When Hazel woke up, everything was soft and warm. The feeling immediately made her think of one of her mother's magic hugs, a smile stretching across her face at the thought.

It still felt sort of weird, to smile, but it was getting easier.

And then something happened to run a spike of cold terror into her semi-familiar comfort: a strange voice from nearby saying her name. Hazel snapped up to sitting, sliding away to put her back to the headboard, and looked around for—

She froze, temporarily distracted by the room itself. This might be the most colourful place she had ever been in. It was rather absurd, actually. Bright wallpaper covered in posters, dozens of books on shelves painted swirling shapes, even the sheets and blankets of the bed she was sitting in, all of it a rainbow of twisting, clashing colour. It was almost hard to make anything out.

She stopped even trying to pick out her surroundings, entirely distracted, when she noticed some of the posters were moving. What the...

'Hazel?' She jumped at the voice, jerking away from the source, turning to find a woman sitting at the edge of the bed. Hazel's first thought was that she was very pretty. She had deep black hair, pure as the black between stars, her face all sharp lines and dramatic curves, but not really in a bad way, her eyes dark but at the same time bright, almost seeming to sparkle from inside somehow. She was pulled a bit back, not leaning too close, hands kept away from the bed, raised up almost in surrender, her face open and cautious.

It only took a couple seconds for Hazel to figure out who this had to be. She tried to force herself to relax, but didn't manage very much, still feeling all too tight and tense. 'You're Andi?'

A warm smile crossed the woman's face, the sparkles in her eyes going brighter. 'Yes, Hazel. Do you remember what happened?'

Hazel frowned, pretending like she had to think about it. Of course, she couldn't remember at all — it had been her mother in control when Andi and her husband would have come, she hadn't been there. But Andi wasn't supposed to know that. 'Er, you were going to come, I know. I was waiting in my cupboard and...' She trailed off, trying to look confused. 'I don't know, I can't remember.'

The lie sounded terribly obvious to Hazel, but Andi didn't look suspicious. If anything, she just looked concerned, slightly confused. Mum had said saying she didn't remember would be fine, but she hadn't explained why. Something about what she'd provoke Vernon into doing to her, Hazel assumed. 'Well,' Andi finally said, sounding a bit sad. 'It's probably better you don't remember.'

She was somewhat disappointed when Andi stopped there, eyes going unfocused, staring at nothing. If only because Hazel had no idea how to fill the silence. She played at the sheets with the fingers for a few moments, looking around the room. 'Where are we?'

'My home. This is my daughter's room — don't worry about taking her bed or anything, she's off at Hogwarts right now.' Right, Hazel vaguely remembered Mum mentioning Hogwarts was a boarding school. 'Can I ask you something?'

Hazel frowned for a second, staring at the woman. All of a sudden, she was looking and sounding very...hesitant? Almost scared. Weird. 'What?'

'Why didn't you tell me?'

'Er, about what?'

'The cupboard.'

Oh. Well. Luckily, Mum had already told her what to say if this question came up. She hadn't expected it to come up so soon, but she was prepared, at least. 'I just... I didn't want you to be too worried.'

'Too worried?' Andi repeated, frowning, obviously confused.

Hazel fidgeted, toes and fingers fisting in the sheets and letting them go again. She didn't want to talk about this. It was all...icky. She would have to learn better words eventually, that didn't really work, but she didn't have a better one for the tight, sticky feeling in her chest, it was all she could think of. 'If you were too worried you would... I don't know, call the cops or something? And the cops don't help.'

'They...' Andi closed her eyes, took in a long, deep breath. Through her nose, not her mouth, her chest slowly rising as she pulled in and in and in. Then she let it out in a sigh, her eyes opening to stare at Hazel. She wasn't sure she liked the look. She wasn't sure what the look was, it just made Hazel feel... She didn't know. Pinned? It wasn't nice. 'That's why you really wrote us, isn't it? You were hoping we would help.'

Hazel had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. So she just sat there, and tried not to look too guilty. Andi staring at her all heavy and sharp wasn't making that easy.

After a few moments of staring, Andi sighed again. She didn't seem annoyed, didn't seem suspicious. Instead, she just looked sad, and tired. Hazel wondered if she should feel guilty about that. She didn't, but she honestly didn't know if she should or not. It was her fault, but... She jerked out of her thoughts again when Andi started talking. 'Well, never mind all that. If you like, I'm sure some of Dora's clothes should fit you. Ted will have dinner ready in a few minutes. That's why I woke you up, I thought you might be hungry.'

