his sore neck again as he and the others climbed aboard.

***

On the Backstreet Boys’ tour bus, AJ retrieved the letter from his bunk and handed it to Harry without a word. Unfolding the piece of parchment, Harry frowned as he studied the letter. It was short and direct, yet deliberately vague.


Dear Alexander,

I am writing to warn you of a plot to terrorize you and your bandmates and/or fans at your concert tomorrow evening in London. It would be most wise to cancel the concert, but I suspect you won’t follow my suggestion. Therefore, I implore you to stay on high alert if, in fact, you should choose to proceed with the show. However, do nothing to draw unwanted attention to yourself.

I wish you no harm and hope only for your continued survival.


There was no signature. Harry didn’t recognize the flowery handwriting, but the emerald green ink made him suspicious. Green was the color of Slytherin House, of which Voldemort and every other Dark wizard schooled at Hogwarts had been a member. It was also the color of the Killing Curse. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the green jet of light colliding with the red flash of his disarming spell. He could feel his wand trembling in his fingers as he struggled to hold on. He could hear Voldemort’s high, cold laugh rising above the laughter of his followers as they mocked Harry, believing him foolish and weak, still a boy, unwilling to kill.

He opened his eyes and looked up. AJ and the others were staring at him, waiting for him to say something. Harry cleared his throat self-consciously. “Do you have any idea who sent this?” he asked, holding up the letter.

AJ shook his head. “No idea. I figured it was from a fan - who’s also a witch, obviously.”

“And a former Death Eater, I suspect,” said Harry.

“Really?” AJ raised his eyebrows. “Do you know who sent it?”

“No,” said Harry, his head full of possibilities. “But I reckon I can find out.”

***