If having one or more incarcerated parents was a poker game, I had been dealt a royal flush. Not only was he kept in a forbidding wizard prison fortress on a stark island guarded by miles of sea and some sort of deep, ancient magic, but my father had been put there as a sort of war criminal, the right-hand man of Wizard Hitler. It was like the way little kids will pile all their favorite things into one nonsensical jumble, only somewhat reversed.

I would have been the envy of the Wednesday afternoon group for just that reason, if I could have told them. I did still go to the group, and tell them about meeting my father, but now, for the first time, I had a secret I had to keep from them, and a lie I had to tell in its place.

"I don't really know what my father did. They couldn't tell me. I think it had to do with some war."

That no one knew what war only seemed to make the story more believable. It's the little wars, the ones no one keeps track of, that would wind someone up in jail. If pressed, I could imply that it might have had something to do with the Irish. Finny's father had something to do with the Irish. Finny was a member of the group, a skinny girl with strawberry-blonde hair who used to get sick a lot. It got better as she got older, though.

I don't think they wanted me to keep going to the Wednesday afternoon group, Professor Flitwick and the rest. But I couldn't give it up, especially not after having met my father. Not after the marks it left on me. Not when so many in the group shared those same marks, that same pain. And to their eternal credit, Griffith and Melissa stood by me in that.

And then I went to Hogwarts.

I heard you loved Hogwarts, that for you it was not so much a second home as a first. But for me, that first year especially, going to magic school meant leaving a whole network of support and connection, and each time I returned, each vacation, each end of year, being less able to go back to it.

And of course there was the culture shock. I lived a life governed by certain concrete realities, as I think you never did, yet in the wizarding world, it seemed that no one had discovered those realities. In wizarding Britain, the school system and government are archaic, the economy Byzantine. The Middle Ages breathe from around every corner. Far from having social services, it seems that there is no concept of mental health. Now and again, you'll hear about "that which lives within our hearts" or somesuch, but no one ever seems to ask what that is or how it might benefit from certain practices.

So I found myself at Hogwarts, having left a great deal beyond the castle walls. I'm sure you remember our first meeting.

You, of course, had been the focus of a number of small scenes, whereas I had not. So when we first had class together, I was much more aware of you than you were of me. I wonder, sometimes, if you realize how the ground has been paved before your feet.

Double potions. I was getting tired of the first day of class hard sells on how important every subject is. I mean, it's magic. How hard do you have to sell a bunch of eleven-year-olds on learning magic? Quite hard, apparently.

Snape was putting you through the wringer, trying to take you down a notch. You always resented him for that, didn't you? You have to be careful what you damn someone for. You never were.

And Hermione was there, wanting the teacher's approval for reading the book and memorizing wanting the teacher's approval for reading the book and memorizing all the facts. She couldn't have imagined doing what I did. Her options were so limited. Mine weren't. I stood up and addressed the Professor.

"Excuse me, sir, but could you tell me why you're doing this?"

Everyone stared.

"I mean, is learning Potions memorizing all these recipes, or is there some other way to figure it out?"

Do you think I did it for you? I didn't do it for you.

Snape looked down at the list of names. Of course, my name meant something to him, but at the time, I thought he was just trying to decide how much scorn to address me with. Actually, he was probably doing that as well.

"Rookwood," he said, maintaining a venomous calm. "You will take your seat and refrain from interrupting class again. After dinner, you will meet me in my office."

I was still for a moment, considering pushing further. But I'd made my point, I could keep my peace and see what Snape had in store for me that evening. I sat down.

But I had been noticed. The story spread. I was no longer just another first year. I had dome something, although no one seemed to know why I had done it. And that's when Draco Malfoy took it upon himself to become acquainted with me.

He came over to me in the common room, gathering Crabbe and Goyle to loom behind him the way a girl would check her hair and put on an extra layer of lipgloss.

"You know," he said with practiced bravado, "I didn't really notice you earlier." He held out his hand and I took it. "I'm Draco Malfoy. I think our parents knew each other."

I don't know why people think wealth and aristocracy breed good manners. Every rich kid I've met has skipped straight to the most impolite things.

I dropped Draco's hand. "My father's in Azkaban."

He didn't know what to do with that, and I didn't give him any help. He struggled visibly to figure out the correct response, finally settling on a faltering "I'm… sorry."

"I live with Griffith and Melissa, my Muggle guardians," I said, to drive the point home. No one could have missed Draco's endless assertions of how proud he was to be a pureblood wizard.

That was the last straw. Draco gathered himself up and gave me a curt smile. "It's been… nice meeting you," he said and strutted off.

Draco. You never forgave him, did you, for having gotten off on the wrong foot with you? He pulled the same childish airs with me, but you have to be careful what you're willing to damn someone for, and that's not enough. Was your hatred sealed by the way he parroted his father's prejudices? But to change someone's mind, you have to give them a chance. It is natural for children to be assimilated into their parents' views. At eleven, most children haven't really learned to separate their parents' actions from their own.

And all kids really love their parents. All kids want to be loved by their parents.

In the Wednesday afternoon group, that division was necessary. We could not be allowed to take responsibility for our parents' crimes. It would have been too great a burden to bear, and there would be too great a chance that we would follow our parents down their dark path. Some would anyways, for the slightest reason, or the minute they ran out of reasons.

Then again, I had the eyes to see Draco Malfoy in a different light from the very start. I had grown up sharing scars with a group of kids whose parents were cons. I saw the patterns in others and I saw them in myself. And I saw them at Hogwarts.

I was aware that, as there had been a war, and as my father had been imprisoned for his part in it, there were likely to be other kids whose parents were also in Azkaban. And there were. I saw them. I saw the pieces of a pattern that ran through them, the habits they had fallen into to shield themselves from long-acting harm.

The thing was, I saw that same pattern running through Draco Malfoy. The way his every action played into a multi-layered, melodramatic façade. How incredibly close he kept to the line of his father's opinions.

What's the worst lie a parent can tell their child? I love you.

How often had Draco Malfoy heard that lie? Had it been whispered to him every night as he lay down to sleep? And how deeply did he suspect it to be a lie? He tried so hard to make it true.

All kids really love their parents. All kids want to be loved by their parents.