Really, she never stopped being hungry. Especially recently, after she'd started actually getting food more often. It was weird, before she could barely eat for days and not even notice that much, but after a couple weeks of being snuck food she did. So, she could probably eat, then.

Wait, Dora was her daughter, right? Wasn't she, like, thirteen or fourteen or something? Her clothes really shouldn't fit Hazel, not unless they were really old...

It turned out Hazel's immediate assumption was completely wrong. When Hazel said that sounded fine — she doubted whatever Andi was going to be finding for her would be worse than the old tee shirt she was wearing in place of a dress at the moment — Andi went to the closet, started shifting around at one end. After a bit of picking about she set some fuzzy-looking trouser-like things, a thin sleeveless thing, and an even fuzzier jumper on the bed. Just by looking, Hazel was pretty sure they would fit her. Probably better than any clothes she'd ever had, actually. But... But she was so much younger!

She was confused enough to ask, and Andi explained what a metamorph was. By the end Hazel thought she might be a little jealous. That sounded really neat.

Anyway, a few minutes later, Andi was gone, the door closing behind her — it had taken a bit to convince her to leave, she could change by herself, jeez. She didn't move immediately for the new (to her) clothes, or look more closely at the strange and (literally) magical room around her. Instead, her heart suddenly high in her throat, hardly more than a whisper, she said, 'Mum?' She waited, hardly a second.

And the world flickered.

When she came back, she was again wrapped in a soft, tight warmth, seemingly not from anything, just clinging to her, invisible and intangible.

And Hazel smiled.


Hazel wouldn't say living with the Tonkses was bad, exactly. But it was a little confusing.

She woke up every morning in her own bed, in her own room. Well, that wasn't quite right. It wasn't her bed, not her room. She was staying in her cousin Dora's room, since Dora was off at school right now, and wasn't using it anyway. The Tonkses had already started converting another room in the house, which had been an office, into a new bedroom for her, but they weren't even close to done cleaning the place out yet. Andi said it would be done before the summer, when Dora would be coming back, which Hazel would believe when she saw it.

It was a weird thought, having her own room. A real room, that is.

But anyway, the point was, real bed, real room. There was a lock on the door, but it was on the inside, she couldn't be locked in. There was no stomping of heavy steps on the ceiling — there weren't stairs above her head, there wasn't even another floor, just an attic no one ever went in hardly. She didn't get woken up in the morning with shrieking and pounding. Actually, she didn't get woken up in the morning at all. Andi or Ted would come by to tell her breakfast was ready, checking if she was up, but she was always awake by then.

Because one of them would always make breakfast. Which one ended up cooking depended on which had to be at work earlier, but they always did it. And dinner, whichever was home earlier. She hadn't been told to cook at all. Actually, when she'd asked if she wasn't supposed to be doing something, Ted had just given her a very strange look, exchanged a dark glance with Andi. It was weird.

They didn't really expect her to do much of anything, as a matter of fact. It was weird. Not make too much of a mess of herself or Dora's clothes or things she was using — and what they thought of as "too much of a mess" was clearly far more messy than Petunia would accept. After a lengthy conversation with Andi, she'd been given some school books Hazel was pretty sure were magic, and told to go through so many pages each day. When she got home, Andi would check she'd done them quick, then talk through them over a half hour or so, to make sure Hazel had actually learned what she was expected to for the day, and that was that. And actually doing the work never took more than two or three hours, she was always done before lunch.

Lunch she still fixed for herself, but only herself — Andi and Ted were almost always out of the house during the day. Andi was a doctor at a magic hospital, Hazel had learned, and Ted was a lawyer, so they were rather busy. They'd apologised for that at first, that they wouldn't be around much, which Hazel had mostly found confusing. Andi had even offered to find someone to look after her, which had just been even more confusing.

It was weird. It wasn't that they were worried she couldn't take care of herself, though there was a little concern there, she thought, but more that... She didn't know. Like they thought she wouldn't be okay by herself. For feelings reasons. It was just...confusing.

And she was left alone so much, and was only rarely given any chores to take care of, she mostly had nothing to do. Once, she'd gone a lot further through her school stuff than she was supposed to that day, but she'd only done it once. Andi had had to spend a lot longer on their review thing in the evening, and she'd seemed really tired, so Hazel decided that was a bad idea. Sometimes she'd pull one of the Tonkses's books from somewhere, but she couldn't understand them more often than not. And the ones she could were mostly just because of her mother's help.

