It takes them a while to notice. It takes a while for the witches to notice, at least.

"Freak," Petunia whispers when she sees her niece for the first time after she comes back from Hogwarts for the summer. Hari Potter is still short as she ever is; her hair is still raven-black and her eyes avada kedavra-green; shadows still flicker around her that turn into wild beasts in the corner of people's eyes.

Hari hasn't aged a day since she was eight. It just takes Petunia ten months of absence to see it.

When she goes to the Burrow with Ron, Molly Weasley takes one look at her and thinks she's so small. No small amount of food is given to her that summer and Hari wisely takes it all, her upbringing with the Dursley's having taught her the importance of a full belly.

Even as she rubs at her scar – that is slowly turning silver to purple over the years from her ministrations, that only healed when Hari looked at herself in a dream and screamed at the sight of a monster, pushing it away and crushing it – and fidgets on her many-times-repaired seat at Molly Weasley's table – that is getting in the way somehow, that is making her feel like she's sitting on a limb folded all wrong – Hari eats and takes what she is given.

Like any human being that is given sustenance, the taught skin around her ribs becomes looser, her wan complexion turning a more burnished bronze-brown from good food and sunlight. But she doesn't shoot upwards like a child her age – eleven, then twelve – should and doesn't look any older or more mature as the weeks pass. Molly Weasley worries only when she forgets what little Hari's smile looks like and when she remembers, pushes away that all that nonsense.

She'll grow, Molly assures herself.

At night, Hari drifts away. She feels restless and it never lasts long. Where sleep can sometimes be a reprieve in a household like the Dursley's, a state where she can drift off and explore the furthest reaches of the world like she's really there, in the Burrow she's happy.

On the camp-bed on Ron's bedroom floor, the wind making the top-most room creak and sway ever so gently, Hari instead reads her books. It doesn't matter that the moonlight isn't enough – she's always seen well in the dark – or that she knows every page of every book she owns, like the image is imprinted in her head.

Freak! The was what Aunt Petunia called her when she told her, her painted-pink lips curling into a disgusted expression, eyes hateful and afraid.

Hedwig coos at her softly in the dark, sometimes, asking, hatchling, what can I do? My wings are yours, hatchling, my lovely hatchling. Hari pets her and speaks back, telling her not to worry and that she's not a hatchling. It doesn't stop Hedwig from calling her hatchling, hatchling ever or at all – not even once.

At Hogwarts, back for her second year, Professor McGonagall squints at her and brusquely orders a check-up with Madam Pomfrey. It confuses Hari as much as it confuses Ron, who shrugs and says, "Maybe you're ill and we can't see it. She's a cat, sometimes."

"Yeah," Hari agrees, even though she doesn't feel ill – she's never been ill, except for when touching Quirrell knocked her out, except for when she made his eyes burn out of their sockets and it left her feeling drained of all energy and queasy.

Madam Pomfrey frowns at her, just like Professor McGonagall does. The Hospital Wing is empty, other than the three of them – Ron has been sent out. The mediwitch swishes her wand over her again and again, shaking her head and drawing Professor McGonagall away across the room. Their hands intertwine and Hari wonders why they moved when they're being loud enough for her to hear.

"She's got nothing wrong with her, Minnie," Madam Pomfrey says, but her voice is still worried. "I see what you mean, however. She's the same as when I last saw her, down to the last hair. Well, except the scar."

"Except the scar," Professor McGonagall repeats. "Curse scars never heal. Why did it heal?"

"Removing the taint of a curse scar is often the result of a blessing – magical creatures or beings from other worlds are the only ones able to remove the darkness…but that's not why you're here. She's the same. The exact same."

Hari wonders what she means and then, her professor and the mediwitch tell her.


To the rest of the world, Hari Potter is a normal teenage girl – if an extremely short one. She's quiet, but brave and nosy to boot, always getting in trouble and not usually getting out of it very well. She earns detention from Snape once a month – usually over a snide comment from the man over her height, her choice of friends or simple mistakes made in class and the following sassy comeback – and studies with Ron and Hermione at their table in the library, because even if she doesn't forget a single thing, essays aren't something she can just write up in an hour.

Hari is social though, otherwise. She lets Parvati and Lavender braid her hair on the weekends and paint pink and purple butterflies on her face when she's feeling special – Fred and George learn how to charm them, just so she and her dormmates can walk around school with them fluttering beside their eyes. Outside of quidditch practice, she eats with her teammates and chats with them and their friends about school and gossip – learning the newest updates about Oliver Wood and Percy Weasley's love-hate relationship and getting told who covered their dorm with OWL studies and quidditch strategies that week is her equivalent to prime-time television.

