Heidi gripped her mother's hand tightly as they navigated the mid-morning traffic at King's Cross, afraid of what would happen if she got separated from her family. She didn't like this feeling; it didn't fit in her heart somehow. The past three years she had accompanied her older brother, Julian, to the school train, she'd been desperately wishing she could join him on his trip to the never-seen but often-dreamed Hogwarts. Now she wasn't so sure.

She couldn't imagine how Hazel was holding up, without even her family here to see her off. They'd said their goodbyes this morning, but of course Hazel's parents couldn't be here. Privately, Heidi thought it was even foolish of her own mother to come. Muggles were officially banned from passing through the barrier to platform nine and three-quarters, and from the looks of those badly-disguised security wizards prowling around the entrance, they weren't welcome within fifty feet.

"But I don't understand, Dad," she'd whined earlier in the summer. "Why are we safe but Hazel's family isn't?"

Her father had adopted his infinitely sad look and explained, "Well you see, dear, Hazel's parents are both muggles, and Hazel is a witch. Now, according to muggle biology this makes perfect sense; many recessive genes behave this way. However, some wizards are puzzled and angered by it."

Heidi had frowned. "Well, why doesn't someone just explain to them about genes?" Her father wrote books about magical creatures for a living and the Lee children had grown up with all manner of cross-bred mythical stock.

"They don't want muggles explaining things to them just now," her mother had said quietly, a hand dropping down to rest on her daughter's shoulder. "The wizards who have recently come to power are trying to separate wizards and muggles, and they don't like to be reminded that the two races are so closely tied in genes."

"Will you and dad have to get a divorce?" she asked, horrified. She couldn't imagine why anyone would want to separate two cultures as fond of one another as those of her parents. Her mother was a wizard news junkie, poring over the Daily Prophet every morning while her dad flipped through the muggle encyclopedia, muttering that he might as well have been raised in the middle ages. She had known from the time she was little that magic must remain secret from muggles, but she'd never quite understood the reason behind the rule. Why hide something so delightful?

"No, honey," her dad had assured her. "They can't make us do that, thank heaven. Now I won't lie to you – if things get any worse, we may have to leave the country for a few years while this all blows over. A few of our friends have relocated to France and sent their children to Beauxbatons Academy, which is also a very good school." He paused importantly. "But they will never, ever, ever break up this family, and that is a promise."

The family's mood had darkened significantly when Heidi and Hazel received letters summoning them to the ministry for "pre-admission assessment". Heidi's mother had carefully explained to Hazel's mother that Hazel must not let the ministry know she was a muggle-born, nor could she pretend to be a muggle after having received her Hogwarts letter.

"Check and mate," she had whispered.

"My baby!" Mrs. Cooley had sobbed, unaware that her daughter was watching from behind the bend in the staircase. "Isn't there anything I can do? Perhaps if we left the country?"

The lines in Mr. Lee's forehead had creased all the way to their zenith as he slowly stood up. "There is one way. But it will be a gamble. It all rests on Hazel..."

"What is it? What is the way?"

He hesitated. "I will claim her as my own daughter before the ministry."

Mrs. Cooley wiped her eyes. "Joseph! I couldn't ask you … it would bring so much danger on your own family..."

"I will not let this thing happen!" he roared. "Not when there is any chance of stopping it. Listen. I fathered the child. I divorced you before Hazel was born. It is a small lie. They will not investigate further if we sell the story."

"Joseph has a few contacts in the ministry," Mrs. Lee chimed in. "It's our only hope, Laura. And Hazel's a clever child; I bet she could do it."

Mrs. Cooley had smiled a wan, weak smile. "No one doubts that."

Excited as the friends were to be off to Hogwarts as they'd always dreamed, Heidi was concerned about Hazel's ability to keep the truth a secret all year. As they said goodbye to Heidi's parents, hoisted their trunks to the rolling position and crossed the invisible border onto the platform for the first time, Heidi couldn't help feeling as if she'd just entered a forbidden land, an 'I'm a half-blood!' sign dangling from her chest.

Julian, as usual, was no help. "I think the first-years are down that way," he murmured, waving vaguely down to the other end of the train before disappearing into a private compartment, presumably to administer a welcome-back snog to Natalie McDonald.

"C'mon, Hazel," she said briskly, following some other girls with unmarked robes, trying to find a group having a conversation she'd be willing to join.

"Did you see the news?" chirped one. "Professor Snape's been appointed headmaster. Those mudbloods won't stand a chance this year!"

(not that one)

"... and then Uric the Oddball issued his seventeenth decree ..."

(or that one)

"I'm a little nervous."

(that one!)

But as she began to follow the boy who was a little nervous, Hazel announced, "I'm going up to the front of the train to gather some upperclassman gossip. If anyone asks I'm looking for Julian."

Heidi snorted. No chance of that girl ever keeping her head down anywhere, you-know-who or no you-know-who. At least her friend was as good at getting out of trouble as she was at getting into it. She parted ways with Hazel and cautiously entered her target's compartment. "Hi!" she said. "I'm Heidi. Are you first-years, too?"

"Yes," said the boy politely. "I'm Louis Boyle. You're welcome to sit with us if you like."

Heidi did, but she found it hard to get into the conversation. After all, they would most likely end up in different houses; what use was it making friends now?

"... and my sister gave me an amulet she reckons can ward off Death Eaters," said Rilla, the blue-eyed girl opposite Heidi.

"You can't say that word anymore," Louis warned her urgently. "It's banned back home. You have to say 'hereditary purist'. My uncle got into a terrible row with one of the Night Guards last week about it."

Adam, the short boy across from Louis, fingered the little green amulet experimentally. "Well, at least it'll ward off nerves," he said.