She was getting magic lessons, though. But even those were kind of boring. Mum had said she had to learn how to touch her magic, which mostly seemed to involve sitting in one place without moving and without thinking and without feeling and just...waiting. It hadn't taken very long for Hazel to decide she was very bad at not thinking and not feeling. Mum had admitted wandless magic was much easier to discover on accident than learn on purpose — strong emotions tended to make magic come out. So, she might get angry or sad or scared or something, and jump past the slow way all at once. But until that happened, this meditation thing was all she could do.

She didn't want to say it was boring, because it was magic, and it was her mother teaching it to her, but she couldn't really help thinking it. And since she was pretty sure Mum could see her thinking, there wasn't much point in not saying it, but it just seemed kind of rude...

Anyway, it was weird. She didn't really know what to do with herself most of the time. Or how to deal with the Tonkses, really.

Not that they were bad, but that was almost worse! If Andi were like Petunia, if Ted were like Vernon, she'd know what to do. She knew how to not get yelled at, she knew how to not get hurt. Well, mostly, sometimes she couldn't help it. But, when they were being all nice, it... She didn't know what to do with that. It was just uncomfortable, really. She tried to spend as little time around them as possible, even when they were home, because she didn't know what she was doing, and it was awkward.

Mum said they were probably worried the Dursleys had messed her up a bit. In the head, like. But that it was okay that they thought that, because they probably had. Mum said it was okay that she was a bit messed up, that it wasn't her fault and it was okay, but people would probably think she was a bit odd for a long time. That was why Andi and Ted were so nice and cautious with her, because she came off a bit odd, and they weren't sure what she would react badly to. Like a bomb, that might explode if it's hit too hard.

Hazel had almost questioned the choice of words, but then she remembered she was magic. She probably could explode things, who knows.

It was weird, this whole not living with the Dursleys thing. And it was all very confusing sometimes. But, well, it wasn't like she was looking to go back in the cupboard.

And nothing made that more clear than when someone came by who wanted to put her back.

It happened on a perfectly ordinary day. And by ordinary, Hazel meant somewhere between boring and uncomfortable. She was sitting at the dinner table with one of her books, mostly ignoring Andi and Ted in the kitchen. It was a weekend, and by some miracle they were both home for lunch. Not that she was expected to actually make lunch, which still felt slightly strange — Ted was in there cooking right now, Andi talking to him about something or other. She'd offered help any number of times, but Ted always gently and Andi always firmly told her that wasn't necessary, just go back to whatever she'd been doing. Which, okay. Boring, but okay.

Anyway, she was mostly ignoring that when she suddenly learned that mages had doorbells. It wasn't really an ordinary doorbell, sounding somehow both too quiet and too loud all at once — too quiet because it was at a nice, perfectly comfortable volume, but too loud because she was a couple rooms away from the front door. And it was too clear and too...bouncy. Hard to explain. But that had to be what it was, because the conversation in the next room hitched to a stop, and then Andi was walking through toward the door. Weird.

She thought it was even more weird when Andi came back through the room again, bringing Ted with her, and told Hazel they had a guest who wanted to talk to her.

She thought it was even more weird when she walked into the sitting room, and found the oddest-looking man she had ever seen on the cushy old sofa. Like, seriously, he was strange. He might possibly be the oldest person in the world, his skin so wrinkly it didn't seem to have non-wrinkly parts anymore, snow-white beard so long it bunched up a bit in his lap sitting down. And he was wearing the stupidest clothes ever. Not joking. Hazel still thought the robes mages wore were a little silly, but she was pretty sure even mages would blink at someone wearing sky-blue with random spots a blindingly bright orange. Seriously, was he colourblind?

And the twinkly-eyed smile he was giving her was reminding her of a very particular Santa from a couple years ago. She didn't like it. Twinkly-eyes always weirded her out.

'Ah, Hazel, my girl.' Yeah, that wasn't making her any less weirded out. His smile was far too warm and gentle and familiar, and it was making her really uncomfortable. She didn't know this man — acting like she should was just making her suspicious. Not to mention the "my girl" thing was weird. But not the point. 'I was hoping I could speak with you in private.'