And once a week, she meets Professor McGonagall for tea.

They eat ginger newts and talk about schoolwork in her office, the teacher telling her student about James Potter's apprenticeship under her for his transfiguration mastery and other, select incidents involving him and his yet-to-be-named friends. Once, Hari asks her if she can write to them; in turn, Professor McGonagall asks her to be wait, so the teacher can ask them herself if that would be appropriate.

At the end of every teatime, Professor McGonagall leans closer across the desk, raises her wand and adjusts the transfigurations on her face. A delicate process, one made harder by how Professor McGonagall guesses just how Hari might age otherwise.

"We must not move too quickly, nor too slowly," Professor McGonagall says in a lecturing voice. "For either one will draw attention; but not as much attention as not doing it entirely."

It makes something in Hari curl up at her words, even as she registers the truth in them. She still feels so young, even though she knows she is older, now. Her face reflects that. I'm a real freak because of this, she thinks often, because I'm not aging. Not because I have magic or because I have a scar on my forehead. I'm a freak because I'm not human.


Madam Pomfrey shows her a mirror like the Mirror of Erised after winter break, when Hari's dormmate Sally-Anne Perks hasn't come back for the new term because of the Chamber of Secrets and the Ministry is too worried about Slytherin's monster to care about a special requisition.

The mirror shows her a strange person who looks like Hari, but is far more strange and bewildering. A tail curls around the not-Hari's leg, long and winding; a raven's beak protrudes from her face like a botched transfiguration and her hair is made up of raven-feathers; her whole body is both human and not, with two extra heads, one a snowy owl like Hedwig with downy grey feathers and another a dog with bright green eyes and reddish fur; and she is tall, this not-Hari, taller than Hogwarts, taller than the Earth and nearly as wide, but at the same time compact and as small as Hari is.

What can and could be, what I am, she thinks as she discovers she has wings and unlocks something inside her that fills her mind with knowledge. If I hadn't a body to live in, this would truly be me.

Hari doesn't understand it's truly her until she looks at where the monster used to live and sees a scar that is simultaneously etched onto her forehead and marring the core of her very being.

Madam Pomfrey has to return the mirror eventually, asking her what she saw. Hari curls up in her lap and tries not to imagine that the hand combing through her hair is instead grooming feathers. Later, when Madam Pomfrey allows her to sleep on the sofa in her private quarters – quarters she shares with Professor McGonagall, her wife – Hari wakes up in the middle of the night and finds her transfiguration teacher watching over her in cat-form.

"Can I show you something?" she asks in a hush and then, she unfurls those wings she saw in the mirror and manipulating Grace, shows Professor McGonagall part of them that is safe.

It isn't safe to show humans, Hari knows, like how she knows the sky is blue and like how she knows that her father wasn't all he seemed. All a human can see of her wings are imprints – shadows on a wall. But Professor McGonagall is a cat right now and she can see more. She sees the molten golds and greens, the yellow dandelions that grow in the spaces between feathers and above them, in the dark January sky, lightning crackles suddenly and the clouds storm.

Hari's eyes glow gold.


She's always been able to speak to animals, but snakes are different – when she speaks to snakes, she speaks their tongue to them rather than having them seemingly understand every word she says in English. The incident with the duelling club proved that, not even mentioning the stigma held against it in the Wizarding World. Snakes like her and she likes them – Hari can't help if the rest of the world doesn't share that opinion.

Salazar Slytherin's basilisk though is clearly mad. Its intelligence is worn down and while Tom Riddle frowns at Hari's attempt to talk to it, it still only follows his commands. Magic bound it to a bloodline and solitude has killed its sense of self. If it had a soul once, like so many magical animals do, it has long mutated into something lesser.

"It hurts," Hari says as she moves away from the fallen monster, holding her arm – Grace bubbling and burning it away, so as to preserve her tiny, human body – and crawling over to Ron's baby sister. There's the diary by Ginny's body and Hari knows her first true regret, the regret she will never forget as long as she lives, is that she never destroyed the soul shard inside of it earlier.

Though, to be quite fair on herself, Hari wasn't aware she was a nephilim then and therefore didn't understand what she was really seeing the first time she saw it in Lucius Malfoy's pocket in Flourish and Blotts.