"What nerves?" said Rilla airily. "Only babies are scared on the first day of school. I bet before the week is out I'll be the seeker on my house team and top in every class!"

Adam shrugged. "I doubt they'll do much more this week than assign the introductory – and therefore boring – chapter of the textbook, give us a speech about how important their subject is, and demonstrate something exciting we won't be able to do until the end of term."

"Brilliant!" said Heidi. "Then we'll have lots of time to explore and meet people. This is going to be a lovely week."

"There aren't many of us this year," Louis remarked. "Do you think they'll give us a tour all at once, or in groups?"

Heidi laughed. "Not much chance of either; I've heard being perpetually lost the first couple years is something of a Hogwarts tradition. It'd be a big enough castle even if all the stairs and hallways and doors led to the same place each time!"

"We should make a map," suggested Adam. "We could put a charm on it to mimic the movements of the castle, maybe send out exploring parties to go all the possible ways, like with a corn maze. And then we'd record our findings like real explorers and cartographers."

"We could call ourselves the Labyrinth League!" Rilla said, excited.

"But what if we got lost forever?" worried Louis.

Heidi smiled. "It's a school, not the Catacombs. I'll be happy if I can find my way to my first class on time. We'll have to leave really early -"

"- at dawn -" suggested Rilla.

"- or camp out all night outside the door," laughed Louis, finally perking up a bit.

"We could roast marshmallows!"

"And have a pillow fight!"

"And all the older kids would think we were crazy -"

"- but if the teachers catch us we'll just say we're dedicated to being punctual," Adam grinned cheekily.

Well, there went Heidi's plan of not making friends yet. She hoped somewhere in their thorough exploration of the castle they found some place for kids of all different houses to hang out. A Common common room, they could call it, or maybe just a first-year common room. Heidi giggled at the idea of setting a password and keeping all the jealous second-years out.

A few hours later she caught up with Hazel again at the platform. "Did you find out anything interesting?" she asked.

"Did I ever!" Hazel grinned. "I can't believe you were making boring first-year conversation and missed it all."

Heidi frowned but motioned her to continue. She and Hazel didn't always agree on what was interesting.

"Well," said Hazel, "everyone's super-upset that Professor Snape is headmaster now, because a lot of people think he's a Death Eater, or was at any rate, except the children of a few Death Eaters are happy about it, and there was a huge fistfight between some Gryffindors and Slytherins, and then they started using magic, and a boy called Neville Longbottom told a boy called Draco Malfoy that as long as he was at Hogwarts, Dumbledore's Army would make sure no one touched a muggle-born or half-blood, and I think I'm in love, Hide!" she gasped, finally breathing in for air.

Heidi smiled. Hazel fell in love a lot. "What's Dumbledore's Army?" She knew Dumbledore was the old headmaster that died, but this was the first she'd heard of his military presence.

"It's a group of older kids who know really cool fighting spells. Harry Potter started it, but that's the other thing everyone's worried about. Harry Potter and his two best mates aren't on the train!"

Now she did know who Harry Potter was, of course. Her brother had told her about the air of mystery surrounding the boy-who-lived, how he seemed to face off against dark forces almost yearly, how he lost Gryffindor loads of points every year with his dangerous mischief but gained them back playing quidditch brilliantly. "Maybe you-know-who kidnapped them!" whispered Heidi.

"Some people were worried that he did, but the sister of one of the missing kids told everyone they're actually out looking for you-know-who!"

Heidi couldn't believe that three school children, even seventh-years, could be brave enough to track down a full-grown Dark wizard and fight him, on purpose. That was the kind of hero you read about but never actually met. Impressed as she was, though, she did wish with a little part of herself that Harry and his friends were still at Hogwarts to protect everyone. For ages everyone had looked to wise old Professor Dumbledore to keep the castle a safe haven, and his suspicious death and even more suspicious replacement with the maybe-Death Eater Slytherin head of house didn't bode so well for the coming year. Hopefully the rest of this Dumbledore's Army would be enough to fight off the Death Eaters if they ever attacked the castle.

"How on earth did you find all this out, Haze?" she asked presently, amazed as always by her friend's frightening ability to sneak through higher circles and return with a more accurate picture of reality than half the adults in the world.

"They didn't have much attention left for anything else once the fight broke out," she giggled. "Life is all about timing."

The girls had been walking as they had been talking, and soon enough a small fleet of boats came into view. An enormous man sporting a long black beard was waving his arms and calling to the first-years to find a boat. "Git in, yeh lot!" he bade them. "These are no times tah be lurkin' outdoors after sundown. Now could I have a word, Professor Sprout?" he asked of the small witch escorting them.

Lowering his voice and glancing around, he took her aside and held up a piece of parchment significantly. Whatever it was made the witch's eyes go wide as she read, her hands involuntarily clasping onto the large man's arm. He looked down, as if he'd been hoping his friend would have a solution and had just realized how ridiculous that hope was.

"It can' be true, Pomona, it just can'. Dementors an' basilisks an' dragons, sure, but Alecto an' Amycus Carrow both? Teachin' kids at Hogwarts, like they've a right to be here?" He closed his eyes for a moment. "Why if Dumbledore were here ..." But this thought was too painful for him to complete aloud.

Professor Sprout looked sadly up at her colleague. "I know, Hagrid, I can't believe it either, but we mustn't despair, not now. We're all that stands between these children and … and … oh, never mind, just get this lot up to the castle, Rubeus, before something really does jump out of those shadows."

And, sweeping his eyes over his young charges as if for the first time, taking in twenty breathless, beaming faces shining almost brightly enough to dispel the starless night, Professor Hagrid remarked, "Blimey, what a year tah be a firs' year."