She caught what was obviously supposed to be telling Andi and Ted to leave her alone with...whoever this bloke was. She turned to where they were standing and stared up at Andi. Luckily, it looked like she wouldn't have to say something possibly awkward. 'And what exactly do you need to talk to her about, Dumbledore?' Her stare at the old man, who was apparently named...she didn't think she'd caught it. Mumbledoor? Whatever, she didn't let up on her staring, moving to sit in the other sofa without even looking. When she was sat down, she glanced to Hazel long enough to nod at the other cushion, then turned back.

That was good enough for her. Aunt Petunia had said to not talk to strangers, especially creepy strangers, without a trusted adult around. Well, she'd said that to Dudley, anyway, but she'd always assumed what they told Dudley was the real advice, and the few times they bothered telling her anything like that, which was almost never, probably wasn't trustworthy.

While she sat down, Ted taking the armchair to her other side, Hazel absently scratched at the back of her head. She'd noticed she got this weird tingling sometimes, she was pretty sure when Mum was especially annoyed about something, and this was starting to get very tingly. She couldn't exactly ask what it was right now, should probably ignore it best she could.

Numblebore didn't look very happy about that, his bushy eyebrows drooping into a faint frown, the warm smile fading a little. Apparently he'd wanted them to be alone, which was also creepy, and Hazel would really rather be back with her boring book now, please. 'Well, Hazel...' His eyes flicked to Andi next to her, just for a second. 'I was hoping you could tell me how you came to be here.'

Hazel felt herself frowning. It was an innocent enough question, she guessed — Mum had said someone from the Ministry would probably be by to ask her a couple questions at some point, she'd been told what to say. But this creepy old man wasn't from the Ministry. Mum had said Hazel would know the person from the Ministry because they would say they were from the Ministry. This man hadn't said anything. And yes, the question itself was innocent enough, but he'd asked it...weird. She wasn't sure how, just weird.

And that tingling at the back of her head was getting worse.

In the end, she glanced at both Tonkses quick, before just shrugging the weirdness off. 'Er, I don't know. I mean, how I got from there to here. Magic, I'm guessing.' Because magic was neat like that. 'But, er, I found some of my mum's old stuff, and it talked about Ted and Andi, so then I was writing them, and then they came over and...' She shrugged. 'I don't remember what happened. I woke up here.'

His bushy brows falling lower over his eyes, Fumblemore said, 'You don't remember? They came, you fell asleep, and woke up here?'

'I don't remember them coming. I was in my cupboard, and then I was here.'

Before the old man could say anything, Andi cut in, her voice sounding at once casual, but also hard and harsh. 'That would be the concussion, I expect.'

Grumblebore blinked. 'Concussion?'

'Yes, concussion. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept. Patients suffering from head trauma often experience memory loss affecting the few minutes to either side of the precipitating event. It's practically expected when dealing with these sorts of injuries.'

'I'm afraid I don't understand. How exactly did Hazel get this concussion?'

'I can't be certain, as we didn't walk in until some seconds afterward. My professional opinion, however, is that it had something to do with Vernon Dursley beating her. Just a guess, though.'

That paused Stumblecore for a bit. A few seconds passed, the old man just blinking stupidly against Andi's glare. It wasn't a bad glare, either, Hazel wasn't surprised he couldn't find his words facing it. 'And you witnessed this yourself.'

Hazel flinched, hand jumping halfway toward the back of her head before she managed to force it back down into her lap. That weird tingling had spiked so hard it'd actually hurt. She had no idea exactly what was going on with Mum, but if she had to guess, she really didn't like this creepy old man.

But anyway, Andi was talking, only sparing her weird little twitch a short glance. 'I didn't witness the blow to the head specifically. When Ted and I arrived, we heard the screaming, so we broke in. As soon as I recognised Hazel curled up on the floor, and Dursley's stance as winding up for a kick—' Andi paused for just an instant, her voice lowering back to normal. '—I thought it best to simply stun him. After a short conversation with the Dursley woman, a quick check of the cupboard Hazel so innocently referenced a moment ago, I took the initiative and got her out of there. I'll admit, intervening in that sort of situation is not at all something I have been trained in. Should I have handled it differently?'

Fumblemore didn't respond for long moments, just stared at Andi, his wrinkly face looking somehow longer and wrinklier than it had before, almost too pale, like the colour was being gradually sucked out of him. Well, except for the occasional blue line squiggled under his skin, anyway, those were still there. And even when he did respond, it wasn't to answer her question. 'The... The cupboard?'

