Author's Note 3/20/13: Hello reader. You might be wondering, "Why did Janie stop her last project for this old thing?" Well, I got inspired by something other than my last multichapter fiction and while that one is still up, I thought I should pursue the inspiration while it struck. This story is more an interesting exploration than anything. It started with a character, and progressed from that. I actually didn't intend to have Dennis Creevey or a camera in this story at all when I first thought of ideas. I simply needed filler description to flesh out the story, and thus the actual plot was born. And please review this story. I understand that you might not have the time, or that you might be disgusted with me, or that you have other things to do. If any of those are applicable, I totally understand why you're not reviewing, but I implore you to do so anyway. You see, I thrive off your critique, even if it's completely negative. You hate my story? Great! Tell me! It's better than feeling nothing. I want to bring out emotions in you like the Harry Potter books have brought out in me. I thought I would mention here and now that I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I claim to own the story, its characters, its plot devices, or any of that. I do claim to own Lillian Askett as a character completely of my own design, and I do claim to own the specific plot of this story. In fact, I'm not just claiming that; I'm saying it. I own those. No idea-nomming por favor! I also want to address the rating of this story: it is T simply because I want the freedom to add in T related themes. I don't expect it to go above a K or K+ for most things, and certainly not for language or sexual content. The only thing that might reach T is violence, and that's simply because I describe battle scenes in agonizing detail. So, onto the story!

A few miles from London lay a peaceful suburb, surrounded by many other peaceful suburbs. A milkman bicycled by the rows of brick houses to deliver his day's worth. The money was far from good, but it paid a portion of his bills. The man's position as an ice-cream truck driver supplied the rest. His family certainly appreciated dairy; they came from a long line of dairy farmers and milkmen, and while they had never been rich, they were all proud to serve England in their own, calcium filled way. The humid air swam down the man's throat as he pedaled on his milkman's bicycle. He reached up one tentative hand, swerved a bit, then placed it back onto the handlebars. The milkman tried anew, and succeeded in lowering his hat to block the early September sun. At this time of year it rose before the man began his shift and sat far after it came to a close. The children clambered for ice cream late into the night, and he was happy to serve. After all, it wouldn't be long before he put away his ice creamer's uniform for the season. The man watched pairs of parents drag their children into automobiles to go to school. It had started recently; he remembered seeing the toddlers clinging to their mothers' legs as they teetered to their cars. He saw the wave of new backpacks, and he remembered the smell of fresh notebook paper and graphite for pencils. He especially remembered the "First Day ice cream" parties parents held for their children. These were never anything special, but the smiles on young faces after a first day at school warmed his heart. He hated to close his truck those days, he dreaded the time his clock would fluoresce 9:00. He would pull out, return home, and go to sleep with the knowledge that he would have to wait another year for those Christmas-esque smiles.

The Askett residence broke him out of his reverie, and he stopped his bike near their front hedge. He couldn't see any morning activity in their house, which was odd for a school morning. He glanced down at his watch: 7:30. Their car sat still in the driveway with the trunk open. A large suitcase sat in the open trunk, and on top of that sat a cage with a small, sleeping, something. The black ball of fluff rose and fell in its cage, and the milkman couldn't help but feel sorry for the little thing. Hopefully it wouldn't be held captive for very long. As he continued to gaze at what he assumed to be a cat, it woke and gazed back at him. Their locked stare turned very creepy very quickly, the milkman thought. The cat's green eyes seemed far too intelligent to belong to a feline. "What if that's actually a human being?" he asked himself, then shook his head. He hadn't held such thoughts for a long time.

As the milkman pedaled on, he remembered that none of the Askett kids walked to school that morning. Were they in secondary school already? Where would they be going? He would have seen the pair of them walking to the local secondary school if they were attending. He wondered whether the small, specky one left for boarding school; the child sounded like he had the brains for it, from the snippets of conversation they'd shared around his beaten ice-cream truck. The girl would surely be attending the local public school. Everyone said odd things happened around her, but they surely couldn't be so odd as to prevent her from attending school. He hoped she hadn't finally hurt herself with one of those weird stunts; he remembered the time his hair turned orange from the time he ran out of dulce de leche ice cream. The milkman pursed his lips. "She might be a good candidate for it," the man mused as his knees pumped an infinite circle of tire on blacktop. He would have brought a hand to rub his newly-shaven chin, but he didn't trust his balance with such a feat. Instead, he let his head do the wondering. Hopefully it could figure things out without the assistance of his right hand.