"Basilisk venom. Deadly. Fatal. You're going to die, little girl," Tom Riddle sneers, as much a teenage boy as he is a future Dark Lord. Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix who had delivered Hari the Sorting Hat and Gryffindor's sword, swoops down and croons, head tilting as he brushes against Hari's face. "Dead. Look, even Dumbledore's bird knows it. Do you see what he's doing, Potter? He's crying."

Hari ignores him and she ignores Fawkes, too. The basilisk fang is in her hand and then, it is in the diary, secreting venom and destroying the shard that is sapping Ginny's soul. Hari decides she hates this dark soul magic, even as Fawkes' tears drop onto Ginny's filthy robes and the spirit of Tom Riddle screams, disappearing.

Fawkes trills. Heal with me, fledgling. You are a creature most powerful. Do as you will with my gift, but it must be now.

Ginny will awaken any moment, Hari knows. She lets go of the fang and the diary, hands splattered with blood, dirt and ink. Her hands rest on Ginny, one on her head and the other to her chest, feeling the magic of Fawkes' tear. She doesn't know what she's doing, but magic is all about intent, isn't it? If you tear away the words and the wand-waving – controlling her Grace is like controlling another limb.

Fawkes' tear is meant for healing. It knows what to do. Hari knows it does, feeling the true, powerful light of it, meant for healing, shed in honesty. All I have to do is get it there, Hari thinks, seeing Ginny's soul and seeing the darkness, how it has been biting and gnawing at her youth and innocence and damaging her.

The work causes Ginny to fall into a different kind of slumber when she is on the precipice of waking. The tear soothes her soul and while it is not enough for a full healing, the clawing and trauma is gone. Hari doesn't know what that means for her mind – if she will remember what happened and won't cry at it, or if the hurt will just happen again as firecracker-Ginny devolves into a scared and weepy child – but Hari simply hopes it is better.

Fledgling, Fawkes sighs. If he were a human, Hari imagines he would be shaking his head. Come, now. Let us depart. I will show you how to use your wings, fledgling.

"Let's go," Hari agrees and if Ron startles at her sudden appearance, he swiftly forgets her atypical entrance at the sight of Ginny in her arms. Professor Lockhart is too far gone from the botched obliviate to realise anything is off at all.

Fawkes is the one to take them to the surface, into the waiting arms of Madam Pomfrey.

Headmaster Dumbledore peers curiously at Hari over half-moon glasses after, when she leaves his office with a deliberate, familiar swagger to her step. Lucius Malfoy just glares – for Dobby is a free elf now and Hari smiles as he gets his just-desserts.


Flying becomes one of the most useful things she's ever learned, that summer. Hari is small and Ripper knew her before her nephilic awakening – Aunt Marge therefore despises how he likes her, nowadays. The week she stays with the Dursley's is terrible and by the end, Hari is surprised she hasn't broken the Statue of Secrecy or used her Grace for nefarious reasons, like forging Uncle Vernon's signature for her Hogsmeade permission slip.

Except-

Except-

"This Potter," Aunt Marge started, tipsy from brandy and leaning back in the creaking dining chair, "you never told me what he did."

Hari slows, ears pin-pricked. She looks to Uncle Vernon, who shares a glance with Aunt Petunia as Hari remembers a conversation at lunch just four days earlier. If there's something wrong with the bitch, there's something wrong with the pup. Not yet finished his fourth slice of pie, Dudley looks up to gape at his parents and Hari can tell something is going to tip the balance.

Seven days of this, Hari thinks, hand curling in the flowery skirt Aunt Petunia had forced her into, blouse tucked in tightly. The only thing Aunt Petunia likes about the way she looks nowadays is how she braids back her hair like how Parvati showed her.

"He- didn't work," Uncle Vernon says, with half a glance at Hari. "That I can remember, at least."

"Policeman," Hari says under her breath. She can see it in her minds eye – Lily Evans entering the living room of their small cottage, going on about how terrible the meeting with Petunia was, how she looked at Lily in disbelief when she said that James was in the wizarding police-force, before Dumbledore told them to go into hiding.

Marge looks at her sharply, letting out a bark of laughter. "Ha! As if some Paki drunkard could become a policeman. Tosh! Why, I bet he was a no-account, good-for-nothing lazy scrounger who-"

Hari can't help it. "He was not!" she yells, eyes ablaze and golden. "My father was not any of those things!"

"More brandy!" Uncle Vernon exclaims loudly, but it's too little, too late. Even as he tries to send her to her room, Marge is standing to give a tirade of her own.