'Yes. The cupboard.' Andi turned a little toward Hazel. While her voice softened somewhat talking to her, Hazel noticed her eyes had gone all black and hard, almost scary even. And only almost because she knew the frigid anger was for the strange old man, not her. 'Hazel, why don't you tell Mister Dumbledore about the cupboard?'

Well, why she at least didn't want to talk about the cupboard was because she'd always— Oh, oh, it was Dumbledore. Okay, she got it this time. Weird name.

Anyway, she guessed she could do that. She'd been told she couldn't count how many times to not talk about the cupboard, or pretty much anything that went on, but, well, it wasn't like Uncle Vernon could hurt her here. What he'd told her didn't matter anymore. 'Er. It's this cupboard, see. It's right off the entryway, under the stairs.'

'And?' Andi said, her voice soft but insistent.

Hazel shrugged. She stared down at the carpet, picking randomly at the cloth of the sofa as she spoke. 'That's where I stayed. I had a bed in there, and a couple of shelves with my things.'

'Out of curiosity, did the Dursleys have any unused bedrooms?'

'Oh, yeah, two. Dudley kept some of his things in one of them, but two, yeah.'

'They had two unused bedrooms, but they had you sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs?'

Hazel nodded, giving the poor innocent carpet a frown it didn't deserve. She had said that already, yes.

'There was blood on the sheets when I looked in. Do you know where that came from, Hazel?'

'Me?'

'Yes, but why was it there?'

She shrugged again. That could be a few things. There had been times she'd cut herself cooking or gardening or something. Never that bad, but enough she might get little stains on the sheets, she guessed. She was almost never punished bad enough to bleed from it, but sometimes she'd end up getting a knee or elbow badly scraped from Dudley and his friends shoving her around, it'd happened.

There couldn't have been that much blood on her sheets, really. It just looked like a lot, because they were a pale colour, and Aunt Petunia never replaced them. All those little splotches were from dribbles here and there over years. She could tell Andi was trying to imply the Dursleys had been hurting her badly enough she was bleeding all over her sheets all the time, but that really shouldn't count.

She rubbed at the back of her neck, trying to get the burning tingles to go away.

Andi apparently realised she wasn't getting an answer to that, just moved on. 'I noticed there was a lock on the door. On the outside.'

Hazel shrugged.

'Did they ever lock you in the cupboard, Hazel?'

She really wasn't supposed to talk about this. But it didn't matter anymore, this was apparently the Ministry thing, which was weird, because he hadn't said he was from the Ministry, but not the point. It was still really uncomfortable, though, so she just nodded.

'How often?'

She shrugged. 'Every day.'

All of Andi's previous questions had come almost right away, but this time she hesitated. Hazel risked a glance up toward Andi's face. Oh, well, it looked like Andi hadn't figured quite that much out. That was a bad look, certainly, but Hazel couldn't tell what kind of bad look. 'How often did they let you out?' This question was low, barely above a whisper, way too...afraid-sounding to be Andi. Andi always sounded like she knew exactly what she was doing. Sort of how she imagined Mum might, actually. But anyway, Andi sounding uncertain was just weird.

'Er... Depends on the day?' She shrugged again — she did seem to be doing a lot of that this conversation. 'Sometimes they just locked me in there at night, sometimes they didn't let me out at all. It depends.'

'Hazel, look at me.'

Oh, Dumbledore talked finally. He hadn't said anything in a while. She was a bit awkward at the moment, more than usual, but she guessed she could do that. And maybe it would get him to go away faster if she didn't make a thing about something so little. So she looked up, quickly finding twinkling blue eyes with her own.

An instant later, her vision turned white, and her head was filled with fire.

Everything hurt. Her eyes hurt, her ears hurt, her throat hurt, her neck hurt, even her brain hurt, which was weird, because she hadn't thought the inside of her head could hurt. It was hot, and it was everywhere, like someone had poured bubbling grease into her skull, and it burned away everything else, blinded by white light from nowhere, her ears ringing with nothing, blood tingling on her tongue.

It took a moment, but she eventually decided her ears weren't just ringing. She heard a voice, one she didn't recognise, screaming and ranting in fury.

And then, something shifted. She couldn't say what it was, where it was, if it was even part of her or not. But she felt it, like a bone moving from one place to another under her skin, but more in her thoughts than in her body, it was hard to put words to.