"Well, she's the best candidate for it you've seen in ten years. You might as well drop it off. If not she's not the right one, you still made a kid happy." The milkman sighed and turned his bike around. He would be flayed for his late delivery, but the boss couldn't mind too much; he hadn't been late in years. He deserved one day of "slacking." He carried the package with him every day in a small bag slung over his shoulder, just in case he found the child on the street. The parcel was no larger than the boxes holding milk bottles, but infinitely more valuable to him. Of course, the box's purpose was to be given to the right child, and the milkman said his goodbyes to it long ago.

He needed to sneak by the house, pretend he was checking his list, perhaps. The Asketts didn't receive milk on Sundays, but he was old enough to make a few mistakes. So long as they didn't notice him dropping what promised to be a suspicious-looking package, he would be fine. He parked the bicycle behind a bush and walked in front of the house, carrying the list as he went. The man made for the door with a bottle of milk in his left hand, making it look like his appearance was an honest mistake. He appeared to check his list once more, and left the door. No one noticed the box he left on their front stoop. He left no instructions, no return address, and no sign of who should receive the package. If this girl was the right child, the package would find her.

The milkman pedaled more swiftly up the road now, lightened by his empty sack and empty heart. He hadn't felt this free in nineteen years.

Mrs. Askett huffed as she lowered the menacing torture weapon to her daughter's head for a third lashing. The air outside, very humid, made this the optimal day for torture, though the worst possible day for useable results. She could smell cooling cinnamon rolls on the side counter, and she could sense the young girl's mouth filling with saliva. Perhaps she'd let the girl have a treat after enduring what this one-hundred pronged object had in store for her.

"Mom! Mom! Cut it out!" Lillian nearly growled as the brush ripped through her hair. "I swear it looks fine!"

"I don't know how those wizarding families let their children walk around, but in this house we have brushed hair." Mrs. Askett rolled her eyes and tried to remember that it was perfectly normal for her daughter to leave home and be trained as a witch. She simply couldn't see it; Lillian looked nothing like a witch. Mrs. Askett's first thought had been, "So where are the frog spawn and warts?" but she had dispelled the thought quickly. If her daughter were to become a witch, Mrs. Askett was determined to see her become a decent-looking one. Granted, Lillian had always seemed a little odd, but Mrs. Askett simply assumed Lillian had good luck. She grimaced as she remembered the day she found out luck had nothing to do with her daughter's good fortune.

An errant January wind blew its way through the house. Someone left a window open on the second floor, and the draft wrapped its way around the stair banister, the doorknobs, and every chair in the house. A young boy with glasses as big as his face shivered at his seat by the fire. He flipped a page of the tome propped on the arm of his chair. He loved the smell of old pages, even more than the smell of drying ink or a newspaper hot off the presses. This smell told the boy a story of the book's history, not just the words contained within the book. Today he poured over Shakespeare, again. He couldn't count how many times he read the tragic death of Macbeth or the comedic death of Pyramus. He watched lovers in their prime, enemies at their worst, and humanity at its finest. Shakespeare played God well, the boy thought as he flipped yet another fragile page.

A clanging ring reverberated through the house. "Lillian? Can you get the door? I'm busy!" shouted Mrs. Askett.

"I'll get it," said the bespectacled boy, alighting from his chair by the fire and coming to the door. He usually fumbled with the lock, but it turned easily under his fingertips this time. He could barely blink in surprise before the door opened of its own accord to reveal a severe looking woman. She stood in the snow as if it were the middle of June. As Oliver looked more closely he saw a couple flakes heading for her coat that turned away at the last second and landed on the ground.

"My mother's busy at the moment. Won't you come in?" he asked in a vain attempt to hide the trepidation in his voice.

"That would be lovely, thank you," the woman replied and stepped over the threshold.

The two sat in opposing chairs, and the boy made no point to hide his scrutinizing stare. She looked about fifty years old, but her clothing looked about a hundred and twenty years old. A high collar led into ruffled sleeves and a pigeon-bellied shirt. A narrow sash at the waist flowed into an ankle length skirt. The entire ensemble was black, and the boy thought she looked like someone attending a historical funeral party. His brain quickly flicked through facts to quickly deduce that her outfit complied most closely with clothing trends in 1907. Another mind-search and he had identified five people who died in 1907. Of course, she probably hadn't known any of them; the five names he pulled were all Americans. The only thing that brought him away from his analysis was her returning glare. She looked like she would eat him alive in a heartbeat.

