The field that so gloriously spread itself out was the color of rich, thick blood. Scarlet not because of the sunset spread luminous and ominous over the quickly darkening sky, not for the wounded and dying buffalo strewn about like forgotten cattle. It was for the imagination of a small blond boy. A boy not any older than ten, who stood at the gates, smiling slightly at the burning ruin of the Manor across the field.

The boy turned and walked slowly, as if enjoying the scenery around him in the early summer air. Ahead, a river wide and rushing with millions of gallons of water pulsed with a steady discordant hum.

The little boy stopped at the edge of the bank.

"You!" A voice shouted outrageously from the gates. A man in flowing black robes came sprinting across the field, his short white hair sticking out in shocked disarray. "How?" The man howled viciously at the boy. "You could take one! You could take one, and you take the ENTIRE SCHOOL!"

The quickly descending reflecting off of the river cast an unnatural glow on his face. "I could take one, and that one, is you."

The man behind the boy is at a loss for words.

The boys stone-cold, expressionless face softened as the sun descended finally behind a curtain of mountains in the far distance. Tears filled his gray eyes, and he smiled longingly toward the aging man. "The time has come for us to part, sir."

"You can't... you can't..." the older crashed to his knees, sending out dust in every direction from the softly dying grass.

"Goodbye," the younger fell backwards into the river as it reached up with wet hands to pull him into it's bubbling depths.

In the murky darkness of the flowing river, the boy closed his eyes, his vision done, his mission completed.


Quinn Hunter would wake that night, not knowing why his dreams had so bothered him. He wouldn't know that over the next year he would be an instrument in powerful relations. He simply stared at the ceiling of his small bedroom, waiting for dim morning light to pull him out of bed.

"Morning dear!" Holly Hunter greeted her son as he entered the kitchen that morning. "Big, big day, huh?" she spooned two large helpings of eggs onto his plate.

"Hey, Mom?" Quinn hesitated, debating whether or not to mention his dream, all the while attacking his poor eggs, but eating a single bite. "Don't you worry," his mother smiled from the stove, taking out her wand and pointing it at the cupboards, where a salt and pepper shaker each zoomed out onto the large, handsome wooden table. "I had nerves before I started school as well." One more flick from the wooden wand, and his hair parted itself from its messy brown self into a slick style.

"Mom!" he quickly mussed it up. All these things weren't unnatural. Quinn's mother and father were a witch and wizard. So were all his brothers and sisters as far as he could tell.

"Morning, good morning!" Quinn's older brother J.J. sang as he bounded down the stairs into the small kitchen. "Hey mom," He kissed her cheek and took a plate of eggs to the table and sat next to Quinn, who looked at his calm brother.

"Hey, you got three days left!" he tugged on Quinn's shirtsleeve, looking hip dressed down to look like a punk rocker who had just rolled from a tangled bed after sleeping in his clothes. Quinn loved this look, and tried to copy it... With little tips from his brothers on the side.

"So do you," Quinn said around a mouthful of hot eggs at the same time as his next oldest brother, Jonathan walked out from the living room.

Jonathan, just like Quinn and older J.J. sported messy brown hair, which hung down to the nape of his pale neck. He looked like he did most of the time: disheveled, as if he'd gotten little sleep, a guitar clutched in one hand, an ink fountain pen stuck behind one of his large ears.

"Morning Quinn-ster," Jonathan grabbed a piece of toast and plopped onto one of the soft, plushy chairs that inhabited the kitchen table.

"Hiya," the smallest brother mouthed around a yawn.

Within twenty minutes, the rest of the family filed down into the kitchen in various states of morning dress. Quinn adored his family. His mother, Holly Hunter, who was strict, but for the most part left the children well enough alone, was a large woman with a soft attitude and warm intentions. J.J. and Jonathan managed to stay in almost constant trouble wherever it was, be it home or Risenfield (the wizarding school the family attended) or even the Muggle town in which they lived. They loved all music, and lived for it. Quinn came next in the line, squeezing nicely into the middle of the group. His younger sisters Lyra and Zinnia could be seen sitting with their legs dangling between the banister support on the stairs.

The next sister to arrive was just older thanJ.J. and Jonathan, Annorah already finished schooling at Risenfield Academy for Higher Wizarding, sporting a healthy Defense Ministry badge and wonderful good looks.

Last, besides his older sister, Vanessa who had moved out, came twenty-three year old Bridger, trudging down the stairs in his mop of hair and black clothes, determined to wear his scowl as long as possible.

And that was until Mr. Niels Hunter entered the room, dressed in stunning navy blue robes that clung nicely to his shoulders, a pinstriped golf hat pressed lightly to his slowly protruding stomach. "Good morning," he almost shouted brightly to six year old Lyra and little four year old Zinnia as he went to kiss his wife on the cheek.

Normally, this bright and cheery attitude would grate on everyone's nerves first thing in morning on a Friday, but seeing as today would be busy with sports, visitations and musical guests, a pregnant reply of booming "Morning!'s" rang out across the room.

"Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy," their father muttered under his breath as he turned into the living room. Quinn smiled after his father, who worked in one of the largest companies in all of the greater United States of America, one that had the Muggle and Wizarding world working together quite well. It was the Human Relations Department of Hanging Chairs Dpt. for Security.

He stalked back into the room, grabbed his automobile keys ("Hey! Wrong keys dad!" shoutedJ.J., after his father had grabbed his son's keys.), grabbed the right ones, walked outside and said goodbye through the kitchen window.

"For a Muggle, Dad's got to be the best Wizard I've ever seen," Annorah tossed her blond hair, then went into the next room, pulling out her wand. "Bye, then!" She said brightly, before Disapparating with a loud bang!