Enjoy the headache, you self-righteous, arrogant old berk! Try that again, oooh, just try that again, I fucking dare you—

Hazel blinked, the white in her vision clearing away to a somewhat blurry picture of her surroundings. She was laying on her back, she realised, on the sofa, Andi kneeling on the ground next to her, wand out and fingers trailing along her hairline. Her fingers were really tingly, and Hazel had the weird feeling she was doing magic, which was interesting because Mum had said almost everyone else always used their wands.

She is doing magic. It's a basic charm to reduce inflammation, feels like. Her wand is sort of busy being pointed at Dumbledore right now.

Hazel blinked some more, turned her head a little — she winced at the lightning pain springing across her head at the tiny motion — to see Andi had her wand held on Dumbledore, still sitting there but now rubbing his head with the fingers of both hands, looking very uncomfortable. Oh. So it was.

Yes. She's not at all happy with him trying to read your mind. I did kick him out before he saw anything, by the way. Gave him a little piece of my mind while I was at it, too.

Wait, read her mind? People could read her mind? That was crazy, why hadn't Mum mentioned this before if...it was...

Hazel stared unseeing at the ceiling, too shocked to pay attention to anything around her. She'd been too disoriented from whatever had just happened, too hurting, to think too hard right away about the words in her head that weren't hers. But now, now that the white was gone and it didn't hurt so much, now she had a suspicion what exactly that other voice was. Mum?

Yes, Hazel, it's me.

So...apparently she could talk directly into her thoughts now.

It seems like it.

How did that happen? She couldn't do it before. If she could, they wouldn't have bothered writing back and forth like that all awkward...

I have no idea how it happened. I think I might have done something dealing with Dumbledore's legilimency probe.

Er, done what?

I don't know! I'm as lost on this one as you are, Hazel. I was never that great with mind magic. It doesn't feel like I broke anything important, but I really don't know.

Oh. Er, okay then. So, mind reading was a thing? Why hadn't that come up before? She meant, Mum had said she had to keep Mum's existence a secret, but if people could just pull it out of her mind, then that would be bad.

I never thought to mention the possibility because I hadn't thought it would be an issue for some time, if ever. Reading someone's mind without their consent is considered minor assault. Doing it on a child? That's a serious crime, serious enough it carries a prison sentence. I didn't expect it to be a problem any time soon, and I certainly didn't expect Albus sodding Dumbledore to do it. Seriously, what the fuck is he thinking...

There were words in that explanation Hazel didn't know. At least, words Hazel was pretty sure she didn't know. It was mildly confusing, because she knew she didn't know them, but at the same time she knew exactly what they meant. She suspected a bit more was leaking into her head than just Mum's thoughts. Which was fine, it was just a little confusing to both know something and not know something. But anyway, who was this old berk — that was the word Mum had used, right?

Jesus, you heard that. I don't think I can censor my own thoughts, so you're probably going to hear me cursing quite a bit.

Hazel felt a smile twitch unsteadily at her lips. Anyway, who was he, why was he just—

'—whatever excuses you want, Dumbledore.' Hazel winced at the shiver of pain Andi's raised voice shot through her skull. Apparently, her hearing was working properly again. 'I honestly don't care whether you got any useful information or not.'

Dumbledore, still rubbing at his forehead in mostly-concealed pain, gave Andi what almost looked like an annoyed look. But only almost, it was barely there. 'Aren't you the least bit curious exactly how the magic failed? She could be in—'

'The voice did it.'

Everyone in the room turned to stare at Hazel, Dumbledore even cutting off in mid-sentence. Hazel was just as surprised and confused as they were — she hadn't meant to say anything, Mum must have done it. The room was filled with a heavy silence for a few long moments, finally broken by Dumbledore, his voice thin and cautious. 'The voice? What voice, Hazel?'

'Well, not voice. It doesn't...' Hazel felt herself frown, also without her input. It was a really weird feeling, her body doing things without her meaning to, all tingly and weird and kinda scary, but it was Mum, and she knew what she was doing, so Hazel tried to ignore it. 'It doesn't talk, really. Not in words. That's just what I call it.'

'What does it say to you? In not-words.' Hazel was a little surprised to see Dumbledore looked scared. His voice had gone even paler, his eyes wide and jittering. It was kinda funny-looking, actually, but this Dumbledore bloke was funny-looking to begin with.

'Not a lot. It just kinda...hums at me. All nice and warm. And it gets all sharp when people are mean.' She felt the dopey smile cross her face. 'Mum put it there, see. It takes care of me.' The smile disappeared, turning into a frown. Hazel only realised the back of her neck was tingling when her arm failed to move, so she couldn't rub at it. Sorry about that, Mum thought at her, Hazel's arm moving to do what she'd wanted, but still in Mum's control. I'm almost done burying him, one more minute. 'You tried to do mean magic at me. The voice doesn't like you.'