"May I ask your name?" she said, gazing into his eyes. Her voice sounded less like the shriek of a disembodied harpy than he thought. He felt a little calmer at the completely human sound of her voice, but the steely undertone kept fear close at hand.

"Oliver."

"And do you know a Miss Lillian?"

"That would be me," said Lillian, prancing into the room. The woman looked over her appearance, and her heart sank a little. The girl's filthy gingham dress equaled her matted hair in everything except color. At least she smelled decent. Her small ears and oversized grin gave her the look of a severely addled fruit bat, and the mischievous spark in her eyes reminded her too closely of two twins by the name of Weasley. Her pale skin, flecked with mud the woman didn't know could be found during a snowstorm, seemed to glow under the living room's lights. She was almost excruciatingly thin, as was her bespectacled brother, and she looked to be his height, that is to say, very short. The woman had no quarrel with short people; she had an issue with dirty children. She ardently wished she had come for the Oliver boy. His combed hair hung until just before his collar, and she took particular joy from his shoes, which were clearly were used for indoor purposes only. His silver eyes shone in time with his sister's, but the woman remarked that his excitement probably came from the massive book he was reading instead of whatever despicable thing the girl had been doing. "Why do you want to talk to me?"

Oliver cringed. His sister could be incredibly forward at times, and this moment was no exception. He normally didn't mind his Lillian's outgoing nature, but he wished she could put it on hold when guests came to their house, especially guests like this woman. She looked rather like a, "children should be seen, not heard," type of a person.

"You see," said the woman, turning to Lillian, "I'm here to offer you a position at our school."

Oliver grinned. He thought his sister would never get invited to a secondary school, and he had begun to worry. Oliver had, by this time, received dozens of invitations to boarding schools and private day schools across England while his sister, who hated her studies, hoped to be accepted to the local charter school. The two had accepted long ago that Oliver was the "gifted" child in the family. That didn't stop Oliver from wishing his sister would go to a nicer school.

"Oh okay. Hold on a second." Lillian dashed up the stairs and into her mother's bedroom. "Mom! Someone invited me to a school!"

Mrs. Askett put down the pin in her hand and ran down the stairs. Half her blond hair hung straight while the other half cascaded in voluminous waves down her back. She tried to hide the unstyled half of her head underneath the better-looking parts. She failed miserably. Her makeup, flawless as always, at least portrayed some sort of decorum in front of her guest. Upon seeing the woman, she extended her hand. "Hello, I'm Gertrude. It's a pleasure to meet you."

The woman's returning handshake felt firm to Mrs. Askett's supple hands. The hand was not cracked with age, nor hardened with the callouses of manual labor. The handshake only imparted a strength Mrs. Askett would not have expected of the woman in the black dress. "My name is Minerva McGonagall. I'm currently headmistress of a secondary school, though I'll be retiring at the end of this year. I'd like to offer your daughter a position at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

The woman's smile faded slowly to a look of disbelief, then one of disgust, then one of the best false smiles Minerva had seen in years. Still, it didn't reach her eyes, and Minerva could hear a slightly steely edge to the woman's tone. "I'm sorry, but what did you say your school teaches?"

"Witchcraft, and wizardry, though I'd say only the first term applies to your daughter. The two are completely synonymous terms of course, similar to the words actor and actress. I would have you know now that the wizarding world does not condone sexism of any sort." Minerva usually played the anti-sexism card early. Apparently, parents believed that witches lived in the same society as the humans who believed in witches did: one long before feminism.

"I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean by witchcraft. Is this a vocational school for magicians? If so, I'm not having Lillian become a party entertainer."

"I assure you, the vast majority of graduates do not make their livings through entertainment. The Minister of Magic, for example, is a graduate of Hogwarts."

"Wait, you people have a Ministry?" Mrs. Askett stopped to blink a few times, and shook her head in a vain attempt to rid it of nonsense. "Actually, what in the world are you people? How can a bunch of people who don't exist have a Ministry?"

"Yes, I don't believe I've explained this thoroughly." McGonagall sighed. Every time she hoped the family would simply catch on and accept her world without the required explanation. She was wrong, again. "We are wizards, and we live in a magical world within yours that's been secret since the International Statute of Secrecy signed in 1689. Basically," this part of the speech gave her a small thrill, though she never quite understood why, "we do magic."