"Father might be the the best Muggle ever, but believe me, I bet he reckons he could magic too-"

"Hey," Their mother swooped over Jonathan on her way out of the kitchen. "Watch it mister. Non-wizarding families are just as important as the next one."

The long silence was filled only with the scraping of cutlery on ceramic and the hushed conversations of the youngest. Quinn loved being surrounded by these people, which made his dream, which had been haunting him up until now, slip almost entirely away. Only a few wisps of blond hair held any sway in his mind as J.J. reminded him of their later engagements.

"Hey, little bro," he chortled nonchalantly.

"Hey, big ugly brother," Quinn replied as Jonathan laughed and Bridger smiled a little, where it quickly disappeared.

"Ready for tonight?"

"You know I'm ready, but are you?" For however quiet Quinn was, nothing compared to his enthusiastic feelings he got when he hung around with his brothers.

"Then let's get going!"

They rushed up the stairs and grabbed a few bags. With just one change of clothing. They would be driving down to New Orleans that day to attend the biggest Wizarding musical concert festival held anywhere on all six continents.

They rushed down the stairs, where Holly Hunter stood, looking stern, but broke down. "Oh! Boys, please be extra careful!" She wouldn't be caught crying on her worst days, and instead, as they each kissed her, Quinn stretching up just enough to reach her cheek, and headed out the door, she unwaveringly muttered, as usual, "Muggle cars, almost thirty years with a muggle himself, and still..." Instead of beating herself up, she went about feeding her children.


"Hey hey hey mister gorgeous flyer, you got that floating over your sub conscience now don't you

So, sorry mister keen, do it right,

We might just be mean

Do it do it do it over the clouds-"

Quinn smiled over at his second oldest brother, who was strumming a song by Sycorax, one of the bands they were traveling all the way from Pennsylvania to see in person.

"Live in concert!-" J.J., who was driving, called out into the wind that whipped past them.

"May we present!-" Jonathan tacked on.

"The one and only!-" Quinn screamed.

"Caliban!" They shouted together, rocketing down a Muggle highway at speeds no less than one hundred miles an hour.

"One day, my dearest brothers, we will be highlighted with these bands of immense, amazing prowess."

"But for now, we will bask in their all giving light," J.J. hummed out a tune from the band.

As wind whipped Quinn's head in the topless, magically charmed Le Baron, he became aware of his surroundings, a wide winding river was fast approaching on the side of the road, and as he watched it swirl by endlessly, he drifted off into a slumber, making up for excited hours lost the night before. A smile on his impish face and a soft song from Jonathan, he was fast asleep.

Now, growing up in a half-Wizarding half-Muggle household, Quinn, unlike other young wizards he'd met, had a hold on the Muggle world. Muggles are people with no magical power in them at all. They couldn't even raise a wind when angry. Like their father, who, although a Muggle working for a Wizarding company, was vehement about incorporating himself into the magical society.

Holly Hunter, their mother, on the other hand, was a full blown witch. Just the week previous, she'd enchanted Bridger's hair so that, no matter how many charms he tried on it, it stayed clipped nice and short. Bridger had taken out his anger by going to find a job.

He quit the same job the next week.

Owing to his large expertise, he fit in in the Muggle world much better than his mother, or his father even, who despite being entirely non-magical, seemed to have forgotten that he was.

Quinn's entire family (sans dad) had attended what was then the best Wizarding Academy on this side of the great pond. Risenfield. Considered by many to surpass any European school of witchcraft and wizardry, Risenfield attests only to the strength of the nation itself.

"Education is your future," Klint Karbaum's rumbling voice came over the static of the radio set into the worn dashboard of the Le Baron.

Quinn, surged awake by the boomed line, was smiled upon by J.J. as he sat up in his seat. He'd slouched into a drowsy stupor, falling asleep in the afternoon light.

"I'm here today," Karbaum's voice crackled to life once again, "on the Wizarding Wireless Network, to speak of our people's education in this country. Over the past decade, two new schooling academy's have sprung up across these great United States. Our school's have not been directly affected by events unfolding in Scotland this time of year, but the fear resided. Working together with the Ministry of Magic from both England and the U.S. all four American schools have come forth with open arms to accept the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"This past year, as many of you know, the Dark Lord himself was defeated at this historic European monument. But at a great loss," at this, Jonathan and J.J. looked to each other. They'd both known people who had been sent to aid the war in England. "A loss of students countrymen, and allies. The school was left in ruins and is in need of dire repair."

Jonathan's face was set in distress. Quinn couldn't understand. Surely with the Dark Lord, who'd been feared even over the ocean in America, gone, his followers wouldn't stand a chance.

"And, even with this tragedy, it is my great pleasure to inform you of a new policy instated this year. Each of the four American schools will show hospitality and care for a house of Hogwarts School.

"I'm sure, for all the students hearing this, you will be interested to see the new additions at school this coming year. Thank you for your cooperation, and I hope that we can share this... magical airspace again."

With that, the radio tuned back to music as J.J. flicked his wand from the back seat.

There was a small silence as the news (Good? Bad?) was absorbed.

"That's wonderful," Jonathan yanked back on the steering wheel and the car jumped a gas station, landing shakily on the ground once more. "J.J. you remember my friend from Hogwarts... What house was he in?"

J.J. went to open his mouth, presumably to say "How should I know?"

"Ravenclaw." Jonathan gripped the steering wheel. "Graduated two years ago. Haven't heard from him since."

"Hey," J.J. strummed his guitar as the river started to come back into view. "I can smell the sea."