If Hazel were in control of herself, she'd probably be giggling. Dumbledore just looked so silly! His eyes had somehow gone even wider, almost popping out of his head, and now his mouth had dropped open too. And his cheeks were starting to go pink, really obvious against the white of his beard. It was funny. After a few moments, Dumbledore did manage to get his mouth closed so he could talk, but he still seemed a bit...she didn't know. Surprised? Confused? 'I assure you, Hazel, the last thing I would ever do is intentionally cause you harm.. If you could tell your...voice, to let me—'

'No.'

Dumbledore blinked at that, jerking back in his chair as though stung by the word. 'Hazel, my girl, I—'

Before he could get any farther, with a glare on her face so hard on her face it almost hurt, Mum-as-Hazel cut him off again. 'Why should I trust you? I don't know you. It says you're mean and whatever you did hurt so I'm not telling it anything for you.'

'While I would normally hesitate to agree with disembodied voices,' Ted said, a hint of dark humour about his own, 'I'm afraid I can't argue with this one. There is no reason Hazel should consent to an examination through active mind magic. And you, High Enchanter, have no right to compel her to do so.'

Hazel felt an odd easing, like relaxing, all the tension going out of her limbs all at once. She blinked to herself, realised even in doing it that she had control of her body again. Oh. Okay. That had been kinda weird.

I imagine it is a bit uncomfortable when you're actually awake for it. I'll keep it to a minimum, only for emergencies.

While Hazel frowned at that thought, Dumbledore was saying, 'You are speaking legally? Well, there you are mistaken, I'm afraid. I was granted trusteeship of House Potter back in eighty-two. I'm sure you remember.'

This was an emergency. We had to explain Dumbledore's clumsy attempt at legilimency failing somehow. That's not something children your age can just do without outside assistance. He has to suspect I did something that night to protect you, though I'd be surprised if his guess is anywhere close. What I told him will lead him to assumptions that won't make him too suspicious.

What bad assumptions would he make anyway?

That you're experimenting with volatile and very dangerous magics on your own. Somehow.

That's stupid.

Mum apparently had no response for that.

'—outdated. Just a little bit. Maybe.'

A quick glance around, and she saw Ted was smiling, Andi was smiling. But they weren't nice smiles. They were wide and toothy, and it was kinda funny how much they matched. Andi and Ted were as different as the Dursleys at times — Andi was dark and thin and still and sharp, Ted light and round and bouncy and soft. But right now, with that same evil smirk on their faces, despite how different they looked in every other way, they almost seemed the same person.

People who've never met Ted wondered what Andromeda Black, of all people, could possibly see in him. He may be a badger, but people should remember what can happen when you make the bloody little buggers angry.

What do badgers have to do with—

'Got the papers, love?'

'Oh, yes, got them right here.' Ted moved from where he was standing behind the sofa — he'd appeared there after everything'd gone white, didn't notice him getting there. And now he was back, in front of the couch, handing a big brown paper folder to Dumbledore. 'I believe you'll find everything to our satisfaction, High Enchanter.'

Ha! Our satisfaction. Andi has been a terrible influence.

Dumbledore laid the folder open in his lap. Inside were a bunch of that weird yellowish paper magic people used, covered in black squiggles. Dumbledore's eyes narrowed as he read the first page. Fingers shaking a little, he flipped it over to read the next. 'But that would mean...' He flipped to another, another, his face falling further and further with each line he read.

Oh, god, this is beautiful, I love it.

Mum was really being quite distracting. Hazel was trying to pay attention. Wasn't this stuff important?

Sorry, sweetheart. People hardly ever beat Dumbledore at his own game. Old berk doesn't even know how to handle this, it's great.

Who was this Dumbledore person any—

'You've been very busy.' Carefully, Dumbledore restacked the papers, getting them to sit perfectly straight before closing the folder again. 'You've only had her here a couple weeks. How did you get this arranged so quickly?'

Ted sat in his armchair again, crossed his ankles, laced his fingers in his lap. 'How did we arrange this without you finding out, you mean.'

Hazel was watching, but she still barely noticed Dumbledore's left eye twitch.