Mrs. Askett looked like an odd mixture of someone trying not to laugh, and someone so shocked as to fall off her seat. Minerva could barely stifle a chuckle at the site of the woman's face. Those faces were the main reason why she kept up this duty, even as headmistress. She couldn't help but laugh at the outrage, disgust, and disbelief of Muggle parents in direct contrast with the complete belief of their children. She saved a couple choice reactions in her penseive for particularly trying days. The young girl, beside her mother, looked like she actually believed she was a wizard. "Is that why funny stuff happens around me all the time?"

"Well, it depends on the sort of thing that happens, but accidental magic might explain why odd things happen around you."

"Let's see… I ended up on the roof once when I was playing tag with Oliver, and he swore he didn't see me climb anywhere. There was this time I turned the milkman's hair orange because he didn't have the ice cream I like. I felt really bad about that one, actually. I keep flowers alive for a lot longer than they should be, though everyone says that's because my house has a really good temperature for plants. Teachers who punish me always seem to have," she paused, "interesting things happen to them. This one lady made me sit out at recess for something I didn't do, and the next day her nose was as long as Pinocchio's after telling a whole bunch of lies," her voice sped, "but that was an accident! I would never want to make someone's nose so ugly. Oh, and I can get myself things without picking them up if I think hard enough about it." Minerva's brows rose as a doll off the far shelf rose and floated to its master. "Is that what you do?"

Mrs. Askett's mouth opened like a cod fish out of water. "Honey, what did you just—"

McGonagall cut her off, "Yes, but your talents are just the beginning. You have remarkable control of your powers for someone so young, but you could achieve a lot more with some training. That is the purpose of Hogwarts. We train young witches and wizards to perform more advanced magic."

"What kind of advanced magic?" asked Oliver.

"Yeah, can we see something cool?"

"I don't know your definition of 'cool,' but I have a piece of magic I think you'll like," the professor said and promptly transformed into a tabby cat with square markings around her eyes. Mrs. Askett promptly shrieked, too shocked to flee the room.

"That's one for the penseive," Professor McGonagall thought as she transformed back into her human form and waited for the shaking woman to regain her composure. The boy, however, looked confused. "How did you do that?"

"Well, the animagus transformation is a very difficult piece of transfiguration magic which allows the caster to—"

"No, not that. How did you get your clothes to transform with you?"

Minerva stifled a chuckle; only a child would focus on her clothes instead of the transformation into a feline. "When we transform, we picture ourselves just as we are, and then we picture ourselves turning into an animal. I pictured myself with my clothes on, so my clothes transformed with me. The first transformation is the most difficult because we don't know which animal to picture in our minds. We essentially jump into the transformation blind, which leads to some rather interesting results."

Lillian laughed, a high, tinkling sound. "If I go to this school, will I learn how to be a wizard then?"

"Of course. Here are your necessary lists," Professor McGonagall said and passed the lists to Lillian. Her brother immediately peered over her shoulder to see the types of books she would need. McGonagall didn't doubt the family would need two copies of everything." I'll give you time to talk over the decision, but tomorrow I'll need to return to help you shop for school supplies if you do decide to attend."

McGonagall stood up, saw herself out, and disappeared off their doorstep with a loud cracking noise. Oliver ran outside to see if he could smell any sort of chemical residue, but he smelled nothing other than overgrown grass under freshly fallen snow and Lillian's now-cooled breakfast in the kitchen.

"Yes, mum." Lillian's reply brought Mrs. Askett out of her memories and back into brushing her daughter's hair. Lillian could feel every jagged move the brush made as it tore through her hairline, the grown of her head, the hair just by her neck, and all down her back. Dark brown curls did not relent to the brushing; they sprung back into their ringlets almost immediately. Apparently, the new ringlets were some sort of improvement, because Lillian's mother eventually stopped yanking.

She was just about to stand up when her mother pulled her back into the chair. "I still have to pull it back, you know. I don't want you looking like a ragamuffin at that Hogwarts place. Lillian sighed; it would be a long day if her mother kept this up.

Fortunately, pulling Lillian's hair into two buns took only a few minutes, as did adding the "good-luck ribbon," so Lillian was free to have her outfit criticized instead of her hair pulled. Apparently torn jeans wouldn't do for a train ride. "Mom! I'm wearing robes the whole time. Who cares?"

"I care! You have to wear street clothes for most of the train ride." She thrust a bundle at Lillian. "Wear these." Deciding it was better not to argue, Lillian slipped into the clothes and walked back into the kitchen.

"Can I go now?" she asked. Irritation crept into the edges of her voice.