But the house is starting to shake. The lights are flickering and Aunt Petunia's coffee is bubbling in its mug. Hari has never felt so angry before. She barely holds back her Grace – her magic is another matter. It almost seems to cackle and Marge, who had raised a finger in reprimand, is silent, the word insolent barely halfway out her mouth.

The swelling begins and Hari flies to her room in an instance, scrambling to gather her belongings. No more, she thinks, Grace packing her things within moments. Hedwig is absent from her perch and Hari wants to howl, to rage and scream, but fear has replaced her anger.

I did magic in front of Uncle Vernon, she thinks, panicking. I cast magic on a muggle.

Her wand is tucked in her trunk with the rest of her belongings, untouched since she changed into muggle clothes on the Hogwarts Express. Hari hadn't wanted to risk practicing wand movements in Number Four, not if the chance of being caught was so high.

I cursed Marge!

Below, Ripper is barking and her uncle is yelling. It'll be a matter of minutes before he comes upstairs to demand she fix it. But Hari doesn't know how – Marge is a matter of the Ministry, now, as is Harry. Accidental magic can't be used an excuse, not someone her age. Then, there is the matter of the wards, which Hari doesn't understand – but if these protections come from the Dursley's, Hari doesn't think she wants them.

Flying to the nearby park with her trunk and Hedwig's empty cage – using her Grace to clean and shrink it down, packing it away with her things – Hari sits down and almost misses the soul hiding in the playground. Her eyes aren't yellow anymore, but Hari wills them to be as she reaches out with her Grace, wondering if the magical animal is awake – the Ford Anglia was like this, but actually, actually Scabbers is like this, so special and magical, who has lived so long he's developing a conscience.

A dog exits the space the soul is hiding. Hari stares, her Grace reaching out and touching the soul in a way she has never touched Scabbers – but it a wizard's soul, one familiar to her, not an animal. Animagus, she thinks in surprise, like Professor McGonagall. The dog-form itself is familiar, but there's something wrong. The soul is withered, the dog is mangy-

Hari recognises him.

"Padfoot?"


Fawkes comes when she calls, even if it means appearing in the darkest household Hari has ever had the chance to step inside. The phoenix clearly doesn't like it, but agrees to shed another tear for Hari, so she can heal the damage done to her Uncle Padfoot.

"I don't understand…" he says, staring at her, almost delirious. A house-elf is watching them from the shadow of the doorway. "You're Hari, but you're not."

"I'm me," Hari says, before rendering him unconscious with little more than a tap to the head. Fawkes gives her a tear and she soothes the soul of her uncle.

Sirius Black, a murderer according to the news…Hari's uncle and godfather, according to her memories. He stinks, his physical health is dreadful and his soul is hollow and weak. Barely anything more than his base self remains, plus the vast majority of his recollections – but something else has been done and Hari finds herself scared and hating dark soul magic. She can't reverse the effects, but she can do a little to negate the further deterioration and soothe the mad edges.

After he slumbers, she looks at the house-elf. "Come here," she requests. The being stays where he is for a few long moments before shuffling forwards.

"I is Kreacher," he says, scowling. "You is a mongrel."

The word is new. Hari would have been more ashen, had it been freak. Still, she is shocked speechless momentarily, unable to make her mouth move. Luckily, Kreacher doesn't simply wander off, staying put.

"…I'm Hari," Hari eventually introduces herself, knowing that Dobby had seen her for what she truly was before she Awoke. She might as be honest. "I'm a nephilim – also part Pagan, more Pagan than you'd think. My father is James and Gabriel and Loki, three beings in one. James was the wizard-part. My mother was a plain old witch, though."

"Mongrel," Kreacher spits, but there's a strange look in his eyes, "Powerful nephily-Pagan, mongrel-witch. You bring Master home."

"I did."

"You uses magic to help him, strange magic-" Kreacher disappears with a small pop and Hari can feel him upstairs, her eyes drifting upwards. She almost throws up upon recognising a sliver of that dark, damaged soul that possessed Ginny last year. Kreacher takes it in his grasp and brings it to her.

The locket sways like a hypnotist's watch in front of her face, dark and small.

"Fierce, but little," Hari half-remembers a quote from primary school, something about a person – a poem that she thinks describes both of them, right now, Hari and the locket. "Give me a moment, please, Kreacher. I've destroyed one of these before."


Kreacher is far more civil after she destroys the locket and even tells Sirius of her bravery with glimmering eyes. Sirius is still slightly bamboozled by Hari and his special soul-healing when he learns how Master Regulus dies – Hari learns later, when Sirius is bathed and wearing decent clothes that Regulus was his brother.