'See I was talking to Laura one day.' Ted's smirk widened, shifting into a bright grin. 'You know Laura? Maybe not, most people don't notice her. Laura Tugwood, nice girl, but not quite an impeccable picture of pureblood perfection. She doesn't carry a wand, and is a bit simple, if you follow my meaning. Lady Tugwood got her a quiet little job with the Office of Records. It's hardly glamorous, just moving files around in dark, dusty storerooms, but Laura doesn't mind. Sweet girl, just happy to feel useful.

'But anyway, I told her about Hazel here, how suspicious we were that she'd been off in the muggle world so long with no one the wiser. Someone should have checked up on her at some point, there should be records somewhere. A couple days later, I was there on an unrelated matter, and Laura, bless her simple soul, she'd apparently decided to check out the Potter files with Wizengamot Administration Services. She found something curious. It seems a temporary hold was put on the Lord and Lady Potter's last will and testament after their deaths, pending a determination of the House's status by WAS. And, it's most curious, after Hazel here was formally registered as a protected national treasure in February of eighty-two by a full vote of the Wizengamot — I'm sure you recall, it was your idea — the case was shuffled out of rotation. It's still open, in fact, six years later.

'Now...' The teeth went back into Ted's smile, his voice light and casual. '...don't you think that's suspicious? Why, if I didn't know better, I might think someone was using his influence as an officer of the court to illegally gain control over a Noble House, complete with all its wealth and the last remaining heir. An heir who also happens to be one of only three human national treasure currently alive, Elizabeth sodding Potter! Imagine what the papers would do with that!

'Laura, sweet girl, was kind enough to file the appropriate paperwork to get custody of Hazel temporarily transferred to us, until such time as the will is read. Which should be any day now. And since it's so suspicious, she agreed to skip properly listing either issue in the alerts queue. We wouldn't want someone with nefarious motives to neutralise our efforts to protect poor Hazel until we can get everything squared away, you see.'

Andi, wearing the toothiest smirk yet, purred, 'We should get Miss Tugwood something nice.'

'One of those little songbirds. Girl loves birds.'

'Remind me next time we're in London.'

'Of course, love.'

Hazel wasn't entirely sure what was going on. She knew hardly anything about the things they'd been talking about — even ignoring some of the words being beyond her, she had no idea what a Wizengamot was, or what that had to do with anything. And it sort of sounded like Ted had been talking around the point, instead of coming right out and saying the message Dumbledore was supposed to get. She was almost certain there had been a point. The adults were all staring at each other, Dumbledore's wrinkly beard-covered face halfway between shocked and sad, the Tonkses just smirking. That self-satisfied smirk some people wore when they had won, they knew they'd won, the person they'd beaten knew they'd won. Something important had just happened, Hazel wasn't stupid enough to miss that.

But even if Hazel couldn't begin to explain to herself what that something was, she was certain it was a good thing. She wasn't sure how she knew this, but somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, she could have sworn her mother was wearing the same smirk.


And there. Yay, chapter.

Anyhoo, I won't say too much about this fic, since I can't say anything about where it's going without dropping spoilers. The next chapter is already...eh, probably half done. Assuming I don't get too distracted by other projects, and my brain cooperates, it shouldn't be an issue to have it posted next Friday.

I do plan to post weekly until it's finished, which should only take a few months. I'm intentionally pacing this fic much, much faster — I expect we're looking at, I dunno, 120-200k. Once this is done, I'll be moving immediately to one of my other projects. Maybe Complications, maybe Crash Course, maybe a Star Wars fic I've been playing with for a while, we'll see when we get there. Hopefully, the quicker pacing and shorter fics, only taking a few months for each project, will prevent me from burning out on any of them. We'll see.

Lastly, I did just open a forum on this site. Mostly, I'll be using it to give notice about any delays that might come up — a handful of people PMed me every time a chapter was a couple days late, it takes a surprising amount of time to respond to all of them. Also, any of my responses to reviews I think will address issues other people are likely to have will be posted there. I left the thing open for anyone to open new topics, if people feel like asking me things, though I will exercise my abilities to kill anything that's unhelpful or whatever. I've creatively titled it "Updates, Questions, Comments" — if you can't find it, it's at net/forum/Updates-Questions-Comments/208720/

Don't think I'm getting all big-headed or anything — I don't expect there to be any real activity on the thing, I just thought it might be convenient to have at some point in the future. Honestly, more about saving me time and effort in the long run than anything.

Anyway. Yes, I'm back. We'll see how long it lasts this time.

~Wings