Her mother blotted her watery eyes on a tissue as she looked at her daughter. "Jeez mom, I'll see you in a couple months," Lillian said and rolled her eyes. "Christmas isn't far, and I'm sure Professor McGonagall wouldn't mind if you visited. Okay scratch that, she probably would mind a lot. But you can send me loads of owls; you know how, right?"

"Yes, I know how to use it," Mrs. Askett replied and regarded the cage at the corner of the room warily. The large, tawny owl screeched, as if she forgot it knew how to be an obnoxious, annoying completely terrifying lump of feathers. She still held by her previous assessment of the bird; the thing was a menace, no matter how useful it might be. Of course, there was a very large gulf between knowing how to use something and having the courage to actually attempt it. "Do you want something else for breakfast?"

"Then you'll make me change my clothes again because I'll get a tiny spot of jam on my skirt or something. Mom, it's 9:15 and I have to be on the train by 11. Professor McGonagall said that the train doesn't wait for anyone, and I'm usually the person people have to wait for."

Mrs. Askett sighed, kissed her daughter on the forehead, and realized that she could do nothing else to stall her leaving. "Are you sure you're ready to leave?" she asked with a vain hope that her daughter would decide to stay.

"Great! Time to leave." Lillian practically dragged her father to the doorway, shoved him in the car, and clambered into the back. "Head out head out head out!" she chanted.

One minute Lillian had her feet on the ground. In the next second, they traded places with her face. Her father couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of his furiously blushing daughter. "All right there, Lilli?"

"Don't mention this. Ever," Lillian growled as she righted herself. A couple droplets of blood fell from a freshly scraped knee. "Whatever you do, don't tell mom. I'll never get to Hogwarts if she finds out about this. What did I trip over, anyway?"

"There's a box on the stoop with your name on it. Funny, the mail isn't supposed to come until noon today."

"Your daughter is being hauled off to a wizard boarding school and you think it's weird that the MAIL came early?" Lillian quipped.

"Touché, but it's also curious how none of the other mail came. Maybe this is from one of your folk."

Lillian picked up the box. It felt light in her hands, though it seemed like her dad thought it was a little heavy. A faint breeze whistled through her hair, and she could feel a tingling sensation in her fingertips. The feeling wasn't unlike her first experience with her 11 inch, maple wand with unicorn tail. "Dad, I know I'm supposed to have whatever's in here."

Her father rolled her eyes. "Well stop making it such a dramatized event and open the thing."

Lillian opened the lid to the worn, cardboard box. Inside she found a plain black camera from what looked like twenty or thirty years ago and several reams of film. "Wow," she said.

"I wasn't expecting a camera, certainly. Well, pack it into the car. We'll talk about it on the way there. Weren't you just saying you'd be late?"

"Oh yeah!" Lillian said and bounded into the car. By nightfall she'd be sitting at the Gryffindor table in Hogwarts. She was sure she'd be sorted into Gryffindor. She was definitely the bravest person she knew. "Except you're not really brave at all," said a small voice in her head, "You've done brave things because you're stupid and you get yourself into stupid situations. Gryffindors put themselves into those situations to help others. You just do it because you're an idiot. Be happy you won't get sorted into Slytherin." "Slytherin's not such a bad house," Lillian whined at the voice. "I'm not some objective measuring system," it replied, "I'm only the inside of your brain, so I think what you really think. If you say Slytherin isn't so bad, then why do I, the voice inside your head, think it is?" Lillian found herself at a loss for what to say.

The car couldn't speed quickly enough along the suburban roads around their house. Her father hummed along with awful oldies music. "Rock Lobster" appeared to be the song of the day. B-52 was probably a very shortened version of, "Become insane-52 ways." His throaty voice didn't follow the tune, if the song had one. His left hand tapped the steering wheel idly, and Lillian realized she certainly wouldn't miss that part of her father's voice when she left for Hogwarts.

Lillian glanced at her watch: 9:30. One and a half hours and the wizarding world would snatch her from her family, possibly forever. She remembered reading about someone named Harry Potter who lived in a cupboard because he was a wizard, and his aunt hated her sister when she became a witch. "What if Ollie hates me?" she asked herself. She loved her brother to bits, and hated to admit he was as horribly flawed as she, but he had struggled with jealousy since they were little. He didn't mind if someone received something of equal value or shared everything he had, but Oliver couldn't stand being second-best. "That's probably what drove him to school," Lillian thought and sighed. He insisted it was fine that she had magic and he didn't, but she couldn't be sure. As well as they knew one another, Lillian could always tell when Oliver lied, and that phrase had "liar liar pants on fire" written all over it. A tangent took Lillian's thoughts to a spell that would light a liar's trousers. She could see his eyes, clouded from sadness. He would brush his hair across his eyes to try and hide them, but that only made him look worse. He certainly started reading more since Lillian accepted her position at Hogwarts. She wondered how he would have felt had she refused. He probably would have protested outwardly and cheered to himself that he was still the "talented" one of the family. Of course, he would have felt terribly guilty about his feelings and then started brooding. Lillian couldn't win; Oliver would be upset either way.