"What are you on the run from?" she asks him a week later over dinner made by Kreacher, who is cleaning and taking proper care of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place for the first time in many years. Dobby and he yell at each other, often, but Dobby is her personal house-elf and Kreacher is Elf of the House, as Sirius calls it, so Kreacher gets seniority.

Sirius is quiet for a time before he answers. Hari has avoided asking, until they were settled and she thinks it a good idea, now, to ask him when he has his long hair brushed and pulled back into a ponytail, his beard clipped close to his face. A week ago, he was still wearing his prison robes.

"Do you remember us talking about Secret Keepers?" he finally replies, asking his own question instead of answering. Hari thinks back – it's hard, remembering that far back. Baby Hari was interesting in five things, that young: toys, her parents, her uncles, the cat and food. Vaguely, she can remember passing whispers, but not everything is clear, baby Hari having been distracted.

"…a little," Hari replies. "Uncle Pete was the Secret Keeper."

Sirius looks boneless, in that moment. He collapses in his chair, eyes blowing wide, full of hurt and guilt.

"Yes," he says, like a prayer, "Yes, Prongslet. We switched, Wormtail was Secret-Keeper and I led them away. Wormtail was Secret-Keeper."

They abandon dinner, Hari coming over and curling close, like she hasn't done with anyone since her parents on Halloween, nineteen eighty-one. He tells her in stops and starts, crying and hugging her, acknowledging that she isn't just some normal thirteen-year old witch. He tells her of Azkaban and dementors, of twelve muggles killed in Peter Pettigrew's explosion and of seeing him in The Daily Prophet.

"Scabbers sleeps in Ron's room," she says, horrified. "And Percy's, before!" Only Sirius' tight grip on her stops Hari from flying right to the Burrow that instance.

"We need a plan," Sirius replies, frosty and nearly as angry as she is.

Kreacher is their agent between Number Twelve and the rest of the world. He's the one to capture Pettigrew and deliver him to the Ministry with a hand-written note from Sirius explaining his crimes – and then, he gets all of Hari's Diagon Alley supplies, plus a full kit of witching regalia that she has no idea what to do with. Sirius, to his own amusement, finds himself teaching her, even if he – at first – scolds Kreacher for doing such a thing.

"He did his research, at least," Sirius piles through the robes and books, checking dates and patterns. "This stuff wasn't in fashion the last time I checked, oh, thirteen years ago."

That is when Sirius shows his true colours.

By the end of it, Hari moodily wonders why her Aunt Petunia and Sirius never got on – they both like to use her as a Barbie-doll, after all.

On September first, Sirius comes along to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. Practice makes perfect, she thinks, adjusting the glamour over his large, Grim form that makes him look like a particularly fluffy German Shepard of the same colours. Wagging his doggy tail as Kreacher pops away, Padfoot snuffles her elbow and then the Aurors surround her.

"Miss Potter!" the captain exclaims, "Where have you been?"

"Home," Hari says, scrunching up her nose delicately. "Why?"

"Miss Potter, you've been missing ever since August sixth," the captain says, "I need you to come with us, now, to the Ministry."

"But it's nearly eleven!" Hari gives her best panicked face, "What if I miss the train like last year? There's no flying car, this time! She's roaming the Forbidden Forest, now!"

The captain, thankfully, is disturbed enough that Hari can talk them out of taking her away – though two Aurors would be taking the Hogwarts Express with her to Hogwarts and then on to Professor Dumbledore's office, where the appropriate authorities would be waiting.

Ron and Hermione meet her in the busy corridors of the train, startling at the sight of Padfoot. Greetings are exchanged and then, they take her to their compartment, which only has one extra person in it – a sleeping professor that makes Padfoot bark and yip in happiness.

Oh, I recognise you, Hari thinks, staring at his soul. A curse connected to the moon is stitched into the fabric of his being and even if she hasn't seen him in twelve years, Hari recognises her only other living family member.

"Mate, control your dog," Ron says, glancing out the compartment window to where people are looking through, trying to find the source of the noise.

"Fenrir, shush," Hari orders, using her dogfather's codename. Padfoot whimpers but quiets – but Remus wakes, coat slipping down onto his lap as he looks around, quite confused. They meet eyes and he freezes. Hari smiles.

"Hello, Uncle Moony."


In Dumbledore's office, Hari Potter meets the Minister of Magic for the first time. He isn't what she expected.

"-and with all this ludicrous business surrounding Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black, well," Cornelius Fudge huffs, smiling at her like you would a four year old. "Your safety is paramount, my dear. Where have you been? Your aunt and uncle must have been worried sick."

"I don't care about them – they've never cared about me," Hari frowns at him.

"I'm sure that isn't true," Fudge chortles, thanking one of his aides for handing him his tea. "Family is everything."

"You've never met my aunt and uncle," Hari replies, running her nails between her teeth. Her stomach is full and warm – she wants to go to bed; she wants to say a proper hello to Parvati, Lavender, Sally-Anne, Fay and Sophie; she wants everyone to get off her case about her summer until Sirius is a free man.

Stupid Ministry. Stupid, lying rat. Sirius said they'd use a truth serum – but obviously not.

"Hari," Fudge meets her eyes. "Tell us where you were these past few weeks. That's an order from your Minister."

"…I didn't vote for you," Hari replies, causing him to spill his tea a little. "I was fine. My new guardian is who I'll be going home to for summers, now."

"Hari," Dumbledore says, then, interrupting. His eyes are dark and his face disappointed. "I'm afraid that won't be happening. No matter what this person has said or done to you, you will not be going back to them."

The meeting goes nowhere, but keeps going onwards; Professor McGonagall eventually comes up to the office, asking why her Gryffindor isn't in bed. At Hari's feet, Padfoot snuffles in agreement.

"It's half one in the morning – leave her be, you old fossil," McGonagall grumbles at Dumbledore, surprising Hari for a moment. Then, she yawns – she hasn't slept in a few weeks, so Hari thinks it must be catching up now – and finds herself being hustled away, out of the office and down the staircase. "Fly to bed, your curtains are drawn," the deputy murmurs in her ear and Hari nods tiredly, flying straight into familiar covers, changing into pyjamas without much of a thought.

In the morning, Padfoot comes up to her at breakfast, Uncle Moony on his tail. Scandalised, Hari realises she'd left her dogfather behind when she flew away.

"Professor McGonagall entrusted him to me," Uncle Moony says, amused as Hari apologises profusely to him. He runs a hand through his hair and Hari hears a strange swooning sound from one of the guys in Oliver Wood's dorm. "We both had quite the fright when he showed his true colours – up to no good at all, this one."

Hari pauses.

Up to no good.

Now why did that sound like a password? Maybe because it came out of left-field, surprising and confusing, considering the first half of his sentence. Sirius paid him and Professor McGonagall a visit, Hari deduces, wondering if they have allies now.

"Sorry, Uncle Moony," she says, contrite, "Didn't know he'd be so energetic at that hour."

On Hermione's other side, across the table, Fred suddenly starts choking on his cereal. George beside him, however, is staring at Remus in some kind of awe.

"Fred!" Hari exclaims, before he gets his coughing under control. He too, begins staring at Remus. Hari looks back at him, but their new DADA professor is nonplussed. Then, even more strangely, Fred and George stand up, hands on their hearts as they recite something together.

"I solemnly swear I'm up to no good," they say, standing tall. Remus stares at them, eyes suddenly widening, a grin lighting up his face.

Hari actually bothers to look at Oliver's dormmate as he swoons dramatically, expression curling as he suddenly says, so hot, under his breath. NOPE, NOT GOING THERE! Hari twists away, looking to Padfoot as he yips and barks once or twice. Hari thinks the boy is called Greg.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing?" Ron asks his brothers, blinking at them.

"It's a code," Remus replies for them, still grinning. He leans past Hari for a moment, body swaying over the breakfast table. Fred and George lean in and only Hari's supernatural hearing manages to catch him saying, "Mischief managed, pleased to meet you, Marauders."

Fred and George look like they're going to either faint on the spot or start doing a jig. Remus leans back, ruffling Padfoot's illusionary mop of hair.

"Seeing as there's a one-pet rule, I'm afraid I'll be keeping custody of Fenrir, here, at least until your temporary guardian can come and collect him. I trust you'll send him a letter?" Remus speaks again to Hari, tone bland.

Hari grins. "Of course, but he probably won't answer."

"I see, well," Remus tucks his hands in the pockets of his – clean, not ratty like in the train, pressed and perfect like the ones Kreacher got for Sirius – robes, smiling. "Good day. I hope to see you in my class soon."

"See you then, professor," Hari sticks her tongue out, watching him turn around and return to the high table, Padfoot in tow. Then, she hears Oliver's dormmate say, and he's good with kids, fuck my life.

Her smile turns upside down and Greg's porridge explodes.