Through the open window, Lillian smelled faint traces of lawn fertilizer and worn tires. The car passed a couple kids on rollerblades; it looked like they skated forwards and moved backwards as the car ran by their slow bodies. Lillian searched for the tweeting bird somewhere overhead. She thought she spotted a bluejay, but the bird flew away before she could see it closely. The blue sky above had puffy, white clouds that Lillian watched while her father drove to London. They formed swirling molds of wands, hats, cauldrons, and she swore she saw a large snake flicking puffs of a white fluffy tongue at her. The puffs transformed into the image of a face, and it took her a few seconds to recognize what she thought the clouds said. "Dad," Lillian began worriedly.

"What, popkin?"

"I forgot to say bye to Oliver!"

"He'll live," her dad chuckled. "He'll probably be happier you didn't wake him up. Actually, he's probably been up for hours reading Bronte or something. You know how long it takes us to get him out of a book."

"I guess," she replied and gazed out the window.

Miles behind, an inconsolable Oliver ran down the stairs. "Lillian wasn't in her room! Where is she?"

"She went off to school today. It starts on September 1st, and the train was due to leave at 11:00. Your father drove her to the train station."

Oliver's first thought was one of jealousy because he wouldn't get to see the magical train platform located between platforms nine and ten at the same time his sister would. He quashed the thought with familial worry that crashed over him like an incoming tide onto a beach. "I-I" he tried to begin. His voice came like a worn whisper. His sister stole the fire in his tone and left it a barren shell of the confident voice it used to be. Oliver was never particularly vocal, and without his sister his voice disappeared completely. Oliver took a couple deep breaths an tried again, "Mom, I didn't get to say goodbye." His eyes filled with tears that threatened to overflow onto his already blotchy cheeks. "I won't get to see her for months, and y-you didn't let me say goodbye." The first tear spilled over to run across his left cheek. He didn't bother to bat it away.

"Oliver, it was all rather sudden, and she had to get going. It was already 9:15 when I finished brushing her hair."

A glint of rage sparked in the near-dead silver eyes. "Oh, so you had time to brush her hair, which she doesn't even like, but you didn't have time to let me say goodbye to her? How could you?" Betrayal poured from his face, and Mrs. Askett had to look away.

"Ollie, I'm sure I can find a way to let you see her before winter holidays, if that will make you feel b—"

"No that won't make me feel better! I didn't get to see her off, and she's my sister, mom! If you drove me over right now I still probably wouldn't feel perfect, because I knew you didn't think of me this morning at all! I know today is her day, but it's an important day for the two of us. We've never been out of the same classroom, and you think I can just let go like that?" Oliver became vaguely aware that he sounded like a massive sap with his talk of feelings and clinginess, but another wave of newly-discovered loneliness washed the shame away.

Mrs. Askett watched her son work himself into a frenzy. Oliver was usually the calm one in the family; his rages were few, far between, and very well-justified. "Can you at least call dad so I can say goodbye?"

The mother dialed up her husband on the phone, only to find that he left his cell phone on the kitchen counter. "Sorry, Ollie."

Oliver ran up to his room. He wouldn't sob, but he'd be damned if he couldn't study angrily for the next day or so. Perhaps he might even quit eating to spite the woman; he never cared much for food anyway. Eating the stuff simply took time away from his studies, and he had a lot of research to do on those wizarding types. Of course, getting hungry might be a problem, but he would consider such trivial things later. For now, the smell of inked pages and hard binding beckoned. The situation called for an extremely reading of philosophy. He might give his brain a break and start with Kierkegaard instead of Hegel, he thought as he picked up a large tome on his bedside table.

"Oliver," his mother's tinkling, cautious voice rang up the stairs.

"What," she didn't deserve the inflection to make it a question.

"It's only 9:35. I sent them on their way to make sure they had time for Lillian's trunk. You can still see her off if you want."

Oliver sniffed and grabbed a bag, filled with books of course. He doubted he would read much on the car ride.